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."