Unwillingly, Sheriff Johnson turned and left him. The sounds of the two horses echoed loudly in the deserted street. Professor Maddox felt a burst of anger at their abandonment of him, but he supposed the Sheriff was doing what he had to do. He recognized that it was foolhardy to be afoot in the deserted town this time of night. Without a single clue to Ken's whereabouts, what could he hope to accomplish? He strode on along the sidewalk in the direction the policeman had disappeared. It was as good a direction as any. After he had gone a block he stumbled in the darkness. Some soft, resilient object lay across the sidewalk before Billings Drugstore. In anger at the obstacle, Professor Maddox caught himself and moved on. A sound stopped him. A groan of agony came from the object upon which he had 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 the sidewalk. He turned the body gently until he could see the face. It was Ken. He didn't know how long he knelt there inspecting the motionless features of his son. He was aware only of running frantically in the direction of the warehouse. He found Johnson. He clutched the Sheriff's arm. "They've killed him!" he cried. "I found Ken and they've killed him!" Johnson turned to the nearest officer. "Ride for Dr. Adams. Dudly, get that horse and wagon that's at Whitaker's place. Where did you say you found 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 to take 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 remember all his life as the most wonderful sound in the world. "Dad...." Ken's lips moved with the word. "Dad...." His voice was a plea for help. 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-recovered consciousness he wondered impersonally about the dying pain in his head and how he came to be where he was. He could remember only about a strange thing in the sky, and a great fear. Then it burst upon him in full recollection--the comet, the dust, the laboratory. They had proved the dust that was in the comet's tail had accumulated in the metal surfaces of the failed engines. What more did they need to prove the comet's responsibility?