Rog Phillips

“ By eight o'clock in the morning our speed and direction of travel were correct for escape from the Earth's gravity field toward the planet Mars, and I crawled out of the control booth, practically a wreck.
From there on it was smooth sailing. We would coast along for two months before nearing Mars, and play with the gadgets we had brought along for taking all sorts of measurements in outer space.
Space is very different than most writers picture it. Instead of being dark it is intensely bright in all directions. It was fortunate that we had movable dark shields on each porthole. ”

“ With that little hunk of tellecarbon and a certain amount of concentration on it we could travel to Mars and back like nothing flat. During summer vacation for the last two years Mallory and I had worked in the shipyards and gained practical experience in welding, boilermaking and sheetmetal work. The two of us could build a small space ship by ourselves. All that would be necessary would be to make it airtight, with enough insulation to keep our heat from radiating into space. The rest of the problem involved only ordering stuff from catalogues. ”

“ We started early in the evening, heading into the east to take advantage of the thousand-mile-an-hour speed of the earth's surface.
The missing link, the hunk of tellecarbon, was encased in a polished brass case in the exact center of gravity of the ship, strong girders connecting it to the shell. A sound-proof booth surrounded it in which the operator would not be distracted. A panel of signal lights was immediately below it where the operator could see it without taking his eyes off the tellecarbon. ”

“ During the winter Mallory and I would build the space ship in the old boat house down on the beach just a few blocks from the campus.
It was really fun that winter, working late into the night putting the space ship together. Our crowning achievement was retractible wings for steering the ship in atmosphere. In space, of course, steering would have to be done by small steering rockets. The main drive force, though, would be the missing link, as we had been calling it all winter. ”

“ Jud exclaimed irritably. "It acts that way itself."
I forgot my one o'clock class entirely. Jud and I played around with that hunk of metallic hydro-carbon most of the afternoon, arguing back and forth about what caused it to do the things it did. I found out that if I thought of beefsteak rare while I looked at it, it would weigh exactly ten pounds, and if I thought of a chicken with its neck being wrung the stuff would float up to the ceiling. ”

“ Mallory exclaimed.
"Then it must be so," Jud said. "Obviously the thought came from the tellecarbon in reply to our question!"
"But how can it think?" Mallory questioned. "After all it was precipitated as a fine film, and you can quash it and even slice it up without any trouble."
"In science," Jud said, "you don't try to argue away facts. You accept the facts and go on from there."
"Let's go on from there, then," Lahoma spoke up. "Tillie—we might as well call her that now that we know she, the tellecarbon, you know, thinks—is looking for a companion. We might as well help her look." ”

“ I said, taking the initiative. "We must cut a bit of the tellecarbon off the parent chunk and experiment with it. We must also keep constant check on our course to find out just what accelerating force is now acting, and whether it changes any. And we must all think of everything we can that might be the cause of this revolt of the tellecarbon."
Suiting my actions to my words I got a wood chisel out of the tool locker and went into the booth, going to work on the missing link. To my surprise I had no trouble obtaining a thin slice of the silvery stuff. ”

“ A few more remarks like that from Mallory and I would have the field to myself. IF we ever got back to the Earth, which I doubted. Secretly I agreed with Mallory. If the chunk of tellecarbon was a female we had much less of a chance than if it were a male or an it.
Jud went to the telescope and started looking for a stray chunk of silvery looking stuff. An air of semi-hopelessness began to settle over all of us. ”

“ The balance fluctuated a little and again came to rest on the zero mark, showing a minus twenty grams!
By that time I had stopped believing what my eyes told me.
"That's quite a trick," I said skeptically. "How do you work it?" And I stooped to look under the table, hoping to see a setup of magnets hidden there that would help restore my belief in my sanity. ”

“ Mallory groaned, sticking his foot in his mouth again.
Lahoma ignored the opening.
"It's obvious what we must do," she said, sounding quite capable. "Tillie needs a little advice on love making. I'm quite sure that Oscar, or whatever his name is, would pursue Tillie if she stopped CHASING him. We've got to convince her of that and get her to try it."
Evidently she didn't need convincing. She got the idea direct from Lahoma and acted on it. The silver flash ahead swung away. Half an hour later it showed up in the stern telescope.
This seemed to delight Tillie, the tellecarbon, no end. ”