"I'm doing my best, Mr. Goldman." the man's voice was reproachful.

"There's a lot of traffic, and more people than usual on the streets."

Nim had ordered a company car and chauffeur to be at the main doorway, rather than lose time getting his Fiat and driving himself. He arrived on the run and had given the address of Karen's apartment building. They were on the way there.

Nim's thoughts were in turmoil. He had obtained no details from Cynthia, only the bare fact that the power cut had been responsible for Karen's death. Nim already blamed himself-for failing to follow through, for not checking sooner to be sure Karen had gone to Redwood Grove.

Though knowing it was too late, he burned with impatience to arrive.

As a diversion, looking through the car's windows at the streets in gathering dusk, he considered what the driver had just said. There were many more people out than usual. Nim recalled reading about New York City during blackouts-people came out-of-doors in droves but, when asked, few knew why. Perhaps they were seeking instinctively to share adversity with their neighbors.

Others, of course, had taken to the New York streets to break the law, and burn, and plunder. Maybe, as time went on, both things would happen here.

Whether they did or didn't, Nim thought, one thing was certain: Patterns of life were changing significantly, and would change still more.

The city's lights were either on or coming on. Soon, the few remaining pockets without power would have theirs restored too.

Until tomorrow.

And the day after.

And, after that, who knew how prolonged or drastic the departure from normal life would be?

"Here you are, Mr. Goldman," the driver announced. They were at Karen's apartment building.

Nim said, "Please wait."

"You can't come in," Cynthia said. "Not now. It's too awful."

She had come out into the corridor when Nim arrived at the apartment, closing the door behind her. While the door was briefly open, Nim could hear someone inside having hysterics-it sounded like Henrietta Sloan-and a wailing which he thought was from Josie. Cynthia's eyes were red.

She told him as much as she knew about the series of misfortunes which added up to Karen's terrible, lonely death. Nim started to say what he had already thought, about blaming himself, when Cynthia stopped him.

"No! Whatever the rest of us did or didn't do, Nimrod, no one in a long time did as much for Karen as you. She wouldn't want you to feel guilt or blame yourself. She even left something for you. Wait!"

Cynthia went back inside and returned with a single sheet of blue stationery. "This was in Karen's typewriter. She always took a long time with anything like this and was probably working on it before . . . before. . ." Her voice choked; she shook her head, unable to finish.

"Thank you." Nim folded the sheet and put it in an inside pocket. "Is there anything at all I can do?"

Cynthia shook her head. "Not now." then, as he started to leave, she asked, "Nimrod, will I see you again?"

He stopped. It was a clear and obvious invitation, just as be remembered the same invitation once before.

"Oh Christ, Cynthia," Nim said. "I don't know."

The damnable thing was, be thought, he wanted Cynthia, who was warm and beautiful and eager to give love. Wanted her, despite his reconciliation with Ruth, despite loving Ruth devotedly.

"If you need me, Nimrod," Cynthia said, "you know where I am."

He nodded as he turned away.

In the car, going back to GSP & L headquarters, Nim took out, and unfolded, the sheet of Karen's familiar stationery which Cynthia had given him.

Holding it under a dome light, he read: Is it so strange, my dearest Nimrod, That lights should be extinguished?

Rush lights have failed; All fires that men have started Burn low, and die.

Yet light, like life, survives: The meanest gleam, a flaming brand, Each holds a..

What did they hold? he wondered. What last sweet, loving thought of Karen's would he never know?

20.

A rollaway bed had been brought into Nim's office. It was there when he returned, made up with sheets, a blanket and a pillow, as he had asked for it to be.

Vicki had gone home.

Thoughts of Karen still filled his mind. Despite Cynthia's words, his sense of guilt persisted. It was a guilt, not only for himself, but for GSP&L, of which he was a part, and which had failed her. In modern life, electricity had become a lifeline-for those like Karen, literally and it should not be broken, no matter what the cause. Reliability of service was, above all, the first duty, a near-sacred trust, of any public utility like GSP & L. And yet the lifeline would be broken-tragically, sadly, in a sense needlessly-again and again, beginning with tomorrow. Nim was sure that as rolling blackouts continued, there would be other losses and hardships, many unforeseen.

Would he ever shake off his guilt about Karen, he wondered? In time, perhaps, but not yet.

