Lucifer's Hammer

The cheap outfits were food only. There was progressively more, up to the sixteen-grand package, which included a Land Cruiser, clothing from thermal underwear out, machete, sleeping bag, butane stove and tank, inflatable raft, almost anything you could name. One included membership in a survival club: You were guaranteed a place if you could get there, somewhere in the Rockies. The different companies didn’t sell identical items, and none of the four included guns (courtesy of Lee Harvey Oswald; and how many people has the ban on mail-order guns saved or killed, depending on whether or not the Hammer falls?).

But all four companies sold you the same outfit whether you lived on a mountain or a seashore or the High Plains. Harvey gri

The traffic was very light. He’d reached Mulholland already. The San Fernando Valley spread out below him. The wind had been strong today and there was no smog.

The valley stretched on for miles. Row after row of California suburban houses, rich areas and poor areas, stucco subdevelopments and old wooden frame homes, here and there a magnificent Monterey style, ancient, the only remnants of the time when the valley had been orange groves — and every one of them built in a flood basin. The neat squares of the valley were cut through by freeways — and there weren’t many cars out there.

All over the basin, on four successive midmornings, the outbound freeways were more crowded than the inbound. Cars, trucks and rented trailers loaded with a lifetime of clutter, all moving out of the basin toward the hills beyond, or over the passes into the San Joaquin. All over the L.A. basin, stores had closed for the week, or for the month, or forever; and the remaining businesses were suffering badly from absenteeism. Hammer Fever.

There was almost no traffic on Benedict Canyon. Harvey chuckled. Here were the people coming home from work… but the ones with Hammer Fever were elsewhere. Hammer Fever had sent the mountain resort business to an all-time high, all across the country. The Treasury Department was worried: Consumer credit levels had broken all records; people were buying survival gear on credit cards. Employment up, economy up, inflation up, all because of the comet.

It’s going to make one hell of a story.

Unless the damned thing does fall. It hit him, just then: If the Hammer fell, nobody was going to give a damn about the story. There’d be no programs. No TV. Nothing.

Harvey shook his head. His smile faded as he glanced at the package in the passenger seat. His compromise with Hammer Fever: an Olympic target pistol, .22 caliber, with a sculpted wooden grip that wrapped fully around the hand, steadying and bracing the wrist. It would be inhumanly accurate, but it was nothing anyone could point to while bellowing, “Look, Old Harv’s got Hammer Fever!”

Only maybe I wasn’t so damned smart after all, Harvey thought. He began to take inventory in his head.

He had a shotgun. Backpacking gear too, but only for himself. The idea of Loretta carrying a backpack was ludicrous. He had taken her on a hike, just once. Did she still have the shoes? Probably not. She couldn’t exist at distances greater than five miles from a beauty shop.

And I love her, he reminded himself firmly. I can play rugged outdoorsman whenever I want to, and have elegance to come back to. Unwanted there came to him the memory of Maureen Jellison standing high on a split rock, her long red hair blowing in the wind. He pushed the memory very firmly back down into his mind and left it there.

So what can I do to prepare? Harvey wondered. Not a lot of time left. Supplies. Well, I can compromise. Ca

He turned into the driveway and braked sharply. Loretta had stopped the station wagon in the drive and was carrying packages into the house. He got out and started helping her, automatically, and only gradually realized that he was carrying bag after bag of frozen food. He asked, “What is this?”

Puffing slightly, Loretta set her load on the kitchen table. “Don’t be angry, Harv. I couldn’t help it. Everyone says — well, says that comet may hit us. So I got some food, just in case.”

“Frozen food.”

“Yes. They were nearly out of cans. I hope we can get it all in the freezer.” She surveyed the bags doubtfully. “I don’t know. We may have to eat Stouffer stuff for a couple of days.”

“Uh-huh.” Frozen food. Good God. Did she expect power lines to survive Hammerfall? But of course she did. He said nothing. She meant well; and while Loretta had been out getting useless supplies, Harvey Randall had been dithering and doing nothing; it came down to the same thing, except for the money, and she’d probably saved them money if the Hammer didn’t fall. Which it wouldn’t. And if it did — why, money wouldn’t be important anyway. “You done good,” Harvey said. He kissed her and went out for another load.

“Hey, Harvey.”

“Yo, Gordie,” Harvey said. He went over to the fence.

Gordie Vance held out a beer. “Brought you one,” he said. “Saw you drive up.”

“Thanks. You want to talk about something?” He hoped Gordie did. Vance hadn’t been himself the last few weeks. There was something bothering him. Harvey could sense it without knowing what it was, and without Gordie knowing that Harvey knew.

“Where you going to be next Tuesday?” Gordie asked.

Harvey shrugged. “L.A. somewhere, I guess. I’ve got crews for the national stuff.”

“But working,” Gordie said. “Sure you don’t want to come hiking? Good weather in the mountains. I get some time off next week.”

“Good Lord,” Harvey said. “I can’t—”

“Why not? You really want to stick here for the end of the world?”

“It won’t be the end of the world,” Harvey said automatically. He caught the gleam in Vance’s eye. “And anyway, if that Hammer doesn’t fall and I haven’t been busy covering it, it’s the end of my world. No can do, Gordie. God. I’d like to get away, but no.”

“Figures,” Vance said. “Loan me your kid.”

“What?”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” Vance said. “Suppose that thing does hit. Andy’d have a much better chance up in the hills with me. And if it doesn’t — well, you wouldn’t want him to miss a good hike just to hang around in the L.A. smog, would you?”

“You make plenty of sense,” Harvey said. “But… where’ll you be? I mean, in case something does happen, how do I find you and Andy.”

Vance’s face took on a serious look. “You know damned well what your chances of living through it are if it does hit and you’re in L.A…”

“Yeah. Slim and none,” Harvey said.

“…and besides, I’ll be just about where you’d want to go. Out of Quaking Aspen. The old Silver Knapsack area. Low enough to get out of in bad weather, high enough to be safe no matter what happens. Unless we’re under it, and that’s a random chance, isn’t it?”

“Sure. You ask Andy about this?”

“Yeah. He said he’d like to go, if it’s okay with you.”

“Who all’s going?”

“Just me and seven boys,” Gordie said. “Marie’s got charity work to do, so she can’t come…”

Harvey envied Gordie Vance just one thing: Marie Vance went on hikes. On the other hand, she wasn’t very easy to live with in town.

“…which means under scout rules the girls can’t come,” Gordie was saying. “And some of the others — well, they’re just not available. Hell, Harvey, you know the area. We’ll be fine.”

Harvey nodded. It was safe trail and a good area. “Right,” he said. He drank most of the beer. “You all right, Gordie?” he asked suddenly.

Vance’s face changed, subtly, and he was trying to hide the change. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”