While he stood, shocked by his mother's statement, Ken heard the phone ringing in the next room. On battery power at the telephone central office, he thought.
His mother answered, and there was a pause. "Professor Maddox is at the college," she said. "You can probably reach him there, or I can give him your message when he comes home."
She returned to the doorway. "That was the power company. They want your father and Dr. Douglas to have a look at their generators.
"Ken, what do you think this means?" she asked worriedly. "What will happen if all our power goes off and doesn't come back on? Do you think your father has any idea what's causing the trouble?"
Ken shook his head. "I don't know, Mom. So far, nobody seems to know anything."
In less than 15 minutes, Professor Maddox hurried into the house. "Couldn't get my car going," he said. "It's stalled on the campus parking lot. The power company wants me to go to Collin's Dam."
"I know," said Mrs. Maddox. "They called here."
He paused a moment, staring out the window, a look of bewilderment on his face. "This thing seems to be more serious than I would have believed possible. There's just no explanation for it, none at all!"
"Any chance of my going along, Dad?" Ken said.
"I'm afraid not. We're going in Dr. Larsen's car, and it's half loaded with instruments. I hope we make it there and back without breaking down.
"I'll probably be back early this evening, but don't hold dinner on my account."
"There will be only sandwiches," said Ken's mother. "I can't cook anything."
"Of course. Just leave me some of whatever you have."
From the doorway Ken watched his father and the other two scientists. He thought he detected a loginess in the engine as Professor Larsen drove away from the curb.
What they hoped to accomplish, Ken didn't know, but he felt certain they would find the same thing in the generators that had been found in the automobile engines. The bearings were probably frozen so tight that they and the shaft had become one solid piece of metal. He hoped the scientists would bring back some samples of the metal.
By 4 o'clock all the members of the science club had arrived. They met in what Ken called his "science shack," a small building next to the observatory. Here he kept the amateur radio equipment belonging to the club, and his own personal collections in the several different fields in which he had been interested since his Boy Scout days.
In each of his companions, Ken could see the effect of the feeling that now pervaded the town. Their usual horseplay was almost forgotten, and their faces were sober to the point of fear.
"We aren't going to be able to run our blower by electricity," said Joe Walton. "We can't even get power for the precipitating filters."
"Let's scrounge anything we can find that runs on gasoline or coal oil," said Al Miner. "If we act fast we ought to be able to pick up some old motorcycle engines or some power lawn mowers from the dump. Thompson's have probably got some. We can try people's basements, too. Let's get as many as possible, because we don't know how long any one will last, and we may have to run the blower for weeks, in order to get any kind of sample."
"Good idea," said Ken. "Here's something else: Who's got a car left to gather this stuff in?"
The boys looked at each other.
"Ours was still running this morning," Frank Abrams said, "but I won't guarantee how long we can count on it."
"Pretty soon there won't be any we can count on. We've got to get a horse and wagon before they start selling for as much as a new Cadillac used to."
"My uncle's got one on his farm," said Dave Whitaker. "He would probably loan it to me, but he's five miles out of town."
"Take my bike," said Ken. "See if he'll let you borrow it and a wagon for at least a couple of weeks or longer. Bring some bales of hay, too."
"Right now?"
"Right now."
When Dave had gone, Al said, "What about the blower? Anybody know where we can get one of those?"
"I think there's one at Thompson's," said Ted. "They pulled it out of Pete and Mary's restaurant when they remodeled."
"That would be just a little kitchen blower. Not big enough—we need a man-sized one."
Ken said, after a long pause, "There isn't one in town. The chances of getting one from somewhere else are practically zero. Frederick is 50 miles away and by tomorrow there may not be a car in town that would go that far."
"Look," said Al, "how about the air-conditioning systems in town? There isn't one that's any good where it is, now. Both the high school and the college have big ones. I'll bet we could get permission at either place to revamp the intake and outlet ducts so we could put in our filters and precipitators. Your father and his friends could swing it for us at the college."
"You might be right! It's worth trying. For precipitators we can rig a battery-powered system that will put a few thousand volts on the screens. Art will let us have enough car batteries for that. I think we're set!"
Dave Whitaker did not return until dusk, but he had succeeded in getting the horse and wagon, and a load of hay. He deposited this in his own yard before driving back to Ken's place.
During the next two or three hours the boys found two old motorcycle engines, a power lawn-mower motor, and one old gasoline-powered washing machine. All of these they took down to Art Matthews' place and begged him for space and tools to overhaul the equipment.
"You can have the whole joint," Art said dejectedly. "This pile of junk will never move!" He waved a hand at the cars lined up and down both sides of the streets near his place.
By 9 o'clock they had succeeded in getting all of the small engines running, but they dared not test them too long, hoping to conserve all possible life that might be left. When they were through, they returned to Ken's house. Mrs. Maddox had sandwiches ready for them.
No word had been heard from the three scientists who had gone to the power plant. Maria called, anxious about her father.
"I'm worried, Ken," she said. "What would happen to them out there if the car breaks down and they have no place to go?"
"They'll be all right," Ken reassured her. "They probably found something bigger than they expected at the dam. If they should have trouble with the car they can find a phone along the road at some farmhouse and let us know."
"I can't help worrying," said Maria. "Everything feels so strange tonight, just the way it does before a big thunderstorm, as if something terrible were going to happen!"
Ken sensed the way she felt. It was all he could do to hold back the same reaction within himself, but he knew it must be far more difficult for Maria, being in a foreign country among strangers with customs she didn't understand.
"Why don't you and your mother come over here until they get back?" he asked.
"Suppose they don't come back at all? Tonight, I mean."
"Then you can sleep here. Mom's got plenty of room."
"I'll ask Mamma. If it's all right with her, we'll be right over."
Ken hoped they would come. He found himself concerned beyond all reason that Maria and her mother should be made comfortable and relieved of their worries.
He went out to the backyard again, where all the other members of the club were still lounging on the grass, watching the sky. The comet was twenty degrees above the horizon, although the sun had long since set below the western mountains. No one seemed to feel this was a night for sleeping.
"Let's try your battery portable for a few minutes," said Joe Walton. "I'd like to know what's going on in the rest of the world."
Ken brought it out and turned it on. The local station was off the air, of course, and so was the one in Frederick. Half the power there came from the Collin's Dam. More than one-third of the usual stations were missing, but Ken finally picked up one coming in clearly from the northern tip of the state.
The announcer didn't sound like an announcer. He sounded like an ordinary man in the midst of a great and personal tragedy.
"Over three-fourths of the cars in the United States," he was saying, "are now estimated to be out of commission. The truck transportation system of the country has all but broken down. The railroads have likewise suffered from this unbelievable phenomenon.
