"Zaco Properties. We still have surveillance on it. Nothing's happened yet. I guess we're going through a flat spell." Uncharacteristically, Harry London sounded depressed. Maybe it was infectious; perhaps he had transmitted his own low spirits, Nim thought as be said good night and hung up.

He was still restless, alone in the silent house. So who else could he call?

He considered Ardythe, then dismissed the idea. Nim was not ready yet-if he ever would be-to cope with Ardythe Talbot's onset of religion. But thinking of Ardythe reminded him of Wally Jr., whom Nim had visited in the hospital twice recently. Wally was now out of danger and removed from intensive care, though ahead lay months, perhaps years, of tedious, painful plastic surgery. Not surprisingly, Wally's spirits had been low. They had not discussed his sexual incapacity.

Half guiltily, as he remembered Wally, Nim reminded himself that his own sexual ability was unimpaired. Should he call one of his women friends?

There were several whom be had not seen for months but who, quite probably, would be available for drinks, a late dinner somewhere, and whatever followed. If he made the effort, he need not spend the night alone.

Somehow he couldn't be bothered.

Karen Sloan? No. As much as he enjoyed her company, he wasn't in the mood.

Work, then? there was work aplenty piled on his office desk at GSP&L headquarters. If he went there now it would not be the first time he had toiled at night taking advantage of the quietness to accomplish more than was possible in daytime. It might also be a good idea. The Tunipah hearings were already consuming much of Nim's available time, and the demand would continue, though his normal work load had to be fitted in somehow.

But no, not that either; not desk work in his present mood. How about some other kind of work to occupy his mind?

What could he do, be wondered, to prepare himself for his debut Monday on the witness stand? He was already well briefed. But there was always something more to be prepared for-the unexpected.

An idea jumped into his mind, from out of nowhere, like bread emerging from a pop-up toaster.

Coal.

Tunipah was coal. Without coal-to be freighted from Utah to California-no Tunipah electric generating plant was feasible. And yet, 1while Nim's technical expertise on coal was considerable, his practical experience was limited. There was a simple reason. As yet, no coal-burning electric generating plant existed inside California. Tunipah would be the first in history.

Surely . . . somehow, he thought . . . between now and Monday morning he must go-as if on a pilgrimage-to a coal-fueled plant. And from it he would return to the Tunipah hearings with the sight, sound, taste and smell of coal fresh in his senses. Nim's instincts, which were often right, advised him he would be a better, stronger witness if he did.

It would also solve the problem of his weekend restlessness.

But a coal-burning plant where?

When the easy answer occurred to him he mixed another scotch and water. Then, with the drink at his side, he sat at the telephone once more and dialed directory assistance in Dewer, Colorado.

10.

Flight 460 of United Airlines made an on-time departure from the West Coast at 7:15 am As the Boeing 727-2oo became airborne and climbed steeply, the morning sun, which minutes before had cleared the eastern horizon, tinted the landscape below a soft red-gold. The world seemed clean and pure, Nim thought, as it always does at dawn, a daily illusion lasting less than half an hour.

While the jet steadied on an easterly course, Nim settled back in his comfortable first-class seat. He had no hesitation in making the trip this way, at company expense, since reflection this morning while driving to the airport in darkness confirmed the good sense of last night's impulse. It would be a two-hour-twenty-minute non-stop flight to Dewer. An old friend, Thurston Jones, would meet him there.

A chirpy, personality-packed young hostess-the kind United seemed to have a knack for recruiting-served an omelette breakfast and persuaded Nim to accompany it with California wine, early as it was. "Oh, come on!" she urged when she saw him hesitate. "You've 'shed the surly bonds of earth,' so unzip that psyche! Enjoy!" He did enjoy-a Mirassou Riesling, not great but good-and arrived at Dewer more relaxed than be had been the previous night.

At Dewer's Stapleton International Airport, Thurston Jones shook Nim's hand warmly, then led the way directly to his car since Nim's only baggage was a small overnighter be was carrying. Thurston and Nim had been students together, as well as roommates and close friends, at Stanford University. In those days they had shared most things, including women whom they knew, and there was little about either which was unknown to the other. Since then the friendship had endured, even though they met only occasionally and exchanged infrequent letters.

In outward mannerisms the two had differed, and still did. Thurston was quiet, studious, brilliant and good-looking in a boyish way. His manner was self-effacing, though he could exercise authority when needed. He had a cheerful sense of humor. Coincidentally, Thurston had followed the same career route as Nim and now was Nim's opposite number-vice president of planning-for Public Service Company of Colorado, one of the nation's most respected producers and distributors of electricity and natural gas.

