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.