"All machinery which involves rolling or sliding contact between metal parts has been more or less affected. Those equipped with roller bearings are holding up longer than those equipped with bushings, but all are gradually failing.
"In New York City half the power capacity has gone out of commission. Some emergency units have been thrown into operation, but these cannot carry the load, and even some of them have failed. Elsewhere, across the nation, the story is similar. In Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Washington, San Francisco—the power systems are breaking down along with motor and rail transportation.
"For some hours now, the President and his Cabinet have been in session with dozens of scientific leaders trying to find an explanation and a cure for this disastrous failure of machinery. Rumors which were broadcast widely this morning concerning possible effects of the comet have been thoroughly discredited by these scientists, who call them superstitions belonging back in the Middle Ages.
"One final report has just come over the air by shortwave. In the Atlantic Ocean the Italian steamerWhite Birdhas radioed frantically that her engines are dead. Over eight hundred passengers and crew are aboard.
"All ship sailings have been canceled since noon today. Vessels at sea are returning to nearest port. There is no ship available which can take off the stranded passengers and crew of theWhite Bird. She floats helpless and alone tonight in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
"As a power-conservation measure, broadcasting on this network will cease until midnight, eastern standard time. Turn your radios off. Keep all unnecessary lights off. Avoid consumption of power in every possible way. Be with us again at midnight for the latest news and information."
There was a restlessness in all of Mayfield. None of the townspeople felt like sleeping that night. Ken's group watched the comet until it disappeared below the horizon. Some of them observed it through the telescope. On either side of the Maddoxes' yard the voices of neighbors could be heard under the night sky, speaking in hushed tones of the thing that had happened.
Maria and Mrs. Larsen arrived, and Maria joined Ken and his friends in the backyard. He told her what they had heard on the radio.
"That ship ..." Maria said slowly. "TheWhite Bird, out there alone in the ocean—what will become of all those people?"
Ken shook his head slowly. "There's no way to get to them. There's not a thing that can be done. Nothing at all."
They remained quiet for a long time, as if each were thinking his own thoughts about the mystery and loneliness and death riding the forsaken ship in the middle of the ocean, and how soon it might be that the same dark shadow settled over the cities and towns.
Maria thought of her far-off homeland, and the people she knew, suddenly frightened and helpless in their inability to get power and food.
Ken thought of the scenes that must be occurring in the big cities of the United States. People everywhere would not be sleeping tonight. They were all citizens of a civilization that was dependent for its life on turning wheels and on power surging through bright wires across hundreds of miles of open country. Without those turning wheels, and the power in those wires there was no food, there was no warmth, there was no life.
They listened to the radio again at midnight. There was little that was new. The President's council had found no solution, nor had they come to any decisions. Scattered riots and public disorders were springing up, both in Europe and America. On the high seas, the captain of theWhite Birdwas begging for assistance, demanding to know what had happened that no ship could be sent to his aid.
Word finally came from Ken's father and his companions that their car had failed after leaving the dam to return home. They had reached a farmhouse where they would spend the rest of the night. They would try to find some kind of transportation in the morning.
In the early-morning hours Ken's friends drifted away, one by one, to their own homes, and as dawn approached, Ken finally went up to his own room and slept. Maria and her mother, with Ken's mother, had retired only a short time earlier.
When he awoke at 9 o'clock Ken had no idea whether or not the school officials planned to hold classes that day, but he felt that for himself and the other members of the science club there would be no return to normal activity for a long time. Since his father would not return for an indefinite time Ken determined to approach President Lewis of the college regarding the use of the idle blower and ventilation ducts in the Science Hall.
He had met President Lewis a number of times and believed the president would listen to him.
Another matter had disturbed Ken since last night. As soon as he was awake he called the office of Mayor Hilliard. The Mayor's secretary answered and said, "Mayor Hilliard is in conference. He will not be available today."
Ken hesitated. "Tell him it is the Maddox residence calling. I think Mayor Hilliard will answer."
In a moment the Mayor's voice boomed on the phone. Normally hearty, it was now weighted with overtones of uncertainty and fear. "Professor Maddox, I was just about to call you. Would you...."
"This is not Professor Maddox," said Ken. "I'm his son, Kenneth."
"My secretary said...." The Mayor sounded angry now, although he knew Ken well.
"I didn't say my father was calling," said Ken. "I've got something to say that I think you will want to hear, and it will take only a minute."
"All right. Go ahead."
"In a day or two the entire town is going to be without power, transportation, or communication with the outside world. The science club of the high school has a 1000-watt amateur transmitter that can reach any point in the United States and most foreign countries. It requires power. We can operate from batteries, and I would like to ask you to authorize that all automobile batteries and those belonging to the telephone company be immediately seized by the city and placed in official custody, to be used for emergency communication purposes only. They should be drained of electrolyte and properly stored."
"I appreciate that suggestion," the Mayor said. "I think it's a good one. Would you boys be able to take care of that?"
"We'd be glad to."
"It's your assignment, then. We are calling a town meeting tonight in the college auditorium. We especially want your father to be there if he can, and we'll issue orders for the battery conservation program at that time."
By noon Ken had gained an interview with President Lewis and had received permission for his group to make use of the largest blower on the campus for their air-sampling project. They loaded their tools and themselves into the ancient wagon belonging to Dave Whitaker's uncle and spent the rest of the day working at Science Hall.
Ken's father called again to report they had succeeded in renting a horse and buggy at an exorbitant price from a farmer. When told of the town meeting that evening, he promised to try to reach Mayfield in time.
Ten minutes before the 8 o'clock deadline, Professor Maddox drew up in front of the house. He called to Ken without even getting down from the seat of the wagon. "Get your mother, and let's go!"
Mrs. Maddox appeared, worried and concerned. "You've had nothing to eat," she protested. "At least come in and have a sandwich and a glass of milk. It's not cold, but it's fresh."
"No." Professor Maddox shook his head. "We don't want to miss any of the meeting. Get a coat and come along. It will be chilly later."
Maria and her mother came also. The small wagon was loaded to capacity as it moved slowly up the hill toward the campus. People were streaming toward the auditorium from all directions. Most of them were afoot. A few others had found a horse and wagon. A dozen or two cars chugged protestingly up the hill, but it appeared that most of these would not be operating another 24 hours.
As they approached the hall, Professor Maddox chuckled and pointed a finger ahead of them. "Look there. I'm sure that every citizen of Mayfield is present or accounted for, now."
Ken glanced in the direction of his father's gesture. The creaky wagon of Granny Wicks was drawn slowly along by her emaciated horse. Granny's stick-thin body jounced harshly on the rough seat. Ken fought against a ridiculous uneasiness as he recognized her.
