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

"It's a deal."

Joe Walton wasn't much in favor of spending that afternoon and an unknown number of others in Art's garage; he was too overwhelmed by the idea of analyzing the material of the comet's tail. However Art had done all of them too many favors in the past to ignore his call for help.

"The trouble with this town," Joe said, "is that three-fourths of the so-called automobiles running around the streets belong down at Thompson's Auto Wrecking."

Al Miner agreed to come, too. When they reached the garage after school they saw Art had not been exaggerating. His place was surrounded by stalled cars, and the street outside was lined with them in both directions. Ken borrowed the tow truck and brought his own car back from the Larsens'. By that time the other two boys were at work.

"Batteries are all okay," Art told him. "Some of these engines will turn over, but most of them won't budge. I've jerked a couple of heads, but I can't see anything. I want you to take the pans off and take down the bearings to see if they're frozen. That's what they act like. When that's done, we'll take it from there."

Ken hoisted the front end of one of the police cars and slid under it on a creeper. Art's electric impact wrenches were all in use, so he began the laborious removal of the pan bolts by hand. He had scarcely started when he heard a yell from Joe who was beneath the other police car.

"What's the matter?" Art called.

"Come here! Look at this!"

The others crowded around, peering under the car. Joe banged and pried at one of the bearings, still clinging to the crankshaft after the cap had been removed.

"Don't do that!" Art shouted at him. "You'll jimmy up the crankshaft!"

"Mr. Matthews," Joe said solemnly, "this here crankshaft has been jimmied up just as much as it's ever going to get jimmied. These bearings are welded solid. They'll have to be machined off!"

"Nothing could freeze them to the shaft that hard," Art exclaimed.

Joe moved out of the way. Art crawled under and tapped the bearing. He pried at it with a chisel. Then he applied a cold chisel and pounded. The bearing metal came away chip by chip, but the bulk of it clung to the shaft as if welded.

"I've never seen anything like that before in my life!" Art came out from beneath the car.

"What do you think could cause it?" Joe asked.

"Gas!" said Art vehemently. "The awful gas they're putting out these days. They put everything into it except sulphur and molasses, and they expect an engine to run. Additives, they call 'em! Detergents! Why can't they sell us plain old gasoline?"

Ken watched from a distance behind the group. He looked at the silent, motionless cars in uneasy speculation. He recalled again the radio announcement of that morning. Maybe it could be something they were adding to the gas or oil, as Art said. It couldn't, however, happen so suddenly—not all over the country. Not in New York, Montgomery, Alabama, San Francisco, and Mayfield. Not all at the same time.

Art turned up the shop lights. Outside, as the sun lowered in the sky, the glow of the comet began turning the landscape a copper-yellow hue. Its light came through the broad doors of the garage and spread over the half-dismantled cars.

"All right, let's go," said Art. His voice held a kind of false cheeriness, as if something far beyond his comprehension had passed before him and he was at a loss to meet it or even understand it.

"Let's go," he said again. "Loosen all those connecting rods and get the shafts out. We'll see what happens when we try to pull the pistons."

The news broadcasts the following morning were less hysterical than previously. Because the news itself was far more serious, the announcers found it unnecessary to inject artificial notes of urgency.

Ken listened to his bedside radio as he watched the first tint of dawn above the hills east of the valley. "The flurry of mechanical failures, which was reported yesterday, has reached alarming proportions," the announcer said. "During the past 24 hours garages in every section of the nation have been flooded with calls. From the other side of the Atlantic reports indicate the existence of a similar situation in Europe and in the British Isles.

"Automobile breakdowns are not the most serious accidents that are taking place. Other forms of machinery are also being affected. A crack train of the Southern Pacific came to a halt last night in the Arizona desert. All efforts of the crew to repair the stalled engine were fruitless. A new one had to be brought up in order for the passengers to continue on their way early this morning.

"From Las Vegas comes word that one of the huge generators at Hoover Dam has been taken out of service because of mechanical failure. Three other large municipalities have had similar service interruptions. These are Rochester, New York, Clinton, Missouri, and Bakersfield, California.

"Attempts have been made to find some authoritative comment on the situation from scientists and Government officials. So far, no one has been willing to commit himself to an opinion as to the cause of this unexplained and dangerously growing phenomenon.

"Yesterday it was jokingly whispered that the comet was responsible. Today, although no authority can be found to verify it, the rumor persists that leading scientists are seriously considering the possibility that the comet may actually have something to do with the breakdowns."

Ken turned off the radio and lay back with his hands beneath his head, staring at the ceiling. His first impulse was to ridicule again this fantastic idea about the comet. Yet, there had to be some explanation.

