cabin and flowed over him in torrents, echoing.

He was the only one in the world who could see things as they really were. He was as certain of that as he was of his own existence. He knew now, and his was the only knowledge: Earth was a space animal, the humans parasites like fleas on a cat or a dog. And the Earthlings didn't know, they didn't even suspect!

The radio buzzed. He pressed a button.

"Cantrell," Evans' harassed voice came. "This is an order: maintain contact at all times, until the moment you set foot back on Earth. Understand?"

Cantrell laughed with his strange secret knowledge. "I'm not coming back," he said happily. He was the only one who could escape this animal, the only one, and he felt elated at this, felt a sense of power he'd not known. "I'm not going to be a parasite crawling on the back of an animal." The thought sickened him, and he gagged.

"Cantrell!" It was Jarvis. "Cantrell, listen to me—"

"No," Cantrell said. "You listen to me."

And he told them about Earth being a space-animal. His mind rebelled at the thought, but he forced himself on for he wanted Jarvis to suffer down there, he wanted them all to suffer with the knowledge of what they were. Where was their pompous self-importance now, their flea's dream of conquering the universe?

"He's crazy," Evans whispered.

"Cantrell, listen to me," Jarvis said.

But Cantrell was staring in horrified fascination at Earth dwindling below, at the space-animal watching him. "No!" he cried. "No, it's too late." And he shut off the radio and ripped the wires from their moorings.

Ahead of him lay the moon. He switched screens to look at it. It was chalky and pockmarked, like the skin of a diseased animal. Great iridescent veins glowed through its body. From a crater bed a great baleful eye regarded him.

Cantrell screamed again and frantically pressed studs on the control panel. The rocket shot flame from its side tubes and turned in a short arc, swinging the moon from sight. The forward viewscreens showed the stars now, and beyond them an infinite blackness.

"I'll be safe out there," Cantrell told himself.

The rocket leaped forward.

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