Lucifer's Hammer

by Larry Niven

Harvard was gone, and Braintree, Massachusetts, was gone, and the United States of America was gone, along with most of England.

Good administrators were needed even after Hammerfall.

Good administrators were needed even after Hammerfall. Al Hardy often told the Senator that she was the most useful person in the Stronghold. Strong backs, farmers, riflemen, even mechanics and engineers weren't so hard to find; but someone who could coordinate all that effort was worth her weight in gold.

Randall might have stopped talking about the blue van, but nobody else had. Black pepper, spices, beef jerky, pemmican, canned soup and canned ham, coffee, liquor and liqueurs and a partridge in a pear tree, everything you could dream of and all measured in ton lots.

The hut had been vastly improved. Now there was insulation, and more wood frame; it could even be heated. It contained a bed, a chair, a table and some bookshelves—and a rifle rack at the door. Tim slung the Winchester 30/06 over his shoulder on the way out, and only momentarily felt amusement at the thought: Tim Hamner, playboy and amateur astronomer, armed to the teeth as he ventured forth to search out the ungodly!

The Stronghold looked good. Secure, safe, with greenhouses, and grazing herds and flocks; and there was going to be enough to eat. "I am one lucky son of a bitch," Tim said.

There were no dead bodies. It was the first thing Dan noticed: nothing dead to be seen.

There were no dead bodies. It was the first thing Dan noticed: nothing dead to be seen. The houses looked like houses, with someone living in every one of them. A few had sandbagged defenses, but there were many that had no signs of defenses at all. Strange, almost weird, that there should be a place where people felt safe enough to have glass windows without shutters. And he saw two flocks of sheep, as well as horses and cattle. He saw signs of organized activity everywhere—newly cleared fields, some being plowed with teams of horses (no tractors that he could see), others still in the process of clearing with men working to carry boulders and pile them into stone walls. The men generally had weapons on their belts, but not all of them were armed. By the time they came to the large driveway up to the big stone house, it had sunk in: For a few minutes, possibly for as much as a whole day, Dan Forrester was safe. He could count on living until dawn. It was a strange feeling. There were men waiting for them on the porch. They waved Dan Forrester on into the house without speaking to him. George Christopher jerked his thumb at Harry. "They need you inside," he said. "In a minute." Harry helped Hugo Beck get down from the truck, then lifted off Forrester's backpack. When he turned, George had his shotgun pointed at Hugo's midsection. "I brought him," Harry said. "You must have heard that on the telegraph." "We heard about Dr. Forrester. Not this creep. Beck, you were put on the road. I sent you out myself. Didn't I remember to say 'Don't come back'? I'm sure I did." "He's with me," Harry repeated. "Harry, have you lost your mind? This scummy little thief isn't worth—" "George, if I have to start going around Christopher territory, the Senator will no doubt tell you any news he thinks you should hear." "Don't push it," George said; but the shotgun moved slightly, so it wasn't pointed at anyone. "Why?" "You can put him back on the road if you like," Harry said. "But I think you should listen to him first." Christopher thought about it for a moment. Then he shrugged. "They're waiting inside. Let's go."

Hugo Beck stood before his judges. "I came bringing information," he said, too softly.

Hugo Beck stood before his judges. "I came bringing information," he said, too softly. His judges were few. Deke Wilson, Al Hardy, George Christopher. And the others. It struck Harry as it had the rest: The astronauts looked like gods. Harry recognized Baker from his photograph on the cover of Time, and it wasn't hard to know who the others were. The lovely woman who didn't speak must be the Soviet kosmonaut. Harry burned to talk to her. Meanwhile, there were other things to be said.

"We put him on the road," George Christopher was saying. "Him and that Jerry Owen, on my orders. Hell, even the Shire threw them out, and those scummy jerks tried to live by stealing off the rest of us, and Owen tried teaching communism to my ranch hands! Beck comes back in over my dead body."

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. - Arthur C.Clarke

Dan Forrester had spent his life working out the rules of the universe. He had never tried to personalize it. Yet when the Hammer fell, a small bright core of anger had burned in Dan Forrester.

Forrester blinked rapidly at the others. "I'm sorry," he said again. "Did someone ask where the San Joaquin Nuclear Plant is?"

"It's a Holy War," Hugo Beck said. “The Angels of the Lord exist only to destroy the forbidden works of man. What's left of industry. I watched them tear into what was left of a coal-powered station. They didn't use guns or dynamite. They swarmed over it with axes and clubs and hands.

"We have to save the power plant. We can rebuild a civilization if we have electricity."

