Lucifer's Hammer

He could see how a civilization could be built from the wreckage Lucifer’s Hammer had left. Salvage work. Plenty to salvage in the old seacoast cities. The water hadn’t destroyed everything. New oil wells could be drilled. The railroads could be repaired. These rains wouldn’t last forever.

We can rebuild it, and this time we’ll do it right. We’ll spread beyond this one damned little ball, get human civilization out all through the solar system, to other stars even, so no one thing can knock us out again.

Sure we can. But how do we live long enough to start rebuilding? First things first, and right now the problem is getting this valley organized. Nobody’s going to help. We have to do it ourselves. The only law and order will be what we can make, and the only safety Maureen and Charlotte and Je

That boils down to how do I keep this ranch? and maybe I can’t do that, not without help. Whose help? George Christopher for one. George has a lot of friends. Between us we can do all right.

Arthur Jellison got wearily to his feet and blew out the kerosene lamp. In the sudden dark the pounding rain and crashing thunder sounded even louder. He could see his way to the bedroom through lightning flashes.

There was a light under Al Hardy’s door; It went out after Hardy heard the Senator get into bed.

Sanctuary

Harvey Randall woke to strident sounds. Someone was screaming at him.

“Harvey! Help!”

Loretta? He sat up suddenly, and banged his head on something. He’d been asleep in the TravelAII, and the voice wasn’t Loretta’s. For a moment he was bewildered. What was nightmare, what was real?

“Harvey!” The shouting voice was real. And, oh, God, Loretta was dead.

It was raining, but there was no rain around the TravelAII. He opened the door and blinked in the dim light. His watch said 6:00. Morning or evening?

The TravelAII was parked under a rickety shed, no more than a roof with posts to hold it up. Marie Vance stood at the far end. Joa

None of it made sense. Half-light, driving rain and howling wind, lightning and thunder, the screaming woman and Mark shouting and Joa

Mark turned and saw him. His face lighted with a smile. That faded too, like Harvey’s dream that it was a dream, like—

“Harvey! Tell him!” Marie shouted.

He shook the cobwebs from his head. They wouldn’t go. “Mark?” he said.

Marie jerked like a puppet. Harvey stared in astonishment as she did it again. She seemed to be fighting an invisible enemy. Then, suddenly, she relaxed and her voice was calm, or nearly so. “Harvey Randall, it’s time you woke up,” she said. “Or don’t you care about your son? You’ve buried Loretta, now think about Andy.”

He heard himself speak. “What is all this?”

They both talked at once. The need for understanding, rather than any other emotion, made Harvey speak sharply. “One at a time! Mark, please. Let her talk.”

“This — man wants to abandon our boys,” Marie said.

“I don’t. I’m trying to tell you—”

She cut Mark off. “The boys are in Sequoia. I told him that. Sequoia. But he keeps taking us west, and that’s not the right way.”

“All of you shut up!” Joa

And she had the shotgun.

“Where are we going, Mark?” Harvey asked.

“To Sequoia,” Mark said. “That’s a big place, and she doesn’t know where—”

“I do,” Harvey said. “Where are we?”

“Simi Valley,” Mark said. “Will you listen to me?”

“Yes. Talk.”

“Harvey, he’s—”

“Shut up, Marie! Harvey made his voice deliberately brutal. It stopped her.

“Harv, there’s people all over,” Mark said. “Roads were gettin’ jammed. So I cut off onto a fire trail I know about. Bikers use it. It’ll lead us through the condor reservation. Sure, it goes west awhile, but we stay off the goddam freeways! You stop to think how many people are trying to get out of L.A. right now? Not many know about this road. And it stays on high ground. It wasn’t much of a road to begin with, less to go wrong with it.” He turned to Marie. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. We have to get over the mountains, all the way over. Then we get to the San Joaquin and we’re on level ground, and we can cut over to Sequoia—”

“Let’s get a map,” Harvey suggested.

“It doesn’t show on a map,” Mark protested. “If it did, everybody—”

“I believe your road,” Harvey said. “I want to see what happens after that. I’ve got maps in the TravelAII.” He started to turn, but Joa

“Frank Stoner made us take three copies. One for each bike,” she said. She held up a big aeronautical chart. It showed terrain features in colors. “There are Auto Club maps, too.”

It was too dark to read the map properly. Mark went to the TravelAII and came back with a flashlight. Marie was standing stiffly aloof, silent, her eyes still accusing.

“See?” Mark said. “Right across here. The highway goes past lakes. With dams. That sit on top of the San Andreas. You really think the big highway’s still usable?”

Harvey shook his head. It wouldn’t matter. If the highway could be used, a million people would be trying to use it. If not… “So we come out through Frazier Park.”

“Right! Then down in the valley and it’s a straight shot north,” Mark said. “I was thinking of getting to the Mojave ’cause that’s where Frank said we should be, but it’s no good. Can’t get to Sequoia that way.” He pointed. “All the eastside routes lead past Lake Isabella. Follow the Kern River. Harv, with all this rain, how many bridges will there be over the Kern?”

“None. Marie, he’s right. If we went the direct route we’d never get there.”

Mark looked pleased. Joa

“If you had explained before…” Marie began.

“Jesus, I tried!” Mark shouted.

“Not you.”

She meant me, Harvey thought. And she’s right. I can’t curl up and die, I’ve got a boy up in those hills and I’ve got to go get him, and thank God for Marie. “How’s our gas?” Harvey asked.

“Pretty good. We’ve made about fifty miles—”

“No more than that,” Harvey muttered. Of course it was true, he could see it on the map. It seemed like much further. They couldn’t have been going very fast. “Mark, how sure are you of this fire trail? Won’t it wash out?”

“Probably,” Mark said. He pointed silently to the dams poised above Interstate 5. “Rather risk that?”

“No. If we’re going, we’d better do it. I’ll drive,” Harvey said.

“And I’ll scout ahead. Joa

It felt good to be doing something. Anything. He had a throbbing headache, the begi

“Let’s go,” Harvey said.

The road ran along ridgelines, curled around hills, boring north and west. It stayed on high ground. Rock and mudslides spilled across it, but being high, the debris wasn’t deep; and being almost untraveled, the road wasn’t cut away at the edges.