"To tell you the truth, Lenox, I've
had almost enough star-wandering for one honeymoon, and though we've
seen nice things as well as horrible things--especially those ghastly,
slimy creatures down there--I'm beginning to feel a bit homesick for
good old Mother Earth. You see, we're nearly a thousand million miles
from home, and, even with you, it makes one feel a bit lonely. I vote we
explore the rest of this hemisphere up to the pole, and then, as they
say at sea--I mean our sea--'bout ship, and try if we can find our own
old world again. After all, it _is_ more homelike than any of these,
isn't it?"
"Just take our telescope and look at it," said Redgrave, pointing
towards the Sun, with its little cluster of attendant planets. "It looks
something like one of Jupiter's little moons down there, doesn't it,
only not quite as big?"
"Yes, it does, but that doesn't matter. The fact is that it's there, and
we know what it's like, and it's _home_, if it _is_ a thousand million
miles away, and that's everything."
By this time they had passed through the outer band of clouds. The vast,
sunlit arch of the Rings towered up to the zenith, apparently spanning
the whole visible heavens. Below and in front of them lay the enormous
semicircle of the hemisphere which was turned towards the Sun, shrouded
by its many-coloured bands of clouds.
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