Lucifer's Hammer

“Don’t be stupid. He’s a hero. Come on outside.” Christopher led the way through the kitchen. There was no one there at the moment. They went out into the dusk.

“Look, Randall,” Christopher said. “You don’t like me much.”

“No. I expect it’s mutual.”

Christopher shrugged. “I got nothing against you. I don’t think you’ll shoot me in the back or slug me when I’m not looking—”

“Thanks.”

“And unless you do, you can’t lick me. Question is, suppose she decides to marry General Baker. What’ll you do about that?”

“Cry a lot.”

“Look, I’m trying to be polite,” Christopher said.

“Well, what do you want me to say?” Harvey asked. “If she marries Baker, she marries Baker, that’s all.”

“And you’ll leave her alone? Not sneak around seeing her?”

“Why the hell would I do that?” Harvey demanded.

“Look, you think I’m some kind of bumpkin fool, don’t you?” Christopher said. “And maybe I am, the way you see things. I lived out here before I had to. Went to church. Minded my own business. No swinging parties, no girl friend in every city to go see on expense accounts…”

Harvey laughed. “I didn’t live that way,” he said. “You’ve been reading too many playboys.”

“Yeah? Look, Randall, I’m a cornball, I guess, but I happen to think that if a man’s married, he stays at home. Now I never got married. Engaged once, but it didn’t work, and then I found out Maureen got her divorce, and while I wasn’t exactly just waiting for her — I knew better than to think she’d want to come live in this valley again or that I could live in Washington — I never found anybody. Then this happened. Now she has to live here. Maybe she could live with me. We would have married, once, only it didn’t quite work, we were too young…”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I’ve got something to say. Dammit, Randall, if I ever do get married, I’ll stay married. Yeah, and I’ll be faithful to my wife, too. Maybe Baker will be. You sure as hell wouldn’t.”

“Now what the hell… ?”

“I know what goes on in this valley, Randall. I knew before the goddam comet hit us and I know now. So you just leave Maureen alone. You’re not the kind of man she needs.”

“Why not? And who appointed you the guardian of public morals?”

“I did. And you’re not good enough for her. You sleep around. All right, it was with her. I don’t like that, but I had no claim on her. Not then. But you were a married man, Randall. What the hell was Maureen to you? Another one to add to your scorecard? Look, I’m getting myself upset, and I didn’t want that. But you leave her alone. I’m telling you, leave her be.” He turned and walked away before Harvey could say anything else.

Harvey Randall stood in shock, and barely restrained himself from ru

But he didn’t. Instead he felt a wild impulse to run and catch up and explain that it hadn’t been that way at all, that Harvey Randall thought about marriage the same way George Christopher did, and all right, so he and Maureen had…

Had what? Harvey wondered. Maybe Christopher was right. But Loretta never knew, and she wasn’t harmed, and neither was Maureen, and it’s all a pile of excuses because you knew damned well what you were doing.

Instead he went into the living room to talk with the other astronauts.

Exile’s Story

“Hot water to soak your feet in,” said Harry. “Cooked food. A change of clothes. And, man, they need you, and they’ll know it.”

“I’ll make it,” Dan Forrester puffed. “I feel light… as a feather without… that pack. And they’ve got sheep?” He’d been afraid to look at his feet, these last few days, but in a while he wouldn’t need them. They’d served him well. As for his insulin stock, well, he’d had to increase the dosage; it must be deteriorating. “Have they got a working refrigerator?”

“Refrigerator, no. Sheep, yes. We’ll have to deal with that right away. Won’t be long now, that’s the roadblock ahead.”

Their companion, striding ahead of them on the deserted road with Dan Forrester’s backpack riding lightly on his hips, stopped suddenly and glanced back.

“You’re with me,” Harry said. “It’ll be all right.” Hugo Beck nodded, but he waited for Dan and Harry to catch up. He was afraid, and it showed.

There was a sign fifty yards from the log barricade. It said:

DANGER! YOU ARE ENTERING GUARDED LAND. GO NO FURTHER. IF YOU HAVE BUSINESS HERE, WALK SLOWLY TO THE BARRICADE AND STAND STILL. THERE WILL BE NO WARNING SHOTS FIRED. KEEP YOUR HANDS IN PLAIN SIGHT AT ALL TIMES.

Under it was another, in Spanish, and beyond that a large death’s head with the universal traffic symbol for “Do not enter.”

“Strange welcome mat,” Dan Forrester said.

Rotation of work: Mark Czescu was enjoying his day of guard duty while someone else made little rocks out of big ones. It wasn’t always fun, though. Earlier there had been a family on bicycles who had won their way through the San Joaquin and had tales of ca

Four people. The Stronghold could feed four more — but which four? If these, why not more? The decision was right, take in no one without special reasons, but it didn’t make it any easier to look a man in the eye and send him up the road.

Mark sat behind a screen of logs and brush where he could watch without being seen. His partners watched him. One of these days Bart Christopher was going to be slow, and they’d lose the front man at the gate…

There were three figures coming up the road, and Mark came out when he recognized the remnants of a gray U.S. Postal Service uniform. He hailed Harry joyfully, but his smile had vanished when the three trudged up to the barrier. He was looking at Hugo Beck when he said, “Happy Trash Day, Harry.”

“I brought him,” Harry said. He said it belligerently. “You know the rules, he’s got my safe conduct. And this is Dr. Dan Forrester—”

“Hi, Doc,” Mark said. “You and your damned Hot Fudge Sundae.”

Forrester managed the ghost of a smile.

“He’s got a book,” Harry said. “He’s got a lot of books, but this one he brought with him. Show him, Dan.”

It was drizzling lightly. Dan didn’t open the tape seals. Mark read the title through four layers of Baggies: The Way Things Work, Volume II.

“Volume One is in a safe place,” Dan said. “With four thousand other books on how to put a civilization together.”

Mark shrugged. He was pretty sure they’d want Dan Forrester up at the Stronghold anyway. But it would be nice to know what other gifts Forrester had available. “What kind of books?”

“The 1911 Brita