Thurston also had what Nim lacked-wide practical experience in power generation by coal.

"How's everything at home?" Nim asked on their way to the airport parking lot. His old friend had been married happily for eight years or so to a bubbly English girl named Ursula, whom Nim knew and liked.

"Fine. The same with you, I hope."

"Not really."

Nim hoped he had conveyed, without rudeness, a reluctance to discuss his own and Ruth's problems. Apparently so, because Thurston made no comment and went on, "Ursula's looking forward to seeing you. You'll stay with us, of course."

Nim murmured thanks while they climed into Thurston's car, a Ford Pinto.

His friend, Nim knew, shared his own distaste for cars with wasteful fuel habits.

Outside it was a bright, dry, sunny day. As they drove toward Dewer, the snowcapped front range of the Rocky Mountains was clear and beautiful to the west.

A trifle shyly, Thurston remarked, "After all this time it's really good to have you here, Nim." He added with a smile, "Even if you did just come for a taste of coal."

"Does it sound crazy, Thurs?"

Nim had explained last night on the telephone his sudden desire to visit a coal-fired generating plant and the reasoning behind it.

"Who's to say what's crazy and what isn't? Those endless hearings nowadays are crazy-not the idea of having them, but the way they're run. In Colorado we're in the same kind of bind you are in California. Nobody wants to let us build new generation, but five or six years from now when the power cuts start, we'll be accused of not looking ahead, not planning for a crisis."

"The plants your people want to build-they'd be coal-burning?"

"Damn right! When God set up natural resources he was kind to Colorado. He loaded this state with coal, the way he handed oil to the Arabs. And not just any old coal, but good stuff-low in sulfur, clean burning, most of it near the surface and easily mined. But you know all that."

Nim nodded because he did know, then said thoughtfully, "There's enough coal west of the Mississippi to supply this country's energy needs for three and a half centuries. If we're allowed to use it."

Thurston continued threading the little car through Saturday morning traffic, which was light. "We'll go directly to our Cherokee plant, north of the city," be announced. "It's our biggest. Gobbles up coal like a starving brontosaurus."

"We burn seven and a half thousand tons a day here, give or take a little." the Cherokee plant superintendent shouted the information at Nim, doing his best to be heard above the roar of pulverizer mills, fans and pumps. He was an alert, sandy-haired young man whose surname-Folger-was stenciled on the red hard bat he wore. Nim had on a white hard hat labeled "Visitor." Thurston Jones had brought his own.

They were standing on a steel plate floor near one side of a gargantuan boiler into which coal-which had just been pulverized to a fine dust-was being air-blown in enormous quantities. Inside the boiler the coal ignited instantly and became white hot; part of it was visible through a glass-enclosed inspection port like a peephole glimpse of hell. This heat transferred itself to a latticework of boiler tubes containing water which promptly became high-pressure steam and ripsnorted to a separate superheater section, emerging at a thousand degrees Fahrenbeit. The steam, in turn, rotated a turbine generator which-along with other boilers and turbines at Cberokee-supplied almost three quarters of a million kilowatts to power-hungry Dewer and environs.

Only a portion of the boiler's exterior was visible from the enclosed area where the men were standing; the entire height of the boiler was equal to fifteen floors of a normal building.

But all around them were the sight and sound and smell and taste of coal.

A fine gravel of black dust was underfoot. Already Nim was conscious of a grittiness between his teeth and in his nostrils.

"We clean up as often as we can," Superintendent Folger volunteered. "But coal is dirty."

Thurston added loudly, with a smile, "Messier than oil or hydro. You sure you want this filthy stuff in California?"

Nim nodded affirmatively, not choosing to pit his voice against the surrounding roar of blowers and conveyers. Then, changing his mind, he shouted back, "We'll join the black gang. Don't have any choice."

He was already glad be had come. It was important to acquire a feeling about coal, coal as it would relate to Tunipah, for his testimony next week.

King Coal! Nim had read somewhere recently that "Old King Coal is striding back toward his throne." It had to be that way, he thought; there was no alternative. In the last few decades America had turned its back on coal, which once brought cheap energy, along with growth and prosperity, when the United States was young. Other forms of power notably oil and gas-had supplanted coal because they were cleaner, easier to handle, readily obtainable and, for a while, cheaper. But not anymore!

