And the glow grew around him, brilliant yellow in texture now. And with the increasing brilliance of the light, the feeling of change grew within him.
It was stronger than he now. It held his every heartbeat in its pulsing grip. It throbbed in his temples, ached to the ends of his toes, set his body aflame with it.
And the cat suddenly lunged against him, its sharpened claws biting through his garments and into his flesh.
His hands reached down in a quick movement and gripped the body of the cat. He tore the raking claws away from his body and held the cat in the air beside him.
The creature writhed in his grasp, fighting madly to escape. And as his grip tightened on the animal, the eyes of the cat suddenly locked with his.
He felt the forces within him reach a crescendo at that moment. And his body was frozen immobile, his eyes locked on the cat"s eyes, burning into the animal, the animal burning into him. Burning and burning ...
It could only have been a matter of seconds, he knew. But they were seconds that stretched into the farthermost reaches of eternity. Seconds that lived a million years and pa.s.sed in another fleeting instant.
And then he could move again.
And he felt strange as he moved. It was as if he was another person, as if the body he moved was alien to him, as if it had never belonged to him, to any man, to any thing.
And his eyes tore away from the now dulled expression in the cat"s eyes.
He did not find it strange that this was so. He knew in some inner sense that the mighty life force in him had quelled the cat. Had stilled the fighting in its feline eyes.
And he saw his hands clutching the body of the cat.
He stared at them for a long disbelieving moment. For they were not the hands he had known. They were not the hands of Blair Gaddon. They were not the hands of any man. They were long and tapered and claw-like.
There was dark fuzzy fur around them, fur that was cat-like.
Deep within him a fear struggled upward through his mind. A cold dread that forced his lips to move, to utter a gasp of the terror he felt.
And the sound left his lips.
It left his lips and echoed terribly in his ears. A harsh sound. A mewing sound. _A cat sound ..._
The creature in his grasp struggled feebly then. It was a small movement, a movement without vitality, almost without life. And as the creature moved, a sense of rage welled up inside him. A rage that he could not control, an anger that he wanted to unleash to its fullest.
And as it took possession of him, the human part of his mind shrieked and forced words from his lips.
"_You fiend! You fiend of h.e.l.l!_"
And his fingers crept up to the neck of the cat and closed in a mighty grip. He felt the animal give a single desperate effort in his grasp, but his grip tightened and he saw the mouth of the creature open wide and heard a faint hissing gasp as its tongue stuck far out and its eyes bulged in a last moment of life.
Then the animal lay limp in his claw-like hands and he dropped it to the floor of the rocket chamber, a growl of frustration leaving his lips.
He stared at the cat"s body for a moment, then his fingers stole up and touched his face. He felt the hairy coa.r.s.eness of it, the furry tingle of his once smooth skin. And he screamed into the now fading glow that he knew was the energy of the cosmic rays.
"No! No! It can"t be true! I haven"t _changed_ like this!
I--I--_meowrr_ ..."
Around him the thunder of the rocket fuel suddenly vanished into silence, and then the rocket gave a lurch.
Deep within his mind he knew that the instrument section had been released from the main body of the projectile, and even now he knew the sealed chamber was falling back toward the earth, back toward the atmosphere where the parachute would take hold and drift the chamber safely down to the Arizona soil.
And a dread closed over him in that moment. Back to the men. Back to the things of men. Back he must go, a mewing thing that was not a man. A thing that he felt was taking hold of him, driving the last vestige of human instinct from him.
He fought it. He fought it mewing on the floor of the rocket chamber.
"He must have gone mad!"
Fred Trent pulled his gaze from the sky and looked with stunned eyes at the figure of Dr. Mathieson standing beside him. The scientist was trembling with an inner feeling, and his head was shaking in disbelief.
"Gaddon! The man is going to his death! It"s insane!"
Again Mathieson"s voice broke the silence in the huddled group of men.
Then the newspapermen came to life and excited talk became a jabber of words around them. Trent took the arm of Mathieson and turned him. He tried to lead the scientist away from the newspapermen but one of them stepped forward and grabbed his arm.
"But why did he do it, doctor? The man must have had a reason!"
Mathieson shook his head numbly.
"I--I don"t know, unless ..." his voice trailed off for a moment and then he spoke again. "Unless he really believed what he said ..."
"What did he say, doctor?" the newsman asked.
There was a puzzled note to Mathieson"s voice as he answered.
"He disagreed with me on the supposed effects of the cosmic rays. It has been my contention that they are of lethal effect, and Gaddon maintained that I was wrong. He kept insisting that they were a source of life energy. That was why we decided to experiment with an animal--to see what effect the rays would have on a living creature ...
"But this! I never dreamed of such a possibility--to prove his point he signed his own death warrant!"
"That"s a story, doctor, a real story!"
Trent heard the newsman exclaim excitedly. And then it came to him that the real story was as yet untold. The real story that had been unfolded in his car earlier that day.
Fred moved suddenly away from the clamor of the newsmen around the scientist. He knew what he had to do.
He hurried across the ground to his waiting coupe outside the Administration building. Then he got behind the wheel and started the motor.
He drove to the gate and waited until the guard pa.s.sed him through, then he turned up the road toward Tucson.
As he drove he felt an odd tenseness sweep through him. For he was thinking of what Gaddon had said on the drive up to the Proving Grounds.
He was remembering the man"s words on the cosmic rays and the secret of eternal life they held. And Fred Trent knew that this was the biggest story. The story that he alone held. It was the big break that he had been waiting for. It would be his exclusive. The inside, personal story of a man who had died to prove his theory. Told as Gaddon himself had related it. With all the vanity of the man, all the pompous a.s.surance he had shown. It would make the headlines and feature sections all over the country. The story of a man who had flown to his death in quest of immortality.
And then Trent"s thoughts grew sober suddenly. But was he going to his death? Could he be sure that Mathieson was right? That Gaddon was suffering from some streak of insanity that had manifested itself in this final venture of madness? Or could it be that Gaddon might be right, that ...
Trent set his lips and sighed. No, that couldn"t be true. It was beyond the comprehension of man.
What mattered now was the story. The story that would put his name in a thousand papers all over the country. And he thought in that moment of Joan Drake. A warm smile pulled at his lips as he thought of her. This would force her to quit her job now and marry him. The one condition she had made--he had finally overcome.
He thought of the date he was supposed to have with her that evening.
It would have to be postponed until later. The story came first. And then ...