by Larry Niven
Tim felt Eileen’s hand seeking his. He took her hand and held it tightly.
“Poor bastards,” she muttered. She shivered in the dawn cold. The rain had eased, but the wind was cold. It blew the fire. They could feel warmth from the blazing car fighting the wind’s chill.
Eileen let go of Tim’s hand and moved out onto the ruined bridge. She looked back at the walls of the gorge on the side where Tim still stood. Then she pointed. “We can get across, I think,” she said. “Come look.” Her voice was calm and detached now.
Tim went out to her, walking gingerly, afraid the rest of the bridge would collapse. He looked where she was pointing. There was a gravel road, barely a car’s width wide, carved out of the side of the gorge and switchbacking down into the canyon. “Must be the old road,” Eileen said. “I thought there might be one.”
It didn’t look adequate at all. Not even to walk on, but Eileen went back and started the engine.
“Shouldn’t we wait for more light?” Tim asked.
“Probably, but I don’t want to,” she said.
“Okay. But let me drive. You get out and walk.”
There was just light enough to see her face. She leaned over and kissed him, lightly, on the cheek. “You’re sweet. But I’m a better driver than you. And you’ll walk, because somebody has to go ahead and be sure I can drive down the trail.”
“No. We’ll do it together.” He knew he wasn’t making much sense, and he wondered if he would have said that if he hadn’t known she would make him get out and walk.
“We both have a better chance if you scout,” she said. “Now get to it.”
The old road was a nightmare. Sometimes it tilted horribly toward the canyon below. At least, Tim thought, we’re out of sight of the burning car. He could still see some light from the dying blaze.
At the switchbacks she had to go around in short segments, backing up and turning, again and again, with the wheels only inches from the edge. Tim felt terror at every turn. She had only to make one mistake: The wrong gear, or too much pressure on the accelerator, and she would be down there, burning alive, and Tim would be alone. He was barely able to walk when they reached the bottom.
“How deep is it?” Eileen asked.
“I…” Tim came back to the car and got in. “I’ll find out in a minute.” He reached for her, desperately.
She pushed him away. “Sweetheart, look.” She pointed to her left.
There was just enough light to see. Beyond the ruins of the burned car rose a massive concrete wall, rising high above them. A dam. Tim shuddered. Then he got out and waded into the stream, fighting the current. It was only up to his knees, and he staggered across, then beckoned for her to follow.
The Landlord
Ownership is not only a right, if is a duty. Ownership obligates. Use your property as if it had been entrusted to you by the people.
Oswald Spengler, Thoughts
At noon Tim and Eileen reached the top of the gorge. When they were a third of the way up, another car had come to the other side and begun working its way down. It was an ordinary car without four-wheel drive, and Tim did not understand how they had got that far up the canyon. The other car held two men, a woman and many children. It was still clinging to the side of the gorge when Tim and Eileen reached the top on the other side. They drove away, leaving the others perched on the side of the cliff, wondering if they should have spoken to them, but not knowing what they could have done to help.
Tim felt more helpless than ever. He was prepared for the end of civilization: to be nearly alone, to find human beings few and far between. He was not prepared to watch it die, and he wondered what he should do about that, but he could think of nothing.
The next bridge was mercifully intact, and the one after that. They were only a few miles from the observatory.
They rounded a bend, to find four cars in the road. There were a lot of people standing there. These were the first people Tim and Eileen had seen since they left the gorge.
The road ran through a tunnel here, and the tunnel had collapsed. The cars were parked while men with shovels worked to prepare a way over the top of the rocky spur the tunnel had pierced. They had dug out part of a road, and were taking turns, since there were more men than shovels.
Six women and many children were gathered around the cars. Eileen looked hesitantly at the group, then drove up to them.
The children stared with big eyes. One of the women came over to the car. She seemed ancient, although she couldn’t have been more than forty. She looked at the Blazer, noting the starred bullet hole in the rear windshield. She didn’t say anything.
