Lucifer's Hammer

The Stronghold: One

It is certain that free societies would have no easy time in a future dark age. The rapid return to universal penury will be accomplished by violence and cruelties of a kind now forgotten. The force of law will be scant or nil, either because of the collapse or disappearance of the machinery of state, or because of difficulties of communication and transport. It will be possible only to delegate authority to local powers who will maintain it by force alone…

Senator Arthur Jellison was in a foul mood on Hammerfall Morning. The only people he could get at JPL were PR flacks who didn’t know anything that wasn’t being reported on radio and TV. There was no way to reach Charlie Sharps. It made sense, but Senator Jellison wasn’t used to having people too busy to talk to him. Finally he settled for a phone patch into the space communications network, so he could hear what the astronauts were saying.

That didn’t help much because of the static. The live TV shots were bad, too. Was the damned thing going to hit or not?

If it did hit, there were a lot of moves Jellison should have made but hadn’t, because he couldn’t afford to look like a fool to his constituents, not even here in the valley, where he routinely got eighty percent of the vote. He’d brought his family and a couple of assistants and as much gear as he could buy without attracting a lot of attention, and that was about all he could do. Now they were all gathered in the house, most of them sitting with him in the big living room.

The phone speaker squawked. Joh

So did Charlotte, but she thought she had him. Jellison didn’t care for Jack Turner. His son-in-law was too handsome, too quick to talk about his te

“Crummy pictures,” Jack Turner said.

“Grandpa will get us good ones,” Je

“Hammerlab, this is Houston, we do not copy,” the telephone speaker said.

“Grandpa—”

“Hush, Je

“Jesus, it’s coming closer”

“That’s Joh

“Like it’s going to hit—”

The TV image vanished. The phone line continued to chatter. “FIREBALL OVERHEAD!” “HOUSTON, HOUSTON, THERE IS A LARGE STRIKE IN THE GULF OF MEXICO…”

“Good Lord!”

“Shut up, Jack,” Jellison said quietly.

“…REQUEST YOU SEND A HELICOPTER FOR OUR FAMILIES… THE HAMMER HAS FALLEN.”

“You shouldn’t talk to Jack that way—”

Jellison ignored Charlotte. “Al!” he shouted.

“Yes, sir,” Hardy answered from the next room. He came in quickly.

“Round up all the ranch-hands. Quick. Any that have trucks should bring them. And rifles. Get moving.”

“Right.” Hardy vanished.

The others seemed stu

“Don’t know,” Jellison said. “Don’t know how bad it was. Damned phone’s dead. Maureen, see if you can get anything, anybody, at JPL on that phone. Move.”

“Right.”

Then he looked at Jack Turner. Turner wasn’t known in the valley. No one would take orders from him. And what use was he? “Jack, get one of the Scouts started. You’ll drive me into town. I want to see the Chief of Police. And the Mayor.”

Turner almost said something, but the look on Jellison’s face stopped that.

“Can’t get through to L.A. at all, Dad,” Maureen said. “The phone’s working but—”

She was interrupted by the earthquake. It wasn’t very strong, this far from California’s major faults, but it was enough to shake the house. The children looked afraid, and Charlotte gathered them to her and took them to a bedroom.

“I can get the local phone numbers,” Maureen finished.

“Good. Get the local police and tell them I’m coming to town to talk to their Chief, and the Mayor. It’s important, and tell them I’m already on the way. Let’s go, Jack. Maureen, when Al gets the ranch-hands together, you and Al talk to them. What we’ll need is every friend they’ve got, all their trucks, rifles, everything. There’s a lot to do. Send about half the troops into town to find me, and have the rest secure for rainstorms, mudslides…” He thought for a moment. “And snow, if Charlie Sharps knows what he’s talking about. Snow within a week.”

“Snow? That’s stupid,” Jack Turner protested.

“Right,” Maureen said. “Anything else, Dad?”

The City Hall doubled as library, jail and police station. The local Chief commanded two full-time patrolmen and several unpaid volunteer auxiliaries. The Mayor owned the local feedstore. Government in Silver Valley was not a large or important activity.

The rain started before Jellison arrived at City Hall. Sheet lightning played over the High Sierra to the east. Rain fell like the outpouring of a warm bathtub, filling the streets and ru

There were a dozen others in the large library room. Chief of Police Randy Hartman, a retired cop from one of the large eastern cities; three city councilmen; a couple of local store owners. Jellison recognized the bullnecked man sitting toward the rear of the group, and waved. He didn’t see his neighbor George Christopher very often.

Jellison introduced his son-in-law and shook hands around. The room fell silent.

“What’s happened, Senator?” the Mayor asked. “Did… that thing really did hit us, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I saw magazine articles about it,” Mayor Seitz mused. “Glaciers. East Coast wiped out.” There was a crash of thunder and Gil Seitz waved toward the windows. “Didn’t believe it before. Now I guess I have to. How long does that rain go on?”

“Weeks,” Jellison said.

That sobered them all. They were all farmers, or lived in a community where farming — and farming weather — was the most important topic of conversation. They all knew what weeks of pounding rain would do.

“Animals will starve,” Seitz said. There was a momentary smile as he thought of the prices his feedstore inventory would bring; then a frown as he thought it through. “Just how much damage did that do? Will there be trucks left? Trains? Feed deliveries?”

Jellison didn’t say anything for a moment. “The science people tell me it’ll be raining like this all across the country,” he said slowly.

“Jesus Christ,” the Mayor said. “Nobody gets in a crop this year. Nobody. What’s in the elevators and granaries is it.”

“And I don’t reckon anybody’s going to send much to us,” George Christopher observed. Everyone nodded agreement. “If it’s that bad… Is it?”

“Don’t know,” Jellison said. “Good chance it’s worse.”

Seitz turned to study the big contour map of Tulare and adjacent counties that hung on the library wall. “Jesus, Senator, what do we do? The San Joaquin’s going to fill up, rain like this. Fill right up. And there’s a lot of people out there. A lot.”