Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [80]
Right.
Harvey Randall took Friday off. He called in sick, and by sheer bad luck Mark Czescu was in and took the call.
Mark got obvious pleasure out of asking it. "Hammer Fever, Harv?"
"Knock it off."
"Okay. Making a few plans myself. Meeting a couple of friends, getting to a nice safe place. Forgot to tell you. I won't be around on Hot Fudge Sundae, which falls on a Tuesdae next week. Want we should swing by your place after—if, as and when?"
He got no answer, because Harvey Randall had already hung up.
Randall went to a shopping center. He made his purchases carefully, and all on credit cards, or with checks.
At a supermarket he bought six big round roasts weighing twenty-eight pounds, and half their stock of vitamins, and half their stock of spices and considerable baking soda.
At a health-food store two doors down he bought more vitamins and more bottled spices. He bought a respectable amount of salt and pepper, and three pepper grinders.
Next door, a set of good carving knives. They'd needed new kitchen knives for a year. He also bought a sharpening stone and a hand-operated knife sharpener.
There was a tool kit he'd been wanting for years, and this was the time, he decided. While he was in the hardware store he picked up other odds and ends. Plastic plumbing parts, cheap stuff, that would thread onto iron pipe. There might be a use for it one day, if; and it would be handy around the house if not. There wasn't a camp stove to be had, but the clerk knew Harvey and obligingly fetched out four hand-pumped flashlights and two Coleman lanterns that had just come in, along with four gallons of Coleman fuel. He also gave Harvey a knowing look that Randall was coming to recognize.
At the liquor store he bought a hundred and ninety-three dollars' worth of everything in sight: gallons of vodka and bourbon and scotch; fifths of Grand Marnier, Drambuie and other esoteric and expensive liqueurs. He loaded everything into the wagon and then went back for bottles of Perrier water. He paid by credit card—and got another knowing look from the clerk.
"I'm ready to throw one hell of a party," he told Kipling. The dog thumped his tail on the seat. He liked to go places with Harvey, although he didn't get the chance as often as he wanted. He watched as his master went from store to store; to drugstores for sleeping pills and more vitamins, iodine, first-aid cream, the last box of bandages; back to the grocery for dog food; back to the drugstore for soap, shampoo, toothpaste, new toothbrushes, skin cream, calamine lotion, suntan lotion …
"Where do we stop?" Harvey asked. The dog licked his face. "We have to stop somewhere. Good Lord, I never thought much about the blessings of civilization before, but there are just a lot of things I wouldn't want to live without."
Harvey took his purchases home, then went back down the hill to collect the TravelAll from the mechanic who usually worked on it. If Harvey hadn't been a very old and valued customer, he'd never have got squeezed in for tuneup, oil change, grease job, and general before-trip checkup; the garage wasn't taking on new jobs for a week, and there were dozens of cars waiting for rush jobs.
But he got the TravelAll, and filled both tanks with gas. He filled the strap-on tanks for good measure, but he had to go to three service stations to do it; there was unofficial gas rationing in the L.A. basin.
After lunch it was bloody work. Twenty-eight pounds of beef had to be sliced into thin strips—thin! The new knives helped, but his arms were cramped by dinner time, and the job still wasn't done. "I'll need the bottom oven for the next three days," he told Loretta.
"It is going to hit us," Loretta said firmly. "I knew it."
"No. Odds are hundreds, thousands, to one against it."
"Then why that?" she asked. It was a good question. "My kitchen is just covered with little slices of raw meat."
"Just in case," Harvey said. "And it keeps. Andy can use it for hikes, if we don't."