The Year When Stardust Fell Part 1

The Year When Stardust Fell.

by Raymond F. Jones.

_Of Men of Science_

The story of man is the story--endlessly repeated--of a struggle: between light and darkness, between knowledge and ignorance, between good and evil, between men who would build and men who would destroy. It is no more complicated than this.

That light, knowledge, good, and constructive men have had a small edge in this struggle is attested to by our slow rise over the long millennia of time. In taking stock of our successes, however, it is easy to a.s.sume the victory has been won. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a contest that is never ended, nor can it be, as long as men are upon the Earth.

While man has free choice, the elements of darkness, ignorance, evil and destruction are available for him to choose, and there are times when these seem the best alternatives.

At the end of the 18th century one of the greatest minds of all time was destroyed by one stroke of a guillotine blade. The judge who presided at the trial of the great French chemist Lavoisier is reported to have said, "The Republic has no need of men of science."

Choices like this have often been made by the society of man. A turnoff to darkness has been deliberately taken, superst.i.tion has been embraced while knowledge has been destroyed.

When times are placid we a.s.sume such choices could result only from some great insanity; that the men who made them had themselves known more pleasant days. The truth is that there are extremes of circ.u.mstance which could force almost any man to abandon that which he has always held to be right and good, and only the very giants could stand up and prove themselves unmoved.

Such giants may seem, in ordinary life, rather obscure. Ill.u.s.trating this are the people in this story: a somewhat pompous little mayor; a professor of chemistry in a small-town college in the mountain west; a minister of the gospel, who would be lost with a big-city congregation; a sheriff who doesn't care what happens to him personally as long as he sticks to the kind of rightness that has always worked; and a high-school boy who learns what it means to do a man's work.

Such people are important, the most important people alive today. They are the ones whose hands hold all that our culture has achieved when catastrophe overtakes us.

The illusion of security is a vicious one. With physical comforts around us, the abyss that is just beyond our walls is forgotten: the abyss of outer s.p.a.ce, beyond the paper-thin atmosphere shielding us; of the fires in the earth beneath; of the hurricane winds beyond the horizon; of the evil and insanity in the minds of many men.

The caveman dared not forget these abysses, nor the frontiersman, nor the scientist who fought the witch hunters to bring forth a new truth of Nature. But when we believe we are secure we do forget them.

In catastrophe, the most recent achievements of the race are the first to go. When war comes, or mobs attack, or hurricanes strike, our science and our arts are abandoned first. Necessity of survival seems to insist that we cannot fool with things of the mind and of the soul when destruction threatens the body. And so, "The Republic has no need of men of science."

Emergency can take any form. Here is a story in which the mechanical foundation of our culture is threatened. Whether the means of this threat, as I have pictured it, could possibly occur, I do not know. I know of no reason why it could not, if circ.u.mstances were right.

But more important, this is what happens to a small, college town caught up in such disaster. How quickly do its people dispense with their men of science and turn to superst.i.tion and mob rule for hope of survival?

It is perhaps not so apparent to those of us who have grown up with it, but we have witnessed in our own time, under threat of calamity, the decline of science before a blight of crash-priority engineering technology. Today, we hear it faintly whispered, "The Republic has no need of men of science."

Insofar as he represents the achievements of our race over the great reaches of time, the scientist will always be needed if we are to retain the foothold we have gained over Nature. The witch doctors and the fortunetellers clamor for his niche and will gladly extend their services if we wish to change our allegiance.

The story of THE YEAR WHEN STARDUST FELL is not a story of the distant future or of the remote past. It is not a story of a never-never land where fantastic happenings take place daily. It is a story of my town and yours, of people like you and me and the mayor in townhall, his sheriff on the corner, and the professor in the university--a story that happens no later than tomorrow.

R. F. J.

Chapter 1. _The Comet_

The comet was the only thing in the whole sky. All the stars were smothered by the light of its copper-yellow flame, and, although the sun had set two hours ago, the Earth was lit as with the glow of a thunderous dawn.

In Mayfield, Ken Maddox walked slowly along Main Street, avoiding collisions with other people whose eyes were fixed on the object in the sky. Ken had spent scores of hours observing the comet carefully, both by naked eye and with his 12-inch reflecting telescope. Still he could not keep from watching it as he picked his way along the street toward the post office.

The comet had been approaching Earth for months, growing steadily to bigger proportions in the sky, but tonight was a very special night, and Mayfield was watching with increased awe and half-dread--as were hundreds of thousands of other communities around the world.

Tonight, the Earth entered the comet's tail, and during the coming winter would be swept continuously by its million-mile spread.

There was no visible change. The astronomers had cautioned that none was to be expected. The Earth had pa.s.sed through the tails of comets before, although briefly, and none of the inhabitants had been physically aware of the event.

This time there was a difference. As intangible as a mere suspicion, it could yet be felt, and there was the expectancy of the unknown in the air.

Ken prided himself on a scientific att.i.tude, but it was hard not to share the feelings of those around him that something momentous and mysterious was taking place this night. There would be no quick pa.s.sage this time. Earth would lie within the tail for a period of over four months as they both made their way about the sun.

Such close-lying orbits had never occurred before in the known history of the world.

"It's frightening, isn't it?"

Ken was aware that he had stopped at the edge of a crowd in front of Billings Drugstore, and beside him Maria La.r.s.en was staring intently upward as she spoke.

She was a small, blonde girl with intense blue eyes. Ken smiled confidently and looked down at her. "No," he said. "It's a beautiful thing. It's a kind of miracle that we should be alive when it happened.

No human beings have ever seen such a sight before."

Maria shivered faintly. "I wish I could feel that way. Do you think it will get any bigger?"

"Yes. It will not reach its closest approach for over three months, yet.

Its approach is very slow so we won't notice much change."

"It is beautiful," Maria agreed slowly, "but, still, it's frightening.

I'll be glad when it's gone."

Ken laughed and tucked the girl's arm in his. There was something so disturbingly serious about the Swedish girl, who was spending a year in Mayfield with her parents. Her father, Dr. La.r.s.en, was a visiting professor of chemistry, engaged to teach this season at the State Agricultural College in Mayfield. Ken's own father was head of the chemistry department there.

"Come down to the post office with me to get some stamps," Ken said.

"Then I'll drive you home."

"It's closed. You can't get any stamps tonight."

"Maybe the boys in gray haven't been too busy watching the comet to stock the stamp machine. Look out!" He pulled her back quickly as she stepped from the curb. A wheezy car moved past, its driver completely intent on his observation of the comet.

"Old Dad Martin's been trying to wrap that thing around a pole for 25 years," Ken said unhappily. "It looks like he's going to make it tonight!"

Along the street, bystanders whistled at the aged driver, and pedestrians yelled at one another to get out of the way. The car's progress broke, for a moment, the sense of ominous concern that spread over Main Street.

At the post office, Ken found Maria's prediction was right. The stamp machine was empty.

"I have some at home," the girl said. "You're welcome to them."

"I need a lot. Mother's sending out some invitations."

"I'm sure I have enough. Papa says I'm supporting the postal department with all the letters I write to everyone at home in Sweden."