The Year When Stardust Fell by Raymond F. Jones (book club suggestions .txt) 📕

The Sheriff seemed stunned by the news. "What idiots!" he muttered self-accusingly. "What complete, pinheaded idiots we turned out to be. We didn't even think to put a special guard around the warehouse! Do any of the other patrolmen know?"

"Yes. Clark and Dudly are over there now. I was trying to round up someone else while they look for clues."

"I'll have to get over there," said Johnson.

"But Ken ..." Professor Maddox said. "I've got to keep looking."

"You come with us. I've got to look into the robbery. Ken can't have come to any harm. I'll pass the word along and we'll all keep watch for him. I promise you we will."

"I'll keep on," said Professor Maddox. He slid from the horse. "I'll keep moving along the street here. If you find anything, I'll be somewhere between here and home."

Unwillingly, Sheriff Johnson turned and left him. The sounds of the two horses echoed loudly in the deserted street. Professor Maddox felt a burst of anger at their abandonment of him, but he supposed the Sheriff was doing what he had to do.

He recognized that it was foolhardy to be afoot in the deserted town this time of night. Without a single clue to Ken's whereabouts, what could he hope to accomplish? He strode on along the sidewalk in the direction the policeman had disappeared. It was as good a direction as any.

After he had gone a block he stumbled in the darkness. Some soft, resilient object lay across the sidewalk before Billings Drugstore. In anger at the obstacle, Professor Maddox caught himself and moved on. A sound stopped him. A groan of agony came from the object upon which he had stumbled. He turned and bent down and knew it was a human being. Faintly, under the starlight, he glimpsed the dark pool of blood on the sidewalk. He turned the body gently until he could see the face. It was Ken.

He didn't know how long he knelt there inspecting the motionless features of his son. He was aware only of running frantically in the direction of the warehouse. He found Johnson. He clutched the Sheriff's arm. "They've killed him!" he cried. "I found Ken and they've killed him!"

Johnson turned to the nearest officer. "Ride for Dr. Adams. Dudly, get that horse and wagon that's at Whitaker's place. Where did you say you found Ken, Professor?"

"At Billings. Lying on the sidewalk with his head smashed in."

"You others meet us there," he called.

Clumsily, they mounted the Sheriff's horse together again. It seemed to take hours to ride the short distance.

They dismounted and Johnson knelt and touched the boy tenderly.

Then Professor Maddox heard, barely audible, the sound he would remember all his life as the most wonderful sound in the world.

"Dad...." Ken's lips moved with the word. "Dad...." His voice was a plea for help.

There was snow. It covered the whole world beyond the hospital window. Its depth was frightening, and the walls seemed no barrier. It was as much inside as out, filling the room to the ceiling with a fluffy white that swirled and pulsed in waves before his eyes.

Much later, when the pain softened and his vision cleared, he saw the only real snow was that piled outside almost to the level of the first-story windows. Within the room, the outline of familiar objects showed clearly.

In half-recovered consciousness he wondered impersonally about the dying pain in his head and how he came to be where he was. He could remember only about a strange thing in the sky, and a great fear.

Then it burst upon him in full recollection—the comet, the dust, the laboratory. They had proved the dust that was in the comet's tail had accumulated in the metal surfaces of the failed engines. What more did they need to prove the comet's responsibility?

He slept, and when he awoke his father was there. "Hi, Son," Professor Maddox said.

Ken smiled weakly. "Hi, Dad."

Dr. Adams wouldn't let them talk much, and he didn't want Ken's father to tell him why he was there. He wanted Ken to dredge out of his own memories the circumstances of the attack.

Ken said, "I've got to get out of here. Things must be getting behind at the lab. Have you found anything new?"

"Take it easy," his father said. "We've got a little better picture of what we're up against. The dust is quite definitely from the comet's tail. It has a very large molecule, and is suspended in our atmosphere in colloidal form. Its basis is a transuranic element, which is, however, only slightly radioactive. By volume, it is present in the amount of about one part in ten million, which is fairly heavy concentration for an alien substance of that kind.

"Perhaps the most important thing we've found is that it has a strong affinity for metals, so that its accumulation on metallic surfaces is much higher than in the general atmosphere."

"It would!" Ken said, with a vague attempt at humor. "Why couldn't it have had an affinity for old rubber tires, or secondhand galoshes?

"How late is it? Can I get up to the lab this afternoon?" Ken struggled to a sitting position. A gigantic pain shot through his head and down his spinal column. He felt as if his head were encased in a cement block. He fell back with a groan.

"Don't try that again for a few days!" his father said severely. "You're not going anywhere for quite a while. I have to go now, but your mother will be in tonight. Maria will come, too. You do what the doctors and nurses tell you to!"

"Dad—why am I here?" He moaned in agony of both spirit and body.

"You had an accident," said Dr. Adams smoothly. "It will all come back to you and you'll soon be fine."

