The Year When Stardust Fell Read online

  Chapter 8. _Attack_

  There are people who feed upon disaster and grow in their own particulardirection as they would never have grown without it, as does the queenbee who becomes queen only because of the special food prepared by theworkers for her private use.

  Such a man was Henry Maddox. He would not have admitted it, nor was heever able to realize it, for it violated the very principles he had laiddown for Ken. But for him, the comet was like a sudden burst of purposein his life. He had taught well in his career as professor of chemistryat the State Agricultural College at Mayfield, but it had become fairlymechanical. He was vaguely aware of straining at the chains of routinefrom time to time, but he had always forced himself through sheerexercise of will to attend to his duties. There was never time, however,for any of the research he used to tell himself, in his younger days, hewas going to do.

  With the sudden thrusting aside of all customary duties, and with theimpact of catastrophe demanding a solution to a research problem, hecame alive without knowing what was happening. Yet without the imminenceof disaster he would not have found the strength to drive himself so.This was what he could not admit to himself.

  Another who was nourished was Granny Wicks. She should have been deadyears ago. She had admitted this to herself and to anyone else who wouldlisten, but now she knew why she had been kept alive so long past hertime. She had been waiting for the comet.

  Its energy seemed to flow from the sky into her withered, bony frame,and she drank of its substance until time seemed to reverse itself inher obsolete body. All her life she had been waiting for this time. Sheknew it now. She was spared to tell the people why the comet had come.Although her purpose was diametrically opposed to that of Henry Maddox,she also fed and grew to her full stature after almost a century ofexistence.

  Frank Meggs was surely another. He was born in Mayfield and had livedthere all his life and he hated every minute of time and every personand every event that told of his wasted life here. He hated CollegeHill, for he had never been able to go there. His family had been toopoor, and he had been forced to take over his father's store when hisfather died.

  He had once dreamed of becoming a great businessman and owning a chainof stores that would stretch from coast to coast, but circumstances, forwhich he blamed the whole of Mayfield, had never permitted him to leavethe town. His panic sale had been his final, explosive hope that hemight be able to make it. Now, he, too, found himself growing in his ownspecial direction as he fed upon the disaster. He did not know just whatthat direction was or to where it led, but he felt the growth. He feltthe secret pleasure of contemplating the discomfort and the privationthat lay ahead for his fellow citizens in the coming months.

  While personal fear forced him to the conclusion that the disaster wouldbe of short duration, the pleasure was nevertheless real. It wasespecially intense when he thought of College Hill and its inhabitantsin scenes of dark dismay as they wrestled in vain to understand what hadhappened to the world.

  There were others who fed upon the disaster. For the most part theyfound it an interruption to be met with courage, with faith, withwhatever strength was inherent in them.

  It was not a time of growth, however, for Reverend Aylesworth. It wasthe kind of thing for which he had been preparing all his life. Now hewould test and verify the stature he had already gained.

  * * * * *

  On the night they verified the presence of the comet dust in thedisabled engines, Ken was the last to leave the laboratory. It was nearmidnight when he got away.

  His father had left much earlier, urging him to come along, but Ken hadbeen unable to pull himself away from the examination and measurement ofthe spectrum of lines that bared the comet's secret. He had begun tounderstand the pleasure his father had spoken of, the pleasure of beingconsumed utterly by a problem important in its own right.

  As he left the campus there was no moon in the sky. The comet was gone,and the stars seemed new in a glory he had not seen for many nights. Hefelt that he wouldn't be able to sleep even when he got home, and hecontinued walking for several blocks, in the direction of town.

  He came abreast, finally, of the former Rainbow Skating Rink, which hadbeen converted into a food warehouse. In the darkness, he saw a sudden,swift movement against the wall of the building. His night vision wassharp after the long walk; he saw what was going on.

  The broad doors of the rink had been broken open. There were three orfour men lifting sacks and boxes and barrels stealthily into a wagon.

  Even as he started toward them he realized his own foolishness andpulled back. A horse whinnied softly. He turned to run in the directionof Sheriff Johnson's house, and behind him came a sudden, hoarse cry ofalarm.

  Horses' hoofs rattled frighteningly loud on the cement. Ken realized hestood no chance of escaping if he were seen. He dodged for an instantinto a narrow space between two buildings with the thought of reachingan alley at the back. However, it was boarded at the end and he saw thathe would have to scale the fence. A desperate horseman would ride himdown in the narrow space.

  He fled on and reached the shadows in front of the drugstore. He pressedhimself as flat as possible in the recess of the doorway, hoping hispursuer would race by. But his fleeing shadow had been seen.

  The rider whirled and reined the horse to a furious stop. The animal'sfront legs pawed the air in front of Ken's face. Then Ken saw there wassomething familiar about the figure. He peered closer as the horsemanwhirled again.

  "Jed," he called softly. "Jed Tucker--"

  The figure answered harshly, "Yeah. Yeah, that's me, and you're--you'reKen. I'm sorry it had to be you. Why did you have to come by here atthis time of night?"

  Ken heard the sound of running feet in the distance as others came tojoin Jed Tucker. Jed had not dismounted, but held Ken prisoner in therecess with the rearing, impatient horse.

  Ken wondered how Jed Tucker could be mixed up in a thing like this. Hisfather was president of the bank and owned one of the best homes inMayfield. Jed and Ken had played football on the first team togetherlast year.

  "Jed," Ken said quickly, "give it up! Don't go through with this!"

  "Shut up!" Jed snarled. He reined the horse nearer, threatening Ken withthe thrashing front legs.

  When Jed's companions arrived, Jed dismounted from the horse.

