But he didn't. Now, still seething inwardly, be ripped open the blue envelope.

It contained a single sheet of paper, matching the blue envelope. At the top was printed: From Karen Sloan.

Suddenly he remembered. Karen had said: "Sometimes I write poetry. Would you like me to send you some?" And he had answered yes.

The words were neatly typed.

Today I found a friend, Or maybe he found me, Or was it fate, chance, circumstance- Predestination, by whatever name?

Were we like paranoid stars whose orbits, Devised at time's beginning, In due season Intersect?

Though we will never know, No matter! For instinct tells me That our friendship, nurtured, Will grow strong.

So much of him I like: His quiet ways, warmth, A gentle wit, and intellect, An honest face, kind eyes, a ready smile.

"Friend" is not easily defined. And yet, These things mean that to me Concerning one whom, even now, I hope to see again And count the days and hours Until a second meeting.

What else was it Karen had said that day in her apartment? "I can use a typewriter. It's electric and I work it with a stick in my teeth."

With a flash of emotion Nim pictured her toiling-slowly, patiently -over the words be had just read, her teeth gripping the stick tightly, her blonde head-the only part of her she could move-repositioning itself after each laborious effort to touch a keyboard letter. He wondered how many drafts Karen had done before the letter-perfect final version she had sent him.

Unexpectedly, be realized, his mood had changed. The sourness of a moment earlier was gone, a warmth and gratitude replacing it.

On his way to join the press party at breakfast, Nim was surprised to meet Walter Talbot Jr. Nim had not seen Wally since the day of his father's funeral. Momentarily, Nim was embarrassed, remembering his recent visit to Ardythe, then rationalized that Wally and his mother led separate, independent lives.

Wally greeted him cheerfully. "Hi, Nim! What brings you here?"

Nim told him about the two-day press briefing, then asked, "And you?"

Wally glanced at the high voltage lines above them. "Our helicopter patrol found broken insulators on one of the towers-probably a hunter using them for target practice. My crew will replace the whole string, working with the line hot. We hope to be finished this afternoon."

While they talked, a third man joined them. Wally introduced him as Fred Wilkins, a company technician.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Goldman. I've heard of you. Seen you a lot on TV."

The newcomer was in his late twenties, had a shock of bright red hair and was healthily suntanned.

"As you can see from the look of him," Wally said, "Fred lives out here."

Nim asked, "Do you like the camp? Doesn't it get lonely?"

Wilkins shook his head emphatically. "Not for me, sir, or the wife. Our kids love it, too." He inhaled deeply. "Breathe that air, man! A lot better'n you'll get in any city. And there's plenty of sunshine, all the fishing you need."

Nim laughed. "I might try it for a vacation."

"Daddy!" a child's voice piped. "Daddy, has the mailman come?"

As the trio turned their heads, a small boy ran toward them. He had a cheerful, freckled face and bright red hair, making his parentage unmistakable.

"Just the company mailman, son," Fred Wilkins said. "The post office van'll be another hour." He explained to the others, "Danny's excited because it's his birthday. He's hoping for some packages."

"I'm eight," the small boy volunteered; be looked strong and sturdy for his age. "I had some presents already. But there might be more."

"Happy birthday, Danny!" Nim and Wally said together.

Moments later they parted company, Nim continuing toward the visitors' bunkhouse.

16.

In the tailrace tunnel's semi-darkness, above the mighty thunderous sound of confined rushing water, Oakland Tribune shouted, "When I get through these two days I'm gonna ask for a quiet week on the obit desk."

Several others nearby smiled but shook their heads, unable to bear the words for two reasons-the all-enveloping water sound and plugs of absorbent cotton in their ears. Material for the plugs, which muffled the echoing tunnel noise a little, had been handed them outside by Teresa Van Buren. That was after the group scrambled down a steep rock stairway to where the tailrace of Devil's Cate 1 generating plant emptied boisterously into Pineridge River, twenty feet below.

As they fiddled with the earplugs, preparing to enter the tunnel, someone had called out, "Hey, Tess! Why you takin' us in by the back door?"

"It's the tradesmen's entrance," she answered. "Since when did you characters deserve better? Besides, you're always sounding off about needing color for your stories. Here it is."

