Thompson's ship rose sharply, plunged into space, and then the distorting beam in the control room started to function.
"Think you can hit Sscantoo?" asked Billy.
"Breeze," smiled the pilot.
"But look, Tony, that's a long way off."
"So's Terra," answered Tony laconically. "We hit Tlembo all right, didn't we?"
"O.K., you're the pilot. Drop me on Sscantoo, and I'll invite you to a drink."
"A deal," grinned Tony. A moment later the pressure was built up, and the ship was wrenched into subspace. Then began the long, long journey to Sscantoo which would take less than a few days in the universe from which they came.
"Now," said Thompson to Lane, "what's with Hendricks and his researches?"
"So far, subspace matter is enigmatic. It does not combine atomically or chemically with normal matter. It shows other physical properties, however. They separated the sample by the ancient method of using the various melting points and specific masses. The stuff has no gravitic attraction, but it has mass, you know, and they used a centrifuge on it. They got two kinds of matter. One we'll call metal for the simple reason that it conducts electricity. The others are nonmetals because they do not conduct electricity. There was a small quantity of a light blue gas that was occluded in the dirt, it boiled off early and they caught it. Well, if nothing else, it will come in handy for surgeon's tools, chemical hardware, and the like, since you can put anything into it and it will not dissolve or go into chemical combinations. I betcha we got something to hold the Universal Solvent."
"Yeah," grinned Billy. "Takes something strictly out of this world to do it, though."