Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [236]
There was no reaction to her language, and she was ashamed of herself for trying to … to what? It didn't matter.
"Isn't it true that you do care for something?" Varley asked. "This lover. He is someone whose life you want to share."
Her smile was bitter. "Don't you understand? I don't know! And I'm afraid to find out. I want to be in love, but I don't think I can be, and I'm afraid even that's gone. And I can't find out because my job is to be the crown princess. Maybe I ought to marry George and be done with it."
This time he did react. He seemed surprised. "George Christopher is your lover?"
"Good God, no! He's the one who'll do the killing."
"I doubt that. George is a pretty good man."
"I wish … I'd like to be sure of that. Then I could find out. I could find out if I can still love anyone. And I want to know, I want to know if the Hammer took that, too. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have spoken to you. There's nothing you can do."
"I can listen. And I can tell you that I see a purpose to life. This vast universe wasn't created for nothing. And it was created. It didn't just happen."
"Did the Hammer just happen?"
"I don't believe so."
"Then why?"
Varley shook his head. "I don't know. Perhaps to shock a Washington socialite enough to make her take a strong look at her life. Maybe only that. For you."
"That's crazy. You don't believe that."
"I believe it has a purpose, but that purpose will be different for each of us."
"We'd better go in. I'm freezing." She turned and walked rapidly past him to the stone ranch house. I'll see Harvey tonight, she thought. And I'll tell him. Everything. I have to. I can't stand this any longer.
Journey's End
In the imminent dark age people will endure hardship, and for the greater part of their time they will be laboring to satisfy primitive needs. A few will have positions of privilege, and their work will not consist in … cultivating the soil or in building shelters with their own hands. It will consist in schemes and intrigues, grimmer and more violent than anything we know today, in order to maintain their personal privileges …
Roberto Vacca, The Coming Dark Age
Ding! The kitchen timer went off, and Tim Hamner put down his book and picked up the binoculars. He had two sets of binoculars in the guard shack: the very powerful day glasses he now carried, and a much larger night glass that didn't magnify so much, but gathered a lot of light. They'd have been perfect field-viewing astronomical glasses, except that there were always clouds and Tim rarely saw the stars.
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!
He climbed up onto the boulder. A tree grew next to it. From any distance away he'd be invisible in the foliage. When he reached the top he braced himself against the tree and began his careful scan of the terrain below him.
Trouble Pass appeared on no maps. It was Harvey Randall's name for the low spot in the ridges surrounding the Stronghold. Trouble Pass was the most likely route for anyone invading on foot, and Tim scanned it first. He'd looked into it no more than fifteen minutes before; the timer was set for fifteen-minute intervals on the theory that nobody, on foot or horseback, could get over the pass and out of sight in less than fifteen minutes.
There was nobody there. There