The Year When Stardust Fell Part 22

Professor La.r.s.en went back to the laboratory with the Maddoxes.

Throughout the night they reviewed the work of Dr. French. To Ken it seemed that they were using material out of the past, since all of those responsible for it were probably dead.

"We'll have to fill in these missing steps," said Professor Maddox. "We know what he started with and we know the end results at which he was aiming. I think we can fill the gaps."

"I agree," said Professor La.r.s.en. "I think we should not neglect to pa.s.s this to our people in Stockholm. You will see that is done?" he asked Ken.

"Our next schedule in that area is day after tomorrow. Or I could get it to them on the emergency watch tomorrow afternoon."

"Use emergency measures. I think it is of utmost importance that they have this quickly."

As the days pa.s.sed, strangers were appearing more and more frequently in Mayfield. Ken saw them on the streets as he went to the warehouse for his family's food ration. He did not know everyone who lived in the valley, of course, but he was sure some of the people he was meeting now were total strangers, and there seemed so many of them.

He had heard stories of how some of them had come, one by one, or in small groups of a family or two. They had made their way from cities to the north or the south, along the highway that pa.s.sed through the valley. They had come in rags, half-starved, out of the blizzards to the unexpected sanctuary of a town that still retained a vestige of civilization.

Unexpectedly, Ken found this very subject was being discussed in the ration lines when he reached the warehouse. People had in their hands copies of the twice-weekly mimeographed newssheet put out by the Council. Across the top in capital letters was the word: PROCLAMATION.

Ken borrowed a sheet and read, "According to the latest count we've made through the ration roll, there are now present in Mayfield almost three thousand people who are refugees from other areas and have come in since the beginning of the disaster.

"As great as our humanitarian feelings are, and although we should like to be able to relieve the suffering of the whole world, if it were in our power to do so, it is obviously impossible. Our food supplies are at mere subsistence level now. Before next season's crops are in, it may be necessary to reduce them still further.

"In view of this fact, the Mayor and the City Council have determined to issue a proclamation as of this date that every citizen of Mayfield will be registered and numbered and no rations will be issued except by proper identification and number. It is hereby ordered that no one hereafter shall permit the entrance of any stranger who was not a resident of Mayfield prior to this date.

"A barbed-wire inclosure is to be constructed around the entire residential and business district, and armed guards will be posted against all refugees who may attempt to enter. Crews will be a.s.signed to the erection of the fence, and guard duty will be rotated among the male citizens."

Ken pa.s.sed the sheet back to his neighbor. His mind felt numb as he thought of some of those he had seen shuffling through the deep snow in town. He knew now how he had known they were strangers. Their pinched, haunted faces showed the evidence of more privation and hardship than any in Mayfield had yet known. These were the ones who would be turned away from now on.

Ken heard the angry buzz of comments all around him. "Should have done it long ago," a plump woman somewhere behind him was saying. "What right have they got to come in and eat our food?"

A man at the head of the line was saying, "They ought to round them all up and make them move on. Three thousand--that would keep the people who've got a right here going a long time."

Someone else, not quite so angry, said, "They're people just like us.

You know what the Bible says about that. We ought to share as long as we can."

"Yeah, and pretty soon there won't be anything for anybody to share!"

"That may be true, but it's what we're supposed to do. It's what we've _got_ to do if we're going to stay human. I'll take anybody into my house who knocks on my door."

"When you see your kids crying for food you can't give them you'll change your tune!"

Just ahead of him in line Ken saw a small, silent woman who looked about with darting glances of fear. She was trembling with fright as much as with the cold that penetrated her thin, ragged, cloth coat.

She was one of them, Ken thought. She was one who had come from the outside. He wondered which of the loud-mouthed ones beside him would be willing to be the first to take her beyond the bounds of Mayfield and force her to move on.

That night, at dinner, he spoke of it to his parents and the La.r.s.ens.

"It's a problem that has to be faced," said Professor Maddox, "and Hilliard is choosing the solution he thinks is right. He's no more heartless than Dr. Aylesworth, for example."

"It seems a horrible thing," said Mrs. La.r.s.en. "What will happen to those who are turned away?"

"They will die," said Dr. La.r.s.en. "They will go away and wander in the snow until they die."

"Why should we have any more right to live than they?" asked Mrs.

Maddox. "How can we go on eating and being comfortable while they are out there?"

"_They_ are out there in the whole world," said Dr. La.r.s.en as if meditating. "There must be thirty million who have died in the United States alone since this began. Another hundred million will die this winter. The proportion will be the same in the rest of the world. Should we be thankful for our preservation so far, or should we voluntarily join them in death?"

"This is different," said Mrs. Maddox. "It's those who come and beg for our help who will be on our consciences if we do this thing."

"The whole world would come if it knew we had stores of food here--if it could come. As brutal as it is, the Mayor has taken the only feasible course open to him."

Ken and Maria remained silent, both feeling the horror of the proposal and its inevitability.

In the following days Ken was especially glad to be able to bury himself in the problems at the laboratory. His father, too, seemed to work with increasing fury as they got further into an investigation of the material originated by Dr. French. As if seized by some fanatic compulsion, unable to stop, Professor Maddox spent from 18 to 20 hours of every day at his desk and laboratory bench.

Ken stayed with him although he could not match his father's great energy. He often caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of sleep while his father worked on.

Then, one morning, as an especially long series of complex tests came to an end at 3 a.m., he said to Ken in quiet exultation, "We can decontaminate now, if nothing else. That's the thing that French had found. Whether we can ever put it into the atmosphere is another matter, but at least we can get our metals clean."

Excited, Ken leaned over the notebook while his father described the results of the reaction. He studied the photographs, taken with the electron microscope, of a piece of steel before and after treatment with a compound developed by his father.

Ken said slowly, in a voice full of emotion. "French didn't do this, Dad."

"Most of it. I finished it up from where he left off."

"No. He wasn't even on the same track. You've gone in an entirely different direction from the one his research led to. _You_ are the one who has developed a means of cleaning the dust out of metals."

Professor Maddox looked away. "You give me too much credit, Son."

Ken continued to look at his father, at the thick notebook whose scrawled symbols told the story. So this is the way it happens, he thought. You don't set out to be a great scientist at all. If you can put all other things out of your mind, if you can be absorbed with your whole mind and soul in a problem that seems important enough, even though the world is collapsing about your head; then, if you are clever enough and persevering enough, you may find yourself a great scientist without ever having tried.

"I don't think I'll ever be what the world calls a great scientist,"

Professor Maddox had said on that day that seemed so long ago. "I'm not clever enough; I don't think fast enough. I can teach the fundamentals of chemistry, and maybe some of those I teach will be great someday."

So he had gone along, Ken thought, and by applying his own rules he had achieved greatness. "I think you give me far too much credit, Son," he said in a tired voice.

Chapter 13. _Stay Out of Town!_

It took a surprisingly short time to ring Mayfield with a barbed-wire barricade. A large stock of steel fence posts was on hand in the local farm supply stores, and these could be driven rapidly even in the frozen ground. There was plenty of wire. What more was needed, both of wire and posts, was taken from adjacent farmland fences, and by the end of the week following the Mayor's p.r.o.nouncement the task was completed and the guards were at their posts.

In all that time there had been no occasion to turn anyone away, but sentiment both for and against the program was heavy and bitter within the community.

On the Sunday after completion of the fence, Dr. Aylesworth chose to speak of it in his sermon. He had advertised that he would do so. The church was not only packed, but large numbers of people stood outside in the freezing weather listening through the doors. Even greater excitement was stirred by the whispered information that Mayor Hilliard was sitting in the center of the congregation.