Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [58]
"No, thank you. One's enough." He put the glass down, then picked it up again when he realized he'd set it on a highly polished wood lamp-table. He wiped the water ring off with his hand. "Good thing the crew didn't come up with me. Actually they've got some work to finish up, and I'd hoped we could get the footage on Senator Jellison tomorrow morning, but if he couldn't be available tomorrow I've got the gear in the car. I used to be a fair cameraman. They'll be here in the morning, and I thought I would use the evening to get acquainted with the Senator, find out what he'd like to talk about for the camera … " And I'm chattering, Harvey thought. Which is stupid.
"Care for the grand tour?" Maureen asked. She glanced at Harvey's Roughrider trousers and walking shoes. "You won't need to change. If you're up to a tough walk, I'll show you the best view in the valley."
"Sure. Let's go."
They went out through the kitchen and cut across the orange groves. A stream bubbled off to their left.
"That's good swimming down there," Maureen said. "Maybe we'll have a dip if we get back early enough."
They went through a fence. She parted the barbed wire and climbed through effortlessly, then turned to watch Harvey. She grinned when he came through just behind her, obviously pleased at his competence.
The other side of the fence was weeds and shrubs, never plowed or grazed. The way was steep here. There were small trails, made by rabbits or goats. They weren't really suited for humans at all. They climbed several hundred feet until they got to the base of a great granite cliff. It rose sheer at least two hundred feet above them. "We have to go around to the left here," Maureen said. "It gets tough from here on."
Much tougher and I won't make it, Harvey thought. But I will be damned if I'll have a Washington socialite show me up. I'm supposed to be an outdoorsman.
He hadn't been hiking with a girl since Maggie Thompkins blew herself up on a land mine in Vietnam. Maggie had been a go-get-'em reporter, always out looking for a story. She had no interest in sitting around in the Caravelle Bar and getting her material third- or fourth-hand. Harvey had gone with her to the front, and once they'd had to walk out from behind Cong lines together. If she hadn't been killed … Harvey put that thought away, too. It was a long time ago.
They scrambled up through a cleft in the rocks. "Do you come up here often?" Harvey asked. He tried to keep the strain out of his voice.
"Only once before," Maureen said. "Dad told me not to do it alone."
Eventually they reached the top. They were not, Harvey saw, on a peak at all. They were at one end of a ridge that stretched southeastward into the High Sierra. A narrow path led up into the rock cliff itself; they'd come all the way behind it, so that when they got to its top they faced the ranch.
"You're right," Harvey said. "The view's worth it." He stood on a monolith several stories high, feeling the pleasant breeze blowing across the valley. Everywhere he looked there were more of the huge white rocks. A glacier must have passed through here and scattered the land with these monoliths.
The Senator's ranch was laid out below. The small valley carved by the stream ran for several miles to the west; then there were more hills, still dotted with bungalow-size white stones. Far beyond the hills, and far below the level of the ranch, was the broad expanse of the San Joaquin. It was hazy out there, but Harvey thought he could make out the dark shape of the Temblor Range on the western edge of California's central valley.
"Silver Valley," Maureen announced. "That's our place there, and beyond is George Christopher's ranch. I almost married him, once—" She broke off, laughing.
Now why do I feel a twinge of jealousy? Harvey wondered. "Why is it so funny?"
"We were all of fourteen at the time he proposed," Maureen said. "Almost sixteen years ago. Dad had just been elected, and we were going to Washington, and George and I schemed to find a way so I could