He knew his father had not heard Granny's speech on the post office steps, but he was little surprised when his father said, "I'm afraid Granny Wicks, with her profound knowledge of omens and signs, is about as much an authority on this matter as any of the rest of us here tonight!"
The hall was already filled. Several scores of chairs had been placed in the corridors, and these were occupied also. People were being ushered to nearby classrooms where they would hear the proceedings over the school's public-address system.
"It looks as if we'll have to get it by remote pickup," said Ken. At that moment Sally Teasdale, the Mayor's secretary, spotted their group and hurried over.
"Mayor Hilliard told me to watch for you," she said. "He wants you to sit on the platform, Professor Maddox, and also Dr. Douglas and Dr. Larsen. The others of your party can sit in the wings."
Professor Maddox agreed and they followed Sally to the stage entrance. The platform was already occupied by the Mayor and the town councilmen, the college department heads, and leading citizens of Mayfield. The professors took their places, while Ken and the others found chairs in the wings. It was the best seat in the house, Ken decided. They could see both the platform and the audience below.
It was undoubtedly the largest group that had ever gathered in one place in Mayfield. In spite of the enormous number present it was a solemn group. There was almost no talking or jostling. To Ken, it seemed the faces about him had a uniform appearance of bewildered searching for reassurance that nothing could really destroy the way of life they had always known.
Mayor Hilliard arose and called the meeting to order. "I think everyone knows why we've been called here," he said. "Because of the nature of the circumstances I think it appropriate that we ask Dr. Aylesworth, pastor of the Community Church, to offer prayer."
Heads were bowed in reverent silence as Dr. Aylesworth stood before the assembly and offered a solemn invocation that their deliberations might receive divine guidance, and their minds be filled with wisdom to combat the evil that had come upon them.
The minister was a big, ruddy-faced man with a lion's mane of white hair. The unwavering authority of his voice filled the audience with the conviction that they were better prepared to face their problems when he had resumed his seat.
Mayor Hilliard outlined the worldwide situation as he had obtained it through news reports up to an hour ago. He described the desperate situation of the nation's larger cities. Their food supplies were sufficient for only a few days without any replenishment by rail and truck transportation. Ninety percent of automobile traffic had ceased. The railroads were attempting to conserve their rolling stock, but 70 percent of it was out of commission, and the remainder could not be expected to operate longer than a few days. Air traffic had stopped entirely. On the oceans, only sailing vessels continued to move.
"Mayfield is already cut off," the Mayor went on. "Our last train went through here 30 hours ago. The trucking companies out of Frederick have suspended operations. We have no cars or trucks of our own here in town, on which we can depend. We're on our own.
"So far, the scientists have found no solution. Tomorrow, they may find one. Or it may be 10 years before they do. In the meantime, we have to figure out how we, here in Mayfield, are going to carry on.
"Our first consideration is, of course, food supplies. The Council met this morning, and we have appointed a committee to take immediate possession of all foodstuffs and every facility for food production within the entire valley. Beginning tomorrow morning, this committee will begin to accumulate all food supplies into one or more central warehouses where they will be inventoried for rationing.
"All stocks of fresh meat will be salted and cured. Home supplies will be limited to no more than a week's needs of any one item. Hoarders who persist in their unfair activities will be ordered to leave the community.
"My fellow citizens, these are stringent and severe regulations, but we are not facing a time of mild inconvenience. It may well be that in this coming winter we shall be literally fighting for our very lives. We, as your leaders, would like a vote of confidence from you, the citizens of Mayfield, as an assurance that you will co-operate with our efforts to the best of your ability."
Instantly, nearly everyone in the auditorium was on his feet shouting his approval of the Mayor's program.
Mayor Hilliard had known he was taking a long chance in presenting so bluntly such a severe program, but long experience had taught him the best way into a tough situation was a headlong plunge that ignored consequences. The ovation surprised him. He had expected substantial opposition. Visibly moved, he held up his hand for quiet once more.
"Our farms and our livestock will be our only means of salvation after present food stocks are gone," he said. "A separate subcommittee will inventory all farmland and cattle and dairy herds and plan for their most efficient use in the coming season. Crops will be assigned as the committee sees fit. Farm labor will be taken care of by all of us, on a community basis.
"A third program that must begin immediately is the stockpiling of fuel for the coming winter. Wood will be our only means of heating and cooking because the nearest mines are too far away for us to haul coal from them by teams. The same is true of fuel oil stocks.
"Heating will be at a minimum. Most of you do not have wood stoves. What you have must be converted to use of wood. An additional committee will be appointed to supervise this conversion and the construction, where necessary, of makeshift stoves out of sheet metal, old oil barrels, and anything else of which we can make use."
Item by item, he continued down the list of problems the Council had considered that day. He mentioned Ken's suggestion for conservation of batteries. He spoke of the problems of medical care without adequate hospital facilities, of police activities that might be required in a period of stress such as they could expect that winter.
When he had finished, members of the Council detailed plans of the separate programs over which they had charge. President Lewis spoke to pledge support of the college staff. He pointed out the fortunate fact that they had some of the best minds in the entire country in their scientific departments, and also had Professor Larsen visiting with them.
The floor was turned over then to members of the audience for comment and questions. Most of them were favorable, but Sam Cluff, who owned a hundred and sixty of the best acres in the valley, stood up red-faced and belligerent.
"It's all a pack of nonsense!" he declared. "This is just an excuse for certain people in this town to get their hands in somebody else's pockets, and to tell other people what to do and how to live.
"I'm not going to have anything to do with it. Anybody who sets foot on my land to tell me what to raise or to take my goods away is going to have to reckon with a double-barreled, 12-gauge shotgun.
"If there is any real problem, which I doubt, them Government scientists will be on the job and get things straightened out so that trains and automobiles will be running by next week. My advice is for everybody to go home and let them take care of it."
Mayor Hilliard smiled tolerantly. "I shouldn't have to remind you, Sam, that some of the best scientists in the world are right here in our own town, and they say the situation is serious enough for emergency measures. I hope you won't be foolish with that shotgun, but we're coming out to see you, tomorrow, Sam."
Granny Wicks seemed to erupt from her place to which she had crowded in the center of the hall. All eyes turned at the sound of her scratchy, birdlike voice. "I told you," she shrieked. "I told you what was coming, and now maybe you'll believe me. There's nothing you can do about it, Bill Hilliard. Nothing at all. There's death in the air. The stars have spoken it. The signs are in the sky."
Mayor Hilliard interrupted her. "Perhaps you're right, Granny," he said gently. "I don't think any of us are going to argue with you tonight. We're here to do what we can, and to make plans to stay alive just as long as possible."
