The Monster, S. M. Tenneshaw [inspiring books for teens TXT] 📗

the night into a brilliant display of pyrotechnics.

The roaring grew louder as the tremendous power of the now unleashed rockets took hold of the night air. Fred watched as the flames grew white-hot bright, and then he saw the gigantic rocket shudder in its cradle.

The shudder grew into a spasm of movement, and then slowly, but steadily growing faster, the rocket lifted from its cradle.

Fred's eyes were fastened on the rocket now, a feeling of awe sweeping through him. He suddenly realized how puny man was against the forces man could unleash. Forces that here were being utilized to scientific ends, but forces that upon a moment's notice, could in turn be unleashed upon the rest of humanity in a burning, devastating terror of death.

And as the thought flitted across his mind, he saw the rocket gather speed as it left its cradle. It was now rising in a swift, sure arc, lashing into the dark sky like a fury.

And then the terrible speed of the rocket took hold against the forces of gravity and it shot into the heavens, its roaring becoming a fading hiss of sound, the brilliant flash of flame from its exploding tubes, a receding beacon of light that gradually faded to a pinpoint far over their heads.

After the terrific thunder of sound that had accompanied the launching of the rocket, the sudden silence now was almost palpable. The gathered witnesses stood mutely, awe still in their eyes, their ears still ringing with the sound of the takeoff.

Finally the voice of Mathieson broke the quiet night air.

"Well, gentlemen, that's it. Tomorrow morning we'll scout the returned section. It should land somewhere in the open country to the south. We've computed that pretty carefully. I guess that's about all for—"

His voice broke off suddenly and Fred Trent heard what must have distracted the scientist.

A man was shouting from the vicinity of the second rocket, and as they looked, a dim figure could be seen staggering away from the side of the other rocket, coming slowly toward them.

"Good Lord!" Mathieson breathed. "What's that man doing out there? He could have been killed!"

Then suddenly they saw the staggering figure stumble on the ground.

And then Trent and the others were racing across the ground to the side of the fallen man.

When they reached him, Mathieson came forward and knelt beside the figure.

"Why, it's one of the guards!" he said in shocked surprise.

And it was then that the strange feeling of foreboding hit Fred again. As he knelt beside the groaning guard, it swept over him in a chilling wave. He lifted the man's head from the ground and the guard opened his eyes. He recognized the face of Mathieson as the scientist looked anxiously in his direction.

"Good heavens, man, what happened? You were ordered to leave five minutes before launching time!"

The guard's mouth opened as he struggled to a sitting position. The man's hand reached up and touched the back of his head painfully.

"Sir—Gaddon—Dr. Gaddon attacked me ..."

There was a momentary stunned silence as the soldier's words sunk in on the gathered men.

"What?" Mathieson's voice was incredulous.

And as Trent watched the soldier nod his head, the suspicion he had felt suddenly overwhelmed him in a grim realization. Even as the soldier blurted out pain-filled words, Trent knew somehow what he was going to say.

"Gaddon—he pulled a gun on me ... He forced me to the far side of number two—he said he was going up in the rocket—he said he had plans—then he hit me with the gun ... I came to when the rocket went off—I was away from the blasts, luckily ..."

Then the soldier was standing on his feet again, swaying as he fought to clear his fogged senses.

But Trent was no longer aware of the soldier. And he saw that Mathieson was no longer looking at the guard. For a brief instant their eyes met, and Trent saw a stunned look in the scientist's, then Fred's gaze swept up into the night. Up into the darkened sky where, miles above them, the hurtling rocket was even now reaching the apex of its flight.

Up where a man rode on a perilous trip into the unknown.

Gaddon hunched in the darkness of the rocket, waiting. He had counted the remaining minutes off, one by one. And he knew that finally the moment was at hand.

It would be too late now to stop him. They had not noticed his absence, and if they had, they would not delay the launching for him. He had taken that fact into consideration.

And now that the moment was close to completion, he felt a glowing sense of triumph within him. He would now show those fools, and especially Mathieson. He would prove conclusively that cosmic rays were what he had said they were—a source of the energy of life, a fountain from which youth and vitality would pour, making his body immortal. He would go down in history as one of the greats of science. A man who had risked his life to prove his theory. A man who would be the first to achieve the goal of the ages, the dream of the philosophers, eternal life.

The triumph would be his. All his!

And the rocket tubes exploded into sound.

Gaddon tensed in the darkness, gripping the safety straps he had attached to himself. Beside him he felt the cat let out a frightened mewing sound as the roar of the exploding rocket power grew. He felt the furry body rubbing against his side, seeking sanctuary against this dread sound.

And then the rocket trembled with sudden movement.

It was slow at first, but then it grew faster, and Gaddon felt a faint intensity of fear in his temples at the shuddering power of that movement.

And then he felt the blood draining from his head, making him faint with dizziness as the rocket accelerated suddenly into a terrible burst of speed.

He could feel it moving swiftly through the atmosphere now, feel the tortured rush of air that whipped against the sides of the projectile in a moaning dirge that mingled with the roar of the exploding rocket fuel.

And as the seconds passed, he became accustomed somewhat to the increasing velocity of the projectile, and the dizziness passed from his head. Then he became aware of the trembling body of the cat beside him and a soft laughter rose in his throat.

But it died stillborn as the roar of the rockets grew to a thundering hiss now in his ears.

And he felt the cool sweetness of the automatically released oxygen fill the chamber about him and he drank it into his lungs hungrily.

With each second now, he knew the projectile was racing higher into the rarefied atmosphere, heading steadily out to where the air of earth would be almost non-existent.

And a grim smile crossed his face in the darkness, for he knew that shortly the rocket would enter the outermost layers and the cosmic rays would play with all their energies upon the projectile.

And he tensed suddenly.

There was a glow that sprang into being in the chamber about him.

It was dim at first. But it grew steadily in intensity around him, revealing the interior of the chamber in its weird light.

An exultation swept through him then. He knew they had entered the field of the cosmic rays, and that the manifestation of light he saw was a result of those forces of nature.

Beside him the cat mewed plaintively in fear and huddled closer against Gaddon's body. His eyes watched the tiny creature for a moment and then swept around the large chamber at the massed instrument panels that were recording every minute fraction of a second of the flight.

And the glow grew.

And suddenly the hissing of the exploding rocket fuel began to diminish in volume. The apex of the flight was nearly at hand then.

And the glow around Gaddon began to color. From a weird phosphorescent whiteness it changed to a dull but intense yellow. And with the change, a strange feeling crept through his body.

It tugged at him with invisible hands. It played upon his every nerve, his every fiber, the innermost feelings of his sensibility. It grew stronger, this alien probing within him, grew as the glow pulsed in the chamber around him.

And suddenly, instead of a fierce feeling of triumph, a sense of dread swept through him. 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