The Year When Stardust Fell

by Raymond F. Jones

  Chapter 3. _Power Failure_

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

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

  "Automobile breakdowns are not the most serious accidents that aretaking place. Other forms of machinery are also being affected. A cracktrain of the Southern Pacific came to a halt last night in the Arizonadesert. All efforts of the crew to repair the stalled engine werefruitless. A new one had to be brought up in order for the passengers tocontinue on their way early this morning.

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

  "Attempts have been made to find some authoritative comment on thesituation from scientists and Government officials. So far, no one hasbeen willing to commit himself to an opinion as to the cause of thisunexplained 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 rumorpersists that leading scientists are seriously considering thepossibility that the comet may actually have something to do with thebreakdowns."

  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 thisfantastic 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 knowthey had suffered no ordinary mechanical disorder. Something hadhappened to them that had never happened to engines before, as far as heknew. The crankshafts were immovable in their bearings. The pistons hadbeen frozen tight in the cylinders when they tried to remove some ofthem. Every moving part was welded to its mating piece as solidly as ifthe whole engine had been heated to the very edge of melting and thenallowed to cool.

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

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

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

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

  He glanced up and nodded a pleasant good morning as Ken approached. "Ihear 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 happeningaround town?"

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

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

  "No. I've been working on my new paper for the _Chemical Journal_ untilmidnight for the last week. What has the radio got to do with your workas a mechanic?"

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

  Professor Maddox looked as if he could scarcely believe Ken was notjoking. "That would certainly be a strange set of coincidences," he saidfinally, "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," helaughed 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, likesomething out of the dim past, when they blamed comets for corns, andbroken legs, and lost battles. Maybe this time it isn't so crazy whenyou stop to think about it, and it's absolutely the only new factorwhich could have some worldwide effect."

  "How could it have any effect at all--worldwide or otherwise?" ProfessorMaddox demanded.

  "The whole world is immersed in its tail."

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

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

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

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

  In detail, he described to his father the appearance of the engine partsthey had dismantled. "I brought home some samples of metal we cut fromthe engine blocks with a torch. Would you take them up to the laboratoryat 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 areintent on pursuing this thing, however, I'll tell you what I'll do. Youand your science club friends can come up and use the equipmentyourselves."

  "We don't know how!"

  "I'll arrange for one of the teaching fellows to show you how to preparemetallic 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 helpyou."

  Art Matthews was disappointed when Ken called and said none of thescience club members would be around that afternoon. He couldn't keepfrom 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. "Thepistons 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 andrunning 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 butinsistent belief that something ought to be done about the mounting pileof 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 withouthelp."

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

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

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

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

  In the street, some cars were lugging with great difficulty, but othersmoved swiftly along without any evidence of trouble. Ken wondered howther
e could be such a difference, and if some might prove immune, so tospeak, to the effect.

  He had called a meeting of the club in the chemistry laboratory for anhour before the first class. All of the members were there when hearrived.

  Ken called the meeting to order at once. "I guess you've all heard thenews broadcasts, and you know what's happening here in town," he said."Yesterday you talked about the possibility of collecting samples andanalyzing the material of the comet's tail. I don't know what youdecided. You can fill me in later on that. The problem is a lot moreimportant now than it was yesterday.

  "It's beginning to seem as if the presence of the comet may actually beresponsible for the wave of mechanical failures. Finding out how and whyis just about the biggest problem in the whole world right now."

  A babble of exclamations and protests arose immediately from the othermembers of the group. Al Miner and Dave Whitaker were on their feet. TedWatkins waved a hand and shouted, "Don't tell us you're swallowing thatsuperstitious junk!"

  Ken held up a hand. "One at a time. We haven't got all day, and there'sa lot of ground to cover. Ted, what's your comment?"

  "My comment is that anybody's got a screw loose if he believes thecomet's got anything to do with all those cars being in Art's garage.That stuff went out of fashion after the days of old Salem."

  Several of the others nodded vigorously as Ted spoke.

  "I guess we do need to bring some of you up to date on the backgroundmaterial," said Ken. "Joe, tell them what we found last night."

  Briefly, Joe Walton described the engines they had dismantled."Something had happened to them," he said, "which had never happened toan engine since Ford drove his first horseless carriage down MainStreet."

  "It doesn't mean anything!" exclaimed Ted. "No matter what it is, wehaven't any basis for tying it to the comet."

  "Can you name any other universal factor that could account for it?" Kenasked. "We have an effect that appears suddenly in Mayfield, Chicago,Paris, and Cairo. Some people say it's the additives in gasoline, butyou don't get them showing up simultaneously in all parts of the world.There is no other factor common to every locality where the mechanicalfailures have occurred, except the comet.

