and pressed it.

The door slid back with a sliding sound and the cool night air rushed in upon it.

Gaddon moved his cat-body through the opening and bounded to the ground in a lithe, powerful movement. He felt new muscles react as he landed on the ground, and knew that there was a great strength in them. Strength that was waiting to be used.

And he felt the other thoughts starting to move forward in his mind again and he forced them back. He knew he must keep control of that mind. For there was something that he must do.

He thought desperately about it. And the pattern became clearer in his mind.

The cosmic rays. The reaction in his body. He had sought immortality in the door to outer space and had found a monster waiting for him. A force that had changed his glands, grown the shaggy fur on his body. Glands that had warped his mind. Opened an age-old cunning of feline thought.

Glands.

Gaddon's thoughts whipped the word. Held it. Knew it must be the answer. And then it found a prayer of hope. And a name that went with that thought.

"Fenwick! I've got to reach Fenwick before it's too late. Before it's too late!"

His voice came hoarsely, strangely formed. And he looked wildly about him. He saw, off in the distance, a glowing of lights in the night. And he knew somehow that it was the city of Tucson.

And in that city, at its very edge, was a house he must reach.

He stumbled away into the darkness, feeling his limbs move rapidly then, smoothly, covering the ground in great leaping strides.

And though Gaddon's thoughts kept the balance of control, deep inside his mind, the monster growled with a cunning laughter ...

Fred Trent pulled the last sheet of paper from his typewriter and leaned back in his chair exhausted. That was it, the end of the story. He waved his hand at a copy boy and the boy ran up to take the final page. Each sheet had been taken like that, to be immediately set in the composing room. Now it was finished, the story of the year.

Fred Trent

And as Trent slowly lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, he knew that he had done a good job on the story. And a smile crossed 

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