Lucifer's Hammer

And if you truly get used to sending people off to die, will anyone want to know you?

The worst of it was, George Christopher was right; but that didn’t make it any easier. “I’ll have some of my people come with you, George. And we’ll have a relief crew out in the morning.”

“Good.” Christopher went to the door. On the way he stopped for a moment to smile at Maureen. “Good-night, Melisande,” he said.

One kerosene lamp burned in the living room of the Jellison house. Arthur Jellison sprawled in an easy chair, shoes off, shirt partly unbuttoned. “Al, leave those lists until tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir. Can I get you anything?” Al Hardy glanced at his watch: 2 A.M.

“No. Maureen can take care of me. Good-night.”

Hardy pointedly looked at his watch again. “Getting late, Senator. And you’re supposed to be up in the morning…”

“I’ll turn in shortly. Good-night.” This time the dismissal was pointed. Jellison watched his assistant leave, noted Hardy’s determined look. It confirmed a guess Arthur Jellison had made earlier. That damned doctor at Bethesda Naval Hospital had told Hardy about the abnormal electrocardiograms, and Hardy was making like a mother hen. Had Al told Maureen? It didn’t matter.

“Want a drink, Dad?” Maureen asked.

“Water. We ought to save the bourbon,” Jellison said. “Sit down, please.” The tone was polite, but it wasn’t exactly a request. Not really an order, either. A worried man.

“Yes?” she said. She took a chair near his.

“What did George Christopher mean? Who’s ‘Melisande’ or whatever he said?”

“It’s a long story—”

“I want to hear it. Anything about the Christophers I want to hear,” Jellison said.

“Why?”

“Because they’re the other power in this valley and we’ve got to work together and not against each other. I need to know just who’s giving in to what,” Jellison said. “Now tell me.”

“Well, you know George and I practically grew up together,” Maureen said. “We’re the same age—”

“Sure.”

“And before you went to Washington, when you were a state senator, George and I were in love. Well, we were only fourteen, but it felt like love.” And, she didn’t say, I haven’t really felt like that about anybody since. “He wanted me to stay here. With him. I would have, too, if there’d been any way to do it. I didn’t want to go to Washington.”

Jellison looked older in the yellow kerosene light. “I didn’t know that. I was busy just then—”

“It’s all right, Dad,” Maureen said.

“All right or not, it’s done,” Jellison said. “What’s with Melisande?”

“Remember the play The Rainmaker? The confidence man plays up to the old-maid farm girl. Tells her to stop calling herself ‘Lizzie,’ to come with him and she’ll be Melisande and they’ll live a glamorous life… Well, George and I saw it that summer, and it was a switch, that’s all. Instead of going off to the glamorous life in Washington, I should stay here with him. I’d forgotten all about it.”

“You had, huh? You remember it now, though.”

“Dad…”

“What did he mean, calling you that?” Jellison asked.

“Well, I — ” She stopped herself and didn’t say anything else.

“Yeah. I figure it that way too,” Jellison said. “He’s telling you something, isn’t he? How much have you seen of him since we went to Washington?”

“Not much.”

“Have you slept with him?”

“That’s none of your business,” Maureen flared.

“The hell it’s not. Anything and everything around this valley is my business just now. Especially if it’s got Christophers mixed up in it. Did you?”

“No.”

“Did he try?”

“Nothing serious,” she said. “I think he’s too religious. And we didn’t really have many opportunities, not after I’d moved to Washington.”

“And he’s never married,” Jellison said.

“Dad, that’s silly! He hasn’t been pining away for me for sixteen years!”

“No, I don’t suppose so. But that was a pretty definite message tonight. Okay, let’s get to bed—”

“Dad.”

“Yes?”

“Can we talk? I’m scared.” She took the chair next to his. He thought she looked much younger just then, and remembered her when she was a little girl, when her mother was still alive. “It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked.

“About as bad as it gets,” Jellison said. He reached for the whiskey and poured himself two fingers. “May as well. We know how to make whiskey. If there’s grain, we’ll have booze. If there’s grain.”

“What’s going to happen?” Maureen asked.

“I don’t know. I can make some guesses.” He stared at the empty fireplace. It was damp from rain coming down the chimney. “Hammerfall. By now the tidal waves have swept around the world. Seacoast cities are all gone. Washington’s gone. I hope the Capitol survived — I like that old granite pile.” He fell silent for a moment, and they listened to the steady pounding rain and rolling thunder.

“I forgot who said it,” Jellison said. “It’s true enough. No country is more than three meals away from a revolution. Hear that rain? It’s all over the country. Lowlands, river bottoms, little creeks, any low places in the roads, they’ll be underwater, just like the whole San Joaquin Valley’s going to be underwater. Highways, railroads, river travel, it’s all gone. There’s no transportation and not much communication. Which means the United States has ceased to exist. So have most other countries.”

“But…” She shivered, although it wasn’t cold in the room. “There have to be places that aren’t damaged. Cities not on the coast. Mountain areas that don’t have earthquake faults. They’ll still be organized—”

“Will they? How many places can you think of that have food enough to last for weeks?”

“I never thought about it—”

“Right. And it isn’t weeks, it’s months,” Jellison said. “Kitten, what do people eat? The United States has about thirty days’ food at any given time. That’s everything — warehouses, supermarkets, grain elevators, ships in harbor. A lot of it was lost. A lot more is perishable. And there isn’t going to be diddly for a crop this fall. Do you expect anybody who’s got barely enough to eat to come out and help anybody else?”

“Oh—”

“And it’s worse than that.” His voice was brutal now, almost as if he were trying to frighten her. “Refugees everywhere. Anyplace there’s enough to eat, there’ll be people after food. Don’t blame them. We could have a million refugees on the way here right now! Maybe here and there the police and local governments try to survive. How do they manage when the locusts come? Only they’re not locusts, they’re people.”

“But… what do we do?” Maureen cried.

“We survive. We live through it. And we build a new civilization. Somebody’s got to.” His voice rose. “We can do it. How soon depends on how far we get knocked down. All the way to savagery? Bows and arrows and stone clubs? I’ll be damned if we can’t do better than that!”

“Yes, of course—”

“No ‘of course’ about it, Kitten.” Jellison sounded very old, but his voice held determination and strength. “It depends on what we can keep. Keep right here. We don’t know what’s left anywhere else, but here we’re in pretty good shape if we can just hang on. Here we’ve got a chance, and by God we’re going to take it.”

“You’ll do it,” Maureen said. “It’s your job.”

“Think of anybody else who can?”

“I wasn’t asking a question, Dad.”

“Then remember that, when I’ve got to do something I don’t much like.” He set his jaw hard. “We’re going to make it, Kitten. I promise you, the people of this valley are going to live through this and come out civilized.” Then he laughed. “I do go on. It’s time for bed. Lot of work to do tomorrow.”

“All right.”

“You don’t need to wait for me. I’ll be along. Git.”

She kissed him and left. Arthur Jellison drained the whiskey glass and set it down with a long look at the bottle. He sat staring into the empty fireplace.