“Hello,” Tim said.
“Hi.”
“Have you been here long?”
“Got here just after dawn,” the woman said.
“Did you come from town?” Eileen asked.
“No. We were camped up here. Tried to get back to Glendale, but the road’s blocked. How’d you get up here? Could we go back the way you came?” Once she had found her voice, the woman talked rapidly.
“We came up Big Tujunga,” Tim said.
The woman looked surprised, and turned to the hill. “Hey, Freddie. They came up Big Tujunga.”
“It’s blocked,” the man called. He handed the shovel to another man and started down the hill toward them. Tim saw that he wore a pistol on his belt.
Their cars were not very new. A battered pickup truck, loaded with camping goods; a station wagon on sagging springs; an ancient Dodge Dart.
“We tried to get out Big Tujunga,” the man was saying as he came closer. He wore typical camping clothing, wool shirt and twill trousers. A Sierra cup dangled from one side of his belt. The pistol hung in its holster on the other. He didn’t seem to be aware of the gun. “I’m Fred Haskins. Reckon you came across the gorge by the old switchbacks?”
“Yes,” Eileen said.
“What’s it like back in L.A.?” Haskins asked.
“Bad,” Tim said.
“Yeah. Earthquake shook the place pretty good, huh?” Haskins looked at Tim carefully. He looked at the bullet hole too. “How’d you get that?”
“Someone tried to stop us-”
“Where?”
“Just as we started up into the mountains,” Tim said.
“Sheriff’s honor farm,” Haskins muttered. “All them prisoners loose, then?”
“What did you mean, ‘bad’?” the woman asked. “What did you mean?”
Suddenly Tim couldn’t stand it any longer. “It’s all gone. The San Fernando Valley, everything south of the Hollywood Hills, drowned in a tidal wave. What wasn’t drowned is burned. Tujunga looked pretty good, but the rest of the L.A. basin is finished.”
Fred Haskins stared uncomprehendingly. “Finished? All those people dead? All of them?”
“Just about,” Tim said.
“There are probably a lot of people still alive in the hills,” Eileen said. “But — if the road’s blocked, then they can’t come up here.”
“Jeez,” Haskins said. “That comet hit us, right? I knew it was going to hit. Martha, I told you we’d be better up here. How long… ? I guess they’ll send the Army to get us, but we may as well dig our way over,” Haskins said. “Road on the other side looks in good shape. Far as we can see, anyway. Martha, you got anything on the radio yet?”
“Nothing. Static. Sometimes I think I hear a few words, but they don’t make sense.”
“Yeah.”
“You folks had anything to eat?” Martha Haskins asked.
“No.”
“You look starved. Here, I’ll get you something, Mister—”
“Tim.”
“Tim. And you’re—”
“Eileen. Thank you.”
“Yeah. Tim, you go with Fred there and help dig while I get lunch together.”
As they climbed up the steep trail, Fred said, “Glad you came along. Not sure we could have got all the cars over. With that rig you can pull ’em over for sure. T
hen we’ll go look for the Army people.”
The road heaved and shifted and moved out from under the lead truck.
Corporal Gillings, dozing in his seat, was jarred nastily awake. Swearing, he looked out through the canvas. The convoy was trapped. The earth heaved like a sea—
“Hammerfall,” he said.
The troops were muttering. Johnson asked, “What’s that?”
“The end of the fucking world, you dumb motherfucker. Don’t you read anything?” Gillings had read it all: the National Enquirer, articles in Time, the interviews with Sharps and others. He had planned it all a thousand times, daydreaming in his bunk, adding loving details to the scenario. Gillings knew what would happen when Lucifer’s Hammer fell. End of civilization. And the end of the goddam Army, too. It would be every man for himself, and the right man could be a fucking king if he played his cards right.
Johnson was staring, bewildered and lost, waiting to hear more. Gillings felt light-headed, disoriented. He was not used to seeing his daydreams turn real.
