question:  What is the "thing"?
context: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or going—but I know that if I stuck to the old man, I was a comer ... even if he was a goner! The golden Moon and the silver ship, symbols of greed. I came alongside and carefully started to lever the old man loose, one finger at a time. "'Memory Jump,' you mean. All my great-grandfathers have it. I told the human no, thanks, and walked Doc toward the flophouse three doors down. It had happened a few times right after I first found him, but now it was worse. The clerk's hand fell on the coin and slid it off into the unknown before I could move, what with holding up Doc. You don't have any quarter, not if I say so. I was bent double, but I got from the floor to the chair and found my notebook and orb-point in my hands. Beyond Six, Seven, Eight ... Oh, are ... see ...." Somehow, inside me, I knew that these words were what I had been waiting for. They told everything I needed to know to become the most powerful man in the Solar Federation. When I got to thinking it was just a dream and that I was dragging this old man around North America for nothing, I remembered who he was. I remembered that he was somebody very important whose name and work I had once known, even if now I knew him only as Doc. She was pink and clean and her platinum hair was pulled straight back, drawing her cheek-bones tighter, straightening her wide, appealing mouth, drawing her lean, athletic, feminine body erect. I don't know why, but nobody will help you if they think you are blotto. "Do you want it for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else?"
output:  An agent of time travel.
options:  A state of pure thought.  A book that doesn't exist.  A vehicle to find coffee.  An agent of time travel.