息子のクーノーがやりたいこと、それは夜空の星を見ることでした。それも飛行船の中からではなく、その昔、人間が地表から空を見上げて見たように――。
“I do not get them anywhere else.”
“What kind of ideas can the air give you?”
He paused for an instant.
“Do you not know four big stars that form an oblong, and three stars close together in the middle of the oblong, and hanging from these stars, three other stars?”
“No, I do not. I dislike the stars. But did they give you an idea? How interesting; tell me.”
“I had an idea that they were like a man.”
“I do not understand.”
“The four big stars are the man’s shoulders and his knees.
The three stars in the middle are like the belts that men wore once, and the three stars hanging are like a sword.”
“A sword?”
“Men carried swords about with them, to kill animals and other men.”
“It does not strike me as a very good idea, but it is certainly original. When did it come to you first?”
“In the air-ship ――” He broke off, and she fancied that he looked sad. She could not be sure, for the Machine did not transmit nuances of expression. It only gave a general idea of people ― an idea that was good enough for all practical purposes, Vashti thought. The imponderable bloom, declared by a discredited philosophy to be the actual essence of intercourse, was rightly ignored by the Machine, just as the imponderable bloom of the grape was ignored by the manufacturers of artificial fruit. Something “good enough” had long since been accepted by our race.
“The truth is,” he continued, “that I want to see these stars again. They are curious stars. I want to see them not from the air-ship, but from the surface of the earth, as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago. I want to visit the surface of the earth.”
She was shocked again.
“Mother, you must come, if only to explain to me what is the harm of visiting the surface of the earth.”
長方形の位置にある４つの大きな星のまん中に３つの星がくっついて並んでいて、この３つの星から、また３つの星がぶら下がるように並んでいる（four big stars that form an oblong, and three stars close together in the middle of the oblong, and hanging from these stars, three other stars）、クーノーが見たい星は何か、みなさん分かりましたか？
オリオン座は、その形からベルトを締めて、剣を腰にぶら下げている人間に見えたのね。ギリシャをはじめ、中国や日本でも神話に登場するの。
クーノーはその星をもう一度見てみたいんだけれど、飛行船の中から、ではなくて、何千年も前のじぶんたちの祖先のように地表から見てみたい、というのね（I want to see them not from the air-ship, but from the surface of the earth, as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago. I want to visit the surface of the earth）。