Despite coal's disadvantages-and nothing would wish those away the vast black deposits underground could still be America's salvation, its last and most important natural wealth, its ultimate ace in the hole.

He became aware of Thurston motioning, suggesting they move on.

For another hour they explored Cherokee's noisy, coal-dusty intricacy. A lengthy stop was at the enormous electrostatic dust collectors required under environmental laws-whose purpose was to remove burned fly ash which otherwise would belch from smokestacks as a pollutant.

And cathedral-like generator halls with their familiar, deafening roar-whine were reminders that whatever the base fuel, electricity in Brob-dingnagian quantities was what this place was all about.

The trio-Nim, Thurston, Folger-emerged at length from the plant interior into the open-on a high walkway near the building's peak, two hundred feet above the ground. The walkway, linked to a maze of others beneath it by steep steel stairways, was actually a metal grating with everything below immediately visible. Plant workers moving on lower walkways appeared like flies. At first Nim looked down at his feet and through the grating nervously; after a few minutes he adjusted. The purpose of open gratings, young Folger explained, was for winter weather-to allow ice and snow to fall through.

Even here the all-pervading noise was still around them. Clouds of water vapor, emerging from the plant's cooling towers and changing direction in the wind, blew around and across the walkway. One moment Nim would find himself in a cloud, seemingly isolated, with visibility limited to a foot or two ahead. Then the water vapor would swirl away, leaving a view of the suburbs of Dewer spread below, with downtown high-rise buildings in the distance. Though the day was sunny, the wind up here was cold and biting and Nim shivered. There was a sense of loneliness, he thought, of isolation and of danger.

"There's the promised land," Thurston said. "If you have your way, it's what you'll see at Tunipah." He was pointing to an area, directly ahead, of about fifteen acres. Covering it completely was a gigantic coal pile.

" You're looking at four months' supply for the plant, not far from a million tons," Folger informed them.

"And underneath it all is what used to be a lovely meadow," Thurston added. "Now it's an ugly eyesore; no one can dispute that. But we need it. There's the rub."

While they watched, a diesel locomotive on a rail spur jockeyed a long train of freight cars delivering still more coal. Each car, without uncoupling, moved into a rotary dumper which then inverted, letting the coal fall out onto heavy grates. Beneath were conveyors which carried the coal toward the power plant.

"Never stops," Thurston said. "Never."

There would be strong objections, Nim already knew, to transferring this scene to the unspoiled wilderness of Tunipah. In a simplistic way he shared the objectors' point of view. But be told himself: Electric power to be generated at Tunipah was essential; therefore the intrusion must be tolerated.

They moved from the high viewing point, descended one of the outside metal stairways to a slightly lower level, and paused again. Now they were more sheltered and the force of the wind had lessened. But the surrounding noise was greater.

"Something else you'll find when you work with coal," the plant superintendent was saying, "is that you'll have more personnel accidents than you will with oil or gas or, for that matter, nuclear energy. We've got a good accident prevention program here. Just the same .

Nim wasn't listening.

Incredibly, with only the kind of coincidence which real life-not fiction-can produce, an accident was happening while he watched.

Some fifty feet ahead of Nim, and behind the backs of the other two who were facing him, a coal conveyor belt was in operation. The belt, a combination of pliant rubber and steel running over cylindrical rollers, carried coal to crushers which reduced it to small pieces. Later still it would be pulverized to a fine powder, ready for instant burning. Now, a portion of the conveyor belt, because of some large coal lumps, was blocked and overflowing. The belt continued moving. New coal was pouring over the side as it arrived. Above the moving belt, a solitary workman, perched precariously on an overhead grating, was probing with a steel rod, attempting to clear the blockage.

Later, Nim would learn the procedure was prohibited. Safety regulations required that the conveyor belt be shut down before a blockage was cleared. But plant workers, conscious of the need to maintain coal flow, sometimes ignored the regulation.

Within one or two seconds, while Nim watched, the workman slipped, checked himself by grabbing the edge of the grating, slipped again, and fell onto the belt below. Nim saw the man's mouth open as he cried out, but the sound was lost. He had fallen heavily; clearly, he was hurt. The belt was already carrying him higher, nearer the point where the coal crushing machinery, housed in a box-like structure, would cut him to pieces. No one else was in sight. No one, other than Nim, had seen the accident happen.

All he had time for was to leap forward, run, and shout as he went, "Stop the belt!"