He had seen enough of the engines in Art's garage last night to know they had suffered no ordinary mechanical disorder. Something had happened to them that had never happened to engines before, as far as he knew. The crankshafts were immovable in their bearings. The pistons had been frozen tight in the cylinders when they tried to remove some of them. Every moving part was welded to its mating piece as solidly as if the whole engine had been heated to the very edge of melting and then allowed to cool.

Apparently something similar was happening to engines in every part of the world. It could only mean that some common factor was at work in London, and Paris, and Cairo, and Mayfield. The only such factor newly invading the environment of every city on the globe was the comet.

It would almost require a belief in witchcraft to admit the comet might be responsible!

Ken arose and dressed slowly. By the time he was finished he heard his father's call to breakfast from downstairs.

Professor Maddox was already seated when Ken entered the dining room. He was a tall, spare man with an appearance of intense absorption in everything about him.

He glanced up and nodded a pleasant good morning as Ken approached. "I hear you worked overtime as an auto mechanic last night," he said. "Isn't that a bit rough, along with the load you're carrying at school?"

"Art asked us to do him a favor. Haven't you seen what's been happening around town?"

"I noticed an unusual number of cars around the garage, and I wondered about it. Has everyone decided to take care of their winter repairs at the same time?"

"Haven't you heard the radio, either, Dad?"

"No. I've been working on my new paper for the Chemical Journal until midnight for the last week. What has the radio got to do with your work as a mechanic?"

Quickly, Ken outlined to his father the events he had heard reported the past two days. "It's not only automobiles, but trains, power plants, ships, everything—"

Professor Maddox looked as if he could scarcely believe Ken was not joking. "That would certainly be a strange set of coincidences," he said finally, "provided the reports are true, of course."

"It's true, all right," said Ken. "It's not a matter of coincidence. Something is causing it to happen!"

"What could that possibly be?"

"There's talk about the comet having something to do with it."

Professor Maddox almost choked on his spoonful of cereal. "Ken," he laughed finally, "I thought you were such a stickler for rigid, scientific methods and hypotheses! What's happened to all your rigor?"

Ken looked down at the tablecloth. "I know it sounds ridiculous, like something out of the dim past, when they blamed comets for corns, and broken legs, and lost battles. Maybe this time it isn't so crazy when you stop to think about it, and it's absolutely the only new factor which could have some worldwide effect."

"How could it have any effect at all—worldwide or otherwise?" Professor Maddox demanded.

"The whole world is immersed in its tail."

"And that tail is so tenuous that our senses do not even detect the fact!"

"That doesn't mean it couldn't have some kind of effect."

"Such as stopping engines? Well, you're a pretty good mechanic. Just what did the comet do to all these stalled pieces of machinery?"

Ken felt his father was being unfair, yet he could scarcely blame him for not taking the hypothesis seriously. "I don't know what the comet did—or could do—" he said in a low voice. "I just know I've never seen any engines like those we took apart last night."

In detail, he described to his father the appearance of the engine parts they had dismantled. "I brought home some samples of metal we cut from the engine blocks with a torch. Would you take them up to the laboratory at the college and have them examined under the electron microscope?"

"I wouldn't have time to run any such tests for several days. If you are intent on pursuing this thing, however, I'll tell you what I'll do. You and your science club friends can come up and use the equipment yourselves."

"We don't know how!"

"I'll arrange for one of the teaching fellows to show you how to prepare metallic samples and operate the electron microscope."

Ken's eyes lighted. "Gee, that would be great if you would do that, Dad! Will you, really?"

"Come around after school today. I'll see that someone is there to help you."

Art Matthews was disappointed when Ken called and said none of the science club members would be around that afternoon. He couldn't keep from showing in his voice that he felt they were letting him down.

"It's not any use trying to get those engines running," Ken said. "The pistons would never come out of most of them without being drilled out. We're not equipped for that. Even if we got things loosened up and running again, what would keep the same thing from happening again? That's what we've got to find out."

Art was unable to accept this point of view. He held a bewildered but insistent belief that something ought to be done about the mounting pile of disabled cars outside his garage. "We can get some of them going, Ken. You fellows have got to lend a hand. I can't tackle it without help."

"I'm sorry," Ken said. "We're convinced there's got to be another way to get at the problem."

"All right. You guys do whatever you figure you've got to do. I can probably round up some other help."

Ken hung up, wishing he had been able to make Art understand, but the mechanic would probably be the last person in Mayfield to accept that the comet could have any possible connection with the frozen engines.

As Ken walked to school that morning he estimated that at least 25 percent of the cars in Mayfield must be out of commission. Some of the men in his neighborhood were in their driveways futilely punching their starters while their engines moaned protestingly or refused to turn over at all. Others were peering under the hoods, shaking their heads, and calling across the yards to their neighbors.

In the street, some cars were lugging with great difficulty,