Captain Hora called, “Out of the trucks. Everybody out!”
Gillings’s head cleared. Right, it was all falling into place, and that was the first problem: Fucking officers! Hora wasn’t bad, as officers went, and the men liked him. Something had to be done about that, and quick. Otherwise the RA son of a bitch would have them out working like slaves, trying to save the civilians’ arses until fire and tidal waves took them all.
“We’re trapped good, Captain,” Sergeant Hooker shouted. “Landslides in front and behind. Don’t think we can get the trucks out of here.”
“Saddle ’em up, Sarge,” Captain Hora called. “We’ll hike it. Plenty of people up in these hills. We’ll go see what we can do.”
“Sir,” Hooker said. His voice lacked enthusiasm. “What do we eat, Captain?”
“Time enough to worry about that when we get hungry,” Hora said. “Go have a look up ahead. Maybe we can get through the mud.”
“Sir.”
“Rest of you, out of the trucks,” Hora called.
Gillings grinned. Damned lucky we didn’t get back to camp before Hammerfall. He smiled again and fingered the hard objects in his pocket. The troops hadn’t been given ammunition, but it wasn’t hard to come by, and he had a dozen rounds. There was plenty more ammo in the trucks.
Would the men follow him? Maybe not. Not at first. Maybe it would be better to let Hooker live. The troops would follow Hooker, and Hooker wasn’t smart, but he was smart enough to know there wasn’t any point in arresting Gillings after the Captain bought it. No more courts-martial. No more courts. Sure, Hooker was that smart.
Gillings slipped three rounds into his rifle.
It took most of the day. Tim had never worked so hard in his life. He’d paid for his lunch. They dug out the steep parts, then used the Blazer to break trail, used it again to pull the other cars up the muddy road they’d built. The rain continued, although it was now not much more than a heavy drizzle.
Every muscle in Tim’s body ached before they were over the ridge. The temporary road didn’t have to climb more than a hundred feet, but the road they built switchbacked five times that in length.
When they reached the pavement on the other side of the ruined tunnel, they went in caravan. Four miles beyond the ruined tunnel they came to a ranger station. There were hundreds of people there. A church group, with ninety children and a few college students as counselors and one elderly preacher. Campers and fishing parties had come out of the fire trails and backwoods areas. A bicycling party of French coeds, only one with any English at all, and nobody else spoke French. One large camper which held a writer, his wife and an unbelievable number of children.
The rangers had set up a temporary camp. When Tim’s party drove up, they were directed off to one side. Tim wanted to go on, but a green Forest Service truck blocked the way. Eileen stopped and they got out. A uniformed ranger had been talking with Fred Haskins. Now he came over to Tim and Eileen.
The ranger was in his middle twenties, a lanky well-muscled man. His uniform gave him a look of authority, but he didn’t seem very confident. “They say you came up the Big Tujunga Road,” he said. He stared at Tim. “You’re Hamner.”
“I’m not advertising it,” Tim said.
“No. I don’t suppose you are,” the ranger said. “Can we get down the Big Tujunga Road?”
“Don’t you know?” Tim asked.
“Look, mister, there are four of us here, and no more. We’re trying to take care of these kids, we’ve got parties out getting people in from dangerous campsites, there are mudslides all over, and most of the bridges are out. We didn’t try to get beyond the tunnel when we saw it was down.”
“And there’s nothing on the radio?” Eileen asked.
“Nothing from the Big Tujunga station,” the ranger admitted. “Don’t know why. We did get something on CB from some people over at Trail Canyon. They say the big bridge is out and some people are trapped in the canyon.”
“The bridge is out,” Eileen said. “We got across on the old road. There were some people behind us trying to do the same thing when we left.”
“You didn’t stay to help?” the ranger demanded.
“There were more of them than us,” Tim said. “And what good could we do? You can’t pull cars on that road. Too many turns. It’s not really a road anyway.”
