There were some cries of "Fraud!" "Snake oil!" and simple "Stuff and nonsense!" -- but the audience remained sufficiently fascinated to calm back down. Cobb proceeded to show some of his own sketches and photographs.
"It has already been established that I found myself in a curiously temperate cave, complete with exotic plant life -- some of which has made its way here, over at Hipkiss Conservatory. Stranded there a while, with no clear way back up the way I had fallen, I explored it and found a new passageway, a very icy but manageable one, back up to the surface. There, I fear, things become very vague for me. I have a repeating vivid nightmare, that I reach the surface, only to find bolts of lightning crawling all over my body. Then I slip and fall, evidently down yet another passageway -- and that is where the Society uncovered my frozen body. Was the lightning real? I don't know. Did the lightning cause my body to grow? I don't know. All I know is that I fell back down, and bumped my head -- and the next thing I know, Dr. Jolly came to visit me as I was thawing out in my study and remarked 'He speaks.' And here I am today."
There was more hubbub, but one woman rose, with a very clear strong face. "Excuse me, everyone. I am Dr. Sheila Hennessy, and I am inclined to believe there may be some truth in what Dr. Cobb says. Hear me out! I have personally examined just about everyone in Moorsex, and there is little doubt in my mind that the pronounced feminine development we have been seeing locally is somehow due to the presence of the Antarctic flowers. I therefore propose that Dr. Cobb may have himself been radically affected by prolonged exposure to the same flowers. Dr. Cobb, I would very much like to collaborate with you in exploring this hypothesis."
Cobb nodded. "That sounds very reasonable. And I with you, Dr. Hennessy."
"Dr. Cobb!" Another dark-haired beauty rose, this one with a very kind, almost luminous face. "I am Matilda Hirschhorn. I would simply like to hear your own opinion. Do you now consider the voyage of the Leviathan to have been a success?"
"Yes, but only a very incomplete one," Cobb answered. "In fact, in view of technological progress in the use of drilling and explosives, there is really only one good and serious and useful course of action left open."
"And that is?" pressed Matilda Hirschhorn.
"Why ... go back, of course."
Cobb smiled wryly at the new hubbub from the audience, but then noticed Jolly beside him.
"Go back!?" wondered Jolly.
"Jolly, look at them, listen to them. They require more proof -- and so do I."
"But you only just got here! The last time you went nearly killed you! It DID kill you!"
"So ... I will endeavor to be more careful this next time," Cobb reasoned. |