At the close, Dr. Aylesworth took the stand. His commanding presence seemed to draw an aura of peace once more around the troubled group. "We are civilized men and women," he said. "Let us see that we act as such during the months that are ahead of us. Let us remember that we may see a time very soon when there will not be enough food, fuel and clothing for all of us. When and if that time comes, let us prove that we are able to be our brother's keeper, that we are able to do unto others as we would have others do unto us. Above all, may we be able to continue to call on divine assistance to bring a speedy end to this disaster, so that when it is over we can look back and be proud that we conducted ourselves as men and women worthy to be called civilized, and worthy of the divine approval and aid which we now seek."
It was decided to keep classes going in the various schools as long as possible, releasing those students who were needed to take assignments in the emergency program. Ken and the rest of the science club members obtained immediate permission to devote their full time to the research program.
On the morning after the town meeting, Ken dressed early and rode his bicycle toward Art's garage to arrange with the mechanic the details of the gathering and storage of automobile batteries. On the way he passed by Frank Meggs Independent Grocery Market, the largest in Mayfield.
Although it was only a little after 7 o'clock, an enormous crowd had collected outside and inside the store. Curious and half-alarmed, Ken parked his bicycle and made his way through the crowd. Inside, he found Frank Meggs ringing up sales of large lots of food.
A red-faced woman was arguing with him at the check-out stand. "A dollar a pound for white beans! That's ridiculous, Frank Meggs, and you know it!"
"Sure I know it," the storekeeper said calmly. "Next winter you'll be glad I let you have them for even that price. If you don't want them, Mrs. Watkins, please move along. Others will be glad to have them."
The woman hesitated, then angrily flung two bills on the counter and stalked out with her groceries. Ken shoved his way up to the stand. "Mr. Meggs," he exclaimed. "You can't do this! All foodstuffs are being called in by the Mayor's committee."
He turned to the people. "Private hoards of food will be confiscated and placed in the community warehouse. This isn't going to do you any good!"
Most of the shoppers looked shamefaced, at his challenge, but Meggs bristled angrily. "You keep out of this, Maddox! Nobody asked you to come in here! These people know what they're doing, and so do I. How much do you think any of us will eat if townhall gets its hands on every scrap of food in the valley? If you aren't buying, get moving!"
"I will, and I'll be back just as soon as I can find the Sheriff!"
With telephone service now cut off to conserve battery power, Ken hesitated between seeking Sheriff Johnson at his office or at home. He checked his watch again and decided on the Sheriff's home.
He was fortunate in arriving just before the Sheriff left. He explained quickly what was happening at Meggs' store. Johnson had been assigned one of the few remaining cars that would run. With Ken, he drove immediately to the store. They strode in, the shoppers fanning out before the Sheriff's approach.
"Okay, that's all," he said. "You folks leave your groceries right where they are. Tell the others they had better bring theirs back and get their money while Meggs still has it. Not that anybody is going to have much use for money, anyway."
"You've no right to do this!" Meggs cried. "This is my private property and I'm entitled to do with it as I choose!"
"Not any longer it isn't," said Sheriff Johnson. "There isn't such a thing as private property in Mayfield, any more. Except maybe the shirt on your back, and I'm not sure of that. At any rate, you're not selling these groceries. Accounts will be kept, and when and if we get back to normal you'll be reimbursed, but for now we're all one, big, happy family!"
Most of the crowd had dispersed. The armloads and pushcarts full of groceries had been abandoned. Ken and the Sheriff moved toward the door.
"Another trick like that and you'll spend the time of the emergency as a guest of the city. Incidentally, we don't intend to heat the jail this winter!"
Meggs turned the blaze of his anger upon Ken. "This is your fault!" he snarled. "You and that bunch of politicians know there's not going to be any shortage this winter just as well as I do. In a week this whole thing will be straightened out. I had a chance to make a good thing of it. I'm going to get even with you if it's the last thing I ever do!"
"That's enough of that!" said Sheriff Johnson sharply. "Come along, Ken."
Ken was not disturbed by Meggs' threat of personal retaliation, but he was frightened by the realization that Meggs wasn't the only one of his kind in Mayfield. His patrons were only a shade less unstable. What would such people do when things really got tough? How much could they be depended on to pull their own weight?
After he had seen Art Matthews about collecting and storing the batteries, Ken went up to Science Hall where the rest of the club members were already at work. Under the direction of Al Miner, who was the best qualified to plan the alterations of the ventilation ducts, they made the necessary changes and installed one of the motorcycle engines to drive the blower. At the same time, three of them built up a high-voltage, battery-operated power supply to charge the filter elements.
By evening the assembly was operating. The motorcycle engine chugged pleasantly. "I wonder how long before that one freezes up," Al said pessimistically.
"We ought to get more," said Joe. "The way the cars have gone we'll be lucky to get more than 2 days out of each one of these."
During the day, Ken's father had directed the preparation of metallic specimens from samples the boys had brought from Art's garage and from those the men brought back from the power plant. With the high-powered electron microscope, photographs were taken.
As they finished their work the boys went with Ken to the laboratory. Professor Maddox looked up. "Hello, Fellows," he said. "Have you got your piece of machinery running?"
"Purring like a top," said Ken.
"Expected to run about as long," said Al.
"Have you finished any photomicrographs?" Ken asked. "Do they show anything?"
His father passed over a wet print. The boys gathered around it.
"It doesn't mean much to me," said Dave Whitaker. "Can you tell us what it shows?"
Ken's father took a pencil from his pocket and touched it lightly to a barely perceptible line across the center of the picture. "That is the boundary," he said, "between the cylinder wall and the piston taken from one of the samples you brought in."
"I can't see anything that looks like a line between two pieces of metal," said Ted Watkins. "It looks like one solid chunk to me."
"That is substantially what it is," said Professor Maddox. "There is no longer any real boundary as there would be between two ordinary pieces of metal. Molecules from each piece have flowed into the other, mixing just as two very viscous liquids would do. They have actually become one piece of metal."
He took up another photograph. "Here you can see that the same thing has happened in the case of the shaft and bearing samples we obtained from the Collin's Dam power plant. Molecules of the two separate pieces of metal have intermingled, becoming one single piece."
"How could they do that?" Ken exclaimed. "Metals can't flow like liquids."
"They can if the conditions are right. When steel is heated to a sufficiently high temperature, it flows like water."
"But that's not the case here!"
"No, it isn't, of course. At lower temperatures the molecules of a solid do not possess the energy of motion which they have in a liquid state. The metallic surface of a piece of cold steel has a certain surface tension which prevents the escape of the relatively low-energy molecules; thus it has the characteristics we ascribe to a solid."
"Then what has happened in this case?" Joe asked. "Are you able to tell?"
