Lucifer's Hammer

by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

  Some of these places had to be setups. Pigs on stakeout. There were ways to take care of that little problem, too. It only took planning. They even mowed some yards. Did good work, and that way they could watch the whole block, see people piling stuff into trailers and taking off. Bel Air was half deserted. It was going to be easy pickings tonight! And afterward…maybe the political game could be played again. A lot of brothers would have bread, for a while.

  Still…there were so many honkies moving out. Rich honkies, people who knew things. Down at City Hall everybody was nervous, too. Maybe that thing could really hit?

  Alim had gone through the newspapers and magazines. He could read pretty well. A little slow, but he could puzzle it out, and some of the drawings made it all clear. You didn’t want to be on low ground. Waves a thousand feet high! The cat who drew them had some imagination. He showed the L.A. City Hall part underwater, the tower rising out of the flood, and the County Administration and the Courthouse with their roofs just sticking up. All them pigs dead, wouldn’t that be something? But he sure didn’t want to be here when that happened.

  Maybe it wouldn’t, and all the honkies would come home. “Won’t they be surprised,” Alim murmured.

  “Huh?”

  “The honkies. Won’t they be surprised when they get home?”

  “Yeah. Why just these places? If we hit just the richest houses in a lot bigger territory, we—”

  “Shut up.”

  “Sure.”

  “I want us close to each other. If one of these places turns out to be full of pigs, we can call for help on the CB.”

  “Okay, sure.”

  Hammer of God. What if it was real? Where could they go? Not south, that was for sure. Politicians could talk about black-brown unity, but that was jive. Chicanos didn’t like blacks; blacks hated chicanos. There were clubs where you had to kill a black to join down there in chicano turf, and they were tough mothers, and the further south you went the more there were.

  “We take guns tonight,” he said. “We take all the guns.”

  Harold flinched, and the track swerved a little. “You think we’ll get trouble?”

  “I just want to be ready,” Alim said. And if that fucking comet…Better to have guns and bullets, tonight and tomorrow. And take some food. He’d stash it himself, so as not to upset the brothers.

  At least they’d be high up, if it came.

  ■

  Patrolman Eric Larsen had come to Los Angeles from Topeka with a university degree in English and an urgent impulse to write for television and the movies. The need to support himself and a chance opportunity led him to the Burbank Police Department. He told himself it would be valuable experience. Look what Joseph Wambaugh had managed from a police career! And Eric could write; at least, he had a degree that said he could.

  Three years later he still hadn’t sold a script, but he had confidence, strange tales to tell and a considerably better understanding of both human nature and the entertainment industry. He’d also done a lot of growing up. He’d lived with a woman, been engaged twice and got over his inability to have casual friendships with girls, even though he hadn’t lost a strong tendency to idealize women. It hurt Eric to see young runaways exploited by the street people. He kept thinking of what they might have become.

  He’d also learned the police view of the world: All humanity is divided into three parts—cops, scumbags and civilians. He hadn’t yet adopted an attitude of contempt toward civilians. They were the people he was supposed to protect, and perhaps because he was not a career policeman (although Burbank didn’t know that) he could take his job seriously. The civilians paid him. One day he would be one of them.

  He’d learned to curse the judicial system, while keeping enough literary objectivity to admit that he didn’t know what to replace it with. There were people who could be “rehabilitated.” Not many. Most scumbags were just that, and the best thing to do with them would be to take them out to San Nicholas Island and put them ashore. Let them victimize each other. The trouble was, you couldn’t always tell which ones should be put away forever and which could fit back into the real world. He often got into arguments with his partners over that. His buddies on the force called him “Professor” and kidded his literary ambitions, and the diary he kept; but Eric got along with nearly everyone, and his sergeant had recommended him for promotion to Investigator.

  The comet fascinated Eric, and he’d read all he could about it. Now it dominated the skies above. Tomorrow it would be past. Eric drove with his partner through strangely active Burbank streets. People were moving about, piling goods into trailers, doing things inside their houses. There was a lot of traffic.

