shouted, "Don't tell us you're swallowing that superstitious junk!"

Ken held up a hand. "One at a time. We haven't got all day, and there's a lot of ground to cover. Ted, what's your comment?"

"My comment is that anybody's got a screw loose if he believes the comet's got anything to do with all those cars being in Art's garage. That stuff went out of fashion after the days of old Salem."

Several of the others nodded vigorously as Ted spoke.

"I guess we do need to bring some of you up to date on the background material," said Ken. "Joe, tell them what we found last night."

Briefly, Joe Walton described the engines they had dismantled. "Something had happened to them," he said, "which had never happened to an engine since Ford drove his first horseless carriage down Main Street."

"It doesn't mean anything!" exclaimed Ted. "No matter what it is, we haven't any basis for tying it to the comet."

"Can you name any other universal factor that could account for it?" Ken asked. "We have an effect that appears suddenly in Mayfield, Chicago, Paris, and Cairo. Some people say it's the additives in gasoline, but you don't get them showing up simultaneously in all parts of the world. There is no other factor common to every locality where the mechanical failures have occurred, except the comet.

"So I called this meeting to suggest that we expand our project beyond anything we previously had in mind. I suggest we try to determine the exact relationship between the breakdowns and the appearance of the comet."

Big Dave Whitaker, sitting at the edge of the room, rose slowly in his seat. "You've got the cart before the horse," he said. "You've got a nice theory all set up and you want us to beat our brains out trying to prove it. Now, take me. I've got a theory that little green men from Mars have landed and are being sucked into the air intake of the engines. Prove my theory first, why don't you?"Ken grinned good-naturedly. "I stand corrected, but I won't back down very far. I won't suggest we try to prove the connection with the comet, but I do propose to set up some experiments to discover if there is any relationship. If there is, then what it is. Does that suit you?"

"I'll go along with that. How do you propose to go about it?"

"Let's find 

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