Lucifer's Hammer

Harvey wondered if he had found a mental patient. Still… “Have you heard there’s a chance the head of the comet might hit the Earth?”

“Hit the Earth?” The man seemed stu

“What was that all about?” Tim Hamner asked.

“Don’t know,” Harvey said. Man on his way to do murder? The violently insane are constantly released back to the public. Not enough hospitals. Was Lauren one of those, or just a man who’d had a nonfight with his boss? “We’ll never know. If you can’t stand not knowing, you’re in the wrong game.”

Fred had not been watching Randall’s previous program. He had been watching Colleen watch a program about a comet… but some of what he had heard began to surface. The Earth was in the comet’s path. If the comet hit, civilization would end in fire.

The end of the world. I’ll be dead. We’ll all be dead. He gave up all thought of going back to work. There was a magazine stand down the street and he walked rapidly toward it.

There were other interviews. Housewives who’d never heard of the comet. A starlet who recognized Tim Hamner from the “Tonight Show” and wanted to be filmed kissing him. Housewives who knew as much about the comet as Harvey Randall did. A Boy Scout taking a merit badge in astronomy.

There were few trends that Harvey could spot. One wasn’t surprising: There was a lot of space industry in Burbank, and people there overwhelmingly approved of the coming Apollo shot. Still, the near unanimity was unusual, even for this area. People, Harvey suspected, wanted another ma

They were about to pack it in when Harvey spotted a remarkably pretty girl. Never hurts to have a few feet of beauty, Harvey thought. She seemed preoccupied, and scurried along the sidewalk, her face abstracted with weighty matters and lean with efficiency.

Her smile was sudden and very nice. “I don’t watch much television,” she said. “And I’m afraid I never heard of your comet. Things have been hectic at the office—”

“It will be a very big comet,” Harvey said. “Look for it this summer. There’s also a space mission to study it. Would you approve?”

She didn’t answer immediately. “Will we learn a lot from it?” When Harvey nodded, she said, “Then I’m for it. If it doesn’t cost too much. And if the government can pay for it. Which seems doubtful.”

Harvey said something about the comet study costing less than football tickets.

“Sure. But the government doesn’t have the money. And they won’t cut back on anything. So they’ll have to print the money. Bigger deficit. More inflation. Of course we’ll get more inflation no matter what, so we might as well learn about comets for our money.”

Harvey made encouraging noises. The girl had turned very serious. Her smile faded into a pensive look that turned to anger. “What difference does it make what I think, anyway? Nobody in government listens. Nobody cares. Sure, I hope they do send up an Apollo. At least something happens. It’s not just pushing papers from one basket to another.”

Then that smile was back again, a sunburst on her face. “And why am I telling you about the political sorrows of the world? I’ve got to go.” She scurried off before Harvey could ask her name.

There was a conservatively dressed black man standing patiently, obviously waiting to get on camera. Muslim? Harvey wondered. They dressed that way. But he turned out to be a member of the Mayor’s staff who wanted to tell everyone that the Mayor did care, and if the voters would approve the Mayor’s new smog-control bond issue, people would be able to see the stars from the San Fernando Valley.

“You might be on for all of five seconds. A flash of that lovely smile,” Tim Hamner was saying. “And ‘HamnerBrown? What’s that?’ Then cut to someone who’s sure it’s going to blast Culver City to smithereens.”

She laughed. “All right. I’ll sign your form.”

“Good. Name?”

“Eileen Susan Hancock.”

Hamner wrote it carefully. “Address? Phone number?”

She frowned. She looked at the TravelAll, and all the camera gear. She looked at Hamner’s expensive leisure suit, and the thin Pulsar watch. “I don’t see—”

“We like to check with people before we use them on camera ” Tim said. “Blast. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m not really a professional at this. Just unpaid labor. Also the sponsor. And the man who discovered the comet.”

Eileen made a face: mock astonishment. “How… incestuous!” They both laughed. “How did you get to be all that?”

“Picked the right grandfather. Inherited a lot of money and a company called Kalva Soap. Spent some of the money on an observatory. Found a comet. Got the company to sponsor a documentary on the comet so I could brag about it. See, it all makes perfect sense.”

“Of course, it’s all so simple now that you’ve explained it.”

“Listen, if you don’t want to give me your address—”

“Oh, I do.” She lived in a high-rise in West Los Angeles. She gave him her phone number, too. She shook his hand briskly, and said, “I have to run, but I’m really glad I met you. You’ve made my day.” And she was gone, leaving Hamner with a dazed and happy smile.

“Ragnarok,” the man said. “Armageddon.” His voice was strong, persuasive. He had a great beard, a full black beard with two tufts of pure white at the chin, and mild, kindly eyes. “The prophets of all lands saw this day coming. The Day of Judgment. The war of fire and ice is foretold by the ancients. The Hammer is ice, and it will come in fire.”

“And what do you advise?” Harvey Randall asked.

The man hesitated; he may have feared that Randall was mocking him. “Join a church. Join any church you can believe in. ‘In my father’s house are many mansions.’ The truly religious will not be turned away.”

“What would you do if Hamner-Brown happens to miss?”

“It won’t.”

Harvey turned him over to Mark and the release form, and gave Charlie the signal to pack it in. It had not been a bad day; they had a few minutes he could use, and Harvey had learned something about the mood of his viewers.

Mark came up with the form. “Went well, didn’t it. You will notice that I kept my mouth shut.”

“So you did. Nice going.”

Hamner came gri

“Ragnarok is coming. Earth will die in fire and ice. He had the best beard I’ve ever seen. Where the hell were you?”

“Getting a release form,” said Tim. He wore that sappy smile all the way back to the lot.

From the NBS lot Tim Hamner drove to Bullocks. He knew what he was after. From there to a florist, and then to a drugstore. At the drugstore he bought sleeping pills. He was going to be keeping strange hours.

He flopped on the bed, fully dressed. He was deeply asleep when the phone rang around six-thirty. He rolled over and felt around for the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hello, I’d like to speak to Mr. Hamner, please.”

“This is me. Eileen? Sorry, I was asleep. I was going to call you.”

“Well, I beat you to it. Tim, you really know how to get a girl’s attention. The flowers are beautiful, but the vase — I mean, we’d only just met!”

He laughed. “I take it you’re a Steuben crystal fan, then. I’ve got a nice collection myself.”

“Oh?”

“I go ape over the animals.” Tim shifted to a sitting position. “I’ve got… Let’s see, a blue whale, a unicorn, a giraffe I got from my grandmother, it’s in an older style. And the Frog Prince. Have you seen the Frog Prince?”

“I’ve seen pictures of His Majesty. Hey, Tim, let me take you to di