"Color? In there?" Los Angeles Times had said skeptically, peering forward into the blackness which was punctuated only by a few dim light bulbs. The tunnel was approximately circular, hewn out of solid rock, with the walls left rough and unfinished as at the time of excavation.

The light bulbs were near the roof. Suspended halfway between them and the turbulent water was a narrow catwalk on which the visitors would walk. Ropes on either side of the catwalk could be grabbed as handholds. Earlier, following breakfast, Nim Goldman had explained what they would be seeing-"a hydroelectric plant that's completely underground, inside a mountain. Later we'll talk about the proposed Devil's Gate pumped storage plant which will also be underground-entirely out of sight."

He continued, "The tailrace, where we're going, is actually the end of the generating process. But it will give you an idea of the kind of forces we're dealing with. The water you'll see has passed through the turbine blades after having been used to spin the turbines, and comes out in tremendous quantities."

The massive flow had been evident outside the tunnel to some who had leaned over a metal guardrail above the river, watching the awesome torrent join the already angry maelstrom below.

"By God! I'd hate to fall in," KFSO Radio observed. He asked Van Buren, "Has anyone ever?"

"Once that we know of. A workman slipped from here. He was a strong swimmer, even had some medals we found out after, but the flow in the tailrace pulled him under. It was three weeks before the body came up."

Instinctively, those nearest the guardrail took a step backward.

Something else Nim had told them in advance was that this particular tailrace was unique. "The tunnel is a third of a mile long and was cut horizontally into the side of a mountain. While the tunnel was being built, and before any water was let in, there were points where two construction trucks could pass side by side."

Nancy Molineaux had pointedly stifled a yawn. "Shit! So you got a long, fat, wet cave. Is that news?"

"It doesn't have to be news. This entire two-day deal is for background,"

Van Buren pointed out. "That was explained to everyone beforehand, including your editors."

"Did you say 'background' or 'craparound?"' Ms. Molineaux asked.

The others laughed.

"Never mind," Nim said. "I'd finished anyway."

Some twenty minutes later, after a short bus ride, be had led the way into the tailrace tunnel.

The cool dampness was in contrast to the warm, sunny day outside. As the group moved forward in single file, only a few feet above the foam-flecked water rushing beneath them, the circle of daylight behind receded to a pinpoint. Ahead, the few dim light bulbs seemed to stretch into limitless distance. Now and then someone would pause to look down, all the while clinging tightly to the guide ropes.

At length, the end of the tunnel and a vertical steel ladder came in sight. At the same time a new sound intruded-a hum of generators, growing to a mighty roar as the ladder was reached. Nim motioned upward and ascended first, the others following.

They passed through an open trapdoor into a lower generating chamber, then, by way of a circular staircase, to a brightly lighted control room two floors above. Here, to general relief, the noise level was diminished, only a faint hum penetrating the insulated walls.

A wide, plate glass window provided a view of two huge generators, both in operation, immediately below.

In the control room a solitary technician was writing in a logbook as he studied an array of dials, colored lights and graphic pen recorders which occupied one wall. Hearing the group enter, he turned. Even before that, Nim recognized him from his shock of red hair.

"Hullo, Fred Wilkins."

"Hi, Mr. Goldman!" the technician offered a brief "good morning" to the visitors, then continued writing.

"Where we are standing," Nim announced, "is five hundred feet underground. This plant was built by sinking a shaft from above, the way you would for a mine. There's an elevator goes from here to the surface and, in another shaft, high voltage transmission lines."

"Not many people working here," Sacramento Bee commented. He was looking through the window at the generator floor where no one was in sight.

The technician closed his logbook and grinned. "In a couple of minutes you won't see any."

"this is an automated generating plant," Nim explained. "Mr. Wilkins here comes in to make a routine check"-he queried the technician-"how often?"

"Just once a day, sir."

"Otherwise," Nim continued, "the place stays tightly locked and unattended, except for occasional maintenance or if something goes wrong,"

Los Angeles Times asked, "How about starting up and shutting down?"

