Larry Niven: Lucifer's Hammer

Hamner left the motor running and got out of the car. The “key left” reminder screamed at him. Ordinarily Tim would have snarled a powerful curse upon Ralph Nader’s hemorrhoids, but tonight he never noticed. His eyes were dreamy; his hand patted at his coat pocket, then stole inside. The parking attendant hesitated. People didn’t usually tip until they were leaving. Hamner kept walking, dreamy-eyed, and the attendant drove away.

Hamner glanced back at the red-coated young men, wondering if one or another might be interested in astronomy. They were almost always from UCLA or Loyola University. Could be… Reluctantly he decided against it and went inside, his hand straying from time to time to feel the telegram crackle under his fingers.

The big double doors opened onto an enormous area that extended right through the house. Large arches, rimmed by red brick, separated the entry from the living areas: a mere suggestion of walls between rooms. The floor was continuous throughout: brown tile laid with bright mosaic patterns. Of the two hundred and more guests expected, fewer than a dozen were clustered near the bar. Their talk was bright and cheery, louder than necessary. They looked isolated in all that empty space, all that expanse of tables with candles and patterned tablecloths. There were nearly as many uniformed attendants as guests. Hamner noticed none of this. He’d grown up with it.

Julia Sutter broke from the tiny group of guests and hurried to meet him. There was a tight look around her eyes: Her face had been lifted, and was younger than her hands. She made a kissing motion a fraction of an inch from Tim’s cheek and said, “Timmy, I’m glad to see you!” Then she noticed his radiant smile.

She drew back a little and her eyes narrowed. The note of mock concern in her voice covered real worry. “My God, Timmy! What have you been smoking?”

Tim Hamner was tall and bony, with just a touch of paunch to break the smooth lines. His long face was built for melancholy. His mother’s family had owned a highly successful cemetery-mortuary, and it showed. Tonight, though, his face was cracked wide apart in a blazing smile, and there was a strange light in his eyes. He said, “The Hamner-Brown Comet!”

“Oh!” Julia stared. “What?” That didn’t make sense. You don’t smoke a comet. She tried to puzzle it out while her eyes roved to her husband — was he having a second drink already? — to the door — when were the others coming? The invitations had been explicit. The important guests were coming early — weren’t they? — and couldn’t stay late, and—

She heard the low purr of a big car outside, and through the narrow windows framing the door saw half a dozen people spilling out of a dark limousine. Tim would have to take care of himself. She patted his arm and said, “That’s nice, Timmy. Excuse me, please?” A hasty intimate smile and she was gone.

If it bothered Hamner it didn’t show. He ambled toward the bar. Behind him Julia went to welcome her most important guest, Senator Jellison, with his entourage. He always brought everyone, administrative assistants as well as family. Tim Hamner’s smile was blazing when he reached the bar.

“Good evening, Mr. Hamner.”

“Good it is. Tonight I’m walking on pink clouds. Congratulate me, Rodrigo, they’re going to name a comet after me!”

Michael Rodriguez, laying out glasses behind the bar, missed a beat. “A comet?”

“Right. Hamner-Brown Comet. It’s coming, Rodrigo, you can see it, oh, around June, give or take a few weeks.” Hamner took out the telegram and opened it with a snap.

“We will not see it from Los Angeles,” Rodriguez laughed. “What may I serve you tonight?”

“Scotch rocks. You could see it. It could be as big as Halley’s Comet.” Hamner took the drink and looked about. There was a group around George Sutter. The knot of people drew Tim like a magnet. He clutched the telegram in one hand and his drink in another, as Julia brought the new guests over and introduced them.

Senator Arthur Clay Jellison was built something like a brick, muscular rather than overweight. He was bulky, jovial and blessed with thick white hair. He was photogenic as hell, and half the people in the country would have recognized him. His voice sounded exactly as it did on TV: resonant, enveloping, so that everything he said took on a mysterious importance.

Maureen Jellison, the Senator’s daughter, had long, dark red hair and pale clear skin and a beauty that would have made Tim Hamner shy on any other night; but when Julia Sutter turned to him and (finally!) said, “What was that about a—”

“Hamner-Brown Comet” Tim waved the telegram. “Kitt Peak Observatory had confirmed my sighting! It’s a real comet, it’s my comet, they’re naming it after me!”

Maureen Jellison’s eyebrows went up slightly. George Sutter drained his glass before asking the obvious question. “Who’s Brown?”

Hamner shrugged; his untasted drink slopped a little onto the carpet, and Julia frowned. “Nobody’s ever heard of him,” Tim said. “But the International Astronomical Union says it was a simultaneous sighting.”

“So what you own is half a comet,” said George Sutter.

Tim laughed, quite genuinely. “The day you own half a comet, George, I’ll buy all those bonds you keep trying to sell me. And buy your drinks all night.” He downed his scotch rocks in two swallows.

When he looked up he’d lost his audience. George was headed back to the bar. Julia had Senator Jellison’s arm and was steering him toward new arrivals. The Senator’s administrative assistants followed in her wake.

“Half a comet is quite a lot,” Maureen said. Tim Hamner turned to find her still there. “Tell me, how do you see anything through the smog?”

She sounded interested. She looked interested. And she could have gone with her father. The scotch was a warm trace in his throat and stomach. Tim began telling her about his mountain observatory, not too many miles past Mount Wilson but far enough into the Angeles Mountains that the lights from Pasadena didn’t ruin the seeing. He kept food supplies there, and an assistant, and he’d spent months of nights watching the sky, tracking known asteroids and the outer moons, letting his eye and brain learn the territory, and forever watching for the dot of light that shouldn’t be there, the anomaly that would…

Maureen Jellison had a familiar glazed look in her eyes. He asked, “Hey, am I boring you?”

She was instantly apologetic. “No, I’m sorry, it was just a stray thought.”

“I know I sometimes get carried away.”

She smiled and shook her head; a wealth of deep red hair rippled and danced. “No, really. Dad’s on the Finance Subcommittee for Science and Astronautics. He loves pure science, and I caught the bug from him. I was just… You’re a man who knows what he wants, and you’ve found it. Not many can say that.” She was suddenly very serious.

Tim laughed, embarrassed; he was only just getting used to the fact. “What can I do for an encore?”

“Yes, exactly. What do you do when you’ve walked on the moon, and then they cancel the space program?”

“Why… I don’t know. I’ve heard they sometimes have troubles…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Maureen said. “You’re on the moon now. Enjoy it.”

The hot dry wind known as the Santa Ana blew across the Los Angeles hills, clearing the city of smog. Lights glittered and danced in the early darkness. Harvey Randall, his wife, Loretta, beside him, drove his green Toronado with the windows open, relishing the summer weather in January. When they arrived at the Sutter place he turned the car over to the red-jacketed attendant, and paused while Loretta adjusted her smile before moving through the big front doors.