by Larry Niven
“You might be on for all of five seconds. A flash of that lovely smile,” Tim Hamner was saying. “And ‘HamnerBrown? What’s that?’ Then cut to someone who’s sure it’s going to blast Culver City to smithereens.”
She laughed. “All right. I’ll sign your form.”
“Good. Name?”
“Eileen Susan Hancock.”
Hamner wrote it carefully. “Address? Phone number?”
She frowned. She looked at the TravelAll, and all the camera gear. She looked at Hamner’s expensive leisure suit, and the thin Pulsar watch. “I don’t see—”
“We like to check with people before we use them on camera ” Tim said. “Blast. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m not really a professional at this. Just unpaid labor. Also the sponsor. And the man who discovered the comet.”
Eileen made a face: mock astonishment. “How… incestuous!” They both laughed. “How did you get to be all that?”
“Picked the right grandfather. Inherited a lot of money and a company called Kalva Soap. Spent some of the money on an observatory. Found a comet. Got the company to sponsor a documentary on the comet so I could brag about it. See, it all makes perfect sense.”
“Of course, it’s all so simple now that you’ve explained it.”
“Listen, if you don’t want to give me your address—”
“Oh, I do.” She lived in a high-rise in West Los Angeles. She gave him her phone number, too. She shook his hand briskly, and said, “I have to run, but I’m really glad I met you. You’ve made my day.” And she was gone, leaving Hamner with a dazed and happy smile.
“Ragnarok,” the man said. “Armageddon.” His voice was strong, persuasive. He had a great beard, a full black beard with two tufts of pure white at the chin, and mild, kindly eyes. “The prophets of all lands saw this day coming. The Day of Judgment. The war of fire and ice is foretold by the ancients. The Hammer is ice, and it will come in fire.”
“And what do you advise?” Harvey Randall asked.
The man hesitated; he may have feared that Randall was mocking him. “Join a church. Join any church you can believe in. ‘In my father’s house are many mansions.’ The truly religious will not be turned away.”
“What would you do if Hamner-Brown happens to miss?”
“It won’t.”
Harvey turned him over to Mark and the release form, and gave Charlie the signal to pack it in. It had not been a bad day; they had a few minutes he could use, and Harvey had learned something about the mood of his viewers.
Mark came up with the form. “Went well, didn’t it. You will notice that I kept my mouth shut.”
“So you did. Nice going.”
Hamner came grinning at some private pleasure. He stowed his recording equipment in the truck and climbed aboard. “Did I miss anything?”
“Ragnarok is coming. Earth will die in fire and ice. He had the best beard I’ve ever seen. Where the hell were you?”
“Getting a release form,” said Tim. He wore that sappy smile all the way back to the lot.
From the NBS lot Tim Hamner drove to Bullocks. He knew what he was after. From there to a florist, and then to a drugstore. At the drugstore he bought sleeping pills. He was going to be keeping strange hours.
He flopped on the bed, fully dressed. He was deeply asleep when the phone rang around six-thirty. He rolled over and felt around for the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hello, I’d like to speak to Mr. Hamner, please.”
“This is me. Eileen? Sorry, I was asleep. I was going to call you.”
“Well, I beat you to it. Tim, you really know how to get a girl’s attention. The flowers are beautiful, but the vase — I mean, we’d only just met!”
He laughed. “I take it you’re a Steuben crystal fan, then. I’ve got a nice collection myself.”
“Oh?”
“I go ape over the animals.” Tim shifted to a sitting position. “I’ve got… Let’s see, a blue whale, a unicorn, a giraffe I got from my grandmother, it’s in an older style. And the Frog Prince. Have you seen the Frog Prince?”
“I’ve seen pictures of His Majesty. Hey, Tim, let me take you to dinner. There’s an unusual place called Dar Magrib.”
A man would usually pause when Eileen asked him to dinner. With Tim the pause was barely noticeable. “Mr. Hamner accepts, with thanks. Dar Magrib’s unusual, all right. Have you been there?”
“Yes. It’s very good.”
