Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [151]
"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."
"North," 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.