Lucifer's Hammer

It was easy to see what Maureen meant to George Christopher. What did he mean to her? For that matter, what does Harvey Randall mean to Maureen Jellison?

I think I’m falling in love, Harvey whistled to himself. Only… I don’t know what it’s like. Being a faithful — well, very nearly faithful — married man for eighteen years is not much preparation for romance.

Or maybe it is. He had always thought that any two people sufficiently determined to make a go of it would be able to. Now he wondered. What is this love business? He’d have been willing to die for Loretta — but he hadn’t been willing to stay home because she was afraid. He could face that now, but he wasn’t sure what it meant.

Finally it was afternoon, time to start making camp. He let his eyes search the woods around him as he hiked. He felt very alone and vulnerable. Time was, when you went far from trailhead you could count on meeting good people; but that was before Hammerfall. Some would-be robbers had come down from these hills not two days before, and they or others like them could be waiting in ambush anywhere. So far, though, he hadn’t seen anyone, and that was fine with Harvey.

The road led through pine forest, steep hillsides, and there was standing water anyplace level. It wouldn’t be easy to find a good campsite in this rain. A boulder cave, like the one they’d made the sentry shelter out of, would be best. He’d have to be damned careful, though; something or somebody would be making use of any dry spot he could find. Bears, snakes, anything.

There was a skunk in the first place they looked. Harvey passed it by with regret. It would have been a good campsite, two boulders tilted against each other, actually dry ground in there; but the beady eyes and unmistakable odor were invincible. Skunks could carry rabies, too. A skunk bite could be the most dangerous thing up here. There weren’t going to be any Pasteur treatments for rabies, not for a long time…

The next cave held a fox, or perhaps a feral dog. They chased it away. The area under the boulders wasn’t dry, and wasn’t really large enough, but they were able to rig up their ponchos on cut branches so that at least they didn’t have water pouring on their heads.

Now for a fire. Harvey spent the rest of the daylight gathering wood. There was standing deadwood, soaked, but if he split it there was some dry wood at the core. There wasn’t enough for more than an hour of fire, maybe longer if they were careful. When it was completely dark Harvey used some of his precious lighter fluid.

“Wish I had a railroad flare,” Harvey said. He poured lighter fluid carefully onto the base of his tiny stack of dry wood. “You can start a fire in a blizzard with a flare.”

“Fucking Hardy wouldn’t give you one,” Mark said.

“You’d better be careful around him,” Harvey said. He lit a match. The lighter fluid caught, and the fire blinded them for a moment. The wood caught, and even that tiny bit of heat was welcome. “He doesn’t like you.”

“I don’t think he likes anybody,” Mark said. He began to arrange larger pieces of wood near the fire so they’d dry out. “Always smiling, but he doesn’t mean it.” Harvey nodded. Hardy’s smile hadn’t change from before Hammerfall. He was still the politician’s assistant, the man who was friendly with everyone, but now his smile was a threat, not something warm and friendly.

“Jesus,” Mark said.

“Eh?”

“Just thinking about those poor bastards,” Mark said. “Harv, it gave me the willies.”

“Don’t think about it.”

“I had to pull on the rope,” Mark said. “I won’t forget it.”

“Yeah.” There had been four frightened kids in the Roman place. Two boys and two girls, none of them more than twenty. Two were wounded in the fight, when Hardy and Christopher captured them. Then there’d been a shouting match between Hardy and Christopher. George Christopher wanted to shoot all four of them on the spot. Al Hardy argued they ought to be taken back to town. Harvey and Mark had sided with Hardy, and eventually Christopher gave in.

Only, when they got them to town, the Senator and the Mayor held a trial the same afternoon, and by evening all four were hanging in front of the City Hall. George Christopher’s way would have been kinder.

“They killed the Romans and that other chap, the guy from Muchos Nombres,” Harvey said. “What else could we have done with them?”

“Hell, they got what was coming,” Mark said. “It was just all so fucking quick. And the way those girls screamed and cried…” Mark fed the fire again, brooding.

The executions had shocked a number of the townspeople, Harvey thought. But nobody said anything. The Romans had been their friends. Besides, it could be dangerous to argue. Behind Al Hardy’s smiles and perpetual calm and easy ma

They were almost at the top, the highest point the road would reach, when it was time to make camp on their third day. The rain hadn’t let up, and the higher they climbed, the colder it got. They’d need a fire tonight, which meant that they’d have to take turns tending it.

Harvey was carefully laying out his sticks, and hadn’t yet reached into his pockets for the lighter fluid, when they smelled it.

“Smoke,” Mark said. “A campfire.”

“Yes. Well hidden,” Harvey said.

“It’s got to be close. We’d never smell it from far, not in this rain.”

They probably wouldn’t see it, either. Harvey sat absolutely still, motioning Mark for silence. There was a strong wind blowing from higher up. It had to be carrying the campfire smells. The rain was like a wet curtain, and in the dying light they couldn’t see more than a few yards.

“Let’s go look,” Mark said.

“Yeah. We’ll leave the ponchos. We can’t get any wetter than we are already.”

They moved cautiously uphill, up the road, peering into the gloom.

“Over there,” Mark whispered. “I heard something. A voice.”

Harvey thought he’d heard it too, but it was very faint. They moved in that direction. There wasn’t any point in trying to be quiet. The wind and rain covered most sounds, and their feet squished in the wet leaves and mud of the forest floor.

“Just hold it.”

They stopped dead still. The voice had been a girl’s. Not very old, Harvey thought. She was very close, probably hidden in a thicket just ahead.

“Andy,” she called. “Two visitors.”

“Coming.”

Harvey stood rigid for a moment. It was… “Andy!” he shouted. “Andy, is that you?”

“Yes, sir.” His son came down the trail.

Harvey rushed forward to greet him. “Andy, thank God, you’re all right—”

“Yes, sir. I’m fine. Is Mother… ?”

Harvey felt it clutch him, the memory lying across his soul, the pathetic bundle in the electric blanket. “Raiders,” Harvey said. “Looters killed your mother.”

“Oh.” Andy moved away from his father. A girl came out of the thicket. She held a shotgun. Andy went to her and they stood together. Together.

The boy’s grown up in two weeks, Harvey thought. He saw the way he stood with the girl. Protectively, and very naturally, and it reminded him of the words in the marriage ceremony: “One flesh.” They stood that way, two halves of one person, but so very young. There were wisps of thin hair on Andy’s chin. Not a real beard, just the stubble that Loretta had made him shave because it looked bad, although it was nearly invisible…

“Is Mr. Vance here?” Harvey asked.

“Sure. Come on this way,” Andy said. He turned, and the girl went back to her thicket. She hadn’t said a word. Harvey wondered who she was. His son’s… woman. And he didn’t even know her name, and the boy hadn’t told him. And there was something terribly wrong, but Harvey didn’t know what to do about it.