  “Be glad when that thing’s past,” his partner said. Investigator Harris was all cop. The brilliant light show in the skies above was only another problem to him. If it was a pretty show, he’d look at films of it after it was past. Right now it was a pain in the arse.

  “Car forty-six. See the woman at eight-nine-seven-six Alamont. Reports screaming in the apartment above her. Handle Code Three.”

  “Ten-four,” Eric told the microphone. Harris had already sent the cruiser around a tight curve.

  “That’s not a family-fight house,” Harris said. “Singles apartments. Probably some guy can’t take no for an answer.”

  The cruiser pulled up in front of the apartment building. It was a large, fancy place, swimming pool and sauna. Rubber trees grew on both sides of the entrance. The girl standing behind the glass lobby doors wore a thin robe over a blue silk nightgown. She seemed scared. “It’s in three-fourteen,” she said. “It was horrible! She was screaming for help…”

  Investigator Harris stopped just long enough to look on the mailbox for 314. “Colleen Darcy.” He led the way up the stairs, his nightstick drawn.

  The even-numbered apartments on the third floor faced onto an interior hallway. Eric thought he remembered seeing the building from the other side. It had little private balconies, screened from the street. Probably good places for girls to sunbathe. The hall was freshly painted, and the impression was of a nice building, a good place to live for young singles. Of course the best apartments would be on the other side, overlooking the pool.

  The hall was quiet. They couldn’t hear anything through the door of 314. “Now what?” Eric asked.

  Harris shrugged, then knocked loudly on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again. “Police,” he said. “Miz Darcy?”

  There was no answer. The lady who’d called them was coming up the stairs behind them. “You sure she’s in there?” Eric asked.

  “Yes! She was screaming.”

  “Where’s the manager?”

  “Not here. I called him, but there wasn’t anyone there.”

  Eric and his partner exchanged glances.

  “She was screaming for help!” the lady said indignantly.

  “We’ll probably catch hell for this,” Harris muttered. He stood to one side and gestured to Eric. Then he drew his service revolver.

  Eric stepped back, raised his foot and smashed it at the locked door. Once. Then again. The door burst open and Eric darted inside, moving quickly to one side the way he’d been taught.

  There was only one room. There was something on the bed. Later Eric remembered thinking just that: “Something.” It looked so little like a girl in her twenties.

  There was blood on the bed and on the floor beside it. The room smelled of bright copper and expensive perfume.

  The girl was nude. Eric saw long blonde hair, arranged carefully on the pillow. The hair was spattered with blood. One of her teats was gone. Blood oozed from punctures below the missing breast. Someone had drawn figures in the blood, tracing an arrow down to point to her dark pubic hair. There was more blood there.

  Eric doubled over, struggling with himself, holding his breath. His partner came in.

  Harris took one look at the bed, then looked away. He sent his eyes searching the room, saw no one, then looked for
doors. There was a door across the room, and Harris moved toward it.

  As he did, the closet door opened behind him and a man darted out, breaking for the opening to the hallway. He was past Joe Harris, running toward the screaming lady who’d called the police.

  Eric breathed deeply, got control of himself and moved to intercept the man. The man had a knife. A bloody knife. He raised it high, point toward Eric. Eric brought up his pistol and leveled it at the man’s chest. His finger tightened on the trigger.

  The man threw up his arms. The knife dropped from his hand. Then he fell to his knees. He still said nothing.

  Eric’s pistol followed the man. His finger tightened again. A half-ounce more…No! I am a police officer, not a judge and jury.

  The man held his hands in supplication, almost as if in prayer. When Eric moved closer, he saw the man’s eyes. They did not hold terror, or even hatred. The man had a curious expression, of both resignation and satisfaction. It did not change when he looked past Eric Larsen at the dead girl.

  Later, after the detectives and the coroner had come, Eric Larsen and Joe Harris took their prisoner to the Burbank City Jail.

  “You’ll get him there alive.” The voice was a whine. It belonged to a lawyer who lived in the apartment building. He’d come while they were still questioning the suspect, and shouted that the police had no right to keep after the man. He advised the man to keep silent. The man had laughed.