Nim wished there were someone be could talk to at this moment, in whom he could confide. But he had not told Ruth about Karen, and couldn't now.

He sat at his desk and put his face in his hands. After a while, be knew he must do something which would divert him mentally. For an hour or two, at least.

The events of the day-trauma piled on trauma-bad prevented him from dealing with the accumulated papers on his desk. If he failed to clear some of them tonight, be knew there would be twice as many tomorrow. But as much for mental relief as any other reason, he settled down to work. He had been concentrating for ten minutes when he heard the telephone in the outer office ring. He answered it on his extension.

"I'll bet," Teresa Van Buren's voice said, "you thought you were through being the company's mouthpiece for today."

"Since you mention it, Tess," he told her, "the idea had occurred to me."

The PR director chuckled. "The press never sleeps; more's the pity. I have two people over here who'd like to see you. One is AP, who has some supplementary questions for a national story on our rolling blackouts. The other is Nancy Molineaux, who won't say what the bell she wants, but wants something. How about it?"

Nim sighed. "Okay, bring them over."

There were moments-this was one-when he regretted the defection and departure of Mr. Justice Yale.

"I won't stay," the PR director said a few minutes later. She introduced AP, an elderly male reporter with rheumy eyes and a smoker's cough. Nancy Molineaux had elected to wait in the outer office until AP was through. The wire service man's questions were professional and thorough and he scribbled Nim's answers, in his own version of shorthand, on a batch of copy paper. When they had finished, be got up to go and asked, "Shall I send the doll in?"

"Yes, please."

Nim heard the outer door close, then Nancy entered.

"Hi!" she said.

As usual, she was stylishly, though simply, dressed-tonight in a silk shirtwaist dress, coral-colored, a perfect complement to her flawless black skin. Her handsome, high-cheekboned face seemed to have lost some-thought not all-of its haughtiness, Nim thought, perhaps because she had been friendlier, ever since their meeting in the Christopher Columbus Hotel, and the shattering events which followed it.

She sat down opposite him, crossing her long, shapely legs. Nim regarded them briefly, then looked away.

"Hi!" he acknowledged. "What can I do for you?"

"There's this." She got up and placed a long strip of paper on the desk in front of him. He saw it was a carbon copy of a teletype.

"It's a story that just broke," Nancy said. "The morning papers will have it. We'd like to develop it with some comments-yours for one for the afternoon."

Swinging his chair to where the light was better, Nim said, "Let me read this."

"Be hard to comment if you don't," she said lazily. "Take your time."

He scanned the news story quickly, then went back to the beginning and studied it carefully.

WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 3-rN A DRAMATIC MOVE TO RESOLVE THE CURRENT OIL CRISIS, THE UNITED STATES IS TO ISSUE A NEW CURRENCY, TO BE KNOWN AS THE NEW DOLLAR. IT WILL BE BACKED BY GOLD AND BE WORTH TEN EXISTING DOLLARS.

THE PRESIDENT WILL ANNOUNCE THE NEW DOLLAR AT A WHITE HOUSE PRESS CONFERENCE TOMORROW AFTERNOON.

SOME WASHINGTON OFFICIALS HAVE ALREADY DUBBED THE NEW CURRENCY "THE HONEST DOLLAR.".

THE OIL EXPORTING NATIONS OF OPEC WILL BE ASKED TO ACCEPT PAYMENT FORTHEIR OIL IN NEW DOLLARS, WITH PRICE ADJUSTMENTS TO BE NEGOTIATED.

INITIAL OPEC REACTION HAS BEEN CAUTIOUSLY FAVORABLE. HOWEVER, OPEC SPOKESMAN SHEIK AHMED MUSAED STATED THAT AN INDEPENDENT AUDIT OF UNITED STATES GOLD WOULD BE SOUGHT BEFORE ANY AGREEMENT BASED ON THE NEW DOLLAR COULD BE CONCLUDED.

WE WOULD NOT GO SO FAR AS TO SUGGEST THAT THE UNITED STATES HAS LIED ABOUT ITS GOLD RESERVES," SHEIK MUSAED TOLD REPORTERS TONIGHT IN PARIS, "BUT THERE HAVE BEEN PERSISTENT RUMORS, WHICH CANNOT BE BRUSHED ASIDE LIGHTLY, THAT THEY ARE NOT AS LARGE AS OFFICIALLY STATED. THEREFORE WE WISH TO MAKE SURE THAT COLD BACKING OF THE NEW DOLLAR IS REAL AND NOT ILLUSORY.".