“Yeah, I know. We keep it as a foot trail,” the ranger said absently. “Look, you’re an expert on comets. Just what has happened? What should we do with these people?”
Tim was ready to laugh at the question, but the ranger’s face stopped him. The young man looked too strained, too close to panic, and much too glad to see Tim Hamner. He wanted an expert to give him instructions.
Some expert.
“You can’t go back to Los Angeles,” Tim said. “There’s nothing there. Tidal waves took out most of the city—”
“Jesus, we got something from Mount Wilson on that, but I didn’t believe it—”
“And a lot of the rest of it was on fire. Tujunga’s got some kind of vigilante group organized. I don’t know if they’d be glad to see you or not. The road back to Tujunga’s not too bad, but I don’t think ordinary cars can get over parts of it even if you get past the gorge.”
“Yeah, but where’s the Army?” the ranger demanded. “The National Guard. Somebody! You say we shouldn’t go back to Tujunga, but what do we do with these kids? We’ll run out of food in another day, and we’ve got a couple of hundred kids to take care of!”
Hell, Tim thought, I am the expert. The knowledge produced elation and depression, oddly mixed. “Okay. I didn’t get out to JPL, so I don’t know, but… I know the comet calved a number of times. It—”
“Calved?”
“Broke up. Came on like a swarm of flying mountains, you understand? It must have hit us in pieces. No telling how many, but… it was morning in California, and the comet came out of the sun, so the main target area was the Atlantic.
Probably. If the East Coast got tidal waves as big as the one we got, they wiped out everything east of the Catskills, and most of the Mississippi Valley. No more national government. Maybe no more Army.”
“Jesus Christ! You mean the whole country’s gone?”
“Maybe the whole world,” Tim said.
It was too much. The ranger sat down on the ground next to Tim’s car. He stared into space. “My girl lives in Long Beach. …”
Tim didn’t say anything.
“And my mother. She was in Brooklyn. Visiting my sister. You say that’s all gone.”
“Probably,” Tim said. “I wish I knew more. But probably.”
“So what do I do with all the kids, and all the campers? With all these people? How do I feed them?”
You don’t, Tim thought, but he didn’t say that. “Food warehouses. Cattle ranches. Anyplace there’s food, until you can plant more crops. It’s June. Some of the crops should have survived.”
“No
rth,” the ranger said to himself. “There are ranches in the hills above Grapevine. North.” He looked up at Tim. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. North, I guess.”
“Can you take some of the kids?”
“I suppose so, but we don’t have anything to eat—”
“Who does?” the ranger demanded. “Maybe you ought to stay with us. We can all move out together.”
“There’s probably a better chance for small groups than large ones. And we don’t want to stay with you,” Tim said. He didn’t want to be bothered with kids, either, but there was no way to refuse.
Besides, it was the right thing to do. He’d read it somewhere: In any ethical situation, the thing you want least to do is probably the right action. Or something like that.
The ranger went off and came back a few minutes later with four young children, ages six and under. They were clean and well dressed, and very frightened. Eileen packed them into the back of the Blazer, then got in the back seat, where she’d be close to them.
The ranger gave Tim a page torn from his notebook. There were names and addresses on it. “This is who the kids are.” His voice fell. “If you can find their parents…”
“Yeah,” Tim said. He started the Blazer. It was the first time he’d ever driven it. The clutch was very stiff.
“My name’s Eileen,” she was saying in the back. “And that’s Tim.”
“Where are we going?” the girl asked. She seemed very small and helpless, but she wasn’t crying. The boys were. “Are you taking us to my mommy?”
Tim glanced at the paper. Laurie Malcolm, sent to a church camp by her mother. No father mentioned. Mother’s address: Long Beach. Lord, what could they tell her?
“Can we go home?” one of the boys asked before Eileen could say anything.
How do you tell a six-year-old that his home has been washed away? Or a little girl that her mommy is—