Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [161]
"I'm half melted already. Here's your mail." Harry handed it over. "Your mailbox is wrecked."
"It won't matter." Tony seemed to be grinning at some private joke.
Harry skipped it. "Can you spare someone to run me into town? I wrecked my truck."
"Sorry. We want to save the gas for emergencies."
What did he think this was? Harry held his temper. "Such is life. Can you spare me a sandwich?"
"Nope. Famine coming. We got to think of ourselves."
"I don't get you." Harry was beginning to dislike Tony's grin.
"The Hammer has fallen," said Tony. "The Establishment is dead. No more draft. No more taxes. No more wars. No more going to jail for smoking pot. No more having to pick between a crook and an idiot for President." Tony grinned beneath the shapeless, soggy hat. "No more Trash Day either. I thought I'd flipped when I saw a mailman at the gate!"
Tony really had flipped, Harry realized. He tried to sidestep the issue. "Can you get Hugo Beck down here?"
"Maybe."
Harry watched Tony reenter the farmhouse. Was there anyone alive in there? Tony had never struck him as dangerous, but … if he stepped out with anything remotely like a rifle, Harry was going to run like a deer.
Half a dozen of them came out. One girl was in rain gear; the rest seemed to be dressed for swimming. Maybe that made a kind of sense. You couldn't hope to stay dry in this weather. Harry recognized Tony, and Hugo Beck, and the broad-shouldered, broad-hipped girl who called herself Galadriel, and a silent giant whose name he'd never learned. They clustered at the gate, hugely amused.
Harry asked, "What's it all about?"
Much of Hugo Beck's fat had turned to muscle in the past three years, but he still didn't look like a farmer. Maybe it was the expensive sandals and worn swim trunks; or maybe it was the way he lounged against the gate, exactly as Jason Gillcuddy the writer would lounge against his bar, leaving one hand free to gesture.
"Hammerfall," said Hugo. "You could be the last mailman we ever see. Consider the implications. No more ads to buy things you can't afford. No more friendly reminders from the collection agency. You should throw away that uniform, Harry. The Establishment's dead."
"The comet hit us?"
"Right."
"Huh." Harry didn't know whether to believe it or not. There had been talk … but a comet was nothing. Dirty vacuum, lit by unfiltered sunlight, very pretty when seen from a hilltop with the right girl beside you. This rain, though. What about the rain?
"Huh. So I'm a member of the Establishment?"
"That's a uniform, isn't it?" said Beck, and the others laughed.
Harry looked down. "Somebody should have told me. All right, you can't feed me and you can't transport me—"
"No more gas, maybe forever. The rain is going to wipe out most of the crops. You can see that, Harry."
"Yeah. Can you loan me a hatchet for fifteen minutes?"
"Tony, get the hatchet."
Tony jogged up to the farmhouse. Hugo asked, "What are you going to do with it?"
"Trim the roots off my walking stick."
"What then?"
He didn't have to answer, because Tony was back with the hatchet. Harry went to work. The Shire people watched. Presently Hugo asked again. "What do you do now?"
"Deliver the mail," said Harry.
"Why?" A frail and pretty blonde girl cried, "It's all over, man. No more letters to your congressman. No more Playboy, No more tax forms or … or voting instructions. You're free! Take off the uniform and dance!"
"I'm already cold. My feet hurt."
"Have a hit." The silent giant was handing a generously fat homemade cigarette through the gate, shielding it with Tony's digger hat. Harry saw the others' disapproval, but they said nothing, so he took the toke. He held his own hat over it while he lit it and drew.
Were they growing the weed here? Harry didn't ask. But … "You'll have trouble getting papers."
They looked at each other. That hadn't occurred to them.
"Better save that last batch of letters. No more Trash Day." Harry passed the hatchet back through the bars. "Thanks. Thanks for the toke, too." He