One of the monkeys was dead, probably killed by some of the jouncing
the rocket had taken. The other, looking miserable, was clinging to the
bars chattering. Robin looked at it, and the monkey looked back. The
young man unlatched the cage, reached in, and took the little brown
animal by the back of the neck. But the monkey made no effort to bite.
Instead, it twisted around, grabbed Robin's arm, and hung tight.
When his grip was released, the monkey scurried up Robin's arm and
clung to his shoulder, recognizing the need for companionship after its
frightening experiences.
The rabbits had fared slightly better. One of them was dead, but the
other three, while somewhat beaten around, were alive and sniffling
their pink noses. Robin saw that there was very little food or water
left for the animals.
Here then was the means to test the Moon's capacity to produce food
and drink. First, however, Robin decided he would build a pen for the
rabbits. If he were lucky, he could breed them and have at least one
source of food suited to his system.
He went over to the nearest clump of ball-trees, looked them over,
tested his strength on them. They broke easily and quickly when
he grasped one by the trunk and pulled. He found that it could be
splintered into shreds fairly rapidly and that inside the shell of the
stalk was a mass of cottony matter.
He shredded a number of the stalks, and then staked them out in the
ground to make a small fenced pen, tying the whole together with one
of the long cords hanging from the parachute nose. Into this makeshift
pen, he released the three rabbits. He filled the cup from their cage
with water from the river, placed it in the pen. The rabbits hopped
over, sniffed, and drank. They seemed to suffer no ill effects.
Robin broke open one of the ball-like growths from the tree, found it
contained a substance resembling a combination of melon and potato. He
offered some of this to the rabbits and after an interval they ate it
and seemed to like it.
The monkey was chattering away as Robin did this and suddenly scampered
down and snatched a piece of the ball-food, stuffing it into its mouth.
Robin had not wanted to use the little creature for a test but the
damage was done. However, the monkey seemed to enjoy it.
Robin sat down on the ground and watched. He felt tired, now realized
just how tired he was, how sorely he ached from his experience. He
felt warm and headachy now that the strain was over. He knew he still
had things to do. He wanted to try to make a fire and cook the rabbit
that had been killed. He was thirsty as well. He wanted to tie a cord
to the monkey so that the animal would not run away into the unknown
and possibly dangerous regions of the cavern. He wanted to find a safe
place to sleep and hide should there be some sort of animal life around.
But he was growing terribly sleepy and feeling quite sick. He curled
up, and before he could stop himself, he was asleep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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