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merit a personat call from
    the man at the top? But lie didn't say it, knowing that J. Eric Humphrey,
    while a hard-NNorking administrator, purposely kept a low profile
    whenever lie could, and this was clearly one more occasion, with Nim and
    some other unfortunates actincy as his surrogates.
    "All right," Nim conceded, "I'll do it."
    "Thank you. And please convey to Mrs. Talbot my deep personal sympathy.'
    I
    Nim brooded unhappily as be returned the telephone. What he had been
    instructed to do was not the kind of thing be was good at liandling. He
    bad known he would see Ardythe Talbot eventually and would have to grope
    cinotionally for words as best lie could. What be hadn't expected was to
    have to go to her so soon.
    On the way out of Energy Control, Nim encountered Teresa Van Buren. She
    looked wrung out. Presumably her latest session with the reporters had
    contributed to that, and Teresa, too, had been a friend of Walter
    Talbot's. "Not a good day for any of us," she said.
    "No," Nim agreed. He told her where he was going and about the in-
    structions from Eric Humphrey.
    The p.r. vice president grimaced, "I don't envy you. That's tough duty.
    By the Nvay, I hear you had a run-in with Nancy Molineaux."
    He said feelingly, "That bitch!"
    "Sure, she's a bitcb, Nim. She's also one spunky newspaperwoman, a whole
    lot better than most of the incompetent clowns we see on this beat."
    "I'm surprised you'd say that. She'd made up her mind to be critical
    -hostile-before she even knew what the story was about."
    Van Buren shrugged. "This pachyderm we work for can survive a few slings
    and arrows. Besides, hostility may be Nancy's way of making Non, and
    others, sav more than you intend. You've got a few things to learn about
    women, Niiii-other than calisthenics in bed, and from rumors I bear,
    you're getting plenty of that." She regarded him sbreN\,dlv. "You're a
    hunter of women, aren't you?" Then her motherly eyes softened. "Maybe I
    shouldn't have said that right now. Go, do the best you can for Walter's
    wife."
    19
     

4
    His substantial frame jammed into his Fiat Xig two-seater, Nim Coldman
    wove through downtown streets, heading northeast toward San Roque, the
    suburb where Walter and Ardythe Talbot lived. He knew the way well, having
    driven it many times.
    By now it was early evening, an hour or so after the homebound rush hour,
    though traffic was still heavy. The heat of the day had diminished a
    little, but not much.
    Nim shifted his body in the little car, straining to make himself com-
    fortable, and was reminded he had put on weight lately and ought to take
    some off before he and the Fiat reached a point of impasse. He had no
    intention of changing the car. It represented his conviction that those
    who drove larger cars were blindly squandering precious oil while living
    in a fool's paradise which would shortly end, with accompanying
    disasters. One of the disasters would be a crippling shortage of electric
    power.
    As Nim saw it, today's brief power curtailment was merely a preview -an
    unpalatable hors d'oeuvre-of far graver, dislocating shortages, perhaps
    only a year or two distant. The trouble was, almost no one seemed to
    care. Even within GSP&L, where plenty of others were privy to the same
    facts and overview as Nim, there existed a complacency, translatable as:
    Don't worry. Everything will come out all right. We shall manage.
    Meanwhile, don't let's rock the boat by creating public alarm.
    Within recent months only three people in the Golden State Power & Light
    hierarchy-Walter Talbot, Teresa Van Buren and Nim-bad pleaded for a
    change of stance. What they sought was less timidity, more directness.
    They favored blunt, immediate warnings to the publi~, press and
    politicians that a calamitous electrical famine was ahead, that nothing
    could avert it totally, and only a crash program to build new generating
    plants, combined with massive, painful conservation measures, could
    lessen its effect. But