Lucifer's Hammer

“And they’ll all head this way, looking for high ground,” George Christopher added. “Where’ll we put ’em? How can we feed them all? We can’t.”

Jellison sat on the edge of a library table. “Gil, George, I’ve always suspected you both had more sense than you let on. That’s the problem, no doubt about it. Half a million, maybe more people in the San Joaquin, and they’ll all be looking for high ground. More people up in the Sierra, went up to get away from the comet, and they’ll be coming down here now. People from as far as L.A. will come here. What do we do with them all?”

“Let’s get this straight,” one of the councilmen said. “It’s a disaster, but you’re saying…” He broke down, unable to finish for a moment. “You’re saying that the Army, the President, Sacramento, everybody’s knocked out? We’re on our own forever?”

“We may be,” Jellison said. “Maybe not, too.”

“It makes a difference,” George Christopher said. “We can take care of all those people for a week. Maybe two. Not longer. Longer than that, somebody’s got to starve. Who’ll it be? All of us because we tried to keep a hundred times too many alive for a couple of weeks?”

“That’s the problem, all right,” Mayor Seitz agreed.

“I’m not feeding any of them,” George Christopher said. His voice was like granite. “I have my own to take care of.”

“You can’t… you can’t just abandon all your responsibilities,” Jack Turner said.

“Don’t think I have any to outsiders,” Christopher said. “Not if they’re going to die anyway.”

“Some of them won’t make it,” Chief Hartman said. He pointed to the big map. “Porterville and Visalia are both in old river bottoms. Flood basins. Rain like this, I doubt those flood-control dams will hold very long.”

They all looked at the maps. It was true. Lake Success hung over Porterville, billions of gallons of water poised to plunge down on the city. Visalia to the north was no better off.

“Not just the rain,” Mayor Seitz said thoughtfully. “Warm rain, while there’s still some snow in the high country. Expect that’s all melted by now, sure by this afternoon—”

“We have to warn those people!” Jack Turner said.

“Do we?” asked a councilman.

“Sure we do,” Chief Hartman said. “And then what do we feed them with when they all come here? The stock out of Gra

There was a babble of talk in the room.

“How long will those dams last?” Jellison asked. “All day?”

No one knew for sure. The telephone wasn’t working, so they couldn’t call the county engineers.

“What did you have in mind, Senator?” Chief Hartman asked.

“Is there time to get trucks down in that area? Strip the supermarkets, feedstores, hardware stores, whatever, before the dams go?”

There was a long silence. Then one of the councilmen got up. “I reckon that dam will hold the day out. If the water don’t come too fast it can’t stop my truck anyway. I got a big ten-wheeler. I’ll go.”

“Not alone,” Jellison warned. “And not unarmed.”

“I’ll send my constables down with him,” Hartman said.

“What happens to the stuff?” George Christopher demanded.

“We share,” Jellison said.

“Share. If you share with me, it means you expect me to share with you,” Christopher said. “Not sure I like that.”

“Dammit, George, we’re in this together,” Mayor Seitz said.

“Are we? Who’s we?” Christopher demanded.

“Us. Your neighbors. Your friends,” one of the councilmen said.

“That I’ll go along with,” Christopher told them. “My neighbors. My friends. But I won’t put myself out for a lot of flatlanders. Not if they’re finished anyway.” The big man seemed to have trouble expressing himself. “Look, I got as much Christian charity as anybody here, but I won’t starve my own people to help them.” He started to leave.

“Where are you going, George?” Chief Hartman demanded.

“Senator’s got a good idea. I’m getting my brother and heading for the flats with my truck. Lots of stuff down there we’re going to need. No sense in letting the dam break on it.” He went out before anyone could say more to him.

“You’re going to have trouble with him,” Mayor Seitz said.

“I am?” Jellison said.

“Sure, who else? I’m a feedstore owner, Senator. I can call myself Mayor, but I’m not ready for this. I expect you’re in charge here. Right?”

There was a chorus of agreement from the others. It surprised no one.

George Christopher and his brother Ray drove down the highway toward Porterville. Lake Success lay on their right high banks rose to the top of the ridgeline on their left. Rain fell steadily. Already the lake had risen nearly to the bridge where the highway crossed. Chunks of mud washed down from the ridge above and covered the road. The big farm truck went through the mud patches without slowing.

“Not much traffic,” Ray said.

“Not yet.” George drove grimly, his mouth a set line, his bull neck arched toward the steering wheel. “But it won’t be long. All those people. They’ll come up the road looking for high ground—”

“Most’ll stop in Porterville,” Ray said. “It’s a couple of hundred feet higher than the San Joaquin.”

“Was,” George said. “With those quakes you can’t tell. Land shifts, raises up and down. Anyway, when the dam goes, Porterville goes. They won’t stay there.”

Ray didn’t say anything. He never argued with George. George was the only one in the family who’d gone to college. GI Bill. He hadn’t finished, but he’d learned something while he was there.

“Ray, what do they eat?” George asked suddenly.

“I don’t know—”

“You ready to see your kids starve?” George demanded.

“It won’t come to that.”

“Won’t it? People all over the place. Salt rain ru

Ray didn’t say anything.

“Think about it. While there’s food, we’ll feed people. Would you turn people away while you’ve still got livestock? Ready to stew your dogs to feed a bunch of Porterville hippies?”

“There aren’t any hippies in Porterville.”

“You know what I mean.”

Ray thought it through. They would come through Porterville. To the north and south were cities of ten million each, and if only one in ten thousand of them lived long enough to reach Porterville and turn east…

Now Ray’s mouth formed a grim line like his brother’s. Muscles stood out of his neck like thick cords. They were both big; the whole family ran big. When they were younger, George and Ray sometimes went to the tough bars looking for fights. The only time they’d ever been beaten, they’d gone home and come back with their two younger brothers. After that it was almost impossible to find a fight.

And they thought alike, though Ray thought more slowly. Now he saw it: thousands of strangers spread across the land like a locust plague, in all sizes and shapes and ages — college professors, social workers, television actors and game-show moderators and writers, brain surgeons, architects of condominiums, fashion designers, and the teeming hordes of the forever unemployed… all landless people without jobs or skills or tools or homes. Like locusts, and locusts could be fought. But what about the children? Strangers could be turned away, but children?

“So what do we do?” Ray asked finally.

“If they don’t get here, they can’t cause problems,” George said. He eyed the hills above the road. “If about a hundred tons of rock and mud came down on the road just up ahead, nobody’d get into the valley. Not easy, anyway.”

“Maybe we should pray for a hard rain,” Ray said. He looked out at the driving rain pouring from the sky.