Anything
except the silent impersonal inexorableness of the lonely universe.

In ten more months our food would be exhausted. In two years our air
could no longer be renewed because the chemicals which renewed it would
be no good. Our water supply would last forever, with the system of
recovery by distillation we had set up. But what is a year's food
supply? If we tossed the tellecarbon out into the void and rode free it
would be hundreds of years before our ship again entered the solar
system in its long ellipse. And if we kept the tellecarbon in the ship,
in another week even that hope would be gone. We could never return!
UNLESS we could regain control of the tellecarbon.

Lahoma voiced the question that came to all our minds at the same time.

"What could possibly be the cause of the change in the tellecarbon?" And
none of us had an answer.

But that was the key to our salvation. IF we could regain control of the
tellecarbon we could at least return to Earth and give up our grand
plans of exploration and discovery. Not a one of us would have been
unwilling to return to good old PU at that moment and stay there, living
our humdrum lives for the rest of our days!

"We'd better get busy," 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.
It lay in my hand, apparently as tame as any other substance.

I carried it out of the booth and laid it on the desk. The four of us
stood looking at it. Suddenly it jumped forward and plastered itself
against the forward porthole frame. We felt a slight lurch. The ship was
gaining speed!

What had happened? In all our experience with the stuff it worked only
by thought. It had jumped forward, and the lurch of the ship told us
that the parent chunk as well as the sliver had acted together! Only one
thing could account for that. Some intelligence was controlling it. Some
intelligence so powerful that it could reach across space and bl