ss the street, his neighbor, Mr. Wilkins, approached with a
grin. "Looks like the same thing hit us both. Mine started boiling as I
came up the hill tonight. It's got me stumped."

"The circulation must be clogged," said Ken. "Either that or the timing
has slipped off. That's all it could be."

"Those were my ideas, too. Both wrong in my case. Let me know if you get
any other bright ones." He moved off with a pleasant wave of his hand.

"It will cool," said Ken to Maria. "By the time you're ready to leave
I'll be able to drive you home."

"I wouldn't want you to damage your car. I can walk."

"We'll see."

He led her around the house. In the center of the backyard loomed the
high, round dome of his amateur observatory. It was Ken's personal
pride, as well as that of the members of the Mayfield High Science Club,
who had helped build the shell and the mountings. The club used it every
Thursday night when the seeing was good.

Ken had ground the precision mirror alone. He had ground his first one,
a 4-inch glass, when he was a Boy Scout. Three years later he had
tackled the tremendous job of producing a 12-inch one. Professor Douglas
of the physics department at the college had pronounced it perfect.

Ken opened the door and switched on the light inside the dome. "Don't
mind the mess," he said. "I've been taking photographs of the comet for
the last month."

To Maria, who was used to the clutter of a laboratory, there was no
mess. She admired the beauty of the instrument Ken and his friends had
built. "Our university telescope isn't any better," she said.

"You can't tell by the plumbing," Ken laughed. "Better take a look at
the image before you pass judgment."

Skilfully, he swung the long tube around to the direction of the comet.
With the fine controls he centered the cross hairs of the eyepiece on
the blazing object in the sky.

"It's moving too fast to stay in range very long," he said.

Maria stepped to the observer's position. She gasped suddenly at the
image of the fiery monster hovering in the sky. Viewing the comet along
the axis of the tail, as the Earth lay at the edge of it, an observer's
vision was like that of a miniature, flaming sun with an offcenter halo
of pulsing, golden light.

To Maria, the comet seemed like something living. Slow, almost
imperceptible ripples in the glowing scarves of light made them sway as
if before some mighty, cosmic wind in space.

"It's beautiful," Maria murm