Lucifer's Hammer

“It does no good to shout at me or be angry with me.” Hardy’s voice was calm and determined. “You know I’m right. She must marry whoever will be the new duke. Otherwise, Jack Turner will try to assert his rights, and I will have to kill him. Otherwise, there will be factions who will try to take power because they will believe they have as much right as anyone does. The only possible chance for a peaceful transfer of power is to appeal to loyalty to the Senator’s memory. Maureen can do that. No one else can. But she ca

Finally Hardy’s icy calm broke, just slightly. His hand trembled. “Do you think you are making things any easier for her? She knows what she must do. Why do you think she will see you secretly, but will not marry you?” Hardy got up. “We’ve been long enough. We should join the others.”

Harvey drained his glass, but did not get up yet.

“I have tried to be friendly,” Hardy said. “The Senator thinks highly of you. He likes the work you have done, and he likes your ideas. I think if he had a free choice he might… That doesn’t matter. He does not have a free choice, and now I’ve told you.” Hardy went out before Randall could say anything.

Harvey sat staring at the empty glass. Finally he stood and threw it to the carpet. “Shill” he said. “Goddammit to hell.”

When the meeting adjourned, Maureen went outside. There was a fine mist, so fine that she hardly noticed. No one bothered with mist. Visibility was good, several miles, and she could see the snow in the High Sierra, and lower. There was snow on Cow Mountain to the south, and that wasn’t quite five thousand feet high. There would be snow in the valley soon.

She shivered slightly in the cold wind, but she wasn’t tempted to go inside and get warmer clothing. Inside she’d have to see Harvey Randall again, and look away. She didn’t want to see anyone or speak to anyone, but she smiled pleasantly as Alice Cox rode by on her big stallion. Then she felt, rather than heard, someone come up behind her. She turned, slowly. afraid of whom she’d see.

“Cold,” Reverend Varley said. “You should get a jacket.”

“I’m all right.” She turned to walk away from him, and saw the Sierra again. Harvey’s boy was up in those mountains. Travelers said the scouts were doing well there. She turned back again. “They tell me you can be trusted,” she said.

“I hope so.” When she didn’t say anything else, he added, “Listening to people’s troubles is my main business here.”

“I thought you were in the praying business.” She said it cynically, not knowing why she wanted to hurt him.

“I am, but it’s not a business.”

“No.” It wasn’t. Tom Varley pulled his own weight. He could claim a larger share than what he took from his own dairy herd; and many of the valley people gave him part of their own rations, which he distributed. He never said how. George thought he was feeding outsiders, but George wouldn’t say anything to Tom Varley. George was afraid of him. Priests and magicians are feared in primitive societies… “I wish this were really the Day of Judgment,” she blurted.

“Why?”

“Because then it would mean something. There’s no meaning to any of this. And don’t tell me about God’s will and His unfathomable reasons.”

“I won’t if you say you don’t want to hear it. But are you sure?”

“Yes. I tried that. It doesn’t work. I can’t believe in a God who did this! And there’s just no purpose, no reason for anything.” She pointed to the snow in the mountains. “Winter will be here. Soon. And we’ll live through it, some of us. And another after that. And another. Why bother?” She couldn’t stand looking at him. His collie-dog eyes were filled with concern and sympathy, and she knew that was what she had wanted from him, but now it was unbearable. She turned and walked away quickly.

He followed. “Maureen.” She went on, toward the driveway, but he kept pace with her. “Please.”

“What?” She turned to face him. “What can you say? What can I say? It’s all true.”

“Most of us want to live,” he said.

“Yes. I wish I knew why.”

“You do know. You want to live too.”

“Not like this.”

“Things aren’t so bad—”

“You don’t understand. I thought I’d found something. Life consists of doing one’s job. I could believe that. I really could. But I don’t have a job. I am thoroughly and utterly useless.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true. It always was true. Even before… before. I was just existing. Sometimes I could be happy being a part of someone else’s life. I could fool myself, but that wasn’t any good either, not really. I was just drifting along, and I didn’t see much point in it, but it wasn’t too bad. Not then. But the Hammer came and took even that way. It took everything away.”

“But you’re needed here,” Varley said. “Many of these people depend on you. They need you—”

She laughed. “For what? Al Hardy and Eileen do the work. Dad makes the decisions. And Maureen?” She laughed again. “Maureen makes people unhappy, Maureen has fits of black depression that spread like the plague. Maureen sneaks around to see her lover and then destroys the poor son of a bitch by not speaking to him in public because she’s afraid she’ll get him killed, but Maureen doesn’t even have the guts to stop fucking. How’s that for worse than useless?”

There was no reaction to her language, and she was ashamed of herself for trying to… to what? It didn’t matter.

“Isn’t it true that you do care for something?” Varley asked. “This lover. He is someone whose life you want to share.”

Her smile was bitter. “Don’t you understand? I don’t know! And I’m afraid to find out. I want to be in love, but I don’t think I can be, and I’m afraid even that’s gone. And I can’t find out because my job is to be the crown princess. Maybe I ought to marry George and be done with it.”

This time he did react. He seemed surprised. “George Christopher is your lover?”

“Good God, no! He’s the one who’ll do the killing.”

“I doubt that. George is a pretty good man.”

“I wish… I’d like to be sure of that. Then I could find out. I could find out if I can still love anyone. And I want to know, I want to know if the Hammer took that, too. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you. There’s nothing you can do.”

“I can listen. And I can tell you that I see a purpose to life. This vast universe wasn’t created for nothing. And it was created. It didn’t just happen.”

“Did the Hammer just happen?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Then why?”

Varley shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps to shock a Washington socialite enough to make her take a strong look at her life. Maybe only that. For you.”

“That’s crazy. You don’t believe that.”

“I believe it has a purpose, but that purpose will be different for each of us.”

“We’d better go in. I’m freezing.” She turned and walked rapidly past him to the stone ranch house. I’ll see Harvey tonight, she thought. And I’ll tell him. Everything. I have to. I can’t stand this any longer.