Senator Jellison held up his hand. "Dr. Forrester, believe me, you won't offend us. Please, what did you have in mind?" Forrester shrugged. "Mustard gas. Thermite bombs. Napalm. And I think we can make nerve gas, but I'm not sure."

'Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage among his books. For to you Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned with the flick of a finger.' "

He woke remembering that they'd won. The details were gone; there had been dreams, vivid and mixed with memories of the past few days, and as the dreams faded so did the memories, leaving him only the word. Victory!

There was bright sunlight in the room. Maureen Jellison stared in disbelief. She was afraid to get out of bed; the bright sun might be a dream, and it was a dream she wanted to savor. Finally she convinced herself that she was awake. It was no illusion. The sun came in the window, warm and yellow and bright. It was over an hour high. She could feel its warmth on her arms when she threw back the covers.

"If you're out there," he'd said, "if you stand, some of them will stay with you. They're men."

"When you run they bunch up and follow," Al Hardy had said. "Randall's reports make that pretty clear. Their commander goes by the book. So will we, up to a point." The problem had been to hold along the high ground, so that the Brotherhood would stay down in the valley; to give way along the valley floor until enough of the Brotherhood had crossed the bridge. How could they get the ranchers to fight and not run until the signal? Hardy had chosen the simplest solution to that. "If you're out there," he'd said, "if you stand, some of them will stay with you. They're men."

A mortar shell had exploded behind Deke Wilson and two of his men. The others rolled over and over and lay sprawled in positions that would have been hideously uncomfortable if they hadn't been dead; but Deke flew forward and upward, his arms flapping frantically, and fluttered downhill like a fledgling just learning to fly, down into the yellow murk.

A fragment of metal from a mortar blast shattered Jack Turner's mustard bomb as he was winding up for the throw.

A fragment of metal from a mortar blast shattered Jack Turner's mustard bomb as he was winding up for the throw. His friends ran from him, and his sister-in-law ran too, and Jack Turner staggered and thrashed within the yellow cloud, drowning.

A moment too long on the follow-through, and Galadriel stood poised like Winged Victory, with her head gone.

Pudgy Galadriel from the Shire swung her sling round and round, stepped forward and sent a bottle of nerve gas flying far down the hill. A moment too long on the follow-through, and Galadriel stood poised like Winged Victory, with her head gone.

If you could feel terror, you wanted to live.

Rats were important to the new ecology. They had to be kept out of the Stronghold's barns (cats did most of that), but the rats were themselves useful: They found their own food, they could be eaten, their fur made clothing and shoes, and their small bones made needles.

Harvey Randall had been right about that: It was worth almost anything to spare people that feeling of helplessness and doom. But first you had to conquer it in yourself. You had to look squarely at this new and terrible world, know what it could and would do to you—and shout defiance. Then you could get to work.

They needed the heat from the fermenting boilers; by running the extraction through City Hall and the hospital they got that heat free, but at the cost of the ripe smells…

"With penicillin I might have saved her,"

"With penicillin I might have saved her," Leonilla said. "But there is none, and there will never be any." "We can't make it?" Maureen demanded. Leonilla shook her head. "Sulfa, perhaps. But not the other antibiotics. That would require more equipment than we will have for years. Precise temperature regulation. High-speed centrifuges. No, we must learn to live without penicillin." She grimaced. "Which means that a simple cut untreated can be a death sentence. People must be made to understand that. We cannot ignore hygiene and first aid. Wash all cuts. And we will soon be out of tetanus vaccine, although perhaps that can be made. Perhaps."

The shaft flew out, over a yard long, a thin steel rod with metal feathering at the end; it went in a flat trajectory and imbedded itself in the figure below. The hands jerked convulsively, then were still.

If you shot someone with a machine gun, you could persuade yourself that the gun had done it.

"Thanks." Harvey turned away. It was too damned personal. Rifles would be better. Or machine guns. A machine gun was very impersonal. If you shot someone with a machine gun, you could persuade yourself that the gun had done it. But the crossbow had to be wound with your own muscle power. Personal.

Leonilla and Doc Valdemar and his psychiatrist wife, Ruth, knew their limits, knew that many who had inhaled mustard or taken gut shots were finished because they didn't have the drugs and equipment it would take to save them, and the mustard cases would end up blind anyway, most of them.

the Hammer had done its worst and now it was time to rebuild.

The Sierra was full of wild oats.

Tonight they'd find out what haggis tasted like.

He didn't look good at all, and Maureen knew he wouldn't live through the winter.