“And you were going to let me go without warning? Without telling me I’d be eating with my fingers?”
Eileen laughed. “Test your flexibility.”
“Uh-huh. Why don’t you come over here for cocktails first? I’ll introduce you to His Majesty and the other crystal” Tim told her how to get there.
Fred Lauren came home with a stack of magazines. He dropped them beside the easy chair, sank into the sagging springs and began reading the National Enquirer.
The article confirmed his worst fears. The comet was certain to hit, and nobody had any idea where. But it was going to hit in summer, and therefore (the sketch made clear) it would hit in the Northern Hemisphere. Nobody knew how massive the comet head would be, but the Enquirer said it might mean the end of the world.
And he had heard that radio preacher, that fool who was on all the stations. The end of the world was coming. His jaw tightened, and he picked up the copy of Astronomy. According to Astronomy it was a hundred thousand to one against any part of the head striking the Earth, but Fred barely noticed that. What drew him were the artist’s conceptions, infinitely vivid, of an asteroid strike sending up jets of molten magma; of an “average” asteroid poised above Los Angeles for comparison; of a comet head striking ocean, the sea bed laid bare.
The pages had grown too dark to see, but Fred didn’t think of turning on the light. Many men never believe they are going to die, but Fred believed, now. He sat in the dark until it occurred to him that Colleen must have come home, and then he went to the telescope.
The girl wasn’t in view, but the lights were on. An empty room. Fred’s eye suddenly painted it with flame. The stucco wall around the window flashed blinding light, which died slowly to reveal curtains flaming, bedclothes, couch, tablecloth and table, everything afire. Windows shattered, splinters flying. Bathroom door — opened.
The girl came out struggling into a robe. She was naked. To Fred she glowed like a saint, with a beauty almost impossible to see directly. An eternity passed before she closed the robe… and in that eternity Fred saw her bathed in the light of Hammerfall. Colleen glowed like a star, eyelids clenched futilely shut, face speckled with glass splinters, robe charring, long blonde hair crisping, blackening, flaming… and she was gone before they had met. Fred turned away from the telescope.
We can’t meet, the voice of reason told him. I know what I’d do. I can’t face prison again.
Prison? When the comet was coming to end the world? Trials took time. He’d never reach prison. He’d be dead first. Fred Lauren smiled very strangely; the muscles at the corners of his jaw were knotted tight. He’d be dead first!
May
By the 1790’s, philosophers and scientists were aware of many allegations that stones had fallen from the sky, but the most eminent scientists were skeptical. The first great advance came in 1794, when a German lawyer, E.F.F. Chladni, published a study of some alleged meteorites, one of which had been found after a fireball had been sighted. Chladni accepted the evidence that these meteorites had fallen from the sky and correctly inferred that they were extraterrestrial objects that were heated from falling through the earth’s atmosphere. Chladni even postulated that they might be fragments of a broken planet — an idea that set the stage for early theories about asteroids, the first of which was discovered seven years later. Chladni’s ideas were widely rejected, not because they were ill conceived, for he had been able to collect good evidence, but because his contemporaries simply were loath to accept the idea that extraterrestrial stones could f all from the s
ky.
William K. Hartmann, Moons and Planets: An Introduction to Planetary Science
The young man walked with a decided limp. He almost tripped on the thick rug in the big office, and Carrie, Senator Jellison’s receptionist, took his arm for a moment. He shrugged her angrily away. “Mr. Colin Saunders,” Carrie announced.
“What can I do for you?” Senator Jellison asked.
“I need a new leg.”
Jellison tried not to look surprised, but he wasn’t successful. And I thought I’d heard ’em all, he thought. “Have a seat.” Jellison glanced at his watch. “It’s after six…”
“I know I’m taking up your valuable time.” Saunders’s voice was belligerent.
“Wasn’t thinking about my time,” Arthur Jellison said. “Being it’s after six, we can have a drink. Want something?”
“Well… yes, please, sir.”