Ken watched his father disappear through the doorway. He felt the sting of a needle in his arm and was aware the nurse was standing near. He wanted to talk some more, but suddenly he was too tired to do anything.

It came to him in the middle of the night, like a dark, wild dream that could be only the utmost fantasy. He remembered the silent, shapeless figures against the black wall of the old skating rink, and then he knew it wasn't a dream because he could remember clearly the words of Jed Tucker and his father. He could also remember Mr. Allen saying, "We can't let him go. Whoever he is, we've got to get him out of the way."

He remembered the instant of crashing pain. Mr. Allen had struck with the intent to kill him. Again, he wondered for a moment if it were not just a nightmare. Mr. Allen, the town's leading attorney, and Mr. Tucker, the banker—what would they be doing, plotting robbery and killing?

In the morning he told his father about it. Professor Maddox could not believe it, either. "You must be mistaken, Ken," he protested. "These men are two of our leading citizens. They're both on the Mayor's food committee. You suffered a pretty terrible shock, and you'll have to realize the effects of it may be with you, and may upset your thinking, for quite a while."

"Not about this! I know who it was. I recognized their voices in the dark. Jed Tucker admitted his identity when I called his name. If there's anything gone from the warehouse, Sheriff Johnson will find it in their possession."

The Sheriff had to wait for permission from Dr. Adams, but he came around that afternoon, and was equally unbelieving. He advanced the same arguments Professor Maddox had used about the character of those Ken accused.

"These men will do something far worse, if you don't stop them," said Ken.

"He's right, there," said Professor Maddox. "Those who did this, menace the whole community. They've got to be found."

"We'll make fools of ourselves," said the Sheriff, "if we go to Tucker's and Allen's, and demand to search the premises. We've got to have more than your word, Ken; some evidence of their positive connection with the crime."

"I just know I saw and heard them. That's all."

"Listen," the Sheriff said suddenly, "there's one man in this town that's really out to get you: Frank Meggs. Don't you think it could be Meggs and some of his friends?"

"No. It wasn't Frank Meggs."

Art Matthews came around later that same day. "You look worse than one of these engines that's got itself full of stardust," he said. "You must have been off your rocker, prowling around back alleys in the middle of the night!"

Ken grinned. "Hi, Art. I knew you'd be full of sympathy. What's going on outside while I've been laid up? Say—I don't even know how long I've been here! What day is it?"

"Tuesday. Not that it makes any difference any more."

"Tuesday—and it was Saturday when I was working with the spectroscope. I've been here three days!"

"A week and three days," said Art Matthews. "You were out cold for three days straight, and they wondered if your bearings were ever going to turn again."

Ken lay back in astonishment. "Nobody's told me anything. What's happening outside?"

"It's going to be a rough winter," Art Matthews said, grimly. "Snow's started heavy, two weeks earlier than usual. I understand Professor Douglas thinks it's got something to do with the comet dust in the air."

"That figures. What about the fuel supply?"

"In pretty sad shape, too. So far, the stockpile is big enough for about a week and a half of real cold. They laid off woodcutting for three days to spend all the time converting oil burners, and making new heaters out of 50-gallon barrels and anything else they could find. It's going to be a mighty cold winter—and a hungry one."

Ken nodded, but he seemed to be thinking of something else.

"I've had an idea," he said. "How's your stock of spare parts in the garage?"

"Good. I always was a fool about stocking up on things I could never sell."

"Any blocks?"

"About a dozen, why?"

"Could you make a brand-new engine out of spare parts?"

The mechanic considered, then nodded. "I think I could put together a Ford or Chevy engine. What good would that do? It would run down in a few days, just like all the rest."

"Do you think it would, if you put it in a sealed room, and supplied only filtered air to it?"

Art's eyes lighted. "Why the dickens didn't we think of that before? If we could keep the stardust from getting to the engine, there's no reason at all why it shouldn't run as long as we wanted it to, is there?"

"If a generator could be assembled in the same way, we could stir up a little power on an experimental basis, enough to charge our radio batteries. I wonder how much power could be generated in the whole country by such means?"

"I know we could get a couple of dozen engines going here in Mayfield, at least!" said Art.

"Why don't you get started right away? Get some of the club guys to help. If that filter idea works there may be a lot of things we can do."

Art started for the door. "Sheer genius," he said admiringly. "That's sheer genius, Boy!"

Ken smiled to himself. He wondered why they hadn't tried that when they first had the hunch that comet dust could be responsible. Maybe they could have saved some of the cars if they had rigged more efficient filters on the air intakes.

His thoughts went back to the attack. He was still thinking about it when his father and Sheriff Johnson returned.

"We took your word, Son," the Sheriff said, chagrined. "We got a warrant and searched the Tucker and Allen premises from top to bottom. We went out to Tucker's farm and went through the barns and the house. They've got a 2-day supply of rations just like everybody else.

"They screamed their heads off and threatened suit for