Mallory even got some more bottles of the chemicals he had spilled and spilled them over again, cleaning them up and putting some alcohol in the mess like he had done the first time, but no more tellecarbon appeared. We finally had to face the facts. Tellecarbon was some complex hydro-carbon because all of its basic constituents were hydro-carbons. We had the only bit of it in existence and no more could be made.
After we had driven for a couple of hours, Jud changed his thought to something else and we came to a halt on the highway. No one was in sight so we decided to try our second experiment. For that I had to do the thinking because none of Jud's thoughts seemed to work in the attempts we had made in the laboratory. I brought to my mind's eye the image of a chicken with its neck being wrung. Then made it two of them. The car rose slowly off the ground. Then Jud thought his thoughts that made it move forward. By regulating the number of dying chickens in my thoughts I could cause the car to rise or sink at will.
Soon we were quite high, or at least Mallory said we were. I looked out of the window to see and the car started to hurtle to the ground. It scared me so much that I almost couldn't calm my mind enough to think of chickens, but finally made it just in time. By a supreme effort of will I managed to get the car down safely on the highway again. Then I gave in to my emotions and shook like a leaf.
We had had enough for the day, so we covered up the tellecarbon and started the motor, getting back to the U at dusk.
When we alighted from the car in front of the boarding house in which Mallory and I stayed, we were still a little shaky over our narrow escape. We stood on the sidewalk by the car for a moment trying to decide whether to go up to my room, to Mallory's or down the street a block to Jud's house. We compromised on Pokey's Malt Shop at the corner and finally settled with a sigh of relief in a booth way at the back.
With a round of black coffee in front of us we settled down to business. Nothing less than a space ship would do. Here in our hands, or rather out in my car, we had the secret of untold power. 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. Carbon dioxide absorbers, tanks of oxygen, food, various instruments, and so on. That would be Jud's work.
Just as we were finishing our coffees, Lahoma Rice, the secretary in the Dean's office, came in and discovered us. Mallory and I had been more or less competing for her affections for some time. It was the only thing that had ever come between us in our years at college together and the years since then. We both tried to keep it on a friendly basis, but underneath it had become pretty serious.
When we saw her coming Jud whispered quickly, "Keep quiet about all this in front of her. We don't want anybody to know about our amazing discovery at this early date."
Coming over, she slid into the booth beside Jud and flashed a smile at me and Mallory.