The Year When Stardust Fell - free ebook by Raymond F. Jones

A Science Fiction Novel

[Transcriber note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]...

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To Laura Lee

Of Men of Science Chapter 1. The Comet Chapter 2. Breakdown Chapter 3. Power Failure Chapter 4. Disaster Spreads Chapter 5. Thief Chapter 6. The Scientist Chapter 7. Dust from the Stars Chapter 8. Attack Chapter 9. Judgment Chapter 10. Victory of the Dust Chapter 11. The Animals Are Sick Chapter 12. Decontamination Chapter 13. Stay Out of Town! Chapter 14. Mobilization Chapter 15. Battle Chapter 16. Black Victory Chapter 17. Balance of Nature Chapter 18. Witchcraft Chapter 19. Conquest of the Co

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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 assume the victory has been won. Nothing could be

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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 n

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Chapter 2.Breakdown

Ken Maddox could not remember a time when he had not wanted to become a scientist. Maybe it started when his father first invited him to look through a microscope. That was when he was a very small boy, but he could still remember the revelation of that experience. He remembered how it had seemed, on looking away from the lens, that the whole world of normal vision was only a fragment of that which was hidden behind curtains and shrouds and locked doors. Only men, like his father, with special i

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Chapter 3.Power Failure

The news broadcasts the following morning were less hysterical than previously. Because the news itself was far more serious, the announcers found it unnecessary to inject artificial notes of urgency. Ken listened to his bedside radio as he watched the first tint of dawn above the hills east of the valley. "The flurry of mechanical failures, which was reported yesterday, has reached alarming proportions," the announcer said. "During the past 24 hours garages in every section of the nation have b

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Chapter 4.Disaster Spreads

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 m

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Chapter 5.Thief

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, Profess

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Chapter 6.The Scientist

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,

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Chapter 7.Dust from the Stars

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,"

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Chapter 8.Attack

There are people who feed upon disaster and grow in their own particular direction as they would never have grown without it, as does the queen bee who becomes queen only because of the special food prepared by the workers for her private use. Such a man was Henry Maddox. He would not have admitted it, nor was he ever able to realize it, for it violated the very principles he had laid down for Ken. But for him, the comet was like a sudden burst of purpose in his life. He had taught well in his c

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Chapter 9.Judgment

There was snow. It covered the whole world beyond the hospital window. Its depth was frightening, and the walls seemed no barrier. It was as much inside as out, filling the room to the ceiling with a fluffy white that swirled and pulsed in waves before his eyes. Much later, when the pain softened and his vision cleared, he saw the only real snow was that piled outside almost to the level of the first-story windows. Within the room, the outline of familiar objects showed clearly. In half-recovere

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Chapter 10.Victory of the Dust

By the time Ken was through with the ordeal in court, Art Matthews had succeeded in building an engine from entirely new parts. He had it installed in an airtight room into which only filtered air could pass. This room, and another air filter, had been major projects in themselves. The science club members had done most of the work after their daily stint at the laboratory, while Art had scoured the town for parts that would fit together. At the end of the hearing Ken went to the garage. The eng

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Chapter 11.The Animals Are Sick

That night, Ken reported to his father the fate of the engine assembled by Art. "It did seem too good to be true," said Professor Maddox. He stretched wearily in the large chair by the feeble heat of the fireplace. "It bears out our observation of the affinity of the dust for metals." "How is that?" "It attaches itself almost like a horde of microscopic magnets. It literally burrows into the surface of the metal." "You don't mean that!" "I do. Its presence breaks down the surface tension, as we

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Chapter 12.Decontamination

By late November some drifts of snow on the flats were 3 feet deep. The temperature dropped regularly to ten or more below zero at night and seldom went above freezing in the daytime. The level of the log pile in the woodyard dropped steadily in spite of the concentrated efforts of nearly every available able-bodied man in the community to add to it. Crews cut all night long by the light of gasoline lanterns. The fuel ration had to be lowered to meet their rate of cutting. The deep snow hampered

