I
doubt if anyone ever noticed that before. And when it comes under
stress by compression, it's only natural that it should fold." He
paused and looked at the calendar, "Four weeks?" he asked.

"That'll do fine," said Dr. Brinton. "I'll arrange the details. You
look after the fuel. Harrison can give us the details of this one, but
there are probably any number of fuels based on this principal. Some
will be even more efficient, too."

He excused himself, went to a phone, and asked for a Washington number.
The call was answered.

"Hello, Senator MacNeill?" he said. "How would you like to be guest of
honor at a party?"

* * * * *

Brinton peered through the ring of reporters over to the head table
where Senator MacNeill was speaking, and speaking, and speaking.

"He's on his home state," Dr. Brinton said. "About half an hour to go.
Now, gentlemen, you were asking about the new fuel. You all received
press handouts containing the information. You will probably receive
copies of the Senator's speech. And the broadcast from our first men on
the Moon went out over several networks hours ago. It seems to me that
you have enough for several stories."

One of the reporters asked bewilderedly, "What is a tesseract? I read
the handout twice and I still don't understand."

"A mathematician would be better qualified to explain," said Dr.
Brinton, "but I'll try. A tesseract is a fourth dimensional cube. A
line has one dimension, a square has two, a cube has three, and a
tesseract has four. A cube can be unfolded into six squares, and a
tesseract unfolds to eight cubes. The new fuel had a molecular
structure resembling an unfolded tesseract. When pressure is applied,
it folds up into a tesseract so that it takes up less room and relieves
the pressure.

"The practical application is that we can get eight pounds of it into a
one pound can. The other seven pounds of it are riding around in the
fourth dimension. As soon as it starts to burn, the structure is
destroyed, so that it comes back out of the fourth dimension. Several
people have assured me that it can't work. They're probably right,
except that it does. Oh, I'll be back in a minute."

He went over to another group and spoke to one of its members. The man
addressed nodded his head and left. Dr. Brinton returned.

"If there are no more questions, I suggest we do some serious drinking.
I am now out of a job and I want to celebrate."