Lucifer's Hammer

“I’ll see if Mrs. Cox has the tea,” Al Hardy said. “Harvey, would you help me a minute, please?”

“Sure.” Harvey went out to the kitchen. Al Hardy was waiting for him.

“Actually,” Hardy said, “Mrs. Cox knows what to do. I wanted a word with you. In the library, please.” He turned and led the way.

Now what? Harvey wondered. It was obvious Hardy didn’t care for the salvage expedition, but wasn’t this something more? When Al Hardy ushered him into the big room and then closed the door, Harvey felt a familiar fear.

Al Hardy liked things neat.

There was an admiral Harvey had interviewed, years ago. Harvey had been struck by the man’s desk. It was absolutely symmetrical: the blotter precisely centered, the identical IN and OUT baskets on either side, inkwell in the middle with a pen on either side… everything but the pencil the admiral was using to gesture. Harvey looked it over; and then he aimed the camera exactly down the middle of the desk, and he put the pencil right in front of him, in line with his tie tack.

And the admiral loved it!

“Sit down, please,” Hardy said. The assistant reached into a drawer of the Senator’s big desk and took out a bottle of bourbon. “Drink?”

“Thanks.” Now Harvey was definitely worried. Al Hardy held almost as much power as the Senator; he executed the Senator’s commands. And Hardy liked things neat. He precisely matched the network executives who would order Randall to cut the man-in-the-street crap and use motivational research; who would have found their jobs much easier if all men had been created not just equal but identical.

Could it be a problem with Mark? And if so, could Harvey save him again? Mark had almost got himself thrown out of the Stronghold: Hardy hadn’t appreciated Mark’s sign proclaiming the Stronghold “Senator Jellison’s Trading Post and Provisional Government”; neither had George Christopher. They hadn’t cared for the wasted paint, either.

Maybe it wasn’t Mark. If Al Hardy decided that Harvey Randall was upsetting his neat patterns… the Stronghold couldn’t survive without Hardy’s mania for organization. The road was always there, and nobody ever forgot it. Harvey shifted nervously in the hard chair.

Al Hardy sat across from him, pointedly not taking the big chair behind the desk. No one but the Senator would ever sit there if Al Hardy had any choice in the matter. He waved toward the big desk with its litter of paper. Maps, with penciled lines showing the current shore of the San Joaquin Sea; manpower assignments; inventories of food and equipment, anything they could locate, and another list of needed items they didn’t have; planting schedules; work details; all the paper work associated with keeping too many people alive in a world suddenly turned hostile. “Think all that’s worth anything?” Al asked.

“It’s worth a lot,” Harvey said. “Organization. That’s all that keeps us alive.”

“Glad you think so.” Hardy raised his glass. “What shall we drink to?”

Harvey waved toward the empty chair behind the desk. “To the duke of Silver Valley.”

Al Hardy nodded. “I’ll drink to that. Skoal.”

“Prosit.”

“He is a duke, you know,” Hardy said. “With the high, middle and low justice.”

That knot of fear in Harvey’s stomach began to grow.

“Tell me, Harvey, if he dies tomorrow, what becomes of us?” Hardy asked.

“Jesus. I don’t even want to think about it.” The question had startled Harvey Randall. “But there’s not much chance of that—”

“There’s every chance,” Hardy said. “I’m telling you a secret, of course. If you let it get out, or let him know I’ve told you, it won’t be pleasant.”

“So why tell me? And what’s wrong with him?”

“Heart,” Al said. “Bethesda people told him to take it easy. He was going to retire after this term, if he lived that long.”

“That bad?”

“Bad enough. He could last two years, or he could die in an hour. More likely a year than an hour, but there’s a chance of either.”

“Jesus… but why tell me?”

Hardy didn’t answer, not directly. “You said it yourself, organization is the key to survival. Without the Senator there’d have been no organization. Can you think of anyone who could govern here if he died tomorrow?”

“No. Not now…”

“How about Colorado?” Hardy asked.

Harvey Randall laughed. “You heard them in there. Colorado can’t keep us alive. But I know who would take over.”

“Who?”

“You.”

Hardy shook his head. “It wouldn’t work. Two reasons. One, I’m not a local. They don’t know me, and they take my orders only because they’re his orders. Okay, in time I could get around that. But there’s a better reason. I’m not the right man.”

“You seem to do all right.”

“No. I wanted his seat in the Senate, and he’d have arranged that for me when he retired. I would have been a good Senator, I think. But not a good President. Harvey, a couple of weeks ago I had to go up to the Bonar place and evict his wife and two children. They cried and screamed and told me I was as much as killing them, and they were right, but I did it. Was that the right thing to do? I don’t know, and yet I do know. I know because he ordered it, and what he orders is right.”

“That’s a strange—”

“Character deficiency,” Hardy said. “I could go into my childhood in the Catholic orphanage, but you don’t want to hear my life story. Take it from me. I do best when I’ve got someone else to lean on, somebody else to be the final authority. The Old Man knows that. There’s not a chance in the world that he’d designate me as his successor.”

“So what will you do, when…”

“I’ll be chief of staff to whomever Senator Jellison designates. If he hasn’t designated anyone, then to whoever I think will be able to carry on his work. This valley is his life work, you know. He’s saved us all. Without him it would be like Outside here.”

Harvey nodded. “I expect you’re right.” And I like it here, he thought. It’s safe, and I want to be safe. “What has all this got to do with me?”

“You’re ruining things,” Hardy said. “You know how.”

Harvey Randall’s teeth clenched.

“If he dies tomorrow…” Hardy said. “If he does, the only person who could take over would be George Christopher. No, before you ask. I will not like being his chief of staff. But I’ll do it, because nobody else could hold this valley. And I’ll see that everyone knows that George is the Senator’s chosen heir. The wedding won’t trail the funeral by more than a day.”

“She wouldn’t marry George Christopher!”

“Yes, she will. If it means the difference between success and ruining everything the Senator has tried to build, she’ll do it.”

“You’re saying that whoever marries Maureen ends up in charge of the Stronghold… ?”

“No,” Hardy said. He shook his head sadly. “Not anybody. You couldn’t, for example. You aren’t local. Nobody would take orders from you. Oh, some would, if you were the Senator’s heir. But not enough. You haven’t been here long enough.” A1 paused for a moment. “It wouldn’t work for me, either.”

Harvey turned to stare at the younger man. “You’re in love with her,” he said musingly.

Hardy shrugged. “I think enough of her that I don’t want to kill her. Which is what I would be doing if I married her. Anything that disorganizes this valley, that splits it into factions, will kill everyone here. We’ll be a pushover for the first group that wants to come in — and, Harvey, there are enemies Outside. Worse ones than you think.”

“You’ve heard something that wasn’t told at the meeting?”

“You’ll find out from Deke when he comes,” Al said. He reached for the bottle and poured more bourbon into both their glasses. “Stay away from her, Harvey. I know she’s lonely, and I know how you feel about her, but stay away from her. All you can do is kill her, and ruin everything her father has built.”

“Now damn you, I—”