Lucifer's Hammer

There were no more shots. Thank God! The Many Names Ranch was only half a mile down the road. Maybe they had guns, or a telephone that worked… Did any telephones work? The Shire wasn’t precisely an official information source, but they’d been so sure.

“Never find a cop when you need one,” Harry muttered.

He’d have to be careful showing himself at Many Names. The owners might be a bit nervous. And if they weren’t, they damned well should be!

It was dusk when Harry reached Muchos Nombres Ranch. The rain had increased and was falling slantwise, and lightning played across the nearly black sky.

Muchos Nombres was thirty acres of hilly pastureland dotted with the usual great white boulders. Of the four families who jointly owned it, two would sometimes invite Harry in for coffee. The result was diffidence on Harry’s part. He never knew whose turn it was. The families each owned one week in four, and they treated the ranch as a vacation spot. Sometimes they traded off; sometimes they brought guests. The oversupply of owners had been unable to agree on a name, and had finally settled for Muchos Nombres. The Spanish fooled nobody.

Today Harry was fresh out of diffidence. He yelled his “Mail call!” and waited, expecting no answer. Presently he opened the gate and went on in.

He reached the front door like something dragged from an old grave. He knocked.

The door opened.

“Mail,” said Harry. “Hullo, Mr. Freehafer. Sorry to be so late, but there are some emergencies going.”

Freehafer had an automatic pistol. He looked Harry over with some care. Behind him the living room danced with candlelight, and it looked crowded with wary people. Doris Lilly said, “Why, it’s Harry! It’s all right, Bill. It’s Harry the mailman.”

Freehafer lowered the gun. “All right, pleased to meet you, Harry. Come on in. What emergencies?”

Harry stepped inside, out of the rain. Now he saw the third man, stepping around a doorjamb, laying a shotgun aside. “Mail,” said Harry, and he set down two magazines, the usual haul for Many Names. “Somebody shot at me from Carrie Roman’s place. It wasn’t anyone I know. I think the Romans are in trouble. Is your phone working?”

“No,” said Freehafer. “We can’t go out there tonight.”

“Okay. And my mail truck went off a hill, and I don’t know what the roads are like. Can you let me have a couch, or a stretch of rug, and something to eat?”

The hesitation was marked. “It’s the rug, I’m afraid,” Freehafer said. “Soup and a sandwich do you? We’re a little short.”

“I’d eat your old shoes,” said Harry.

It was ca

“What is this with the end of the world?” Harry asked.

They told him. They showed him, in the magazines he’d brought. The magazines were damp but still readable. Harry read interviews with Sagan and Asimov and Sharps. He stared at artists’ conceptions of major meteor impacts. “They all think it’ll miss,” he said.

“It didn’t,” said Norman Lilly. He was a football player turned insurance executive, a broad-shouldered wall of a man who should have kept up his exercises. “Now what? We brought some seeds and farm stuff, just in case, but we didn’t bring any books. Do you know anything about farming, Harry?”

“No. People, I’ve had a rough day—”

“Right. No sense wasting candles,” said Norman.

All of the beds, blankets and couches were in use. Harry spent the night on a thick rug, swathed in three of Norman Lilly’s enormous bathrobes, his head on a chair pillow. He was comfortable enough, but he kept twitching himself awake.

Lucifer’s Hammer? End of the world? Crawling through mud while bullets punched into his mailbag and the letters inside. He kept waking with the memory of a nightmare, and always the nightmare was real.

Harry woke and counted days. First night he slept in the truck. Second with the Millers. Last night was the third. Three days since he’d reported in.

It was definitely the end of the world. The Wolf should have come looking for him with blood in his eye. He hadn’t. The power lines were still down. The phones weren’t working. No county road crews. Ergo, Hammerfall. The end of the world. It had really happened.

“Rise and shine!” Doris Lilly’s cheer was artificial. She tried to keep it up anyway. “Rise and shine! Come and get it or we throw it out.”

Breakfast wasn’t much. They shared with Harry, which was pretty damned generous of them. The Lilly children, eight and ten, stared at the adults. One of them complained that the TV wasn’t working. No one paid any attention.

“Now what?” Freehafer asked.

“We get food,” Doris Lilly said. “We have to find something to eat.”

“Where do you suggest we look?” Bill Freehafer asked. He wasn’t being sarcastic.

Doris shrugged. “In town? Maybe things aren’t as bad as… maybe they’re not so bad.”

“I want to watch TV,” Phil Lilly said.

“Not working,” Doris said absently. “I vote we go to town and see how things are. We can give Harry a ride—”

“TV now!” Phil screamed.

“Shut up,” his father said.

“Now!” the boy repeated.

Smack! Norman Lilly’s huge hand swept against the boy’s face.

“Norm!” his wife cried. The child screamed, more in surprise than pain. “You never hit the children before—”

“Phil,” Lilly said. His voice was calm and determined. “It’s all different now. You better understand that. When we tell you to be quiet, you’ll be quiet. You and your sister both, you’ve got a lot of learning to do, and quick. Now go in the other room.”

The children hesitated for a moment. Norman raised his hand. They looked at him, startled, then ran.

“Little drastic,” Bill Freehafer said.

“Yeah,” Norm said absently. “Bill, don’t you think we better look in on our neighbors?”

“Let the police — ” Bill Freehafer stopped himself. “Well there might still be police.”

“Yeah. Who’ll they take orders from, now?” Lilly asked. He looked at Harry.

Harry shrugged. There was a local mayor. The Sheriff was out in the San Joaquin, and with this rain that could be under water. “Maybe the Senator?” Harry said.

“Hey, yeah, Jellison lives over the hill there,” Freehafer said. “Maybe we should… Jesus, I don’t know, Norm. What can we do?”

Lilly shrugged. “We can look, anyway. Harry, you know those people?”

“Yes…”

“We have two cars. Bill, you take everybody else into town. Harry and I’ll have a look. Right?”

Harry looked dubious. “I’ve already left their mail—”

“Jesus,” Bill Freehafer said.

Norman Lilly held up an immense hand. “He’s right, you know. But look at it this way, Harry. You’re a mailman.”

“Yes-”

“Which can be damned valuable. Only there won’t be any mail. Not letters and magazines, anyway. But there’s still a need for message carriers. Somebody to keep communications going. Right?”

“Something like that,” Harry agreed.

“Good. You’ll be needed. More than ever. But here’s your first post-comet message. To the Romans, from us. We’re willing to help, if we can. They’re our neighbors. But we don’t know them, and they don’t know us. If they’ve had trouble they’ll be watching for strangers. Somebody’s got to introduce us. That’s a worthwhile message, isn’t it?”

Harry thought it over. It made sense. “You’ll give me a ride after—”

“Sure. Let’s go.” Norm Lilly went out. He came back with a deer rifle, and the automatic pistol. “Ever use one of these, Harry?”