As Nim dived between them, Thurston and Folger, not knowing what was happening, spun around. They took in the scene quickly, reacted fast, and raced after Nim. But by the time they moved he was well ahead.

the conveyor belt, at its nearest point to the walkway, was several feet higher and sloping upward. Getting onto it was awkward. Nim took a chance and leaped. As he landed clumsily on the moving belt, on hands and feet, a sharp edge of coal cut his left hand. He ignored the hurt and scrambled forward, upward, over loose, shifting coal, nearer to the workman who was lying dazed and was stirring feebly on a higher portion of the belt. By now the man was less than three feet from the deadly machinery ahead and moving closer.

What followed was a sequence of events so swift that its elements were inseparable.

Nim reached the workman and grabbed him, trying to pull him back. He succeeded briefly, then heard cloth rip and felt resistance. Somewhere, somehow, the man's clothing was caught in the moving belt. Nim tugged again, to no effect. The clanking machinery was barely a foot away. Nim struggled desperately, knowing it was the last chance. Nothing happened.

The workman's right arm, which was ahead of his body, entered the machinery and bone crushed horribly. Blood spurted as the conveyor belt moved on.

Then, with unbelieving horror, Nim realized his own clothing was caught. It was too late even to save himself.

At that moment the belt stopped.

After the briefest of pauses the conveyor reversed, brought Nim slowly back to the point where he had launched himself onto it, then stopped again.

Below the conveyor Folger had gone directly to a control box, bit a red "stop" button hard, then backed the conveyor down.

Now bands reached out, helping Nim return to the walkway. There were shouts and the sound of running feet as more help arrived. Newcomers lifted down the semi-conscious workman, who was moaning and bleeding badly. Somewhere below an alarm bell began ringing. Superintendent Folger, kneeling beside the injured workman, whipped off his leather belt and applied it as a tourniquet. Thurston Jones had opened a metal box and was telephoning, giving orders. Nim heard him say, "Get an ambulance and a doctor-fast!"

11.

"I may not be a blinkin' hero like you," Thurston declared cheerfully, "but in this town I do have a little pull." He had been in another room of his home, telephoning, and had just returned to Nim, who was in the living room, wearing a borrowed bathrobe, his left hand bandaged, the right nursing a stiff scotch and water.

Thurston continued, "Your suit is being specially cleaned-no mean feat, let me tell you, on Saturday afternoon. It will be delivered here later."

"Thanks."

Thurston's wife Ursula had followed her husband in, accompanied by her younger sister Daphne, who, with her infant son, was visiting Dewer from Britain. The two women were remarkably similar, Nim had already observed. Neither was conventionally pretty; both were big-boned and tall, with high foreheads and wide generous mouths, a shade too wide for beauty. But their breezy, outgoing personalities were strong and attractive. Nim had met Daphne a half hour ago, for the first time, and liked her immediately.

"There is some other news," Thurston informed Nim. "The guy whose life you saved won't lose his arm. The surgeons say they can piece it together, and while it may not be strong enough to use in a coal plant anymore, at least he can put it around his wife and three small kids. Oh yes!-and the wife sends a message. She says she and those kids will be in church later today, thanking whatever saint they do business with for one N. Goldman, Esquire, and lighting candles for you. I pass that on in case you believe in any of that stuff."

"Oh, do stop a minute, Thurs," Ursula said. "You're making me cry.,, "If you want the truth," her husband acknowledged, "I'm a bit choked up myself."

Nim protested, as he had earlier, "I didn't do much, if anything. It was your man Folger who stopped the conveyor and . . ."

"Listen," Thurston said. "You saw what happened before anyone else, you acted fast, and that couple of feet you pulled the guy back made all the difference. Besides, the world needs heroes. Why fight it?"

Events, since the dramatic, action-packed few minutes on the high walkway this morning, had moved swiftly. The injured workman, whose name Nim still didn't know, had received efficient first aid; then had been loaded carefully on a stretcher delivered to the walkway on the run by two plant employees. In what seemed only moments after Thurston's telephoned demand for an ambulance, a faint siren could be heard from the direction of downtown Dewer and a flashing red light, moving fast, became visible from the high vantage point, even while the vehicle was several miles away.

By the time the ambulance reached Cherokee plant, the stretcher had been taken down in a freight elevator and the injured man was whisked away to a hospital. Because of heavy bleeding and severe shock there had been early fears that he would die, fears that made the latest news welcome.

Only after the serious injury case had been dealt with, and the ambulance gone, had Nim's cut band been examined. There proved to be a deep gash in his palm at the base of the thumb. Thurston had driven Nim to a nearby suburban hospital emergency room where several stitches were put in.