クーノーの畳みかけるような語りがつづきます。
“I had reached one of those pneumatic stoppers that defend us from the outer air. You may have noticed them no the air-ship. Pitch dark, my feet on the rungs of an invisible ladder, my hands cut; I cannot explain how I lived through this part, but the voices till comforted me, and I felt for fastenings. The stopper, I suppose, was about eight feet across. I passed my hand over it as far as I could reach. It was perfectly smooth. I felt it almost to the centre. Not quite to the centre, for my arm was too short. Then the voice said: ‘Jump. It is worth it. There may be a handle in the centre, and you may catch hold of it and so come to us your own way. And if there is no handle, so that you may fall and are dashed to pieces–it is till worth it: you will still come to us your own way.’ So I jumped. There was a handle, and ――”
ついに、外気を防ぐ蓋（pneumatic stoppers that defend us from the outer air）のところまで行けたようね。クーノーを励ますように、れいの”声”がまた聞こえてきました。「やっているだけの価値があるぞ（It is worth it）」と。
He paused. Tears gathered in his mother’s eyes. She knew that he was fated. If he did not die today he would die tomorrow. There was not room for such a person in the world. And with her pity disgust mingled. She was ashamed at having borne such a son, she who had always been so respectable and so full of ideas. Was he really the little boy to whom she had taught the use of his stops and buttons, and to whom she had given his first lessons in the Book? The very hair that disfigured his lip showed that he was reverting to some savage type. On atavism the Machine can have no mercy.
クーノーのような人間をいれる余裕はこの世の中にはない（There was not room for such a person in the world）、とヴァシュティは思います。自分がいつも尊敬される、思想豊かな人間なのに対して、息子は野蛮で、先祖返りをしている（he was reverting to some savage type）、と。
“There was a handle, and I did catch it. I hung tranced over the darkness and heard the hum of these workings as the last whisper in a dying dream. All the things I had cared about and all the people I had spoken to through tubes appeared infinitely little. Meanwhile the handle revolved. My weight had set something in motion and I span slowly, and then ――
「ぼくが今まで大切にしてきたものすべて、ぼくが今までチューブを通して話かけてきた人たちすべてが、ほぼ無に思ったんだ（All the things I had cared about and all the people I had spoken to through tubes appeared infinitely little）」 TubeをInternetに置き換えてみるとクーノーの気持ちが分かるかしら。
“I cannot describe it. I was lying with my face to the sunshine. Blood poured from my nose and ears and I heard a tremendous roaring. The stopper, with me clinging to it, had simply been blown out of the earth, and the air that we make down here was escaping through the vent into the air above. It burst up like a fountain. I crawled back to it ―― for the upper air hurts ―― and, as it were, I took great sips from the edge. My respirator had flown goodness knows here, my clothes were torn. I just lay with my lips close to the hole, and I sipped until the bleeding stopped. You can imagine nothing so curious. This hollow in the grass ―― I will speak of it in a minute, ―― the sun shining into it, not brilliantly but through marbled clouds, ―― the peace, the nonchalance, the sense of space, and, brushing my cheek, the roaring fountain of our artificial air! Soon I spied my respirator, bobbing up and down in the current high above my head, and higher still were many air-ships. But no one ever looks out of air-ships, and in any case they could not have picked me up. There I was, stranded. The sun shone a little way down the shaft, and revealed the topmost rung of the ladder, but it was hopeless trying to reach it. I should either have been tossed up again by the escape, or else have fallen in, and died. I could only lie on the grass, sipping and sipping, and from time to time glancing around me.
平穏（the peace）、のどかさ（the nonchalance）、そして、ほんものの「空間の感覚（the sense of space）を手に入れたクーノー。地上の冒険が始まりますぞ！