looked for all the world like a giant cigar that had been cut in half and stood on end. There were still three or four trucks around the base of the thing and a kind of fear spread through my mind. The magic of the strange smells was gone and here, at close quarters, the smell was raw and uninviting.

ax led me to a group of men and they talked for a few minutes. I didn't pay much attention to what they said until one of them, a big man with a lot of stars on his shoulder, reached down and patted my back. "Better get him loaded," said the Starman. "Only ten minutes till blast-off."

Max led me to a kind of open-air elevator and started up the side of the gleaming monster. At the top Max put me into a padded cage inside the cigar, fastened the straps, and patted me. Then he was gone and a large door slid into place, leaving me in vile smelling, pitch darkness. I lay there quietly, but the uneasy feeling kept getting worse. A sudden hissing noise nearly scared me to death; then I remembered my training. The hissing was only air, the same as had been in the cage at home, and wouldn't hurt me. Even so, I struggled against the straps, trying to reach them with my teeth. Nothing doing and again I lay quiet—waiting.

I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew my cage was trembling violently and a powerful roaring dinned in my ears. This lasted only a second, then something crushed my body flat in the cage. My legs grew heavy and a racking, tearing pain ripped at my muscles. A black film blotted out the lighter blackness of my cage.

I don't know what happened in the interval, but when I came to the roar was gone and my body felt like it was floating in the air. My head felt swollen and I experienced some difficulty in swallowing. I couldn't hear a thing except the hiss of air and I was suddenly overcome by the feeling that I was a long way from home.

Slowly I became aware that my body was regaining its weight. The cage was becoming quite warm now and I licked my nose, wishing for a cold drink of water. Suddenly I was jerked against the straps and I forgot all about my other troubles. The jerks didn't hurt me as much as they scared me. I had experienced somewhat the same thing when Max hit the car brakes hard, but he wasn't here to pat me reassuringly.

The cage was getting real hot now and the jerks were coming with increasing frequency. The air had stopped too and I desperately wanted a drink. The last thing I remember before the crash was wishing that Max would open the door and let me out like he always had at home.

Max's gentle voice sounded a long way off. "Good boy!" he kept repeating. "Good boy!" I couldn't find the strength to open my eyes so I just lay quietly and listened to the talk, thankful that the smell, that had penetrated the entire day, was gone now.

"I was afraid that those parachutes wouldn't cut the speed enough to get him down alive," said the Starman who had patted my back earlier.

"No sign of radiation," said a strange voice. "His blood count is normal and he isn't hurt physically unless there are internal injuries."

"What about his weakness?" asked Max, patting me.

"You'd be weak too, if you had been through the ordeal he has," said Strange-voice. "He'll get over that soon and live to father a good many space-puppies."

Strange-voice was absolutely right in his forecast and it's with pardonable fatherly pride that I lead each new family to the great stone monument which reads: "In honor of Rex, a German Shepherd dog, who pioneered man's first flight into outer space."