Lehal Library

Once back in the glow of the greenish lights, I now seemed to have the courage to begin really looking. "Hell, the light seems diffused somehow, as if there is a lot of fog - no, it's dust - dust! Floating in the air." I paused, then continued: "Yet there is no air on the Moon, is there? There is noise of some kind, like a thumping- I can see one of the light towers better now. Hey, it seems built of some very narrow struts of some kind, thin like pencils* Like some sort of pre-fab stuff right out of Buckminster Fuller's stuff." "How high are the light towers?" Axel interrupted. "Well, high enough. I have to find something against which to compare them. Let's see . . . hey, there are some of those tractor-tread marks everywhere- If I guess these are about a foot wide, well, then, let's see, if I compute as correctly as I can, well . . .". I paused, looking at Axel. He was not smiling. "Yes?" he arched his eyebrows. "Well, tall -about or let's say over a hundred feet. But?" "'But' what," Axel asked, leaning forward. I swallowed hard, and almost chickened out at this point. "Well, I think I got a glimpse of the crater's edge. On it I think I saw a very large tower, very high that is." "Yes?" "Yes! Big, really big." "How big?" I swallowed again. "Well, if I compare it to something I am familiar with in New York, about as high as the Secretariat building at the United Nations - which has thirty-nine floors in it." Axel narrowed his lips. "You can see that, then?" But this, as I took it, was a question Axel was asking himself more than me. Again the silence. I decided to again assume what ever initiative I could. "Am I, then, to assume this stuff really IS on the Moon? If so, this is more than a Moon base, isn't it, Axel?" Again no answer. So I continued: "But this stuff is big. Does NASA or the Soviet space program have the capabilities of getting such large stuff onto the Moon? I thought everyone was having trouble just getting a couple of guys and a dog into orbit. I thought the only thing we got on the Moon was a flag planted in some crater somewhere." As I talked myself through all this a certain glimmer began to dawn in the recesses of my mental darkness. I suddenly stopped speaking. I stared incredulously at Axel. "You mean - am I to assume this stuff is - not OURS! Not made on Earth?"