"Civilizations have the morality and ethics they can afford. Right now we don't have much, so we can't afford much. We can't take care of our own wounded, much less theirs, so all we can afford to do for theirs is put them out of their misery. Now what can we afford to do with the other prisoners? Maureen's right, we can't let ourselves become barbarians, but our abilities may not be up to our intentions."

What we don't dare do is get used to evil. We have to hate it, even if we can't do anything else."

"All right. We can't let them go. And we can't keep them as citizens. If all we can afford is slavery, then keep them as slaves. And put them to work so we can afford something more. Only we don't call them slaves, either, because that makes it too easy to think like a slavemaster. We can put them to work, but we call them prisoners of war and we treat them as prisoners of war."

The van had not been new when the comet fell.

The van had not been new when the comet fell. In these past few months it had aged many years. It had bulled its paths across roadless land and through fresh sea bottom. It stank of fish. Maintenance had been impossible, and continual rain had caused years of corrosion. Half blinded with one headlamp working, it seemed to know that its era was dead. It groaned, it limped; and with every jolt of its dying shock absorbers, Tim Hamner felt a needle of pain stab his hip. Shifting gears was worse. His right leg wouldn't reach the clutch pedal. He used his left, and it was like an ice pick being wiggled in the bone. Still he drove fast across the potholed road, balancing the jouncing against the need for speed.

"We can feed everyone. We can use engineers and technical people. We lost people to the New Brotherhood, but we lost none of our food; we even captured some of their stores.

"We can feed everyone. We can use engineers and technical people. We lost people to the New Brotherhood, but we lost none of our food; we even captured some of their stores. We not only have enough to eat, we have enough to be well fed during the winter! We can feed everyone, including Deke Wilson's women and children and the few survivors from his area.

By spring the few surviving cannibals will be starving—" "Or eating each other," someone shouted.

"Don't you understand? The power plant! We can't leave it, and without help the New Brotherhood will destroy it!"

"A civilization has the ethics it can afford. We can't afford much. We can't afford to take care of our enemies—you know about that."

And that's a hell of an offer, Harvey thought. For the power plant itself? For Johnny Baker's memory? Because she was jealous of Marie with George Christopher? Whatever her motive, she'd just offered him the leadership of the Stronghold—and her look made it plain that he wasn't going to get another such.

And what about me? he thought. When I get up there, I'm committed. When the New Brotherhood comes over the water with their new raft and their mortars, I'd have to be first into the boats, first to attack, first to be blown apart. And what could I possibly be yelling that would make me do it?

Running was a decision of the moment, but not running went on and on.

He remembered the battle: the noise, loneliness, fear; the shame of running, the terror when you didn't. Running was a decision of the moment, but not running went on and on. A rational army would run away. He caught her arm to hold her back.

don't we want to hope for something better?

"So. We'll live. Through this winter, and the next one, and the one after that." Rick paused, but before Hardy could say anything, he thundered, "As peasants! We had a ceremony here today. An award, to the kid who caught the most rats this week. And we can look forward to that for the rest of our lives. To our kids growing up as rat catchers and swineherds. Honorable work. Needed work. Nobody puts it down. But… don't we want to hope for something better?

And we used to control the lightning!"

"And we're going to keep slaves," Delanty said. "Not because we want to. Because we need them. And we used to control the lightning!" The phrase struck Harvey Randall with a physical shock. He saw it hit the others, too. A lot of them. They stood, unable to turn away.

"Or there's another way. We can stay here, safe as… as ground squirrels. But if we take the easy way this time, we'll take it next time. And the next, and the next, and in fifty years your kids will hide under the bed when they hear the thunder! The way everybody used to hide from the great thunder gods. Peasants always believe in thunder gods.

Go on and be good peasants, safe peasants, superstitious peasants—or have worlds to conquer again. To control the lightning again."

"And the comet. We know what it was. In ten more years we'd have been able to push the damned thing out of our way! I've been in space. I won't go there again, but your children could! Hell yes! Give us that electric plant and twenty years and we'll be in space again. We know how, and all it takes is power, and that power's right out there, not fifty miles from here, if we've just got guts enough to save it. Think about it. Those are the choices. Go on and be good peasants, safe peasants, superstitious peasants—or have worlds to conquer again. To control the lightning again."

"Al. Give my children the lightning again."

"Al. Give my children the lightning again." The voice was clear, projecting through the hall, and for a moment Jellison's eyes were bright, but then he slumped into the chair, and they heard only a thin whisper that faded to nothing. "Give them the lightning again."

The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in. - Robert A. Heinlein