Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [78]
The valley stretched on for miles. Row after row of California suburban houses, rich areas and poor areas, stucco subdevelopments and old wooden frame homes, here and there a magnificent Monterey style, ancient, the only remnants of the time when the valley had been orange groves—and every one of them built in a flood basin. The neat squares of the valley were cut through by freeways—and there weren't many cars out there.
All over the basin, on four successive midmornings, the outbound freeways were more crowded than the inbound. Cars, trucks and rented trailers loaded with a lifetime of clutter, all moving out of the basin toward the hills beyond, or over the passes into the San Joaquin. All over the L.A. basin, stores had closed for the week, or for the month, or forever; and the remaining businesses were suffering badly from absenteeism. Hammer Fever.
There was almost no traffic on Benedict Canyon. Harvey chuckled. Here were the people coming home from work … but the ones with Hammer Fever were elsewhere. Hammer Fever had sent the mountain resort business to an all-time high, all across the country. The Treasury Department was worried: Consumer credit levels had broken all records; people were buying survival gear on credit cards. Employment up, economy up, inflation up, all because of the comet.
It's going to make one hell of a story.
Unless the damned thing does fall. It hit him, just then: If the Hammer fell, nobody was going to give a damn about the story. There'd be no programs. No TV. Nothing.
Harvey shook his head. His smile faded as he glanced at the package in the passenger seat. His compromise with Hammer Fever: an Olympic target pistol, .22 caliber, with a sculpted wooden grip that wrapped fully around the hand, steadying and bracing the wrist. It would be inhumanly accurate, but it was nothing anyone could point to while bellowing, "Look, Old Harv's got Hammer Fever!"
Only maybe I wasn't so damned smart after all, Harvey thought. He began to take inventory in his head.
He had a shotgun. Backpacking gear too, but only for himself. The idea of Loretta carrying a backpack was ludicrous. He had taken her on a hike, just once. Did she still have the shoes? Probably not. She couldn't exist at distances greater than five miles from a beauty shop.
And I love her, he reminded himself firmly. I can play rugged outdoorsman whenever I want to, and have elegance to come back to. Unwanted there came to him the memory of Maureen Jellison standing high on a split rock, her long red hair blowing in the wind. He pushed the memory very firmly back down into his mind and left it there.
So what can I do to prepare? Harvey wondered. Not a lot of time left. Supplies. Well, I can compromise. Canned goods. Good hedge against inflation anyway. They'll get us through a disaster, if any, and we can still eat them when the damned thing's gone past. And bottled water … No. Neither one. There's been a run on both. I'd be lucky to find much this week, and I'll pay a premium.
He turned into the driveway and braked sharply. Loretta had stopped the station wagon in the drive and was carrying packages into the house. He got out and started helping her, automatically, and only gradually realized that he was carrying bag after bag of frozen food. He asked, "What is this?"
Puffing slightly, Loretta set her load on the kitchen table. "Don't be angry, Harv. I couldn't help it. Everyone says—well, says that comet may hit us. So I got some food, just in case."
"Frozen food."
"Yes. They were nearly out of cans. I hope we can get it all in the freezer." She surveyed the bags doubtfully. "I don't know. We may have to eat Stouffer stuff for a couple of days."
"Uh-huh." Frozen food. Good God. Did she expect power lines to survive Hammerfall? But of course she did. He said nothing. She meant well; and while Loretta had been out getting useless supplies, Harvey Randall had been dithering and doing