Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [172]
"Enough." Jellison got up from his seat at the table and went around in front of it. He perched his buttocks on the table in an informal pose that he knew was effective. "I've got pretty good shortwave radio gear. I know there are amateurs trying to communicate. And I get nothing but static. Not just on amateur bands, on CB, commercial, even military. That tells me the atmosphere is all fouled up. Electrical storms. I don't need to guess about those," he said with a grin. He waved expressively toward the windows, and as if on cue lightning flared. There wasn't quite so much thunder and lightning as there'd been earlier in the day, but there was so much that no one noticed unless they were thinking about it.
"And salt rain," Jellison said. "And the earthquake. The last words I heard out of JPL were 'The Hammer has fallen.' I'd like to talk to somebody who was in the hills above L.A. when it happened, but what I've got adds up. The Hammer hit us, and bad. We can be sure of it."
No one said anything. They'd all known it. They'd hoped to find out something different, but they knew better. They were farmers and businessmen, tied closely to the land and the weather, and they lived in the foothills of the High Sierra. They'd known disaster before, and they'd done their crying and cursing at home. Now they were worried about what to do next.
"We got five truckloads of feed and hardware and two of groceries out of Porterville today," Jellison said. "And there's the stock in our local stores. And what you have in your barns. I doubt there'll be much else that we don't make or grow ourselves."
There were murmurs. One of the farmers said, "Not ever, Senator?"
"Might as well be never," Jellison said. "Years, I think. We're on our own."
He paused to let that sink in. Most of these people prided themselves on being on their own. Of course that wasn't true, hadn't been true for generations, and they were smart enough to know it, but it would take them time to realize just how dependent they'd been on civilization.
Fertilizers. Breeding stock. Vitamins. Gasoline and propane. Electricity. Water—well, that wouldn't be much of a problem for awhile. Medicines, drugs, razor blades, weather forecasts, seeds, animal feed, clothes, ammunition … the list was endless. Even needles and pins and thread.
"We won't grow much this year," Stretch Tallifsen said. "My crops are in bad shape already."
Jellison nodded. Tallifsen had gone down the road to help his neighbors harvest tomatoes, and his wife was working to can as many as she could. Tallifsen grew barley, and it wouldn't last the summer.
"Question is, do we pull together?" Jellison said.
"What do you mean, 'pull together'?" Ray Christopher asked.
"Share. Pool what we've got," Jellison answered.
"You mean communism," Ray Christopher said. This time the hostility showed through in his voice.
"No, I mean cooperation. Charity, if you like. More than that. Intelligent management of what little we have, so we avoid waste."
"Sounds like communism—"
"Shut up, Ray." George Christopher stood. "Senator, I can see how that makes sense. No point in using the last of the gasoline to plant something that won't grow. Or feeding the last of the soybeans to cattle that won't last the winter anyway. Question is, who decides? You?"
"Somebody has to," Tallifsen said.
"Not alone," Jellison said. "We elect a council. I will point out that I'm probably in better shape than anybody else here, and I'm willing to share—"
"Sure," Christopher said. "But share with who, Senator? That's the big question. How far do we go? We try to feed Los Angeles?"
"That's absurd," Jack Turner said.
"Why? They'll all be here, all that can get here," Christopher shouted. "Los Angeles, and the San Joaquin, and what's left of San Francisco … not all of 'em, maybe, but plenty. Three hundred last night, and that's just for starters. How long can we keep it up, lettin' those people come here?"
"Be niggers too," someone shouted from the floor. He looked self-consciously at two black