Fitzhugh tugged at his elbow. "Forget it, Crane. His mind's far away now."
They retreated to the door. Eunice Huddleston gave them one sharp glance, then turned back to her uncle who was slipping into sleep, his face still deathly pale.
They stopped in the garden outside the great man's house and Crane shook his head, worried. "I'd give a lot to know what he was thinking about."
Lowen thumped his back encouragingly. "He was a very great man but, well, after three hundred years, he's entitled to the special pleasures of senility."
"He seemed so lucid for a while," Fitzhugh said, "I mean when he saw the point of moving through the wellspring nodes to overcome materials fatigue." He shrugged. "No, you're right, Lowen. We'll have to go to the President without Huddleston's backing."
"I was thinking about his prestige. But his support really wouldn't have proven anything." Lowen shook his head. "I had no idea he had gone downhill that much in the last twenty years."
They joined in a sympathetic sigh for past greatness, then hurried on to the business of the future.
President Collins was pleased to see them. He was even happier when he was shown how the recent, highly-publicized discovery of the space nodes of continuous creation could be put to practical use. "There's a serious sociological problem that this can solve for us, gentlemen. You probably haven't given it much attention since your interests lie in other directions."
"We leave that to our political leaders," Lowen nodded. "They're thoroughly competent to do so."