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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 pronouncement the task was completed and the guards were at their posts. In all that time there had been no occasion

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Chapter 14.Mobilization

The two nomads stood glaring and snarling before the drawn revolvers that pointed at them from the doorways of the room. For an instant it looked as if they were going to draw their own weapons and make a pitched battle of it right there in the Council chamber. Then their glances fell on their comrade, writhing in pain on the floor. They raised their hands in slow surrender. "If we're not back by sundown, you'll be wiped out!" "When will the attack begin if you do go back?" asked Hilliard bitter

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Chapter 15.Battle

The hard-riding nomad cavalry bore down on the defense line. They did not break into a circling column as before, but began forming an advancing line. When they were 75 yards away, Sykes ordered his men to begin firing. The nomads were already shooting, and what their emissary had said was true: these men were expert shots, even from horseback. Sykes heard the bullets careening off the sloping face of the barricade. Two of his men were down already. He leveled his police pistol and fired steadil

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Chapter 16.Black Victory

The spearhead of the nomad infantry attack broke through between two lightly manned guard posts whose garrisons fled in retreat with a few ineffective shots. The column came through in a widening wedge. As it met more defenders it fell back, but it appeared to the nomads that the whole defense line had crumbled or had been diverted to the south, as anticipated. They poured along Main Street in the faint dawnlight until they reached 12th Avenue. There, they split and fanned along 12th, east and w

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Chapter 17.Balance of Nature

He lay between white sheets, and the stench of burning things was everywhere, in the air that he breathed, in the clean white covers that were over him. His own flesh seemed to smell of it. He was not quite sure if he were still in a world of dreams or if this were real. It was a golden world; the snow-covered ground beyond the window was gilded with rich, yellow light. He remembered something about such light that was not pleasant. He had forgotten just what it was. Maria Larsen stood at the fo

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Chapter 18.Witchcraft

Three days later, Mayor Hilliard died. It was on the same day that Maria's mother was buried. Maria had watched her mother day and night, losing strength and finally lapsing into a coma from which she never emerged. Maria and her father did their best to control their grief, to see it as only another part of the immense reservoir of grief all about them. When they were alone in their section of the house they gave way to the loss and the loneliness they felt. There were no burial services. The d

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Chapter 19.Conquest of the Comet

For the first time since the coming of the comet, Ken sensed defeat in his father. Professor Maddox seemed to believe at last that they were powerless before the invader out of space. He seemed like a runner who has used his last reserve of strength to reach a goal on which his eye has been fixed, only to discover the true goal is yet an immeasurable distance ahead. Professor Maddox had believed with all his heart and mind that they had hurdled the last obstacle with the construction of the pilo

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Chapter 20.Reconstruction

On the twentieth of January the comet reached its closest approach to Earth. It was then less than three million miles away. In the realm of the stars, this was virtually a collision, and if the head of the comet had been composed of anything more than highly rarefied gases it would have caused tremendous upheavals and tidal waves. There were none of these. Only the dust. Ken arose at dawn that day and went into the yard to watch the rising of the golden enemy a little before the sun came over t

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About the Author

At various times, Raymond F. Jones has lived in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, thereby enabling him to describe the mountain-west community, which is the scene of his newest science fiction book, with sureness and insight. He also has a rich scientific background, which includes training in the fields of radio operating, and electronic engineering, followed by meteorological work with the United States Weather Bureau. To this kaleidoscope of places and things, Mr. Jones has added a

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Other Winston Science Fiction Books

Ant Men, The by Eric North— Geologists find living fossils in the badlands of Central Australia Attack from Atlantis by Lester del Rey— An atomic submarine crew discovers the lost city of Atlantis Battle on Mercury by Erik Van Lhin— Sun storms sweep Mercury and threaten man's existence Danger: Dinosaurs! by Richard Marsten— A treacherous big-game hunter leads an expedition back to the Age of Reptiles Earthbound by Milton Lesser— An ex-space cadet is forced to plunder ships he was trained to prot

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