The Hammer of Eden

“Okay, I’ll try to hold the magnetic armor while you fire back! That water bottle is actually a laser gun!”

Dusty pointed the bottle at the truck and made zapping noises. Spirit joined in, barking furiously at the truck as it passed. Melanie started to laugh.

When the truck pulled back into the slow lane ahead of them, Priest said: “Whew. We were lucky to come out of that in one piece. I think they’ve given up for now.”

“Will there be any more Centaurians?” Dusty asked eagerly.

“You and Spirit keep watch out the back and let me know what you see, okay?”

“Okay.”

Melanie smiled and said quietly: “Thanks. You’re so good with him.”

I’m good with everyone: men, women, children, and pets. I got charisma. I wasn’t born with it — I learned. It’s just a way of making people do what you want. Anything from persuading a faithful wife to commit adultery, all the way down to getting a scratchy kid to stop whining. All you need is charm.

“Let me know what exit to take,” Priest said.

“Just watch for signs to Berkeley.”

She did not know he could not read. “There’s probably more than one. Just tell me where to turn.”

A few minutes later they left the freeway and entered the leafy university town. Priest could feel Melanie’s tension rise. He knew that all her rage against society and her disappointment with life somehow centered on this man she had left six months ago. She directed Priest through the intersections to Euclid Avenue, a street of modest houses and apartment buildings probably rented by graduate students and younger faculty.

“I still think I should go in alone,” she said.

It was out of the question. Melanie was not steady enough. Priest could not rely on her when he was beside her, so there was no way he would trust her alone. “No,” he said.

“Maybe I—”

He allowed a flash of anger to show. “No!”

“Okay, okay,” she said hastily. She bit her lip.

Dusty said excitedly: “Hey, this is where Daddy lives!”

“That’s right, honey,” Melanie said. She pointed to a low-rise stucco apartment building, and Priest parked outside it.

Melanie turned to Dusty, but Priest forestalled her. “He stays in the car.”

“I’m not sure how safe—”

“He’s got the dog.”

“He might get scared.”

Priest twisted around to speak to Dusty. “Hey, Lieutenant, I need you and Ensign Spirit to stand guard over our spacecraft while First Officer Mom and I go inside the spaceport.”

“Am I going to see Daddy?”

“Of course. But I’d like a few minutes with him first. Think you can handle the guard duty assignment?”

“You bet!”

“In the space navy, you have to say ‘Aye, sir!’ not ‘You bet.’ ”

“Aye, sir!”

“Very good. Carry on.” Priest got out of the car.

Melanie got out, but she still looked troubled. “For Christ’s sake, don’t let Michael know we left his kid in the car,” she said.

Priest did not reply. You might be afraid of offending Michael, baby, but I don’t give a flying fuck.

Melanie took her purse off the seat and slung it over her shoulder. They walked up the path to the building door. Melanie pressed the entry phone buzzer and held it down.

Her husband was a night owl, she had told Priest. He liked to work in the evening and sleep late. That was why they had chosen to get here before seven o’clock in the morning. Priest hoped Michael would be too bleary- eyed to wonder whether their visit had a hidden purpose. If he got suspicious, stealing his disk might be impossible.

Melanie said he was a workaholic, Priest recalled as they waited for Michael to answer. He spent his days driving all over California, checking the instruments that measured small geological movements in the San Andreas and other faults, and the nights inputting the data into his computer.

But what had finally driven her to leave him was an incident with Dusty. She and the child had been vegetarian for two years, and they would eat only organic food and health store products. Melanie believed the strict diet reduced Dusty’s allergy attacks, although Michael was skeptical. Then one day she had discovered that Michael had bought Dusty a hamburger. To her, that was like poisoning the child. She still shook with fury when she told the story. She had left that night, taking Dusty with her.

Priest thought she might be right about the allergy attacks. The commune had been vegetarian ever since the early seventies, when vegetarianism was eccentric. At the time Priest had doubted the value of the diet but had been in favor of a discipline that set them apart from the world outside. Their grapes were grown without chemicals simply because they had been unable to afford sprays, so they had made a virtue of necessity and called their wine organic, which turned out to be a strong selling point. But he could not help noticing that after a quarter century of this life the communards were a remarkably healthy bunch. It was rare for them to have a medical emergency they could not cope with themselves. So he was now convinced. But, unlike Melanie, he was not obsessive about diet. He still liked fish, and now and again he would unintentionally eat meat in a soup or a sandwich and would shrug it off. But if Melanie discovered that her mushroom omelet had been cooked in bacon fat, she would throw up.

A grouchy voice came through the intercom. “Who is it?”

“Melanie.”

There was a buzz, and the building door opened. Priest followed Melanie inside and up the stairs. An apartment was open on the second floor. Michael Quercus stood in the doorway.

Priest was surprised by his appearance. He had been expecting a weedy professorial type, probably bald, wearing brown clothes. Quercus was around thirty-five. Tall and athletic, he had a head of short black curls and the shadow of a heavy beard on his cheeks. He wore only a towel around his waist, so Priest could see that he had broad, well-muscled shoulders and a flat belly. They must have made a handsome couple.

As Melanie reached the top of the stairs, Michael said: “I’ve been very worried — where the hell have you been?”

Melanie said: “Can’t you put some clothes on?”

“You didn’t say you had company,” he replied coolly. He stayed in the doorway. “Are you going to answer my question?”

Priest could see he was barely controlling his stored-up rage.

“I’m here to explain,” Melanie said. She was enjoying Michael’s fury. What a screwed-up marriage. “This is my friend Priest. May we come in?”

Michael stared at her angrily. “This had better be pretty fucking good, Melanie.” He turned his back and walked inside.

Melanie and Priest followed him into a small hallway. He opened the bathroom door, took a dark blue cotton robe off a hook, and slipped into it, taking his time. He discarded his towel and tied the belt. Then he led them into the living room.

This was clearly his office. As well as a couch and a TV set, there was a computer screen and keyboard on the table and a row of electronic machines with blinking lights on a deep shelf. Somewhere in those bland pale gray boxes was stored the information Priest needed. He felt tantalized. There was no way he could get at it unaided. He had to depend on Melanie.

One wall was entirely taken up with a huge map. “What the hell is that?” Priest said.

Michael just gave him a who-the-fuck-are-you look and said nothing, but Melanie answered the question. “It’s the San Andreas fault.” She pointed. “Beginning at Point Arena lighthouse a hundred miles north of here in Mendocino County, all the way south and east, past Los Angeles and inland to San Bernardino. A crack in the earth’s crust, seven hundred miles long.”

Melanie had explained Michael’s work to Priest. His specialty was the calculation of pressure at different