Professor Maddox nodded. "The photographs show us what has happened, but they reveal nothing about how or why. We can see the surface tension of the two pieces of metal has obviously broken down so that the small energy of motion possessed by the molecules has permitted them to move toward each other, with a consequent mixing of the two metals. It has turned them quite literally into a single piece, the most effective kind of weld you can imagine."
"What would cause the surface tension to break down like that?" Ken asked.
"That is what remains for us to find out. We don't have the faintest idea what has caused it. It becomes especially baffling when we recall that it has happened, not in a single isolated instance, but all over the world."
"You would think the metals would have become soft, like putty, or something, for a thing like that to happen to them," said Joe.
"It would be expected that the hardness would be affected. This is not true, however. The metals seem just as hard as before. The effect of mixing seems to take place only when the metals are in sliding motion against one another, as in the case of a piston and cylinder, or a shaft and a bearing. The effect is comparatively slow, taking place over a number of days. The two surfaces must break down gradually, increasing the friction to a point where motion must cease. Then the mixing continues until they are welded solidly to each other."
Ordinarily, the dusk of evening would have fallen over the landscape, but the blaze of the comet now lit the countryside with an unnatural gold that reflected like a flame through the windows and onto the faces of the men and boys in the laboratory.
"As to the cause of this phenomenon," Professor Maddox said with an obviously weary deliberation in his voice, "we can only hope to find an explanation and a cure before it is too late to do the world any good."
"There can't be any question of that!" said Ken intensely. "The resources of the whole scientific world will be turned on this one problem. Every industrial, university, and governmental laboratory will be working on it. Modern science can certainly lick a thing like this!"
Professor Maddox turned from the window, which he had been facing. A faint, grim smile touched the corners of his lips and died as he regarded the boys, especially Ken. His face took on a depth of soberness Ken seldom saw in his father.
"You think nothing is immune to an attack by so-called modern science?" he said.
"Sure!" Ken went on enthusiastically, not understanding the expression on his father's face. "Look at the problems that have been licked as soon as people were determined enough and willing to pay the cost. Giant computers, radar eyes, atomic energy. Everybody knows we could have made it to Mars by now if governments had been willing to put up the necessary money."
"You still have to learn, all of you do," Professor Maddox said slowly, "that the thing we call science is only a myth. The only reality consists of human beings trying to solve difficult problems. Their results, which seem to be solutions to some of those problems, we call science. Science has no life of its own. It does not deserve to be spoken of as an entity in its own right. There are only people, whom we call scientists, and their accomplishments are severely limited by their quite meager abilities. Meager, when viewed in comparison with the magnitude of the problems they attack."
Ken felt bewildered. He had never heard his father speak this way before. "Don't you believe there are scientists enough—scientists who know enough—to lick a thing like this in time?"
"I don't know. I'm quite sure no one knows. We became conscious long ago of the fallacy of assuming that the concentration of men enough and unlimited funds would solve any problem in the world. For every great accomplishment like atomic energy, to which we point with pride, there are a thousand other problems, equally important, that remain unsolved. Who knows whether or not this problem of weakened surface tension in metals is one of the insoluble ones?"
"We have to find an answer," said Ken doggedly. He could not understand his father's words. "There's nothing science can't accomplish if it sets about it with enough determination. Nothing!"
Ken spent an almost sleepless night. He tossed for long hours and dozed finally, but he awoke again before there was even a trace of dawn in the sky. Although the night was cool he was sweating as if it were mid-summer.
There was a queasiness in his stomach, too, a slow undefinable pressure on some hidden nerve he had never known he possessed. The feeling pulsed and throbbed slowly and painfully. He sat up and looked out at the dark landscape, and he knew what was the matter.
Scared, he thought, I'm scared sick.
He'd never known anything like it before in his life, except maybe the time when he was 6 years old and he had climbed to the top of a very high tree when the wind was blowing, and he had been afraid to come down.
It was hitting him, he thought. He was just beginning to understand what this stoppage of machinery really meant, and he wondered if there was something wrong with him that he had not felt it earlier. Was he alone? Had everyone else understood it before he had? Or would it hit them, one by one, just as it was hitting him now, bringing him face to face with what lay ahead.
He knew what had done it. It was his father's expression and his words in the laboratory the night before.
Ken recognized that he had never doubted for an instant that scientists and their tools were wholly adequate to solve this problem in a reasonable time. He had been aware there would be great hardships, but he had never doubted there would be an end to that time. He had believed his father, as a scientist, had the same faith.
It was a staggering shock to learn that his father had no faith in science; a shock to be told that science was not a thing that warranted a man's faith. Ken had planned his whole life around an avid faith in science.
He tried to imagine what the world would be like if no engine should ever run again. The standards of civilized existence would be shattered. Only those areas of the world, where people had never learned to depend on motor transportation or electric power, would be unaffected; those areas of China, India and Africa, where men still scratched the ground with a forked stick and asked only for a cup of rice or grain each day.
This would become the level of the whole world. Until last night, Ken had never believed it remotely possible. Now, his father's words had shaken him out of the certainty that science would avert such consequences. Itcouldhappen.
He thought of his own plans and ambitions. There would be no need for scientists, nor the opportunity to become one, in a world of men who grubbed the land with forked sticks. He felt a sudden blind and bitter anger. Even if the disaster were overcome in a matter of years, his opportunity would be gone.
He knew at once that such anger was selfish and futile. His own personal calamities would be the least of the troubles ahead, but, for the moment, he could not help it. In a way, it felt good because it overshadowed the dark fear that still throbbed in his body.
But something else was gone, too. The opportunity for him and his science club friends to investigate the properties of the altered metal was over. His father and the other scientists had taken over those studies, and there would be no place for high-school boys who did not know even enough to prepare a slide for an electron microscope.
It had always been that way, as long as he could remember. He had always been too young and too ignorant to be intrusted with work that mattered.
He supposed they would turn the operation of the air filter over to one of the teaching fellows, even though that was something the club could handle.
The bitterness and the fear seemed more than he could endure. He dressed quietly and went downstairs. Without lighting a lamp, he found something to eat. The first light of dawn was showing when he left the house.
For an hour he walked the silent streets without meeting anyone. Normally, there would have been the sound of milk trucks, and the cars of early-rising workers. Now there was nothing. The comet had risen just above the eastern hills, and in its light the city was like some fabulous, golden ruin that belonged in an ancient fairytale.
Ken didn't know where he was going or what he was going to do. There ought to be something useful he could do, he thought fiercely.
As he looked down the street, he saw a half-dozen wagons with two teams each, stopped in front of Sims Hardware and Lumber. In the wagons were several dozen men. Ken recognized Andrew Norton, of the Mayor's Council, and Henry Atkins, the Sheriff's chief deputy.
