unable to
sleep. The moon gravity, even artificially increased, was unfamiliar
to him and it made him uncomfortable. A thousand thoughts wandered
loose in his head as he lay, fully awake.

What did it all mean? What was the Professor's plan? Maybe they would
never know. Maybe the ship was gone for good; the Old Man had left
forever, shooting into outer space. They might never find out why he
had done it, what purpose--if any--had been in his mind.

Kramer sat up in bed. He turned on the light and lit a cigarette. His
quarters were small, a metal-lined bunk room, part of the moon station
base.

The Old Man had wanted to talk to him. He had wanted to discuss
things, hold a conversation, but in the hysteria and confusion all
they had been able to think of was getting away. The ship was rushing
off with them, carrying them into outer space. Kramer set his jaw.
Could they be blamed for jumping? They had no idea where they were
being taken, or why. They were helpless, caught in their own ship, and
the pursuit ship standing by waiting to pick them up was their only
chance. Another half hour and it would have been too late.

But what had the Old Man wanted to say? What had he intended to tell
him, in those first confusing moments when the ship around them had
come alive, each metal strut and wire suddenly animate, the body of a
living creature, a vast metal organism?

It was weird, unnerving. He could not forget it, even now. He looked
around the small room uneasily. What did it signify, the coming to
life of metal and plastic? All at once they had found themselves
inside a _living_ creature, in its stomach, like Jonah inside the
whale.

It had been alive, and it had talked to them, talked calmly and
rationally, as it rushed them off, faster and faster into outer space.
The wall speaker and circuit had become the vocal cords and mouth, the
wiring the spinal cord and nerves, the hatches and relays and circuit
breakers the muscles.

They had been helpless, completely helpless. The ship had, in a brief
second, stolen their power away from them and left them defenseless,
practically at its mercy. It was not right; it made him uneasy. All
his life he had controlled machines, bent nature and the forces of
nature to man and man's needs. The human race had slowly evolved until
it was in a position to operate things, run them as it saw fit. Now
all at once it had been plunged back down the ladder again, prostrate
before a Pow