The WELLSPRINGS OF SPACE

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.

"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."

"Nonsense," the old man snapped waspishly. "This gives me new life, just seeing what you youngsters are up to. Of course, though, continuous creation can't make any difference as far as parsec travel is concerned."

"But it does!" they all shouted.

Huddleston laughed. "Now, now, gentlemen. Just because hydrogen atoms are springing into being from nothingness throughout space doesn't mean—."

"That's not how it is," Crane said, speaking down to Huddleston as if he were the tallest man in the room, not the shortest. "Lowen has shown that continuous creation does not take place everywhere. That's his great practical discovery and—"

"It happens at specific, restricted points," Lowen broke in. "Great streams of hydrogen and free electrons welling into our universe the way water does out of dry ground."

Huddleston let the report slip from his hands onto a table and stared at them. He was very pale now. "My God, I think I see what you're getting at."

They considered each other, bewildered by his reaction to such good news. "You must be missing the real point, Learned Master," said Lowen. "The wellsprings are spaced at approximately one million parsecs apart. I've already pinpointed hundreds of them. We established the first one from the Jupiter readings and the rest practically mapped themselves out. It has checked out a dozen different ways. That was one place where the computers could handle the job—on the checkout." He tapped the report with his thumb. "Nodes of lifesaving electrons across the deepest reaches of space—."

"—where each spaceship can bathe its weakened structure," suggested Huddleston, "refill every lattice gap where electrons have dropped out."

"Exactly. You still can always see to the heart of the matter, Learned Master."

Huddleston sank into a chair, shaking his head as if dazed. "It won't work."

"Why not?" they demanded, astounded.

"I don't know. I just know that it can't work. You never get something for nothing. What would you lose at each wellspring?"

"Nothing!" Lowen insisted. "You see, the ship's structure would be strengthened as the empty electron positions were refilled. Then we would shift back into hyperdrive and move on to the next wellspring. The ancient systems of caravan waterholes but on a cosmic scale."

The old man pounded the table energetically. "No, no! Oh, I'm willing to accept your calculations as far as they go. You were all excellent students and have had distinguished careers and you're in your eighties at the first peak of vigor. But nothing can be this convenient. I sense that the problem lies—." He was chalk-white now, his hands shaking. "Lies in those maps of ancient Manhattan. Did Broadway go into Grand Central or stop at North Michigan Avenue? Annie, Annie," he shouted, "where are the subway maps?"

His niece came running into the room, carrying some rare antique maps, and gasped as she saw him. "You'll all have to go," she whispered. "I've never seen him this bad before."

"Here, uncle, here are your favorite maps." He took them from her with quivering fingers, mumbling something about it being time.

"One more question," Lowen persisted.

She whirled on him, anger making her look much younger than her nearly two centuries. "Get out of here, the whole bunch of you—distinguished men! Haven't you the sense to see how he is? All he wants now is his little hobby."

"But we have to get an explanation from him," Crane protested. "It's very import—."

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."

"Thank you, Professor,—."

"No, President Collins, you're right—I don't have time to bother with imprecise life studies." Lowen tried to keep contempt out of his grin. "A little entertainment, somewhat more theory and lots of practical technical applications—that's my personal prescription for staying fully alive."

"Anyway your work fits the present social bill to a T," President Collins went on, choosing to disregard the unpleasant aspects of his visitor's one-sided nature for the pleasant fruits they had borne. "For close to two centuries now we have known we were trapped in the general area of the solar system and society has learned to live with the limitation. But lately an indefinable restlessness has been growing—nothing in the least serious but it's there and continuous entertainment, study and sports just aren't enough to eliminate it. This renewed outward movement can, though. I'm backing your request for a new Stellar Reaches Expedition to the limit of my strength." He rubbed his chin, smiling sadly. "You know who we ought to get in touch with? Old Huddleston. He deserves to know. Come to think of it, his opinion would still carry plenty of weight with many people."

"We've told him," Lowen announced. "He was enormously impressed with the solution."

"Good, good. Now, there's an ultimate Master, if I ever heard of one, knowledge in every area, the humanities, mathematics, logic, poetry, physics—. What did he think about fatigued metal revival at the wellsprings?"

Lowen squinted. "Sad thing, Mister President, we couldn't get much of an opinion there. He's so worn-out." Lowen disregarded Fitzhugh's conscience-stricken look. "But he did grasp what we told him before he relapsed."

"It is a sad thing, isn't it? Well, the years get us all one way or the other, don't they?"

