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.
"We now know there is continuous creation of matter out in space." Lowen paused dramatically for the point to sink in but the ancient only continued to look incredulous. He hurried on. "It was simply a matter of incorrect methodology, Learned Master. We have always assigned too many of the decision-functions in this area to computers when it was too purely a creative problem for anything but human minds."
Huddleston had suddenly become serious. "That could make a difference. Well, I haven't given a moment's thought to the whole matter for fifty years—much too exhausting when you're having so many prosthetic operations, much nicer to putter around with hobbies like old maps and bottles—but, gentlemen, just before I gave up, oh now it's clear as if it were yesterday! I remember thinking what you've just said: This problem's too basic for automated analysis. If I'd only been less tired; but, by then—."
"You'd already done more than your share," Fitzhugh consoled him. "And we have more precise instruments now. The big breakthrough came on the data from the newest Jupiter observatory. Every once in a while it would pick up unaccountable Doppler shifts from the direction of Arcturus but the disturbing area was too small for an accurate fix at such a distance. That was the beginning—Crane and I worked out the rest. But Lowen made the great practical achievement. Together we achieved a hypothesis that proves beyond any question that the universe has no beginning, will have no end and is constantly receiving new matter as it expands, matter from other dimensions—in a word, continuous creation."
"You can imagine the uproar at first," Lowen grinned, "especially since the big-bang theory has held the field for two centuries. That's why we had to tell you quickly—you never surrendered your mind to any dogma, always kept it open."
Huddleston spryly took the sheaf of reports that Lowen had been holding and started to glance rapidly through them. "Brilliant, brilliant! What I'd give to be young again."
"You'll tire yourself," Fitzhugh said. "We didn't expect you to do an analysis."