Elemoont/Chapter 28

in which lunatics burst out on the moon surface and start an argument with elemoonts.

Strictly speaking, lunatics already had burst out and scientific debates immediately began. "The moon is our!" cried lunatics. "It's wrong! The Moon is our!" answered the elemoonts. "It's our one!" was stubborn lunatics. "It's wrong!" did not give way the elemoonts. An incredible hullabaloo was raised. The Hunter and the Mosquito can only caught some broken phrases such as "moonisour…wrongone…"

"Stop to yell!" bellowed at last the Oldest Elephant drowning all the noise. Little by little, the silence became established. "Dear colleagues–elephants, that's to say, elemoonts! Dear opponents–lunatics! We have to conduct our discussion using some rules; that is to say, we should not yell but use arguments.

"And facts!" added the Insidious Lunatic. "Have you them?"

"He constructs a sentence so as if he spent whole his life in Odessa's Bolshaya Deribassovskaya Street," thought the Hunter

The Martian Mosquito receiving that idea thought, "Is Odessa a star or planet?"

The Hunter had the time only to begin his imaginary answer, "Odessa is a pearl at…" as their exchange of thoughts was interrupted by the Oldest Elephant's sentence that said, "Them have we!"

"Did he really live in Odessa also?" was in doubt the Hunter, "But there was no any place for dwelling such big animal in Odessa!"

Here he received the Martian Mosquito's thought, "Do you also become a telepathist?"

"Why do you think so?" mentally took offense the Hunter, "I'm a usual hunter for ducks temporarily getting to the Moon. That's all."

"But I think you are a telepathist."

"Why?"

"Because when I asked in my thoughts what is Odessa, you answered also in your thought that Odessa is a pearl at…"

"Yes, Odessa is a pearl at the Black Sea!"

"What, what?"

"Mosquitoes don't understand it!"

"Okay!"

Reasoned thus, the Mosquito and the Hunter went back to the reality (if, of course, it is possible to consider the scientific debates between lunatics and elemoonts as a reality).

"So, have you some facts?" said the Insidious Lunatic. "Enumerate them!"

"Certainly! At first herds of elephants made furrows in cosmic expanses in searching of any uninhabited planet like this one…"

"We already had heard about it," screwed up his face the Insidious Lunatic. "But can anybody consider such assertion as a fact?"

"Why not?" angrily answered the Oldest Elephant.

"It is because the furrowing of cosmic expanses is a strange way of life for elephants!"

"They were a cosmic–elephants!"

"Who knows…Assume…And what's next?"

"Further, as I already said, there was the fact of finding the Moon by those cosmic–elephants and then the fact of elephants' falling on that uninhabited object."

"At once two facts which nothing can corroborate," broke into the conversation the Learned Lunatic.

"And where, in your opinion, appeared the craters on the Moon from?" asked the Oldest Elephant.

"It is the signs of nails which protolunatics hammered in the moon making it," said the Learned Lunatic.

"It's nonsense!" cried elephants, "It’s the signs of falling the protoelephants which grew the elemoonts, that is to say, by us!"

"And again they present idle conjectures instead of facts!" remarked the Learned Lunatic.

"Nothing of the sort!" protested the Oldest Elephant." "We worked out the strong theory in which all those facts explained perfectly well!"

"Or they are simply added," sarcastically remarked the Insidious Lunatic.

"They simply write down." (The Oldest Elephant was self–possessed elephant), "As our ancient chronicles have it, the first protoelemoont's ruler was Elemoontopotamus, the elemoont who was where nobody was. He is named also as Antediluvian Elemoont."

"And again!" cried the Learned Lunatic, "and again there are only groundless assumptions!"

"Take the trouble to advance arguments," coldly said the Oldest Elemoont.

"It maybe your Antediluvian Elemoont really existed, but there was no any flood on the Moon."

"And where the seas on the Moon from?"

"Where from, where from! From a camel!"

"But it is not correct!"

"It's correct!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

BANG! BOOM! BATZ! Before the Hunter and the Mosquito knew where they were, the scientific debates were transformed into a real battle: the opponents rushed to punch one another.

"It always happens when they have no any arguments," said the Hunter, "There are no any arguments, then — BATZ! Here you are the argument! Scientific debates are all like that ones." "Not really!" was astonished the Mosquito, "Incidentally, now I understand why my grandfather warned me against going to any scientific discussion."

Meanwhile the elemoonts and the lunatics continued their ‘discussion’. "So, at first there was Elemoontopotamus," said the Oldest Elemoont giving his blows to the right and to the left, "Then, I insist on it, there was the Deluge. There was the ruler at that time by name Elemoontoflood. Elemoonto–after–Flood was the ruler after the Deluge. It is during his life all water evaporated out of lunar seas, but maybe — BOOM! BATZ! — Lunatics drank it."

"Never!" answered the Learned Lunatic trying to find his way out of the scuffle where the elephants incessantly squeezed him by their sides, "Never! Nothing! Such things! On the Moon! Not existed!"

"It existed!" the elephants persisted and trashed lunatics.

"It never was so!" cried the Insidious Lunatic waving his magic wand and it made the nearest elephants motionless. They stood still in the much-unexpected poses and remained stood like statues. "It never was so! At first there was no any Moon, but lunatics already existed!"

"I had heard this story," muttered the Hunter, "It not much more plausible then the elephants' story."

"And where did they exist?" cried the elephants doing their very best to reach the Insidious Lunatic (but they cannot do it because his magic wand).

"Where, where! They also made furrows in cosmic expanses! But then they were sick of such occupation and they had done the Moon for themselves."

"It's full nonsense, prodigious abracadabra!" answered them elephants pressing hard the Insidious Lunatic.

"It isn't nonsense! It isn't full abracadabra!" stated the Insidious Lunatic waving his magic wand away, "And only lunatics made their Moon, the elephants had appeared on it unintelligibly wherefrom!"

"All people know wherefrom we appeared!" were indignant the elephants. "But where did you appear from?"

"And interminable discussions began," concluded the Insidious Lunatic and waved his magic wand so vigorously that it broke away from his hand and dashed away into the interstellar space.

"Oh!" exclaimed he, "Retreat!"

All lunatics immediately hid in the Lunar Labyrinth, and the moon’s elephants remained stood in such poses as they were at that moment when the Insidious Lunatic waved his wand for the last time. The Insidious Lunatic cast a spell over them and did not notice it. (Sometimes such things occurred in particularly hot discussions).

"What will we do?" asked the Hinter addressing to the Mosquito.

"It seems, we may retire in a fitting manner."

And they started running at breakneck speed.