For the fun of it, I made a short dash at the one who had tried to pick me up. With a high-pitched scream she slumped to the floor in a dead faint. I could hardly keep from laughing as I turned to search for a new victim. About this time Max came barging through the door and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, putting an end to my fun. He wasn't mad, although he pretended to be, and I could detect the humor in his voice while he scolded me. Back in the car again, Max roared with laughter while patting me on the head and saying, "You old devil, you!" in that special way he has when amused at something I've done. When he finally got control of himself, he started the car and drove in the direction of the funny smells. As the smells got stronger, I began to get uneasy. Looking at Max, I sensed that he was uneasy too. "What was going on?" I wondered as the car dipped down a ramp and entered a dimly lit cave where the smells became overpowering. The cave was jammed with huge tank-trucks and that was where the strange smells were coming from. I don't know what was in the trucks, but Max said something about nitric acid and hydrozine fuel when he noticed my interest in them. Leaving the car, we walked down a short passage branching off the cave, climbed a couple flights of stairs and emerged in the bright sunlight. I nearly yipped in surprise as I caught sight of the over-grown thing beside me. It 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. * * * * * Max 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.