"It's done from the control center a hundred and fifty miles away. Most new hydroelectric plants are designed this way. They're efficient, and there's a big saving in labor costs."

"When something is wrong, and there's a panic," New West inquired, "what then?"

"Whichever generator is affected-or even both-will send a warning to control, then shut down automatically until a service crew gets here."

"It's this kind of generating plant," Teresa Van Buren interjected, "that Devil's Gate z, the proposed pumped storage plant, will be removed from view so it won't mar the landscape, also non-polluting and economic."

Nancy Molineaux spoke for the first time since coming in. "There's one teensy item you left out of that snow job, Tess. The goddam great reservoir that would have to be built and the natural land which would be flooded."

"A lake in these mountains, which is what it will be, is every bit as natural as dry wilderness," the PR director retorted. "What's more, it will provide fishing . . ."

Nim said gently, "Let me, Tess." He was determined, today, not to let Nancy Molineaux or anyone else ruffle him.

"Miss Molineaux is right," he told the group, "to the extent that a reservoir is needed. It will be a mile from here, high above us and visible only from airplanes or to nature lovers willing to make a long, hard climb. In building it we'll observe every environmental safeguard . . ."

"The Sequoia Club doesn't think so," a male TV reporter interrupted.

"Why?"

Nim shrugged. "I have no idea. I guess we'll find out at the public hearing."

"Okay," the TV man said. "Carry on with your propaganda spiel."

Remembering his resolve, Nim curbed a sharp reply. With media people, be thought, it was so often an uphill battle, a fight against disbelief no matter how straightforward anyone involved with industry and business tried to be. Only radical crusaders, and never mind bow misinformed, seemed to have their viewpoints quoted verbatim, without question.

Patiently, he explained pumped storage-"the only known method of hoarding large quantities of electricity for use later at times of peak demand.

In a way, you could think of Devil's Gate 2. as an enormous storage battery."

There would be two levels of water, Nim continued-the new reservoir and Pineridge River, far below. Connecting the two levels would be massive underground pipes-or penstocks and tailrace tunnels. The generating plant would be between the reservoir and river, the penstocks ending at the plant, where the tailrace tunnels start.

"When the plant is producing electricity," Nim said, "water from the reservoir will flow downward, drive the turbines, then discharge into the river beneath the river surface."

But at other times the system would operate the opposite way around. When electrical demands everywhere were light-mostly during the night-no electricity would be produced by Devil's Gate 2. Instead, water would be pumped upward from the river-some three hundred million gallons an hour-to replenish the reservoir, ready for next day.

"At night we have great quantities of spare electric power elsewhere in the GSP & L system. We'd simply use some of it to operate the pumps."

New West said, "Con Edison in New York has been trying to build a plant like that for twenty years. Storm King, they call it. But ecologists and lots of others are against it."

"There are also responsible people who are for it," Nim said.

"Unfortunately nobody is listening."

He described one demand of the Federal Power Commission-proof that Storm King would not disturb fish life in the Hudson River. After several years of study the answer was: there would be a reduction of only four to six percent in the adult fish population.

"Despite that," Nim concluded, "Con Edison still doesn't have approval, and someday the people of New York will wake up to regret it."

"That's your opinion," Nancy Molineaux said.

"Naturally it's an opinion. Don't you have opinions, Miss Molineaux?"

Los Angeles Times said, "Of course she doesn't. You know how totally unprejudiced we servants of the truth are."

Nim grinned. "I'd noticed."

The black woman's features tightened, but she made no comment.

A moment earlier, when speaking about Hudson River fish, Nim had been tempted to quote Charles Luce, Con Edison's chairman, who once declared in a public moment of exasperation, "There comes a point where human environment must prevail over fish habitat. I think in New York we've reached it." But caution prevailed. The remark had got Chuck Luce into trouble and produced a storm of abuse from ecologists and others. Why join him?

Besides, Nim thought, he already had public image problems himself over that damned helicopter. It was coming this afternoon to Devil's Gate to return him to the city where urgent work was piled up on his desk. He had made sure, though, that the chopper would not arrive until after the press contingent had departed by bus.

Meanwhile, disliking this chore and relieved that it would end soon, he continued fielding questions.