Lucifer's Hammer

“Of course, we don’t know what Hamner-Brown is made of,” Tim said.

“Maybe it’s time we found these things out,” Mary Jane said. “Before one of them does hit us. Like this one.”

“It’s only a matter of time,” Sharps said. “Give it long enough and the probability of a comet hitting us approaches certainty. But I don’t think we have to worry about HamnerBrown.”

Henry Armitage was a TV preacher. He’d been a radio preacher until one of his converts left him ten million dollars; now he had his own slick-paper magazine, TV shows in a hundred cities, and an elaborate complex of buildings in Pasadena, complete with editorial staff.

For all that, Henry wrote much of the magazine himself, and he always did the editorials. There were too few hours in the day for Henry. He gloried in the troubles of the world. He knew what they meant. They were the signs of a greater joy to come.

For the disciples had asked the Master, “ ‘Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?’

“And Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘Take heed that no man shall deceive you. For many shall come in my name saying “I am Christ”; and shall deceive many.’ ” Henry had seen the entry on the Inyo County, California, police blotter: “Charles Manson, also known as Jesus Christ, God.”

“And you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.”

Matthew was Henry’s favorite Gospel; and of all the Bible, that was his favorite text. Were these not the times Christ spoke of? The signs were all present in the world.

He sat at his expensive desk. The TV was concealed behind a panel that opened when Henry touched a button. It was a long way from the wood-frame, whitewashed one-room church in Idaho where Henry had started in the Thirties. The ostentatious wealth sometimes disturbed Henry, but his supporters insisted on it, even if Henry and his wife would have been as happy in plainer surroundings.

Henry toyed with his editorial, but he didn’t feel inspired. As a lesson in humility he had the TV turned to an interview show; the lesson was to watch that shallow frivolity without hating those who took part in it; and that was hard, hard…

Something caught his attention. A thin tall man in a herringbone sport jacket, arms waving about. Henry admired his technique. The man would make an impressive preacher. He focused all attention on himself, and his words washed across the listener.

The man was talking about a comet. A comet. A sign in the heavens? Henry knew what comets were, but because comets were natural did not mean that their timing was not miraculous. Henry had seen many healed by prayer and the doctors later “explain” the miracle.

A comet. And it would pass very close to Earth. Could this be the final sign of all? He drew a yellow lined tablet toward him and began writing in sloppy block print, using a dozen pencils. He was through three sheets before he knew his headline, and he turned back to the first page.

In two weeks his magazine would be in half a million homes around the world; and across the cover in blazing red twenty point type would be his headline:

It would make a good text for his TV shows, too. Henry began writing frantically, feeling the way he had felt nearly forty years before, when he’d really begun to understand Matthew 24 and had carried the message to a world that didn’t care.

The Hammer of God was coming to punish the decadent and the willful. Henry wrote eagerly.

April: One

Tim Hamner arrived in a taxi just as Harvey’s TravelAII reached JPL. As Tim handed the driver a twenty and waved him away, Harvey swore; then he put on his best face as Tim came over to join him.

Hamner looked sheepish. “Look, Harvey, I said I wouldn’t interfere — and I won’t. But I met Sharps on that interview show.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Harvey said. “Sharps was great.”

“He sure was,” Hamner said. “I want to meet him again. I called JPL and they said you were coming here for an interview. Harvey, I want to come along.”

Inwardly Harvey felt anger, but it was a reasonable request from a sponsor. “Sure.”

Charlene, the PR lady, was waiting, and she didn’t make any fuss about Tim Hamner’s unexpected appearance with the crew. Sharps’s office hadn’t changed. There were different books scattered across the expensive desk, and instead of an IBM print-out there was a large diagram. The cast changes, Harvey thought, but the play’s the same.

“What ho,” Sharps said. He lifted a brow at Hamner. “Sponsor coming along to check on you? Harvey, I hope this won’t take long. I’m due in the labs shortly.”

Harvey waved to the crew. Charlie was already setting up, and Mark moved around with the light meter. Mark had become pretty good at this job, and he’d stayed around longer then Harvey could remember him keeping a job before. If he left, Harvey would miss him.

“We’re interested in the probe,” Harvey said. “Does it look as if it will really go?”

Sharps smiled broadly. “Looks good, looks good. Thanks to Senator Arthur Jellison. Remember our conversation about that?”

“Right.”

“Well, he’s the man. I’d appreciate any good publicity you can give him.”

Harvey nodded. He signaled to the crew. “Let’s run it.”

“Speed,” Manuel said. Charlie was behind the camera. Mark stepped out with the board. “Sharps interview, take one.” Clack.

“Dr. Sharps,” Harvey said, “there’s been some criticism of the proposed Apollo mission to study the comet. It’s said it will be too dangerous.”

Sharps made a gesture of dismissal. “Dangerous? We’ve done it all before. A tried-and-true booster and a proven capsule. Not so many months of pla

“Has the crew been chosen yet?”

“No — but there are forty volunteers!” Sharps gri

Harvey went on with his questions. They talked about the instruments the Apollo would carry. Many of them were being put together at JPL, and at Cal Tech. “Students and technicians working overtime without pay,” Sharps said. “Just to help out.”

“Without pay?” Harvey asked.

“Right. They get their regular work done, the things we have contracts for, and then put in overtime on comet packages. Without pay.”

That ought to go well, Harvey thought. He made a note to interview some of the technicians. Maybe he could find a janitor who worked overtime to help.

“It sounds like you can’t carry enough gear,” Harvey said.

“Well, we really can’t,” Sharps agreed. “Not all we’d like to carry. But what’s enough? We can take up enough to learn a lot.”

“Right. Dr. Sharps, I understand you’ve done a new plot of Hamner-Brown’s orbit. And you’ve got new photos of it.”

“Hale Observatories has the photos. We did the orbit. We’re safe in saying it will be a big comet. It’s got the largest coma ever recorded for this distance from the Sun. That means there’s a lot of ice left in the snowball. And it’s going to come quite close. First it will pass at a reasonable distance, and we’ll see a spectacular tail. Then it goes inside the orbit of Venus and most of it will vanish, although some of the tail may be visible for a while. Naked-eye visible, I might add. After that it will be too close to the Sun for us to see from here, but of course the Apollo crew will be able to get good observations from space. We won’t see it again until it gets very near Earth on its way back out. By then the sky should be filled with the tail. I’m willing to bet that tail will be visible in daytime.”