He fought at the gripping sensations within him,
tried to dispel them, to no avail. They grew stronger, like invisible
hands that were changing the very essence of life inside him. And as the thought passed through his suddenly tortured mind, he
realized that was exactly what was taking place. A change. A change
beyond his comprehension, beyond the understanding of any man. Beyond--

And the whining fearful mew of the cat beside him changed. It tensed
against his body, and the whine in its animal throat became an irate
hiss. He looked down and saw the hackles rising on the back of the cat,
saw the creature looking up at him now, not with wide frightened eyes of
appeal, but with a ferocity of wildness that brought a chill to his
inner being. 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 passed 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 hell!_"

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 coarseness 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 passed him through, then
he turned up the road toward Tucson. As he drove he felt an odd tenseness sweep through him.