"I guess so," said Lowen, "but, Mr. Pres—."

Collins perked up. "Tell you what, though—he's liable to get a clear period any time and we really should have his thinking on this. I'll have that niece of his notify my office as soon as it happens and we'll go right over."

"He's in very bad shape," Lowen hastened to say. "It would just wear him down more."

"That bad, heh? Then I'd better make certain we get to see him very soon."

Lowen glared at the floor, ready to kick himself for aggravating an already touchy situation.

The intervideo snapped on. "Could you come out for a moment?" his secretary whispered on screen. She looked very upset.

"Certainly, Helen, I'll be right there." President Collins turned to them. "I hope you gentlemen will excuse me."

"Of course, Mister President." They all rose and bowed slightly in his direction.

"Maps," President Collins smiled just before he went out. "That's his big hobby now, isn't it? Wonder what I'll go in for when I reach the intermittent senile phase?" He grinned. "Oh well, I still have a century before that."

As soon as the door shut, Lowen whirled on his associates. "What the hell's the matter with you two? You looked as if you were going to spill the whole beans about the old man. We have to watch our step."

"But the implication about his reaction was somewhat distorted," Fitzhugh protested.

"Somewhat distorted! Well, what of it? The most innocent little distortion I ever heard! We don't even know what Huddleston really means, do we?"

"That's what I mean by distorted, Lowen. You didn't convey that impression—."

Lowen exploded. "You're making me sick! You too, Crane, you looked qualmish." He leaned forward, spitting his words through clenched teeth. "The hypocrisy of it—you'd lie to your own soul if anything got in the way of this project. But now you can make nice prissy postures because I'm doing the so-called dirty work for you."

Fitzhugh waved for calm. "Agreed, agreed, Lowen, it is much more important than a squeamish little point."

"Much more important," seconded Crane.

Collins made a grim-faced return. "I have news from Huddleston's niece."

The three men tensed. "What—," asked Lowen.

"Gentlemen, you were right about the seriousness of his condition. He's dead. She said he became so excited about something you had told him that he had a serious relapse. He started to babble incoherently and never returned to articulate speech."

They leaned back, more relaxed. "A terrible blow," said Crane. "The least we can do is carry forward his work."

"You're absolutely right." Tired, he rubbed his silver eye-brows for a moment. "Gentlemen, I'll see to it that the Expedition gets every bit of support it needs."

The next month was one of unaccustomed excitement for the tranquilly routine existence of human society. First the death of the one survivor of the earliest generation of Learned Masters and then the announcement about the renewed thrust to the stars that was to be enacted by the three men who had made it possible. There was talk for a time of constructing a larger ship that could carry a full crew complement but Lowen's arguments had quickly overcome such objections. For one thing, design and execution of the project would take many years. For another, it would require vast expenditures even in the preliminary stages. "Of course, the effort is worth any amount eventually," Lowen had been the first to emphasize, "but why not wait until we see what the results are from the smaller design first?"

"Very reasonable," President Collins had agreed. "You three have sacrificed your own interests far beyond the call of duty."

This devotion reinforced his decision to have the three men named Learned Masters before their theory was put to the ultimate test, a move that had been hopefully anticipated in their calculations. Here, though, some public opposition did develop. "No one has ever been named a Learned Master under the age of one hundred and fifty," a few people pointed out. "Now, suddenly, we are told three men, none of them more than eighty-five, should be so honored! Even the great Huddleston never had that."

But President Collins expressed the feelings of the overwhelming majority of citizens when he said, "The successful accomplishment of the task these men have set themselves will be an even greater achievement than that of their first teacher." His viewpoint prevailed and, after much grumbling, the Solar Institute of Learning unanimously confirmed their nomination for supreme honors.

The ceremony took place four months after construction on the New Cosmos had begun and was celebrated in the great hall of the Institute. The world's most important figure in each major field of thought, usually a doddering oldster, gave a confirming speech; and the accompanying three-D explanations enthralled billions who suddenly discovered how bored they had been for the past century. The only flaw in an otherwise glorious day of festivities was the refusal of Eunice Huddleston to participate. She issued no public statement but they knew well enough that she still insisted they had somehow upset her uncle and that, if his death could not have been avoided, his final moments could have at least been happier ones without their intrusion.

Her abstention almost upset Fitzhugh. "Still," he managed to console himself, "she'll see the matter in a different light once we get back."

Lowen, though, remained altogether undisturbed by the development. "I feel like a distinguished oldster and like a vigorous youngster both at the same time. Learned Master—oh, my colleagues, how we've managed to speed things up!"

