a course and won through! He was on the way to
the Moon!

Joe let plenty of time elapse. He knew it was well over an hour later
when he unlimbered the torch to cut an escape-hole in the barrel. This,
he knew, would be tricky. He could easily burn himself. The heat would
be intense.

But it wasn't too bad. The aluminum cut quickly, and in a matter of
minutes he was standing beside his barrel. As he'd suspected, it was a
storage hold. The pitch-darkness did not bother him. He'd come prepared
with a small pencil flash that threw an adequate beam.

He found the door, opened it and went out into a long passageway....

* * * * *

Now he'd covered the length and breadth of the ship. He'd found a lot of
rooms--all in pitch-darkness. No observation ports.

_And no living thing._

He stood frozen in one of the rooms while the beam of his flash picked
out a code stenciled on a steel plate over some piece of machinery.
X59-306MY--Experimental--Explosion Rocket--Moon.

The flash dropped from Joe Spain's fingers. He stood in the
pitch-darkness while the jets vibrated through the rocket.

But there was no fear in him. Only the great pain of futility. Only his
tears, and his whispered words:

"They'll never know. Nobody won't ever know!"

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from _If Worlds of Science Fiction_ March
1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Stowaway, by Alvin Heiner

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