TILLIE
By CRAIG BROWNING
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories December1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"There you are!" Judson Taylor, the eccentric physics prof, pulled ametallic object out of his pocket and laid it on the table between us.The object was a solid chunk of some kind of metal, judging from itsbright silver color, about the size and shape of a pocket knife.
I looked at it stupidly and said, "Where are we?"
I am Bill Halley. Some of the adolescent undergraduate brats at thisone-horse college have nicknamed me "Comet" and it burns me up everytime some pimply-faced baby waves his arm at me and says, "Hiya, Comet."But I smile and don't let them know I don't like it, because if theyknew there would be no living with them. Jud is head of the physicsdepartment and I am one of the three profs under him. When I first camehere last fall he looked at my papers, said "BILL HALLEY?" and sincethen has treated me with the respect he reserves only for the gods ofPhysics. Probably assumed I was a direct descendant of the Halley whogot his name plastered all over Halley's Comet.
Anyway, between classes this morning he had excitedly asked me to meethim at the Campus Lunch during the noon hour and he would show me hislatest discovery—and here we were, wherever that was. I picked up thehunk of metal and turned it over in the palm of my hand, sipping mycoffee from a cup held in my other hand, and tried to figure out why hewas so excited.
There was a peculiar warmth to the stuff. Maybe it was radioactive. Butno, it was too light to be one of the heavy elements. I tossed it backto the table top and then nearly rose to the ceiling. The stuff hadn'tbounced with a metallic sound at all, but had settled slowly, coming torest with no sign of a bump.
I picked it up again and looked at Jud, puzzled.
He grinned and said, "Watch this." Then he looked at the lump of metalin a peculiar manner like he might be trying mental telepathy out on it,and suddenly the stuff weighed a ton. It forced my hand down so fastthat it bruised as it struck the table. As suddenly the stuff becamelight again and Judson Taylor had hold of my hand, rubbing it.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Bill. I am not too good at controlling it yet."
"What the hell IS that stuff?" I ground out.
"I don't know, exactly," he replied. "Mallory, the biochemist, made itand brought it to me. He said he got a lot of chemicals spilled. One ofthem was a rare enzyme that he didn't want to lose, so he mopped up themess and put it in a large flask and added some alcohol, getting readyto recover this valuable enzyme. Suddenly this stuff started to form onthe sides of the flask, just like silver in the mirror coating process.But all the chemicals were pure hydro-carbons with no silver or othermetal present. According to Mallory this stuff is some unknownhydro-carbon. I've been playing with it for two days now."
Judson Taylor put the stuff back in his pocket and rose.
"Let's go over to my lab. I want to show you some things I've found outabout it."
I gulped down the rest of my coffee and followed him. We crossed thecampus of good old Puget U to the antique building which housed thephysics department. We climbed the creaking stairs to the third floorwhich was devoted mostly to Jud's own private research and was fi