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cheerful sense of humor. Coincidentally, Thurston bad 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 Denver, 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

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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 bad 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 Fabrenbeit. The

steam, in turn, rotated a turbine generator wbich-along with other

boilers and turbines at Cberokee-supplied almost three quarters of a

million kilowatts to power-hungry Denver 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 conveyors. 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 feel-

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ing 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 powernotably

oil and gas-had supplanted coal because they were cleaner, easier to

handle, readily obtainable and, for a while, cheaper. But not any more!

Despite coal's disadvantages-and nothing would wish those awaythe 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 collectorsrequired

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 Denver 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 Tunipab." He was pointing to an area, directly ahead,

of about fifteen acres. Covering it completely was a gigantic coal -ile.

" You're looking at four months' supply for the plant, not far from a

million tons," Folger informed them.

16o

"And underneath it all is what used to be a lovely meadow," Tburston

added. "Now it's an ugly eyesore; no one can dispute that. But we need

it. Tbere'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 nosie was greater.

"Something else you'll find when you work with coal," the plant su-

perintendent 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 fie-

tion-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. Tbe 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 bad 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.

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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.