  Eric and Harris took their prisoner to the patrol car and put him inside. He would be turned over to the L.A. County Jail the next day.

  During the whole time the man had said nothing. They knew his name from his wallet: Fred Lauren. They’d also heard his record from R & I. Three previous sex offenses, two with violence. Probation, probation, then parole after psychiatric treatment.

  When they reached the station, Eric hauled Lauren roughly out of the car.

  “That hurts,” the man said.

  “That hurts. You son of a bitch!” Harris moved close to Lauren. His arm jerked, sending his elbow into the pit of the prisoner’s stomach. He did it again. “Nothing that ever happens to you will hurt the way you…” Harris couldn’t say anything else.

  “Joe.” Eric moved between his partner and the prisoner. “He’s not worth it.”

  “I’ll report you!” Lauren screamed. Then he giggled. “No. What’s the point? No.”

  “Now he’s scared,” Eric said. “Not when he was arrested.” And not now, Eric saw: As soon as Harris moved away and they began walking Lauren into the station, the fear vanished, replaced by the look of resignation. “Okay, tell me,” Eric said. “You think the judge will give you probation again? You’ll be on the street in a week?”

  The man giggled. “There won’t be any streets in a week. There won’t be anything!”

  “Hammer Fever,” Eric muttered. He’d seen it before: Why not commit a crime? The end of the world was coming. The papers had a lot of stories about that. But none like this, and none in Burbank before.

  “I’ll be glad when that goddam thing’s past,” Harris said. He didn’t mention the body on the bed. You lived with that, or you quit; but you worked it out on your own.

  “It’s going to be a long night,” Eric said.

  “Yeah, and we’ve got morning watch tomorrow.” Harris looked up at the glowing sky. “Be damned glad when that thing’s past.”

  ■

  They camped at Soda Springs. It was a good campground, surprisingly uncrowded; Gordie Vance had expected a dozen other scout troops to be there. Instead, there was only Gordie and the six scouts he’d brought with him. Hammer Fever, Gordie thought. Nobody wants to be this far from roads and civilization.

  They dropped their packs with relief. The boys went dashing off to the spring. There were two springs: One bubbled with clear mountain water, pure and cold; the other was rusty in color, and tasted awful, although the boys pretended they liked it. The water was naturally carbonated, and they made Wyler’s root beer in their canteens. Gordie didn’t bother telling them not to drink too much. Nobody ever did.

  They cooked supper over the Svea gasoline backpacker stoves. Gordie let Andy Randall choose the dinner; Andy would have to get used to leading the group. It wouldn’t be long before…

  “But my teacher said it might,” one of the younger boys was saying.

  “Nuts,” Andy Randall told him. “Dad’s been out to JPL dozens of times, and their computer says it won’t. Besides, Mr. Hamner told me—”

  “You know him?” the younger scout asked.

  “Sure.”

  “But he invented the Hammer.” Involuntarily they looked upward, to the huge glowing smear in the evening sky. “It sure looks close,” the younger scout said.

  The long mountain twilight ended, and the stars came out. The Hammer glowed fiercely in the night sky before it sank behind the Sierra. Gordie got the boys into their sleeping bags. They wanted to stay up and watch; there were bright aurora displays across the sky, with the stars showing through jagged lines of green and red.

  Gordie climbed into his own sack. As usual he dropped straight off to sleep, programmed to wake in a couple of hours so that he could walk around and see that the boys were all right. I’m a conscientious bastard, he thought, just before he dozed off. It was funny, but Gordie wasn’t laughing.

  He woke at midnight—and that was all the sleep he got that night.

  The sky was frantic. It streamed overhead like luminescent milk in black water. Stars winked in Hamner-Brown’s tail, then sank into the background as blazes of color flashed across from horizon to horizon. Somewhere in the far distance there were brighter flashes, and after a long time, thunder. Gordie made his rounds in a trance.

  Andy Randall was awake. He hadn’t bothered to set up a tube tent, although it often rains in the Sierra in June. Andy lay in the open, his head propped on his pack, his long arms under his neck. “Quite a show,” he whispered.

