Lucifer's Hammer

“Survival machine.” Yeah, Harvey thought. That’s what we’ve got at the Senator’s Stronghold. A survival machine and a damned good one. “At least it’s a pretty good chance at survival.”

“Sure,” Gordie said. “Think about it, Harvey. The world ends. Hammerfall. Shouldn’t things be different after that?”

“Things are different. Lord God, how different do you want? We just took four kids and strung them up in front of City Hall. We’re busting our balls to stay alive through winter, and it’s a chancy thing, but we’ll make it—”

“And what would we do down there?” Gordie asked.

Harvey thought that one over. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know if Hardy would let that many into the Stronghold. A troop of Boy Scouts, yes; but this warrior band? Maybe they belonged up here: a new breed of mountain dwellers. “Dammit, that’s my son, and he’s coming with me.”

“No, he’s not, Harv. He’s not your anything. He’s his own man, and you haven’t got any way to make him come with you. We’re not going back, Harv. None of us. But you can stay.”

“Stay and be what?”

“Whatever you like.”

The offer wasn’t even tempting. What would he do up here? And who would he be? Harvey got up and lifted his pack. “No. Mark?”

“Yeah, Boss.”

“You coming or staying?”

Mark had been u

“Let’s go,” Harvey said. He looked around sadly. There wasn’t anything up here that belonged to Harvey Randall.

The tsunamis have done their work. Around the shores of the Atlantic there is no trace of the works of man. The very shorelines have been changed. The Gulf of Mexico is a third larger than before; Florida is a chain of islands, Chesapeake Bay has become a gulf. Deep bays indent the western coast of Africa.

On land the craters no longer glow visibly but they continue to change the weather. Volcanoes pour out lava and smoke. Hurricanes lash the seas.

Rain falls everywhere. The work of the Hammer is not yet completed.

Fourth Week: The Wanderers

There is one fact that will bring notable relief to many survivors: the grim problems facing them will at least be completely different from those that have been tormenting them in past years. The problems of an advanced civilization will be replaced by those proper to a primitive civilization, and it is probable that a majority of survivors may be made up of people particularly adapted to passing quickly from a sophisticated to a primitive type of existence…

The woods were lovely, dark and deep, but they dripped. Dan Forrester sighed for a warm, dry world now lost, and he kept moving. His five layers of clothing ran water in pulses as he moved. It was no drier under the trees. It was no wetter, either, and not much darker; and here the infrequent snow flurries never got through. Dan did not really expect to live long enough to see the Sun again.

As he walked he munched on a bit of not-quite-spoiled fish. One of his books had told how to tease fish from deep holes in streams, and to Dan’s surprise it had worked. So had the snares he painstakingly set for rabbits. He had never had enough to eat since leaving Tujunga, but he hadn’t starved, and that, he reflected, was something to set him apart from a lot of others.

Four weeks since Hammerfall. Four weeks of moving steadily northward. He had lost his car hours after leaving his home. Two men and their women and children had simply taken it away from him. They had left him his backpack and much of his equipment, because in the first days after Hammerfall people hadn’t known just how bad things were going to be, or maybe they were just decent people whose need was greater than his. They’d said that, anyway. It hardly mattered.

Now, leaner and — he had to admit to himself — healthier than he’d ever been (except for his feet, which had blisters that wouldn’t heal; diabetes interferes with circulation, which was why he could only make a few miles a day), Dan Forrester, Ph.D., astronomer without sight of stars or employer or possibility of employment, hiked on because there wasn’t anything else to do.

The winds were no longer ferocious, except during hurricanes, and those were less frequent. The rain had settled to a steady pattering, or a drizzle, or, sometimes, blessedly, no rain at all. The rain had also turned cool, and sometimes there were snow flurries. Snow in July at four thousand feet elevation. That was much sooner than Dan had expected. The cloud cover over Earth was reflecting back a lot of sunlight, and Earth was cooling. Dan could imagine the begi

After awhile he rested, leaning against a tree, backpack caught on the rough bark so that he was not quite sitting. It took weight off his feet, and it was easier than taking off his pack and lifting it onto his back again. Four weeks, and the begi

“Don’t move.”

“Right,” said Dan. Where had the voice come from? He moved only his eyes. Dan was used to thinking of himself as harmless, in appearance and in reality, but he was thi

The man’s eyes flickered left and right. “You alone? You armed? Got any food?”

“Yes, and no, and not much.”

“Don’t smart-mouth me. Spill your pack.” Behind that gun was a very nervous fellow, a man who kept trying to see through the back of his head. His skin was very pale. Surprisingly, the man had almost no beard, only stubble. He had shaved in the past week. Why? Dan wondered.

Dan opened his hip belt and shrugged out of the pack. He upended it. The Army man watched as he opened zippered pockets. “Insulin,” he said, laying out the medical packet. “I’m a diabetic. I carry two,” and he set out the other, and the wrapped book beside them.

“Open it,” the man said, meaning the book. Dan did.

“Where is your food?”

Dan opened a Ziploc plastic bag. The smell was terrible. He handed the fish to the man. “Nothing to preserve it with,” Dan said. “I’m sorry. But I think it’s edible, if you don’t wait too long.”

The man wolfed down the handful of stinking raw fish as if he hadn’t eaten in a week. “What else?” he demanded.

“Chocolate,” Dan said. His voice was full of resignation. It was the last chocolate in the world, and Dan had saved it for days, waiting for something to celebrate. He watched the uniformed man eat it — no ceremony, not savoring it, just eating.

“Open those.” The man pointed to the cooking pots. Dan took the lid off the largest; there was another pot inside it, and a small stove inside that. “No gasoline for the stove,” Dan said. “Don’t know why I go on carrying it, but I do. The pots aren’t much use without something to cook.” Dan tried not to look at the pieces of thin copper wire that had spilled from the pack. Snare wire. Without it Dan Forrester would probably starve.

“I’ll have one of your pots,” the man said.

“Sure. Big or little?”

“Big.”

“Here.”

“Thanks.” The man seemed more relaxed now, although his eyes still darted about and he jumped at slight noises. “Where were you when it all… ?” The man gestured vaguely.

“Jet Propulsion Laboratories. Pasadena. I saw it all. We had live TV pictures from the Hammerlab satellite.”