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. I tried all sorts of thoughts on it and got some of the craziest results. But whatever I thought, when I thought of the same thing again I got the same results. But my results were different than Jud's! When he thought of a chicken with its neck being wrung the stuff didn't float up to the ceiling but instead made the floor creak and groan. Finally we took it over to the feed company and put it on their car scales. Then when Jud thought of a chicken with its neck being wrung, we found that the stuff weighed twelve thousand four hundred and eighty pounds! And it was no bigger than a pocket knife! As we stood there and looked at the feed scales in utter amazement I said, "Look, Jud, we've got something here. I've got an idea. Suppose we rig up a strong resting place for this stuff in my car. Then when I think of the right thing it will push the car forward at any speed I want to go. We'll have to be careful or it will wreck us, but--maybe after we know what we are doing we can build a space ship!" Well, to cut a long story short, two days later Mallory, the biochemist, Jud Taylor, and I were speeding along the state highway with the needle hovering around eighty-five, the engine out of gear and dead, and a crazy bit of silver stuff encased in a special frame in the dashboard with reinforcing bars down to the chassis holding it steady. It took two of us to drive the car, though, because one of us had to drive and the other concentrate on the stuff. Jud had named the stuff "tellepan" before he showed it to me that noon, but I pointed out that tellepan sounded too much like Japanese for turtle, so he renamed it "tellecarbon." Mallory had been wracking his brains trying to figure the chemical composition of the stuff, but all he had found out was that the stuff could not absorb any heat whatever, nor emit any, it had any weight you wanted to give it, and when left alone assumed any weight it seemed to fancy at the moment. Moreover, no reagent could touch it. Even aqua regia and hydrofluoric acid couldn't touch it. It could be manipulated like putty and molded into any shape with a little persuasion; it always remained the same bright silver color, and it seemed to be the connecting link between gravity and thought.