"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. 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 

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