Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [308]
Tim waved solemnly at the plane. "You can fly," he said. His voice rose. "You can fly. But we control the lightning."
The asteroid was a child of the maelstrom: a rough nugget of nickel-iron with some stony strata, three miles along its long axis. No man had ever seen a mastodon when the passing of mighty Jupiter plucked the nugget from its orbit and pulled it out toward interstellar space.
It was on the second lap of its long, narrow elliptical orbit. The iron surface was frosted with strange ices now, as it passed the peak of the curve and began to coast back toward the Sun.
And the black giant was there. Its ring of cometary snowballs glowed broad and beautiful in starlight. Infrared light traced bands and whorls in its stormy surface. It was the only major mass out here between the stars, and the asteroid curved toward it and increased speed.
Infrared light bathed and thawed the frosted iron. The ringed planet grew huge.
The asteroid plunged through the plane of the ring at twelve miles per second. Battered and pocked with glowing craters, it receded, carrying in its own small gravitational field a spray of icy masses from the ring. They came like attendants, ahead and behind, in a pattern like the curved arms of a spiral galaxy.
The asteroid and a score of comets pulled free of the black giant and began their long fall into the maelstrom.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
1: THE ANVIL
January: The Portent
January: Interlude
February: One
February: Two
March: One
March: Interludes
March: Two
April: One
April: Interludes
April: Two
May
June: One
June: Interludes
June: Two
June: Three
June: Four
2: THE HAMMER
Hammerfall Morning
Hammerfall: One
Hot Fudge Tuesdae: One
Hammerfall: Two
Hot Fudge Tuesdae: Two
Hot Fudge Tuesdae: Three
Tuesday Afternoon
3: THE QUICK ANDTHE DEAD
Rich Man, Poor Man
The Landlord
The Mailman: One
The Mailman: Two
The Stronghold: One
Sanctuary
Beggar Man
The Stronghold: Two
4: AFTER DOOMSDAY
First Week: The Princess
Second Week: Mountain Men
Fourth Week: The Wanderers
Fourth Week: The Prophet
Sixth Week: The High Justice
Ninth Week: The Organization Man
Journey's End
Exile's Story
The Magician
The Expedition
Expendables
Valley of Death
Aftermath
The Final Decision
Epilogue