Overload

Nim was startled. Though Ardythe's words were not in Walter Talbot's broad Scots accent, just the same Nim could hear an uncanny echo of Walter, who, when alive, expressed himself in just that thoughtful, half-sardonic way. How strange, too, that Walter should have stripped his mind bare for Ardythe, whom Nim had never regarded as a deep thinker. Or was it strange at all? Perhaps, Nim reasoned, he was learning about a mental intimacy of marriage which he himself had never known.

He wondered how Laura Bo Carmichael would react to Walter's conviction that environmental pollution was a needed part of nature's balance, a facet of some dimly perceived master plan. Then remembering his own spiritual questing recently, he asked Ardythe, "Did Walter equate the balance of nature with God?"

"No. He always maintained that that was too easy, too elementary he said God was 'man-created, a straw grasped at by small minds afraid of darkness . ..'" Ardythe's voice trailed off. Suddenly Nim saw tears course down her face.

She wiped them away. "This is the time of day I miss Walter most. It's the time we would talk."

For a moment there was an awkwardness between them, then Ardythe said firmly, "No, I won't let myself go on being depressed." She had been sitting near Nim and now moved closer. He became aware of her perfume, the same perfume which so aroused him the last time he was here. She said softly, with a smile, "I think all that talk of nature has affected me."

Then, as they reached for each other, "Make love to me, Nim! I need you more than ever."

His arms around her tightened as they kissed fiercely. Ardythe's lips were moist and giving and she sighed with pleasure as their hands explored each other, both remembering the time before. Nim's own desire, never far below the surface, surged urgently so that he cautioned with a whisper, "Let's slow down! Wait!"

She whispered back, "We can go to my bedroom. It will be better." He felt her stir; she stood up. So did Nim.

Still close, they ascended the stairs. Except for the sound of their movements, the house was silent. Ardythe's bedroom was at the end of a short landing and the door was open. Inside, Nim saw, the coverlet and top sheet were already folded back. Ardythe had clearly made her plans before he got here. He remembered, from a conversation long ago, that Ardythe and Walter had occupied separate bedrooms. Though no longer troubled by the inhibitions of a month ago, Nim was glad they would not be in Walter's bed.

He helped Ardythe off with the tight-fitting dress he had admired and shed his own clothes quickly. They sank together onto the bed, which was soft and cool. "You were right," he murmured happily, "it is better here." then impatience conquered them. As be entered her, she thrust her body forward and cried aloud with joy. Minutes later, passion expended, they lay contented and entwined. Nim reflected on something he had once heard: That the sex act left some men drained and depressed, wondering why they had gone to all the trouble which preceded it. But it never happened that way to Nim. Once more, as always, he felt uplifted and renewed. Ardythe said softly, "You're a sweet, tender man. Is there any way you can stay the night?"

He shook his head. "Not this time."

"I suppose I shouldn't have asked." She traced a finger down his face, following the lines around his mouth. "I promise I won't be greedy, Nim, or bother you. Just come sometimes, when you can."

He promised he would, though wondering how to manage it amid the pressures and complications which grew in number daily. While they were dressing, Ardythe said, "I've been going through Walter's papers and there are some I'd like to turn over to you. Things he brought home from the office. They ought to go back."

"Sure, I'll take them," Nim agreed.

Ardythe showed him where the papers were-in three large cardboard cartons in what had been Walter's den. Nim opened two of the cartons and found the contents to consist of filed reports and letters. He riffled through a few while Ardythe was in the kitchen making coffee; he had declined another drink.

The papers appeared to concern matters in which Walter Talbot had taken a special personal interest. A good many were several years old and no longer relevant. One series of files contained copies of Walter's original report on theft of service and correspondence afterward. At the time, Nim remembered, the report attracted wide attention in the utility industry and was circulated far beyond GSP & L. As a result, Walter had taken on the coloration of an expert. There had even been a court case in the East in which he appeared as an expert witness, part of his report being admitted into evidence. Later, the case had gone to higher courts, Walter's report along with it. Nim had forgotten the eventual outcome; not that it mattered now, he thought.

He glanced through more correspondence, then replaced the files and closed the cartons. After that be carried them out to the hallway so be would remember to take them with him to his car.

14

The earth underfoot vibrated. A great roaring, like a covey of jet airplanes taking off together, shattered the near-silence and a fat plume of steam shot violently skyward. Instinctively, those in the small group standing on a knoll pressed hands over their ears in self-protection. A few appeared frightened.

Teresa Van Buren, uncovering her own ears momentarily, waved her arms and shouted, urging a return to the chartered bus in which the group arrived, No one heard the shouts but the message was clear. The twenty or so men and women moved hastily toward the bus parked fifty yards away.

Inside the air-conditioned vehicle, with doors closed tightly, the noise from outside was less intense.

"Jesus H. Christ!" one of the men protested. "That was a lousy trick to pull, and if I've lost my hearing I'll sue the goddamned utility."

Teresa Van Buren asked him, "What did you say?"

"I said if I've frigging well gone deaf . . ."

"I know," she interrupted, "I heard you the first time. Just wanted to make sure you hadn't."

Some of the others laughed.

"I swear to you," the GSP & L public relations director told the group of reporters on the press tour, "I had no idea that was going to happen.

The way it worked out, we just got lucky. Because, folks, what you had the privilege of seeing was a new geothermal well come in."

She said it with the enthusiasm of a wildcatter who has just brought in a Texas gusher.

Through windows of the still stationary bus, they looked back at the drill rig they had been watching when the unscheduled eruption occurred.

In appearance it was the same kind of tower-topped mechanism used in an oil field; it could, in fact, be moved and converted to oil exploration at any time. Like Teresa Van Buren, the hard-hatted crew clustered around the rig was beaming.

Not far away were other geothermal wellheads, their natural pressurized steam deflected into huge insulated pipes. An aboveground network of the pipes, covering several square miles like a plumber's nightmare, conveyed the steam to turbine generators in a dozen separate buildings, severe and square, perched on ridges and in gullies. Combined output of the generators was, at this moment, better than seven hundred thousand kilowatts, more than enough electricity to sustain a major city. The new well would supplement this power.

Within the bus, Van Buren regarded a TV cameraman who was busy switching film containers. "Did you get pictures when it happened?"

"Damn right!" Unlike the reporter who had complained-a minor league stringer for some small-town papers-the TV man looked pleased. He finished his film changing. "Ask the driver to open the door, Tess. I want a shot from another angle."

As he went out, a smell of hydrogen sulfide-like rotten eggs wafted in.

"Migawd, it stinks!" Nancy Molineaux of the California Examiner wrinkled her delicate nose.

"At European health spas," a middle-aged Los Angeles Times writer told her, "you'd have to pay to breathe that stuff."

"And if you decide to print that," Van Buren assured the L.A, Timesman, "we'll carve it on stone and salute it twice a day."

The press party had traveled from the city, starting early this morning, and was now in the rugged mountains of California's Sevilla County, site of Golden State Power's existing geothermal generating plants. Later they would move on to neighboring Fincastle Valley, where the utility hoped to create a further geothermal power complex. Tomorrow, the same group would visit a hydroelectric plant and the intended site of another.