The wellsprings of space

Like oases in the desert, they were spaced through the universe to replenish the electron-thirst of the giant ships. But Old Huddleston had seen the problem: What kind of currency serves to buy matter from ...
By ALBERT TEICHNER
Illustrated by ADKINS
The three top scientists had come to describe their greatest triumph to the revered Huddleston; after centuries of bitter disagreement the world's cosmologists were now unanimous in accepting the newly-proposed Lowen-Crane-and-Fitzhugh Hypothesis. At three hundred Huddleston was doddering toward death but the great man certainly deserved to know in his more lucid moments that the problems he had outlined long ago were finally solved. He had been the first to prophesy that all parsec journeys to the stars must fail because each spaceship would steadily lose electrons to the weak magnetic field of the galaxy. The few weakened shells that had managed to limp back into the solar system had proven his point.
He was having one of his brighter periods when they came in. Not only were his eyes and wrinkled flesh glowing with pink health (the illusory super-health of the very aged) but he knew instantly who they were. My best pupils! he chuckled, curling his plasti-patched lips. May your lives be as long and as happy as mine has been.
Lowen, four-square solid and close to seven feet in height, almost automatically became the spokesman for the trio. We have the best news of all for your final phase, he said with bluff kindliness. The electron leakage problem has been solved.
The old man's eyes widened and a network of hairfine lines proliferated around them. It can't be done, he said, wistfully gazing out his window at the night sky, then at the shelves of antique bottles that ringed the room. We're the eternal prisoners of the solar system. You shouldn't tease an old man.
They exchanged knowingly sympathetic glances. None of them could ever be the great pioneer that he had been but even a midget standing on a giant's shoulder could see further than the giant himself.