Several of the men were emerging from the hardware store with new axes and saws. Then Ken understood. This was the first wood detail headed for the mountains to begin gathering and stockpiling fuel for the winter. He broke into a run.
Deputy Atkins appeared to be in charge of the group. Ken hailed him. "I want to go along, Mr. Atkins. May I go?"
The deputy glanced down at him and frowned. He consulted a sheet of paper he drew from his pocket. "Your name isn't on the list for this morning, Ken. Were you assigned?"
"I guess not, but I haven't got anything else to do today. Is there any objection to my going?"
"I don't suppose so," said Atkins dubiously. "It's just that your name may be on some other list. We don't want to get these things fouled up right off the bat. There's enough trouble as it is."
"I'm sure my name's not on any other list. I'd have been told about it."
"All right. Climb on."
As Ken climbed into the nearest wagon he was startled to find himself staring into the face of Frank Meggs. The storekeeper grinned unpleasantly as he nodded his head in Ken's direction and spoke to his neighbor. "Now what do you know about that? Old Man Maddox, letting his own little boy out alone this early in the morning. I'll bet he didn't let you, did he? I'll bet you had to run away to try to prove you're a big boy now."
"Cut it out, Meggs," said Atkins sharply. "We heard all about what went on in your store yesterday."
The man next to Meggs drew away, but it didn't seem to bother him. He continued to grin crookedly at Ken. "Aren't you afraid you might get hurt trying to do a man's work?"
Ken ignored the jibes and faced away from the storekeeper. The slow, rhythmic jogging of the wagon, and the frosty air as they came into the mountains took some of the bitterness out of Ken. It made him feel freshly alive. He had come often to hunt here and felt a familiarity with every tree and rock around him.
The wagon train came to a halt in a grove of 10-year-old saplings that needed thinning.
"No use taking our best timber until we have to," said Atkins. "We'll start here. I'll take a crew and go on ahead and mark the ones to be cut. You drivers unhitch your teams and drag the logs out to the wagons after they're cut."
There was none of the kidding and horseplay that would have been normal in such a group. Each man seemed intent on the purpose for which he had come, and was absorbed with his own thoughts. Ken took a double-bitted ax and followed Atkins along the trail. He moved away from the others and began cutting one of the young trees Atkins had marked.
By noon he was bathed in sweat, and his arms and back ached. He had thought he was in good condition from his football and track work, but he seemed to have found new muscles that had never come into play before.
Atkins noticed the amount he had cut and complimented him. "Better take it easy. You're way ahead of everybody else, and we don't have to get it all out today."
Ken grinned, enjoying the aches of his muscles. "If it has to be done we might as well do it."
He was not surprised to find that Frank Meggs had cut almost nothing but had spent his time complaining to his companions about the unnecessary work they were doing.
After lunch, which Ken had reluctantly accepted from the others, there was a stir at the arrival of a newcomer on horseback. Ken recognized him as Mike Travis, one of the carpenters and caretakers at the college.
Mike tied his horse to the tailboard of a wagon and approached the woodcutters. "There you are, Ken Maddox," he said accusingly. "Why didn't you let somebody know where you were going? Your father's been chewing up everyone in sight, trying to find out where you'd gone. He finally decided you might be up here, and sent me after you. Take the horse on back. I'll finish up the day on the wood detail."
Ken felt suddenly awkward and uncomfortable. "I didn't mean to worry him, but I guess I did forget to say where I was going. Don't you think it would be okay if I stayed and you told Dad you had found me?"
"Not on your life! He'd chew me down to the ankles if I went back without you!"
"Okay, I'll go," Ken said. Although he knew he should have left word it still seemed strange that his father should be so concerned as to send a man up here looking for him. It seemed like more of the unfamiliar facets of his father's personality that Ken had glimpsed last night.
Frank Meggs was watching from across the clearing. "I guess Papa Maddox couldn't stand the thought of his little boy doing a man's work for a whole day," he said loudly and maliciously. No one paid any attention to him.
Ken tied the mare to a tree on the campus where she could graze. He glanced over the valley below. Not a single car was in sight on the roads. Somehow, it was beginning to seem that this was the way it had always been. His own car seemed like something he had possessed a thousand years ago.
He found his father in the laboratory working with the electron microscope. Professor Maddox looked up and gestured toward the office. As Ken sat down, he shut the door behind them and took a seat behind his old oak desk that was still cluttered with unmarked examination papers.
"You didn't say anything about where you were going this morning," he said.
"I'm sorry about that," Ken answered. "I got up early and took a walk through town. All of a sudden—well, I guess I got panicky when it finally hit me as to what all this really means. I saw the wood detail going out and joined them. It felt good out there, with nothing to think about except getting a tree to fall right."
"You ran away. You were needed here."
Ken stammered. "I didn't think you wanted any of us kids around since you and the other men had taken over what we had started to do."
"You were angry that it wasn't your own show any longer, weren't you?"
"I guess that's part of it," Ken admitted, his face reddening. He didn't know what was happening. His father had never spoken to him like this before. He seemed suddenly critical and disapproving of everything about Ken.
After a long time his father spoke again, more gently this time. "It's been your ambition for a long time to be a scientist, hasn't it?"
"You know it has."
"I've been very pleased, too. I've watched you and encouraged your interests and, as far as I can see, you've been developing in the right direction."
"I'm glad you think so," Ken said.
"But you've wanted to be agreatscientist. You've had an ambition to emulate men like Newton, Faraday, Davy, and the modern giants such as Einstein, Planck, de Broglie, Oppenheimer."
"Maybe I haven't got the brains, but I can try."
His father snorted impatiently. "Do you think any one of them tried deliberately to be great, or to copy anyone else?"
Ken understood his meaning now. "I guess they didn't. You can't really do a thing like that."
"No, you can't. You take the brains God has given you and apply them to the universe as you see it. The results take care of themselves.
"Some of us have enough insight to achieve greatness. Most of us lack the cleverness to cope effectively with such a wily opponent as the natural universe. Greatness and mediocrity have no meaning to a man who is absorbed in his study. You do what you have to do. You do what the best and highest impulses of your brain tell you to do. Expect nothing more than this of yourself. Nothing more is possible."
"I think I see what you mean," Ken said.
"I doubt it. Most of the men I know have never learned it. They struggle to write more papers, to get their names in more journals than their colleagues. They go out of their way to be patted on the back.
"They are the failures as scientists. For an example of success I recommend that you observe Dr. Larsen closely. He is a man who has done a great deal to advance our knowledge of physical chemistry."
Professor Maddox paused. Then he said finally, "There is just one other thing."
