Lucifer's Hammer

“Another of the power workers spliced live wires. Thousands of volts, and he worked on it hot while mortar bombs fell around him. Baker’s dead. They’re still alive. And they need help. We need help. I’m going back.” He couldn’t look at Eileen as he said that.

He felt someone behind him. Al Hardy had climbed onto the podium. He came to the left side of the lectern and stood there with his hand held up for attention. When he spoke, it was with an orator’s voice that rolled about the large room. “Thank you, Tim,” he said. “You are persuasive. Of course you want to go back. But the question is, have we anything to gain? How many people are there at the nuclear plant? Because we have boats, and now we have food, and we can bring all of them here. It will not be hard to evacuate that plant, and I’m sure we will have no trouble getting volunteers for the job.”

Harvey Randall came in from the hospital in time to hear Tim’s report begin. He’d come in the back way, through the Mayor’s office, and he found himself next to Maureen. When Tim told of what had happened to Baker, he was there, with his hand on her arm, but lightly. She wasn’t going to faint or scream; she may have been crying, but even that wasn’t obvious. And Harvey didn’t want to be obtrusively present, not now.

He was thinking: Son of a bitch! Maureen was taking it better than Delanty. The black astronaut seemed ready to murder. Well, that figured. Baker’s other two companions weren’t in the room. Leonilla was operating on the gut-shot policeman, with Comrade helping her.

(They called him Comrade now. Brigadier Pieter Jakov was the last Communist, and proud of it, and it avoided the difficulty of his name.)

The Senator’s face was ashen gray and his hands were clasped tightly in his lap. There went one of his plans, Harvey thought. It struck him, then: One prince was dead, and one was enthralled by a witch.

George Christopher wasn’t alone. Marie stood with him: Marie, the only woman in the room in stockings and heels as well as skirt and sweater and simple jewelry; and she and George stood as a couple, not as two single people. Whenever anyone got too close to Marie or ogled her too suggestively, George’s face clouded.

Three princes. One was killed by ogres. One was spellbound by a witch. The third was standing beside the princess, and the enemy had been defeated. The need for fighting men was not over, but it was no longer critical. Now the Stronghold needed builders — and that Harvey Randall could do. I’m crown prince now, he thought. Son of a bitch.

But Tim Hamner was calling for a new battle!

Harvey, fresh from his work with the crossbow, was thinking helplessly: Shut up, shut up! When Al Hardy came up to offer the power-plant perso

“We won’t leave,” Tim said. “Use your boats to bring us men and guns and ammunition! Not for us to run away. We’re not leaving.”

“Be reasonable,” Al Hardy said. His voice projected; it reached all corners of the hall. It projected warmth, friendliness, understanding: a politician’s basic skill, and Al Hardy was well trained. Tim was outclassed. “We can feed everyone. We can use engineers and technical people. We lost people to the New Brotherhood, but we lost none of our food; we even captured some of their stores. We not only have enough to eat, we have enough to be well fed during the winter! We can feed everyone, including Deke Wilson’s women and children and the few survivors from his area. The New Brotherhood has been hurt, badly hurt” — he paused for the cheers again, and went on just as they died, his timing perfect — “and is now far too weak to attack us again. By spring the few surviving ca

“Or eating each other,” someone shouted.

“Exactly,” Hardy said. “And by spring we’ll be able to take their land. Tim, not only do we not need to turn any of our friends away, we need new people to work the lands we have taken or will have in spring. I don’t mean for your friends to run. I mean to welcome them as our guests, friends, as new citizens here. Does everyone agree?”

There were shouts. “Hell yeah!” “Glad to have them.”

Tim Hamner spread his hands, palms outward, pleading. He wobbled on his damaged hip. There were the begi

“No, dammit,” Harvey muttered. He felt Maureen stiffen. “No more wars,” Harvey said. “We’ve had enough. Hardy’s right.” He looked for approval from Maureen, but only got a blank stare.

George Christopher was laughing. It carried, like Al Hardy’s voice. “They’re too damned weak to attack anything,” he shouted. “First we crunched them. Then you did. They won’t stop ru

More laughter in the room. Then Maureen broke away from Harvey and moved past her father. When she spoke her voice did not carry the way Hardy’s did, but it commanded silence, and the crowd listened to her. “They still have their weapons,” she said. “And, Tim, you said their leaders are still alive…”

“Well, one of them is,” Hamner said. “The crazy preacher.”

“Then some of them will try to destroy the power plant again,” Maureen said. “As long as he’s alive, he’ll keep trying.” She turned to Hardy. “Al, you know that. You heard Hugo Beck. You know.”

“Yes,” Hardy said. “We can’t protect the plant. But again I invite everyone there to come live here. With us.”

“Damn right, the Brotherhood’s no threat to us,” George Christopher said. “They won’t be back.”

“But they — ” Whatever Al Hardy had been about to say, he cut himself off at a wave from Senator Jellison. “Yes, sir,” Hardy asked. “Do you want to come up here, Senator?”

“No.” Jellison stood. “Let’s cut this short,” he said. His voice was thick with either drunke

Hamner jumped on that. He was interrupting the Senator, but he didn’t care. He knew he should speak carefully, weighing every word, but he was too tired, the sense of urgency was too strong. “Yes! We’re fragile. Like that whale!” He pointed to the glass case. “Like the last piece of Stueben crystal in the world. If the power stops for one day—”

“Beautiful and fragile,” Al Hardy’s voice cut in. “Senator, did you have something else to say?”

The massive head shook. “Only this. Think carefully. This may be the most important decision we have made since… that day.” He sat, heavily. “Go on, please,” he said.

Hardy looked worriedly at the Senator, then motioned to one of the women near him. He spoke to her, too low for Harvey to hear what he said, and the woman left. Then he stood at the lectern again. “Fragile and beautiful,” he said. “But not much use to a farming community—”

“No use?” Tim exploded. “Power! Clean clothes! Light—”

“Luxuries,” Al Hardy said. “Are they worth our lives? We’re a farm community. The balance is delicate. Not many weeks ago we did not know if we would live through the winter Now we know we can. A few days ago we did not know whether we could resist the ca

“Not me,” Christopher said. “We won our war.”