“Fine.” Jellison got up from the ornate wooden desk and went to the ancient cabinet on the wall. The building wasn’t that old, but the cabinets looked as if they might have been used by Daniel Webster, who was reputed not to wait until six. Senator Jellison opened the cabinets to reveal a huge stock of liquor. Nearly every bottle had the same label.
“Old Fedcal?” the visitor asked.
“Sure. Don’t let the labels fool you. That’s Jack Daniels bourbon in the black bottle. The rest of ’em are top brands, too. Why pay brand prices when I can get it from home a lot cheaper? What’ll you have?”
“Scotch.”
“Right here. I’m a bourbon man myself.” Jellison poured two drinks. “Now tell me what this is all about.”
“It’s the VA.” Saunders poured out his story. This would be his fourth artificial leg. The first one the Veterans Administration gave him had fit fine, but it had been stolen, and the next three didn’t fit at all, they hurt, and now the VA wasn’t going to do anything about it.
“Sounds like a problem for your representative,” Jellison said gently.
“I tried to see the Honorable Jim Braden.” The young man’s voice was bitter again. “I couldn’t even get an appointment.”
“Yeah,” Jellison said. “Excuse me a second.” He took a small bound book from a desk drawer. “HAVE AL LOOK INTO PRIMARY OPPOSITION FOR THAT SON OF A BITCH,” he wrote. “THE PARTY DON’T NEED CREEPS LIKE THAT, AND THIS AIN’T THE FIRST TIME.” Then he drew a memo pad toward him. “Better give me the names of the doctors you’ve been dealing with,” he said.
“You mean you’ll really help?”
“I’ll have somebody look into it.” Jellison wrote the details on the memo pad. “Where’d you get hit?”
“Khe Sanh.”
“Medals? It helps to know.”
The visitor shrugged. “Silver Star.”
“And Purple Heart, of course,” Jellison said. “Want another drink?”
The visitor smiled and shook his head. He looked around the big room. The walls were decorated with photographs: Senator Jellison at an Indian reservation; Jellison at the controls of an Air Force bomber; Jellison’s children, and staff, and friends. “I don’t want to take any more of your time. You must be busy.” He got up carefully.
Jellison saw the visitor to the door. Carrie had to unlock it. “That’s the last,” she said.
“Fine. I’ll stick around awhile. Send Alvin in, and you can go home — oh, one thing. See if you can get me Dr. Sharps at JPL first, will you? And call Maureen to tell her I’ll be a little late.”
“Sure.” Carrie grinned to herself as the Senator went back into his office. Before she finally left he’d have nine other last-minute items. She was used to it. She looked into the staff rooms on the other side of her office. Everyone was gone except Alvin Hardy. He always waited, just in case. “He wants you,” Carrie said.
“So what else is new?” Al went into the big office. Jellison was sprawled out in his judge’s chair, his jacket and narrow striped tie laid across the desk, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down. A big glass of bourbon sat next to the bottle. “Yes, sir?” Al said.
“Couple of things.” He handed Al the memo. “Check this story out. If it’s true, I want a medium-size fire built under those people. Let ’em save money on their goddamn salaries, not cheating a Silver Star vet out of a leg that fits.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And then you can take a look at Braden’s district. Seems to me the Party ought to have a bright young chap in there. I mind a city councilman—”
“Ben Tyson,” Al said helpfully.
“That’s his name. Tyson. Think he could beat Braden?”
“He might. With your help.”
“Look into it. I’ve about had it with Mr. Braden being so goddam busy saving the world he hasn’t got time to look after his constituents.” Senator Jellison wasn’t smiling at all.
Al nodded. Braden, he thought, you’re dead. When the boss gets in that mood—
The intercom buzzed. “Dr. Sharps,” Carrie said.
“Right. Don’t go, Al. I want you to hear this. Charlie?”
“Yes, Senator?” Dr. Sharps said.
“How’s the launch going?” Jellison asked.
“Everything’s fine. It would be even better if I didn’t have every VIP in Washington calling me to ask about it.”
“Goddammit, Charlie, I went out on a long limb for you. If anybody’s got a right to know, it’s me.”
