Lucifer's Hammer

Sixth Week: The High Justice

No proposition is likelier to scandalise our contemporaries than this one: it is impossible to establish a just social order.

Alvin Hardy made a final check. Everything was ready. The library, the great book-lined room where the Senator held court, had been arranged and everything was in its place. Al went to tell the Senator.

Jellison was in the front room. He didn’t look well. There was nothing Al could put his finger on, but the boss looked tired, overworked. Of course he was. Everyone worked too hard. But the Senator had kept long hours in Washington, and he’d never looked this bad.

“All set,” Hardy said.

“Right. Start,” Jellison ordered.

Al went outside. It wasn’t raining. There was bright sunshine. Sometimes there were two hours of sunshine a day. The air was clear, and Hardy could see the snow on the peaks of the High Sierra. Snow in August. It seemed to be down to the six-thousand-foot level yesterday; today it was lower, after last night’s storm. The snow was inexorably creeping toward the Stronghold.

But we’re getting ready for it, Hardy thought. From the porch of the big house he could see a dozen greenhouses, wood frames covered with plastic drop cloths found in a hardware store, each greenhouse covered with a web of nylon cord to keep the thin plastic from billowing in the wind. They wouldn’t last more than one season, Al thought, but it’s one season we’re worried about.

The area around the house was a beehive of activity. Men pushed wheelbarrows of manure which was shoveled into pits in the greenhouses. As it rotted it would give off heat, keeping the greenhouses warm in winter — they hoped. People would sleep in them, too, adding their own body heat to the rotting manure and grass clippings, anything to keep the growing plants warm enough, which seemed silly today, in bright August sunshine — except that already there was a tinge of cold to the air, as breezes came down from the mountains.

And a lot of it was going to be wasted effort. They weren’t used to hurricanes and tornadoes here in the valley, and no matter how hard they tried to place the greenhouses where they’d be sheltered from high winds, yet get enough sunshine, some of them would be blown down. “We’re doing all we can,” Hardy muttered. There was always more to do, and there were always things they hadn’t thought of until too late, but it might be enough. It would be close, but they were going to live.

“That’s the good news,” Hardy said to himself. “Now for the bad.”

A ragged group stood near the porch. Farmers with petitions. Refugees who’d managed to get inside the Stronghold and wanted to plead for permanent status and had managed to talk Al — or Maureen, or Charlotte — into getting them an appointment with the Senator. Another group stood well apart from the petitioners. Armed farmhands, guarding prisoners. Only two prisoners today.

Al Hardy waved them all inside. They took their places in chairs set well away from the Senator’s desk. They left their weapons outside the room, all but Al Hardy and the ranchers Al knew were trustworthy. Al would have liked to search everyone who came to see the Senator, and one day he’d do that. It would cause too much trouble just now. Which meant that two men with rifles, men Al completely trusted, stood in the next room and stared through small holes hidden among the bookshelves, rifles ready. Waste of good manpower, Al thought. And for what? Who cared what the others thought? Anybody in his right mind would know it was important to protect the Senator.

When they were all seated, Al went back to the living room. “Okay,” he said. Then he went quickly to the kitchen.

It was George Christopher himself today. One of the Christopher clan always attended. The others would go in and take the seat reserved for the Christopher representative, and stand when the Senator came into the room, but not George. George went in with the Senator. Not quite as an equal, but not as someone who’d stand up when the Senator came in…

Al Hardy didn’t speak to George. He didn’t have to. The ritual was well established now. George followed Al out into the hall, his bull neck flaming red… well, not really, Al admitted, but it ought to have been. George fell in with the Senator and they walked in together, just after Al. Everyone stood; Al didn’t have to say anything, which pleased him. He liked things to run the way they ought to, precisely, smoothly, without it seeming that Al Hardy had to do anything at all.

Al went to his own desk. The papers were spread there. Across from Al’s desk was an empty seat. It was reserved for the Mayor, but he never came anymore. Got tired of the farce, Al thought. Hardy couldn’t blame the man. At first these trials were held in City Hall, which lent credibility to the pretense that the Mayor and the Chief of Police were important, but now that the Senator had given up wasting time going into town…

“You may begin,” Jellison said.

The first part was easy. Rewards first. Two of Stretch Tallifsen’s kids had devised a new kind of rat trap and caught three dozen of the little marauders, as well as a dozen ground squirrels. There were weekly prizes for the best rat catchers: some of the last candy bars in the world.

Hardy looked at his papers. Then he grimaced. The next case was going to be tougher. “Peter Bonar. Hoarding,” Al said.

Bonar stood. He was about thirty, maybe a little older. Thin blond beard. Bonar’s eyes were dulled. Hunger, probably.

“Hoarding, eh?” Senator Jellison said. “Hoarding what?”

“All kinds of stuff, Senator. Four hundred pounds of chicken feed. Twenty bushels of seed corn. Batteries. Two cases of rifle cartridges. Probably other stuff that I don’t know about.”

Jellison looked grim. “You do it?” he demanded.

Bonar didn’t answer.

“Did he?” Jellison asked Hardy.

“Yes, sir.”

“Any point in a trial?” Jellison asked. He looked directly at Bonar. “Well?”

“Hell, he’s got no call to come out and search my place! He had no warrant!”

Jellison laughed.

“What beats me is how the hell they found out.”

Al Hardy knew that. He had agents everywhere. Hardy spent a lot of time talking to people, and it wasn’t hard. You catch someone and don’t turn him in, send him out looking, and pretty soon you get more information.

“That all you’re worried about?” Jellison demanded. “How we found out?”

“It’s my feed,” Bonar said. “All that stuff is mine. We found it, my wife and I. Found it and carried it in, in my truck, and what the hell right do you have to it? My stuff on my land.”

“Got any chickens?” Jellison asked.

“Yeah.”

“How many?” When Bonar didn’t answer, Jellison looked to the others in the room. “Well?”

“Maybe a few, Senator,” one of those waiting said. She was a forty-year-old woman who looked sixty. “Four or five hens and a rooster.”

“You don’t need any four hundred pounds of feed,” Jellison said reasonably.

“It’s my feed,” Bonar insisted.

“And seed corn. Here we’ll have people starve so we can keep enough seed corn to get in a crop next year, and you’ve got twenty bushels hidden away. That’s murder, Bonar. Murder.”

“Hey—”

“You know the rules. You make a find, you report it. Hell, we won’t take it all. We don’t discourage enterprise. But you sure as hell report it so we can plan.”

“And you grab half. Or more.”

“Sure. Hell, there’s no point in talk,” Jellison said. “Anybody want to speak for him?” There was silence. “Al?”

Hardy shrugged. “He’s got a wife and two kids, ages eleven and thirteen.”

“That complicates things,” Jellison said’ “Anybody want to speak up for them?… No?” There was an edge to his voice now.