"What's that?" Ken asked.
"Up to now, you and all your friends have only played at science."
"Played!" Ken cried. "We've built our observatory, a 1000-watt radio transmitter—"
"Play; these things are toys. Educational toys, it is true, but toys, nevertheless."
"I don't understand."
"Toys are fine for children. You and your friends, however, are no longer children. You haven't got a chance now to grow up and gain an education in a normal manner. You can't finish your childhood, playing with your toys. You can't take all the time you need to find out what your capacities and aptitudes are. You will never know a world that will allow you that luxury.
"Every available brain is needed on this problem. You've got to make a decision today, this very minute, whether you want to give a hand to its solution."
"You know I want to be in on it!"
"Do you? Then you've got to decide that you are no longer concerned about being a scientist. Forget the word. What you are does not matter. You are simply a man with a problem to solve.
"You have to decide whether or not you can abandon your compassion for the millions who are going to die; whether you can reject all pressure from personal danger, and from the threat to everything and everyone that is of any importance to you.
"You've got to decide whether or not this problem of the destruction of surface tension of metals is the most absorbing thing in the whole world. It needs solving, not because the fate of the world hinges on it, but because it's a problem that consumes you utterly. This is what drives you, not fear, not danger, not the opinion of anyone else.
"When he can function this way, the scientist is capable of solving important problems. By outward heartlessness he can achieve works of compassion greater than any of his critics. He knows that the greatest pleasure a man can know lies in taking a stand against those forces that bend ordinary men."
For the first time in his life Ken suddenly felt that he knew his father. "I wish you had talked to me like this a long time ago," he said.
Professor Maddox shook his head. "It would have been far better for you to find out these things for yourself. My telling you does not convince you they are true. That conviction must still come from within."
"Do you want me to become a scientist?" Ken asked.
"It doesn't make any difference what I want," his father answered almost roughly. He was looking away from Ken and then his eyes found his son's and his glance softened. He reached across the desk and grasped Ken's hand.
"Yes, I want it more than anything else in the world," he said earnestly. "But it's got to be what you want, too, or it's no good at all. Don't try to be anything for my sake. Determine your own goals clearly, and take as straight a path as you can to reach them. Just remember, if you do choose science the standards are severe."
"It's what I want," said Ken evenly. "You said you needed me here. What do you want me to do?"
"Empty trash cans if we ask it," Professor Maddox said. "Forget about whose show it is. Professor Larsen and I will be directing the research, and we'll need every pair of hands and every brain that's got an ounce of intelligence in this field. You do whatever you are asked to do and think of every possible answer to the questions that come before you. Is that good enough?"
"More than enough." Ken felt a sudden stinging sensation behind his eyes and turned to rub their corners roughly. "What about the other fellows in the club? Can you use them, too?"
"As many as have the ounce of intelligence I spoke of. The rest of them don't need to know the things I have told you, but with you it was different. I had to know you understood just a little of what it means to be a scientist."
"I'll be one. I'll show you I can be one!"
Ken felt he had grown 3 inches taller after his father's discussion. As if he had passed some ancient ritual, he could be admitted to the company of adults and his opinions would be heard.
This proved to be true. His father rapidly organized the facilities of the college laboratories and recruited every possible science student in the chemistry and physics departments, as well as many from the high school. As these plans were outlined, Ken made a proposal of his own.
"I believe our first move," he said, "should be to set up a network of amateur radio stations operating in cities where there are other laboratories. If you could be in touch with them, ideas could be exchanged and duplication of work avoided."
"An excellent idea," said Professor Maddox. "You can work it out as we go along."
"No. It ought to be done immediately," Ken said. "If not, it may be almost impossible to find anyone on the air later. There may not be many amateurs who will bother to convert their rigs to battery operation. There may not be many who can get the batteries together."
"Good enough!" his father said. "Let that have priority over everything else until you get it organized. Probably you should find at least two contacts in each of the university centers. Put at the top of your list Berkeley, Pasadena, Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C.
"See if you can get relay contacts that will put us in touch with Stockholm, Paris, London, Berlin, and Tokyo. If so, we can have contact with the majority of the workers capable of contributing most to this problem."
"I'll do my best," Ken promised.
Someone would be needed to operate the station and spend a good many hours a week listening and recording. He didn't want to spend the time necessary doing that, and he knew none of the other club members would, either. At once he thought of Maria Larsen. She would undoubtedly be happy to take over the job and feel she was doing something useful. On the way home he stopped at her house and told her what he had in mind. She readily agreed.
"I don't know anything about radio," she said. "You'll have to show me what to do."
"We won't expect you to learn code, of course," he said. "When we do handle anything coming in by code one of us will have to take it. We'll try to contact phone stations wherever possible for this program we have in mind. Most of the stuff will be put on tape, and Dad will probably want you to prepare typed copies, too. You can do enough to take a big load off the rest of us."
"I'll be happy to try."
They spent the rest of the day in the radio room of the science shack. Ken taught Maria the simple operations of turning on the transmitter and receiver, of handling the tuning controls, and the proper procedure for making and receiving calls. He supposed there would be some technical objection to her operation of the station without an operator's license, but he was quite sure that such things were not important right now.
It was a new kind of experience for Maria. Her face was alive with excitement as Ken checked several bands to see where amateurs were still operating. The babble of high-frequency code whistles alternated in the room with faint, sometimes muffled voices on the phone band.
"There are more stations than I expected," Ken said. "With luck, we may be able to establish a few of the contacts we need, tonight."
After many tries, he succeeded in raising an operator, W6YRE, in San Francisco. They traded news, and it sounded as if the west coast city was crumbling swiftly. Ken explained what he wanted. W6YRE promised to try to raise someone with a high-powered phone rig in Berkeley, near the university.
They listened to him calling, but could not hear the station he finally raised.
"What good will that do?" Maria asked. "If we can't hear the station in Berkeley...."
"He may be working on a relay deal through the small rig. It's better than nothing, but I'd prefer a station we can contact directly."
In a few minutes, the San Francisco operator called them back. "W6WGU knows a ham with a 1000-watt phone near the university," he said. "He thinks he'll go for your deal, but he's not set up for battery. In fact, he's about ready to evacuate. Maybe he can be persuaded to stay. I'm told he's a guy who will do the noble thing if he sees a reason for it."
"There's plenty of reason for this," said Ken.
"Let's set a schedule for 9 p.m. I ought to have word on it by then."
They agreed and cut off. In another hour they had managed a contact with a Chicago operator, and explained what they wanted.
"You're out of luck here," the ham replied. "This town is falling apart at the seams right now. The whole Loop area has been burned out. There's been rioting for 18 hours straight. The militia have been trying to hold things together, but I don't think they even know whether anybody is still on top giving the orders.
