Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [142]
A mother hurricane forms over Mexico and moves eastward across the Gulf, gaining heat energy from the boiling seawater that covers the Gulf Strike. The hurricane moves north, from sea to land, and spawns tornadoes as it goes. Hurricane winds drive floodwaters further up the Mississippi valley.
As heated wet air rises above the oceans, cold winds pour down from the Arctic. An enormous front forms along the Ohio valley. Tornadoes bud and break free and scatter. When the front moves past, another forms, and another behind it, spewing out a hundred, then a thousand tornadoes to dance out their fury on the graves of the ruined cities. The fronts move east. More form in the Atlantic, above Europe, across Africa. Rain clouds cover the Earth.
3: THE QUICK AND
THE DEAD
Day of wrath, and doom impending,
David's word with Sibyl's blending:
Heaven and earth in ashes ending.
What shall I, frail man, be pleading?
Who for me be interceding,
When the just are mercy needing
Dies Irae
Rich Man, Poor Man
The value of a thing is what that thing will bring.
Legal maxim
Tim led Eileen over the slippery crest. They stopped to gape down at Tujunga.
Tujunga still lived! There was electricity: yellow lights shining from houses that still stood; bright bluish-white fluorescent light from stores with unbroken glass in their windows.
Cars moved down Foothill Boulevard. They drove with their lights on in the afternoon gloom, through the windy, rainswept streets, across foot-thick mud that ran in rivulets across the road. Not many, but they were cars, and they moved. There were police cars in the supermarket parking lot across from Tim and Eileen.
There were also armed men, in uniform. When Tim and Eileen got closer they saw that the uniforms were of all styles and ages, and many didn't fit any longer. It was as if everyone who had a uniform had gone home and put it on. The weapons were random: pistols, shotguns, .22 rifles, Mauser hunting pieces, a few military rifles carried by men in National Guard fatigues.
"Food!" Tim shouted. He took Eileen's hand and they ran toward the shopping center with a new spring in their walk. "I told you," Tim cried. "Civilization!"
Two men in outdated Army uniforms blocked the supermarket door. They didn't stand aside as Tim and Eileen tried to go in. One of the men had sergeant's stripes. He said, "Yeah?"
"We need to buy something to eat," said Tim.
"Sorry," the sergeant said. "All confiscated."
"But we're hungry." Eileen sounded plaintive, even to herself. "We haven't eaten all day."
The other uniformed man spoke. He didn't talk like a soldier. He sounded like an insurance salesman. "There'll be ration cards issued at the old City Hall. You'll have to go there to register. I understand they'll be setting up a soup line too."
"But who's inside the store?" Eileen pointed an accusing finger at aisles bathed in electric light, where people were piling goods into shopping carts. Some wore uniforms, some didn't.
"Our officers. The supply crew," the sergeant said. He had been a clerk in a hardware store until that morning. "They'll tell you all about it at City Hall." He looked at their muddy clothes, and something dawned on him. "You come from over the hills?"
Tim said, "Yes."
"Jesus," the sergeant said.
"Many more make it out?" the other man asked.
"I don't know." Tim took Eileen's hand again, holding it as if she might vanish into smoke the way his dream of normal civilization had vanished. "We're about dead on our feet," he said. "Where can … what should we do?"
"Beats me," the sergeant said. "You want my advice, you figure on getting out of here. We're not turning out strangers. Not yet. But it stands to reason there's only so much to go around. At least until we can get back over the hills and see what's out in the valley. They tell me … " His voice trailed off.
"Did you see it happen?" the private asked.
"No. The water came pretty high, I guess," Tim said. "But we couldn't see. We just heard it."
"I'll hear it the rest