  "Who is it?" a panting voice asked.

  A cold panic shot through Ken. He recognized the voice. It was that ofMr. Tucker himself. The bank official was taking part in the looting ofthe warehouse.

  The third man, Ken recognized in rising horror, was Mr. Allen, anext-door neighbor of the Tuckers. He was the town's foremost attorney,and one of its most prominent citizens.

  "We can't let him go," Allen was saying. "Whoever he is, we've got toget him out of the way."

  Mr. Tucker came closer. He gasped in dismay. "It's young Maddox," hesaid. "You! What are you doing out this time of night?"

  Under any other conditions, the question would have seemed humorous,coming from whom it did now. But Ken felt no humor; he sensed thedesperate fury in these men.

  "Give it up," he repeated quietly. "The lives of fifteen thousand peopledepend on this food supply. You have no right to steal an ounce thatdoesn't belong to you. I'll never tell what I've seen."

  Tucker shook his head in a dazed, uncomprehending manner, as if theproposition were too fantastic to be considered. "We can't do that," hesaid.

  "We can't let him go!" Allen repeated.

  "You can't expect us to risk murder!"

  "There'll be plenty of that before this winter's over!"

  "Our lives depend on this food, you know that," Tucker said desperatelyto Ken. "You take your share, and we'll all be in this together. Then weknow we'll be safe."

  Ken considered, his panic increasing. To refuse might mean his life. Ifhe could pretend to fall in with them....

  "You can't trust him!" Allen raged. "No one is going to be in on thisexcept us
."

  Suddenly the lawyer stepped near, his hand raised high in the air.Before Ken sensed his intention, a heavy club smashed against his head.His body fell in a crumpled heap on the sidewalk.

  * * * * *

  It was after 2 a.m. when Professor Maddox awoke with the sensation thatsomething was vaguely wrong. He sat up in bed and looked out the windowat the starlit sky. He remembered he had left Ken at the university andhad not yet heard him come in.

  Quietly he arose from the bed and tiptoed along the hallway to Ken'sroom. He used the beam of a precious flashlight for a moment to scan theundisturbed bed. Panic started inside him and was fought down.

  Probably Ken had found something interesting to keep him from noticingthe alarm clock on a shelf in the laboratory. Perhaps someone had evenforgotten to wind the clock and it had run down.

  Perhaps, even, the bearings of its balance wheel had finally becomefrozen and had brought it to a stop!

  Mrs. Maddox was behind him as he turned from the door. "What's wrong?"she asked.

  He flashed the light on the bed again. "I'd better go up to thelaboratory and have a look," he said.

  Ken's mother nodded. She sensed her husband's worry, and wanted not toadd to it. "Take Ken's bicycle," she said. "It will be quicker, even ifyou have to walk it uphill. I'll have some hot chocolate for you whenyou come back."

  Professor Maddox dressed hurriedly and took the bicycle from the garage.He did have to wheel it most of the way up the hill, but it would beeasier coming down anyway, he thought. He wondered how much longer thebearings in it would hold up without freezing.

  As he came within view of the laboratory building he saw that thewindows were utterly dark. He knew that even with the shades down hewould have been able to see some glow of the oil lamps which they used,provided Ken were still there.

  He waited a full 10 minutes against the chance that Ken had put out thelamps and was on his way out. Then he knew Ken had gone long ago. Heought to call the Sheriff and have the police cars search for him, butthere were no phones and no cars.

  He mounted the bicycle in fresh panic and rode recklessly down the hillto town. At Sheriff Johnson's house he pounded frantically on the dooruntil the Sheriff shouted angrily through an open window, "Who is it?"

  "It's Dr. Maddox. You've got to help me, Johnson. Ken's disappeared." Hewent into details, and the Sheriff grunted, holding back his irritationat being disturbed, because of his long friendship with Henry Maddox.

  "I guess I should have gone down to the station," said Professor Maddox,realizing what he had done. "I had forgotten there would be men onduty."

  "It's all right. I'll come with you."

  The Sheriff's car had broken down days before. He kept a horse for hisown official use. "You can ride behind me," he said. "Sally's a prettydecent gal. You get up there on the porch railing and climb on rightbehind me."

  Professor Maddox maneuvered himself behind the Sheriff on the horse,balancing unsteadily as Sally shied away. "Where do you think Ken couldhave gone?" asked Johnson. "Don't you suppose he's over at one of hisfriend's?"

  "He wouldn't do a thing like that without letting us know."

  "He went up the canyon with the wood detail 2 or 3 weeks ago."

  "I know--but that was different. Aren't there any policemen on thestreets now? What happened to the ones who used to patrol in the radiocars?"

  "They're walking their beats, most of them. Two are mounted in eachdistrict. We'll stop by the station, and then try to find the mountedofficers. It's the only thing we can do."

  They moved down the dark, empty streets. It seemed as if there never hadbeen any life flowing along them, and never would be again. They passedthe station, lit by a smoking oil lamp, and left word of Ken'sdisappearance, and moved on. They came to the edge of the businesssection, where street lamps used to shine. This area was even moreghostly than the rest, but policemen patrolled it, perhaps out of habitand a conviction that failure to do so would admit the end of all thatwas familiar and right.

  As they rode on, the clatter of other hoofbeats on the cement soundedbehind them. Johnson turned and halted. A flashlight shone in theirfaces. It was Officer Dan Morris, who identified himself by turning thelight on his own face.

  "The warehouse has been broken into," he said. "Over at the skatingrink. Somebody has busted in and made off with a lot of food."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "You others meet us there," he called.

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

  They dismounted and Johnson knelt and touched the boy tenderly.

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

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