"Which just goes to prove," Crane laughed, "that you really can have your cake and eat it."

Planning the flight was much simpler than it seemed to the non-specialist public. Very little of a new nature had to be added to the ship's design beyond what had been known for a long time. And there was no doubt that hyperdrive speeds far beyond those of light were possible if the proper carrier components were selected from those that averaged out to the normal 186,000-mile limit. That had been mastered a long time ago. The only doubt had been about the ability to return. Now that was dispelled and they could safely plan to reach a point close to the galactic center and return within seven weeks. No calculations had been left to chance; the survey of all known factors showed that it was no more dangerous than a journey within the solar system—and that certainly was routine by now.

If anything, popular enthusiasm increased the longer the project lasted. Thousands of men threw themselves into the round-the-clock effort and nine months after construction had commenced the great sleek ship was ready.

The New Cosmos took off on a morning of bright spring sunlight but, instead of immediately moving onto special carrier components, stuck to solar velocities so that they first could make a triumphal tour of the system. Approaching Mars, they were met by a great fleet of commuting liners, rising to greet them with an enormous display of atomic fireworks, and in their circuit of Saturn they were treated to a special auroral display. Then, two days later, the last planet behind them, they moved into hyperdrive, heading for the first node of continuous creation.

Crane made his hundredth re-check and said, "We'll be there in forty minutes."

Outside the nearer stars had become tiny beeps of light, visible only for miniseconds, and only those of the farther reaches accompanied them fixedly on their way. Lowen gave regular two-minute interval readings of structural fatigue. "The electron loss is within one part in a million of estimate—and the error is in our favor. We can proceed five hours without danger."

Fitzhugh beamed his contentment. "So much margin of safety—it's a beautiful universe!"

They established voice contact with Earth on the carrier components and spoke all at once into the receiver as the "Are you all right?" query came: "Never better!" they shouted.

Lowen was the first to pull himself out of their attack of space ecstasy. "We will start sending data following the first node," he intoned. "Twenty minutes to first report."

Then, suddenly, they were entering the area of continuous creation and looked out with awe on the one mystery in the universe that was even greater than that of life itself. The electron loss started to ease off at an accelerating rate, reached balance and finally moved into active acquisition. All around them the latticework of matter that was the New Cosmos was filling up again. They hurried to their assigned stations and intently studied the readings until the ship, as good as new, had passed beyond the initial wellspring.

Crane was the first to notice. After staring, hypnotized, at the master dial before him he suddenly became aware of his hand resting on the console below it. "My God!" he croaked.

They turned to look at each other in horror. "Turn back!" Lowen shrieked.

"We can't," Fitzhugh moaned, "it's set for the next node." He struggled desperately with his console and shouted into the sender, "Top Secret Scramble to President Collins, Top—." He fought to get the words out. "We're reversing back as soon as possible. It's all wrong. This way won't work. I can't talk much longer," he wheezed. "I've set for automatic return after the next wellspring. My God, it was so beautiful and it is so horrible. We're heading straight into the next wellspring now. It—."

Then the contact went dead.

Five hours later the great ship, undamaged, made a perfect automatic landing at the precise point from which it had left. Collins and a staff from the Institute were already waiting there, nervously wondering whether they would really have to start looking for a new approach to the star travel problem. "They have to be all right," he said, as the ship came down. "It's in perfect shape. Probably some space hallucination."

As they moved toward the craft, the exit hatch opened and three wizened men came creeping out, leaning forward as if they were resting on canes. Their individual differences were barely distinguishable beneath the levelling networks of wrinkles but they were giggling hysterically.

"Old bottles!" Lowen kept cackling and each time he said it Crane and Fitzhugh joined him in wild laughter.

Collins stared, wide-eyed. "What was it?" he said.

Lowen squinted at him and there was the slightest glint of recognition as he became briefly lucid. "Ah yes! We didn't get it for nothing. We had to pay with—." The glint disappeared and he laughed. "Old bottles! I'm going to have the biggest collection in the world."

"What happened?" Collins pleaded, knowing even then that he would never get another rational word from any of them.

"Me too! Old bottles!"

"Collect them! Maybe maps too!"

"They've gone insane and they've become diseased," said a man from the Institute, shrinking back in disgust.

"No, not that, not really that. It's something else—They're only very old."

And in the split second of his saying that last word Collins knew what it was, what they had paid with. It was the only thing with which you could buy matter—Time.

THE END