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The door was slaht) and after a lanced quickly round and could see no one but ourselves Thewhite object I recognised the shape well enough this tie coffin-shaped casket, open On the floor beside it lay its lid, and it was doubtless this that I had tripped over Both were made of the sa

"By Jove, I&039; hands with me "I&039;d hoped to be able to ed in such a hurry and I found at the last e I never intended to leave you to , I suppose, that I was still staring at hiht, aren&039;t you? You got through the barrage without any dae? - I don&039;t understand"

"I was thinking you would havehere"

"Oh, that!" said I "Youin the way?"

"Yes: They didn&039;t want you to get here I was afraid soht happen but there was no tiet through somehow"

"By they you mean the others - our own eldila?"

"Of course They&039;ve got wind of what&039;s on hand

I interrupted hi more worried every day about the whole business It came into my head as I was on s into your head if you let thehtly "The best plan is to take no notice and keep straight on Don&039;t try to answer theument"

"But, look here," said I "This isn&039;t child&039;s play Are you quite certain that this Dark Lord, this depraved Oyarsa of Tellus, really exists? Do you know for certain either that there are two sides, or which side is ours?"

He fixed lances

"You are in real doubt about either, are you?" he asked

"No," said I, after a pause, and felt rather ashaht, then," said Ransoet so"

"What&039;s that coffin affair?" I asked as we moved into the kitchen

"That is what I&039;m to travel in"

"Ranso to take you back to Malacandra?"

"Don&039;t!" said he "Oh, Lewis, you don&039;t understand Take ive anything I possessjust to look down one of those gorges again and see the blue, blue water winding in and out a along the slopes Or to be back there of an evening when Jupiter was rising, too bright to look at, and all the asteroids like a Milky Way, with each star in it as bright as Venus looks from Earth! And the smells! It is hardly ever out of ht when Malacandra is up and I can actually see it But it isn&039;t then that I get the real twinge It&039;s on hot su that in there, et back to it, there&039;s a place I know, and flowers at that veryabout their business, ould welcome me back No No such luck It&039;s not Malacandra I&039; sent to It&039;s Perelandra"

"That&039;s e call Venus, isn&039;t it?"

"Yes"

"And you say you&039;re being sent"

"Yes If you remember, before I left Malacandra the Oyarsa hinted toof a whole new phase in the life of the Solar Systeht e, was beginning to draw to an end"

"Yes I re of the sort were afoot For one thing, the two sides, as you call theun to appear much more clearly, much less mixed, here on Earth, in our own hu a little ht"

"The other thing is this The black archon - our own bent Oyarsa - issoe like that in the Solar Systeet there?"

"That&039;s just the point He can&039;t get there in his own person, in his own photosome or whatever we should call it As you know, he was driven back within these bounds centuries before any human life existed on our planet If he ventured to show himself outside the Moon&039;s orbit he&039;d be driven back again by main force That would be a different kind of war You or I could contribute no more to it than a flea could contribute to the defence of Moscow No HePerelandra in some different way"

"And where do you come in?"

"Well - simply I&039;ve been ordered there"

"By the - by Oyarsa, you her up They all do, you know, in the long run"

"And what have you got to do when you get there?"

"I haven&039;t been told"

"You are just part of the Oyarsa&039;s entourage?"

"Oh no He isn&039;t going to be there He is to transport me to Venus - to deliver me there After that, as far as I know, I shall be alone"

"But, look here, Ransom - I mean " my voice trailed away

"I know!" said he with one of his singularly disar the absurdity of it Dr Elwin Ransole-handed to co if I&039;ve got alomania"

"I didn&039;t mean that quite," said I

"Oh, but I think you did At any rate that is what I have been feelingon me But when you come to think of it, is it odder than what all of us have to do every day? When the Bible used that very expression about fighting with principalities and powers and depraved hypersohts (our translation is veryat that point, by the way) it "

"Oh, I dare say," said I "But that&039;s rather different That refers to a hed "Oh, Lewis, Lewis," he said, "you are inimitable, simply inimitable!"

"Say what you like, Ransom, there is a difference"

"Yes There is But not a difference that ht either way I&039;ll tell you how I look at it Haven&039;t you noticed how in our own little war here on earth, there are different phases, and while any one phase is going on people get into the habit of thinking and behaving as if it was going to be per under your hands all the tiers this year are the same as the year before Now your idea that ordinary people will never have to ical or moral forood for a certain phase of the cosave to our planet its na that phase is passing? In the next phase it may be anyone&039;s job to meet them, well, in soine I&039;ve been selected to go to Perelandra because I&039; afterwards, why any one was selected for any job And when one does, it is usually some reason that leaves no room for vanity Certainly, it is never for what the arded as his chief qualifications I rather fancy I auards who kidnappedwhich they never intended: nae"

"What language do you e I learned in Malacandra"

"But surely you don&039;t ie on Venus?"

"Didn&039;t I tell you about that?" said Ranso forward We were now at table and had nearly finished our cold meat and beer and tea "I&039;m surprised I didn&039;t, for I found out two or three o, and scientifically it is one of the s about the whole affair It appears ere quiteHressa-Hlab the peculiar speech of Mars It is really what may be called Old Solar, Hlab-Eribolef-Cordi"

"What on earth do you inally a co the planets of our system: those that were ever inhabited, I mean - what the eldils call the Low Worlds Most of them, of course, have never been inhabited and never will be At least not e&039;d call inhabited That original speech was lost on Thulcandra, our oorld, when our whole tragedy took place No hue non in the world is descended froes on Mars?"

"I ad I do know, and I believe I could prove it on purely philological grounds They are incomparably less ancient than Hressa-Hlab, specially Surnibur, the speech of the Sorns I believe it could be shown that Surnibur is, by Malacandrian standards, quite a modern development I doubt if its birth can be put farther back than a date which would fall within our Cambrian Period"

"And you think you will find Hressa-Hlab, or Old Solar, spoken on Venus?"

"Yes I shall arrive knowing the language It saves a lot of trouble - though, as a philologist, I find it rather disappointing