Cochrane said cynically:

"And how much good will it have done me to see that, Babs? How can that
be faked in a studio--and how much would a television screen show of
it?"

He turned away. Then he added sourly:

"You stay and look if you like, Babs. I've already had my vanity smashed
to little bits. If I look at that again I'll want to weep in pure
frustration because I can't do anything even faintly as well worth
watching. I prefer to cut down my notions of the cosmos to a tolerable
size. But you go ahead and look!"

He went back to Holden. Holden was painfully dragging himself back into
the rocket-ship. Cochrane went with him. They returned, weightless, to
the admirably designed contour-chairs in which they had traveled to this
place, and in which they would travel farther. Cochrane settled down to
stare numbly at the wall above him. He had been humiliated enough by the
actions of one of the heads of an advertising agency. He found himself
resenting, even as he experienced, the humbling which had been imposed
upon him by the cosmos itself.

Presently the other passengers returned, and the moonship was maneuvered
out of the lock and to emptiness again, and again presently rockets
roared and there was further feeling of intolerable weight. But it was
not as bad as the take-off from Earth.

There followed some ninety-six hours of pure tedium. After the first
accelerating blasts, the rockets were silent. There was no weight.