A question floated up out of the void. "How are we pointing?" I said.
"What is our direction?"

"We are flying away from the earth at a tangent, and as the moon is
near her third quarter we are going somewhere towards her. I will open
a blind--"

Came a click, and then a window in the outer case yawned open. The sky
outside was as black as the darkness within the sphere, but the shape of
the open window was marked by an infinite number of stars.

Those who have only seen the starry sky from the earth cannot imagine its
appearance when the vague, half luminous veil of our air has been
withdrawn. The stars we see on earth are the mere scattered survivors that
penetrate our misty atmosphere. But now at last I could realise the
meaning of the hosts of heaven!

Stranger things we were presently to see, but that airless, star-dusted
sky! Of all things, I think that will be one of the last I shall forget.

The little window vanished with a click, another beside it snapped open
and instantly closed, and then a third, and for a moment I had to close my
eyes because of the blinding splendour of the waning moon.

For a space I had to stare at Cavor and the white-lit things about me to
season my eyes to light again, before I could turn them towards that
pallid glare.

Four windows were open in order that the gravitation of the moon might act