  "So I called this meeting to suggest that we expand our project beyondanything we previously had in mind. I suggest we try to determine theexact relationship between the breakdowns and the appearance of thecomet."

  Big Dave Whitaker, sitting at the edge of the room, rose slowly in hisseat. "You've got the cart before the horse," he said. "You've got anice theory all set up and you want us to beat our brains out trying toprove it. Now, take me. I've got a theory that little green men fromMars have landed and are being sucked into the air intake of theengines. Prove my theory first, why don't you?"

  Ken grinned good-naturedly. "I stand corrected, but I won't back downvery far. I won't suggest we try to prove the connection with the comet,but I do propose to set up some experiments to discover if there is anyrelationship. If there is, then what it is. Does that suit you?"

  "I'll go along with that. How do you propose to go about it?"

  "Let's find out where the rest stand," said Ken. "How about it, youguys?"

  "I'll go for it," said Ted, "as long as we aren't out to prove amedieval superstition."

  One by one, the others nodded agreement. Joe Walton said intensely,"We'll find out whether it's superstition or not! There's no otherpossible cause, and we'll prove it before we're through."

  Ken smiled and waved him down. "We're working on a hypothesis only.Anyway, here's what I have to suggest by way of procedure: Since thetail of the comet is so rarefied, there aren't many molecules of it inthe atmosphere of this entire valley. I don't know just what themathematical chances of getting a measurable sample are. Maybe you canwork out some figures on it, Dave. We'll have to handle an enormousvolume of air, so let's get a blower as large as we can get our hands onand funnel the air through some electrically charged filters. We canwash down these filters with a solvent of some kind periodically anddistill whatever has collected on them."

  "You won't get enough to fill the left eye of a virus suffering fromarrested development," said Ted.

  "We'll find out when we get set up," said Ken. "My father has agreed togive us access to the electron microscope at the college. Maybe we canuse their new mass spectrograph to help analyze whatever we collect."

  "If we knew how to use a mass spectrograph," said Ted.

  "He's offered to let one of the teaching fellows help us."

  "What will all this prove, even if we do find something?" Dave asked."You'll get all kinds of lines from a spectrogram of atmospheric dust.So what?"

  "If we should get some lines that we can't identify, and if we shouldget those same lines from metallic specimens taken from the disabledengines, we would have evidence of the presence of a new factor. Then wecould proceed with a determination of what effect, if any, this factorhas on the engines."

  Ken looked around the group once more. "Any comments, suggestions,arguments? There being none, we'll consider the project approved, andget to work this afternoon."

  As they left to go to their first classes, Ted shook his head gloomily."Man, you don't know what you're biting off! All we've done so far isbuild a few ham radios, a telescope, and some Geiger counters. You'retalking about precision work now, and I mean _pree_-cision!"

  Throughout the day Ken, too, felt increasing doubts about their abilityto carry off the project. It would be a task of tremendous delicacy toanalyze such microscopic samples as they might succeed in obtaining.Microchemical methods would be necessary, and none of them had had anyexperience in that field. His father was an expert with these methodsand though he might scold them for tackling such a difficult project,he'd help them, Ken thought. He always had.

  This was no ordinary project, however. Ken had no idea how seriouslyscientists in general were considering the comet as the offender, butcertainly they must be working frantically on the problem of themechanical disorder. Unless they found another cause very soon, theywere certain to turn to an analysis of the comet's tail. It would bevery satisfying if Ken's group could actually be in the vanguard of sucha development.

  He tried to ridicule his own conviction that the comet held the key. Hehad no reason whatever for such a belief, except the fact of the comet'suniversal presence. How it could stop an automobile engine or a railroadtrain was beyond his wildest imaginings.

  But there was nothing else. Nothing at all.

  On the way home after school, there seemed to Ken to be a subtle changethat had come over the valley since morning. Along the streets, carswere parked in front of houses to which they did not belong. Littleknots of people were standing about, talking in hushed tones. The cometwas aflame in the sky.

  There seemed to be not merely an awe and an uneasiness in the people,but a genuine fear that Ken could not help absorbing as he moved pastthem on the sidewalks. Their faces were yellow and flat under the glareof the comet, and they looked at him and at each other as if they werestrangers in an alien land.

  Almost without being aware of it, Ken found himself running the lasthalf-block before he reached his own home. He burst in the door andcalled out with forced cheeriness, "Hi, Mom, what's cooking? I'mstarved. The whole gang's coming over in a few minutes. I hope you'vegot something for them."

  His mother came out of the kitchen, her face gray with uncertainty."You'll have to do with sandwiches this afternoon," she said. "I haven'tbeen able to use the electric stove since noon."

  Ken stared at her.

  "There's something about the power," she went on. "We haven't anylights, either. They say the power station at Collin's Dam went out ofcommission this morning. They don't know when they'll be able to get itback on."