THE PRESIDENT IS EXPECTED TO INFORM AMERICANS THAT THEY CAN ACQUIRE NEW DOLLARS BY SURRENDERING THEIR OLD DOLLARS AT THE RATE OF TEN TO ONE. THE CHANGE WILL BE VOLUNTARY AT FIRST BUT, UNDER PROPOSED LEGISLATION, COMPULSORY WITHIN FIVE YEARS. AFTER THAT, THE OLD DOLLAR WILL BE PHASED OUT, HAVING VALUE ONLY AS A COLLECTOR'S ITEM.

AT HIS NEWS CONFERENCE THE PRESIDENT WILL UNDOUBTEDLY BE ASKED . . .

Nim thought: So the possibility which GSP & L's Washington lobbyist had mentioned last week had become reality.

He was aware of Nancy Molineaux, waiting.

"I'm no financial genius," Nim said. "But I don't think you need to be one to know that what's happening here"-be tapped the teletype sheet with a finger-"has been inevitable for a long time, since inflation started and, after that, we let ourselves get dependent on imported oil. Unfortunately, a lot of decent, middle-class folk who've worked bard and accumulated savings, are the ones who'll be hurt most when they line up to trade their dollars ten for one. Even now, though, all that this does is buy us some time. Time until we stop purchasing oil we can't afford, stop spending money we don't have, and begin developing our own, untapped energy resources."

"Thanks," Nancy said; "that'll do nicely." She put away a notebook she had been writing in. "Over at the paper, by the way, they seem to think that you're Sir Oracle. Oh yes, and speaking of which, you might 4like to know that in Sunday's edition we're reprinting what you said at that hearing last September-the one where you blew up and got yourself in the shit. Suddenly it all makes more sense than it seemed to then." A thought occurred to her. "Do you want to tell me-for the record-how you feel about all that?"

On impulse, Nim opened a drawer of his desk and took out a folder. From it he extracted a sheet of blue stationery and read aloud: Be, at that harvest moment, forgiving, gracious, Broad of mind, large-purposed, Amused by life's contrariness.

"Not bad," Nancy said. "Who wrote that?"

"A friend of mine." He found he was having trouble speaking. "A friend who died today."

There was a silence, then she asked, "May I read it all?"

"I don't see why not." He handed her the paper.

When Nancy had finished, she looked up. "A woman?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"Was that the reason you looked the way you did when I came in here tonight-like you'd been swept up from a stable floor?"

Nim smiled briefly. "If that's the way I looked, I suppose the answer's 'yes."'

Nancy put the sheet of stationery on top of the folder on his desk. "Want to tell me about it? Off the record, if you like."

"Yes," he said, "it'll be off the record. Her name was Karen Sloan. She was a quadriplegic, and had been one since she was fifteen." He stopped.

"Go on," Nancy said. "I'm listening."

"I think she was the most beautiful person-in every way-I've ever known."

A pause, then: "How did you meet her?"

"Accidentally. It happened right after that blackout last July Barely an hour ago Nim had longed for someone to talk to, to confide in.

Now, he poured it out to Nancy. She listened, interjecting an occasional question, but was mostly silent. When be described the manner of Karen's death, she stood up, moved around the room, and said softly, "Oh, baby! Baby!"

"So you see," Nim said, "I guess looking like something from a stable floor wasn't all that surprising."

Nancy had returned to the desk. She pointed to his spread-out papers.

"Then why are you bothering with all that crap?"

"I had work to do. Still have."

"Bullshit! Dump it and go home."

He shook his head and glanced toward the bed. "Tonight I'm sleeping here. We still have problems, and tomorrow-remember?-we start rolling blackouts."

"Then come home with me."

He must have looked startled because she added softly, "My pad is five minutes away. You can leave the phone number, then if you have to, you can get back here fast. If you don't get called, I'll make breakfast in the morning, before you leave."

They stood facing each other. Nim was aware of a musky perfume, of Nancy's slim, willowy, desirable body. He had an urge to know more about her. Much more. And he knew-as had happened so often in his life, and for the second time tonight-he was being tempted by a woman.

"You won't get the offer again," she said sharply. "So make up your mind. Yes or no?"