"I'll try to find out what the eggheads at the university are doing, but if they've got any kind of research running in this mess, it'll surprise me. If they are still there, I'll hang on and report to you. Otherwise, I'm heading north. There's not much sense to it, but when something like this happens a guy's got to run or have a good reason for staying put. If he doesn't he'll go nuts."
The Chicago operator agreed to a schedule for the following morning.
Maria and Ken sat in silence, not looking at each other, after they cut off.
"It will be that way in all the big cities, won't it?" Maria asked.
"I'm afraid so. We're luckier than they are," Ken said, "but I wonder how long we'll stay lucky." He was thinking of Frank Meggs, and the people who had swamped his store.
At 9 p.m., W6YRE came back on. The Berkeley 1000-watt phone was enthusiastic about being a contact post with the university people. He had promised to make arrangements with them and to round up enough batteries to convert his transmitter and receiver.
They had no further success that night.
Ken's father shook his head sadly when told of the situation in Chicago. "I had counted on them," he said. "Their people are among the best in the world, and they have the finest equipment. I hope things are not like that everywhere."
Members of the science club took turns at the transmitter the following days for 20-hour stretches, until everything possible had been done to establish the contacts requested by Professor Maddox.
In Chicago there appeared to have been a complete collapse. The operator there reported he was unable to reach any of the scientific personnel at the university. He promised a further contact, but when the time came he could not be reached. There was no voice at all in the Chicago area. Ken wondered what had become of the man whose voice they had heard briefly. He was certain he would never know.
Although there was much disorder on the west coast, the situation was in somewhat better control. The rioting had not yet threatened the universities, and both Berkeley and Pasadena were working frantically on the problem with round-the-clock shifts in their laboratories. They had welcomed wholeheartedly the communication network initiated by the Mayfield group.
In Washington, D.C. tight military control was keeping things somewhat in order. In Stockholm, where contact had been established through a Washington relay after 2 days of steady effort, there was no rioting whatever. Paris and London had suffered, but their leading universities were at work on the problem. Tokyo reported similar conditions.
Ken grinned at Maria as they received the Stockholm report. "Those Swedes," he said. "They're pretty good at keeping their heads."
Maria answered with a faint smile of her own. "Everybody should be Swedes. No?"
The fall winds and the black frost came early that year, as if in fair warning that the winter intended a brutal assault upon the stricken world. The pile of logs in the community woodlot grew steadily. A large crew of men worked to reduce the logs to stove lengths.
They had made a crude attempt to set up a circular saw, using animal power to drive it. The shaft was mounted in hardwood blocks, driven by a complicated arrangement of wooden pulleys and leather belts. The horses worked it through a treadmill.
The apparatus worked part of the time, but it scarcely paid for itself when measured against the efforts of the men who had to keep it in repair.
The food storage program was well underway. Two central warehouses had been prepared from the converted Empire Movie Theater, and the Rainbow Skating Rink.
Ken wished their efforts at the college laboratory were going half as well. As the days passed, it seemed they were getting nowhere. The first effort to identify any foreign substance in the atmospheric dust was a failure. Calculations showed they had probably not allowed sufficient time to sample a large enough volume of air.
It was getting increasingly difficult to keep the blower system going. All of their original supply of small engines had broken down. The town had been scoured for replacements. These, too, were failing.
In the metallurgical department hundreds of tests had been run on samples taken from frozen engines. The photomicrographs all showed a uniform peculiarity, which the scientists could not explain. Embedded in the crystalline structure of the metal were what appeared to be some kind of foreign, amorphous particles which were concentrated near the line of union of the two parts.
Berkeley and Pasadena confirmed these results with their own tests. There was almost unanimous belief that it was in no way connected with the comet. Ken stood almost alone in his dogged conviction that the Earth's presence in the tail of the comet could be responsible for the catastrophe.
Another theory that was gaining increasing acceptance was that this foreign substance was an unexpected by-product of the hydrogen and atomic bomb testing that had been going on for so many years. Ken was forced to admit the possibility of this, inasmuch as radiation products were scattered heavily now throughout the Earth's atmosphere. Both Russia and Britain had conducted extensive tests just before the breakdowns began occurring.
The members of the science club had been allowed to retain complete control of the air-sampling program. They washed the filters carefully at intervals and distilled the solvent to recover the precious residue of dust.
As the small quantity of this grew after another week of collecting, it was treated to remove the ordinary carbon particles and accumulated pollens. When this was done there was very little remaining, but that little something might be ordinary dust carried into the atmosphere from the surface of the Earth. Or it might be out of the tail of the comet. Dust from the stars.
By now, Ken and his companions had learned the use of the electron microscope and how to prepare specimens for it. When their samples of dust had become sufficient they prepared a dozen slides for photographing with the instrument.
As these were at last developed in the darkroom, Ken scanned them eagerly. Actually, he did not know what he was looking for. None of them did. The prints seemed to show little more than shapeless patches. In the light of the laboratory he called Joe Walton's attention to one picture. "Look," he said. "Ever see anything like that before?"
Joe started to shake his head. Then he gave an exclamation. "Hey, they look like the same particles found in the metals, which nobody has been able to identify yet!"
Ken nodded. "It could be. Maybe this will get us only a horselaugh for our trouble, but let's see what they think."
They went into the next laboratory and laid the prints before Ken's father and his associates. Ken knew at once, from the expressions on the men's faces, that they were not going to be laughed at.
"I think there may be something here," said Professor Maddox, trying to suppress his excitement. "It is very difficult to tell in a picture like this whether one particle is similar to any other, but their size and configuration are very much alike."
Professor Douglas grunted disdainfully. "Impossible!" With that dismissal, he moved away.
Professor Larsen looked more carefully. "You could scrape dust from a thousand different sources and get pictures like this from half of them perhaps. Only the chemical tests will show us the nature of this material. I am certain it is very worthwhile following up."
"I feel certain that whatever contaminating agent we are dealing with is airborne," said Professor Maddox. "If this is the same substance it will not tell us its origin, of course, nor will it even prove it is responsible for these effects. However it is a step in the right direction. We can certainly stand that!"
"Couldn't we tell by spectroscopic analysis?" said Ken.
"That would be difficult to say. The commonness of the elements involved might mask what you are looking for. Get John Vickers to help you set up equipment for making some comparisons."
Vickers was the teaching fellow in the chemistry department whom Professor Maddox had planned to assign to help the boys when they first suggested atmospheric analysis. He had become indispensable in the research since then. But he liked helping the boys; it was not too long since he had been at the same stage in his own career. He understood their longing to do something worthwhile, and their embarrassment at their ineptness.