“Yes. Sorry,” Sharps said. “Actually, things are better than we expected. The Russians are helping a lot. They’ve got a big booster, and they’re taking up a lot of consumables they’ll share with our team. Lets us take up more science packages. For once we’ve got a division of labor that makes sense.”
“Good. You won’t ever know how many favors I used up getting that launch for you. Now tell me again how valuable all this is.”
“Senator, it’s about as valuable as we can get — given what we’re doing. It’s not going to cure cancer, but we’ll sure learn a lot about planets and asteroids and comets. Also, that TV fellow, Harvey Randall, wants you in his next documentary. He seems to think the network ought to thank you for getting this launch.”
Jellison looked up at Al Hardy. Hardy grinned and nodded vigorously. “They’ll love us in L.A.,” Al said.
“Tell him I like it,” Jellison said. “Any time. Have him check with my assistant. Al Hardy. You got that?”
“Right. Is that all, Art?” Sharps asked.
“Nooo.” Jellison drained the whiskey glass. “Charlie, I keep getting people in here who think that comet’s going to hit us. Not crazies. Good people. Some of ’em with as many degrees as you have.”
“I know most of them,” Sharps admitted.
“Well?”
“What can I say, Art?” Sharps was quiet for a moment. “Our best projected orbit puts that comet right on top of us—”
“Jesus,” Senator Jellison said.
“But there’s several thousand miles’ error in those projections. And a miss by a thousand miles is still a miss. It can’t reach out and grab us.”
“But it could hit.”
“Well… this isn’t for publication, Art.”
“Didn’t ask for it for publication.”
“All right. Yes. It could hit us. But the odds are against it.”
“What kind of odds?”
“Thousands to one.”
“I recall you said billions to one—”
“So the odds have narrowed,” Sharps said.
“Enough so we ought to be doing something about it?”
“How could you? I’ve spoken with the President,” Sharps said.
“So have I.”
“And he doesn’t want to panic anybody. I agree. It’s still thousands to one against anything happening at all,” Sharps insisted. “And a complete certainty that a lot of people will get killed if we start making preparations. We’re already getting crazy things. Rape artists. Nut groups. People who see the end of the world as an opportunity—”
�
�Tell me about it,” Jellison said dryly. “I told you, I saw the President too, and he’s got your opinion. Or you’ve got his. I’m not talking about warning the public, Charlie, I’m talking about me. Where will this thing hit, if it does?”
There was another pause.
“You’ve studied it, haven’t you?” Jellison demanded. “Or that crazy genius you keep around, uh, Forrester, he’s studied it. Right?”
“Yes.” The reluctance was plain in Sharps’s voice. “The Hammer has calved. If it does hit, it’s likely to be in a series of strikes. Unless the central head whams us. If that happens, don’t worry about preparations. There aren’t any.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” Sharps said. “That bad.”
“But if only part hits—”
“Atlantic Ocean, for sure,” Sharps said.
“Which means Washington…” Jellison let his voice trail off.
“Washington will be under water. The entire East Coast up to the mountains,” Sharps said. “Tidal waves. But it’s long odds, Art. Very long. Best guess is still that we get a spectacular light show and nothing more.”
“Sure. Sure. Okay, Charlie, I’ll let you get back to work. By the way, where’ll you be on That Day?”
“At JPL.”
“Elevation?”
“About a thousand feet, Senator. About a thousand feet. Goodbye.”
The connection went before Jellison could switch off the phone. Jellison and Hardy looked at the dead instrument for a moment. “Al, I think we want to be at the ranch. Good place to watch comets from,” Jellison said.
“Yes, sir—”
“But we want to be careful. No panic. If this gets a big play the whole country could go up in flames. I expect Congress will find a good reason for a recess that week, we won’t have to do anything about that, but I want my family out at the ranch, too. I’ll take care of Maureen. You see that Jack and Charlotte get there.”
Al Hardy winced. Senator Jellison had no use for his son-in-law. Neither did Al. It wouldn’t be pleasant, persuading Jack Turner to take his wife and children out to the Jellison ranch in California.
