t story since the atom
bomb. Listen!"

He gave a short account of what had happened, and then added the
personal details of his talk with Gaddon. He saw the eyes of the editor
widen as he went on, and by the time he had finished, there was a look
of excitement on the editor's face.

"Get to that story, Trent. Write it hot, and write it fast. I'll hold
the first form and tear down the front page. Stress the human interest
angle. Play it up big. We'll hit the news wires with it after we go to
press."

Then a smile crossed the editor's face. "And you'll get a by-line on
this, Trent, that ought to put you in for some big money. Nice work."

Then he turned on his heel and was hurrying across the city room toward
his glassed-in office, hollering for a copy boy as he went.

Trent turned back to his desk and slipped a sheet of paper into his
typewriter. There was a tenseness around his eyes as he brought his
fingers down on the keys. For a moment the old questions rose again in
his mind. _Was Gaddon right? Could it be possible that ..._

Then he forgot everything but the story. And his fingers clicked against
the keys, putting it down on paper.

* * * * *

The rocket chamber swayed gently through the night air, whistling its
way slowly downward, moving more slowly as the great parachute above it
caught in the rapidly thickening density of the cabin's atmosphere.

Inside it, the thing that had been Gaddon, the thing that was no longer
a man, sat on the floor of the chamber, idly toying with the dead body
of the cat.

Strange thoughts coursed through the mind inside its head. Half of the
mind that belonged to Gaddon, and half of the mind that was an alien
thing, a creature unnamed.

There was a thought of killing and the thought was good. The claw-like
hands played with the cat's dead body, fondling it idly, wishing it
were still alive so that it might die again.

And the other part of its mind, the part that still knew it was Gaddon,
rebelled against the thought. Tried to drive it away. Tried to move that
alien intelligence into the rear of his consciousness.

A growl left his lips as he struggled with it. And then a whimpering
sound.

For now the alien thought of killing and the joy it had experienced as
the cat died scant moments before, was replaced by another thought. A
thought of loneliness.

It was a weird feeling, an utter loneliness that came from the great
void beyond m