  “That it is,” Gordie said. He was careful to keep his voice cheerful and under control. When they asked later, Andy would have to say that Gordon Vance had shown no signs of depression. “Get some sleep,” Gordie said. “We don’t have far to go tomorrow, but the trail’s tricky in places.”

  “I know.”

  “Right,” Gordie said. He walked a little way uphill, to be alone, and sank down in the long grass.

  Tomorrow it won’t matter, he thought. I don’t need any sleep.

  He had the cliff all picked out. A fatal fall…it would have to be fatal. A mistake would leave him injured but alive, the kids frantic, while a rescue team moved in to get him to a hospital. He’d be in a hospital bed when the bank examiners found the shortages. Crippled, maybe. Not even able to run.

  Not that he would run. He’d had that chance, and it was no good, no good at all. Where would he go? The money was gone, and there was nothing for an American exile without money. Besides, children ought to grow up in their own country. Gordie glanced over to where his own son, age twelve, lay huddled in his sleeping bag. It was going to be rough on Bert, but there wasn’t any help for it.

  Funny about that cliff. Gordie could remember it perfectly. The trail wasn’t all that narrow there, but the edge was crumbly, and if you stood too close…he’d seen that two years ago, when they passed by it. He’d had different thoughts then.

  I sure wish Bert wasn’t along.

  A red velvet curtain rippled across the sky. Magnificent show for my last night, Gordie thought. He tried to watch the sky, but he kept seeing the cliff.

  One moment. One carefully careless moment and he’d be at the bottom with a broken neck, and worse. There was a path down, easy enough for the kids. Andy would see that they went down properly. Then Andy Randall would be in charge, and that would be okay. Gordie had been training Andy for two years. Not for this—well, yes, for this, just in case of a genuine accident. Funny how things work out.

  The crescent moon rose over the hills, washing out some of the stars and blending its o
wn eerie colors into the light show. Gordie imagined he could see shock waves in the comet tail—but that was probably imagination. The astronauts up there would be seeing it, though, with instruments if not with their eyes. Wonder what it’s like to be up there? Gordie had been a flyer, for a short time, until he’d been low scorer in his class and washed out of flight school to become a navigator for the Air Force. Should have stayed in, he thought. But I had to be a banker…

  Too damn bad to ruin the boys’ trip. No choice. None at all, and an accident solves all problems. Half a million in insurance, enough to cover all the bank shortages and leave Marie and Bert in pretty good shape. Call it three hundred thousand left, at seven percent. It’s not magnificent wealth, but it’s sure as hell better than having your father in prison and nothing to live on.

  Toward dawn the frantic sky became even more frantic. There was a bright spot in there. If it was the head, it was hard to see, looking down through the luminous tunnel of the tail. Cold light and shifting shadows, faint color splashes of aurora even in daytime. Then the land was afire with dawn, but the light was still funny. Elfin. Gordie shivered.

  He went back to his sleeping bag and slid in. No point in catching a nap. It won’t be long…

  The Svea was laid out with the fuel bottle, pan of water next to it. Gordie reached out with one arm and primed the tiny stove. His sleeping-bag breakfasts were a standard joke with everyone who’d been camping with him. He didn’t really feel like eating, but it would be dangerous to change the routine. He brought a pan of water to a boil and made hot chocolate. It was surprisingly good, and then he was ready for oatmeal, and a big cup of Sherpa tea, strong tea with brown sugar and a lump of butter…

  One by one the boys woke. Gordie chortled to hear Andy Randall tell Bert, “You mean you slept through it? All night?”

  No campfire. Not enough wood. Every year there were fewer and fewer places you could build a real fire. Not very many of the kids knew how to cook over a wood fire. Be bad if they really had to be out on their own, but that didn’t happen anymore. Nowadays, if you get lost, you clear an area fifty feet in diameter and light a match in the middle of it. Pretty soon a fire patrol will be out to give you a citation. There aren’t any deep woods anymore, not like when I was a kid…I should have got some sleep, Gordie thought. My mind’s wandering. It doesn’t matter, though. It’s not very far now. I think I’ll have one more cup of chocolate.