Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [38]
"It's only a matter of time," Sharps said. "Give it long enough and the probability of a comet hitting us approaches certainty. But I don't think we have to worry about Hamner-Brown."
Henry Armitage was a TV preacher. He'd been a radio preacher until one of his converts left him ten million dollars; now he had his own slick-paper magazine, TV shows in a hundred cities, and an elaborate complex of buildings in Pasadena, complete with editorial staff.
For all that, Henry wrote much of the magazine himself, and he always did the editorials. There were too few hours in the day for Henry. He gloried in the troubles of the world. He knew what they meant. They were the signs of a greater joy to come.
For the disciples had asked the Master, "Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?""
And Jesus answered and said unto them, "Take heed that no man shall deceive you. For many shall come in my name saying 'I am Christ'; and shall deceive many."
Henry had seen the entry on the Inyo County, California, police blotter: "Charles Manson, also known as Jesus Christ, God."
"And you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places."
Matthew was Henry's favorite Gospel; and of all the Bible, that was his favorite text. Were these not the times Christ spoke of? The signs were all present in the world.
He sat at his expensive desk. The TV was concealed behind a panel that opened when Henry touched a button. It was a long way from the wood-frame, whitewashed one-room church in Idaho where Henry had started in the Thirties. The ostentatious wealth sometimes disturbed Henry, but his supporters insisted on it, even if Henry and his wife would have been as happy in plainer surroundings.
Henry toyed with his editorial, but he didn't feel inspired. As a lesson in humility he had the TV turned to an interview show; the lesson was to watch that shallow frivolity without hating those who took part in it; and that was hard, hard …
Something caught his attention. A thin tall man in a herringbone sport jacket, arms waving about. Henry admired his technique. The man would make an impressive preacher. He focused all attention on himself, and his words washed across the listener.
The man was talking about a comet. A comet. A sign in the heavens? Henry knew what comets were, but because comets were natural did not mean that their timing was not miraculous. Henry had seen many healed by prayer and the doctors later "explain" the miracle.
A comet. And it would pass very close to Earth. Could this be the final sign of all? He drew a yellow lined tablet toward him and began writing in sloppy block print, using a dozen pencils. He was through three sheets before he knew his headline, and he turned back to the first page.
In two weeks his magazine would be in half a million homes around the world; and across the cover in blazing red twenty point type would be his headline:
THE HAMMER OF GOD
It would make a good text for his TV shows, too. Henry began writing frantically, feeling the way he had felt nearly forty years before, when he'd really begun to understand Matthew 24 and had carried the message to a world that didn't care.
The Hammer of God was coming to punish the decadent and the willful. Henry wrote eagerly.
April: One
From the fury of the Norsemen,
Spare us, good Lord.
From the great comet,
Good Lord deliver us.
Medieval litany
Tim Hamner arrived in a taxi just as Harvey's TravelAll reached JPL. As Tim handed the driver a twenty and waved him away, Harvey swore; then he put on his best face as Tim came over to join him.
Hamner looked sheepish. "Look, Harvey, I said I wouldn't interfere—and I won't. But I met Sharps on that interview show."
"Yeah, I saw that," Harvey said. "Sharps was great."
"He sure was," Hamner said. "I want