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Ruth had dried her eyes. She regarded him now with an expression which

seemed part amused, part sorrowing. "You really believe that. That I went

away with a man."

"Well, didn't you?"

She shook her head slowly. "No."

"But I thought . . ."

"I know you did. And I let you go on thinking it, which probably wasn't a

good idea. I decided-spitefully, I suppose-that it would do no harm, and

might even achieve some good, if you had a taste of what I'd been feeling."

- -

"Then how about those other times? Where were you?"

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Ruth said, with a trace of her earlier anger, "There is no other man.

Can't you get that through your thick head? There never has been. I came

to you a virgin-you know that, unless you've forgotten or have me

confused with one of your other girl friends. And there hasn't been

anyone else but you since."

Nim winced because he did remember, but persisted, "Then what were you

doing . . . ?"

"That's my private business. But I'm telling you again: it wasn't a man."

He believed her. Absolutely.

"Oh Christ!" he said, and thought: Everything was coming apart at once;

most of what be had done and said recently had turned out to be wrong.

As to their marriage, he wasn't sure if he wanted it to go on or not.

Maybe Ruth was right, and getting out would be the best thing for them

both. The idea of personal freedom was attractive. On the other hand,

there was a good deal he would miss-the children, home, a sense of

stability, even Ruth, despite their having grown apart. Not wanting to

be forced to a decision, wisbing that what was happening could have been

postponed, be asked almost plaintively, "So where do we go from here?"

"According to what I've beard from friends who traveled this route"

-Ruth's voice bad gone cold again-"we each get a lawyer and begin staking

out positions."

He pleaded, "But do we have to do it now?"

"Give me one single, valid reason for waiting any longer."

"It's a selfish one, I'll admit. But I've just been through one difficult

time . He let the sentence trail off, realizing it sounded like selfpity.

"I know that. And I'm sorry the two things have come together. But

nothing is going to change between us, not after all this time. We both

know that, don't we?"

He said bleakly, "I suppose so." There was no point in promising to

revise his own attitudes when he wasn't sure he could, or even wanted to.

,,Well, then .

"Look . . . would you wait a month? Maybe two? If for no other reason

than that we'll have to break the news io Leah and Benjy, and it will

give them time to get used to the idea." He was not sure that the

argument made sense; it probably didn't. Nor did it seem plausible that

a delay would achieve anything. But instinct told him that Ruth, too, was

reluctant to take the final, irrevocable step to end their marriage.

"Well . . ." She hesitated, then conceded, "All right. Because of what's

baDDenerl to you jul-st now, H! wait .- little ~ ile. But I won't say two

months, or one. If I decide to make it less, I will."

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"Thank you." He had a sense of relief that there would be an interval,

however brief.

"Hey!" It was Benjy, appearing at the dining room door. "I just got a new

cassette from the Merediths. It's a play. Wanna watch?"

The Merediths were next door neighbors. Nim glanced at Ruth. "Why not?"

In the basement recreation room Ruth and Nim sat side by side on a sofa,

with Leah sprawled on a rug, while Benjy deftly inserted a video cassette

into their Betamax tape deck, connected to a color TV. A group of

residents in the area had an agreement which was becoming widespread: One

family recorded a television program-usually the children of the house,

or a baby-sitter, took care of it-hitting the "stop" button whenever

commercials appeared. The result was a highquality recording, sans

commercials, which the adults and other families watched later at their

leisure, the cassettes being rotated among a dozen or so households.

Knowing that the practice was growing as increasing numbers of people

shared the discovery, Nim wondered how long it would be before it

affected TV network revenues. Perhaps it bad already. In a way, Nim

thought, the TV networks and stations were going through the same shoal

waters power companies like GSP & L had already navigated. The TV people

had abused their public privileges by flooding the airwaves with a vulgar

excess of advertising and low-grade programming. Now, Betamax and

comparable systems were giving the public a chance to strike back by

being selective, and eliminating advertising from their viewing. In time,

perhaps, the development would cause those in charge of TV to grasp the

need for public responsibility.

The two-hour play on the borrowed cassette was Mary White, a tragic,

moving story about the family of a loved teen-ager who had died. Perhaps

because he had seldom been more aware of his own family, yet realized how

little time was left in which it was likely to remain a unit, Nim was

glad the lights were low, his sadness and his tears unobserved by the

other three.

On a dark, lonely hill above the suburban community of Millfield, Georgos

Winslow Archambault crawled on his belly toward a chain link fence

protecting a GSP&L substation. The precaution-against being observed-was

probably unneeded, he reasoned; the substation was unattended, also there

was no moon tonight and the nearest main

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road, which carried traffic over the sparsely inhabited hill, was half a

mile away. But recently, Golden State Piss & Lickspittle had hired more

security pigs and set up mobile night patrols which varied their operating

hours and routes-clearly so they would not create a pattern. So it made

sense to be cagey, even though crawling while carrying tools and

explosives was awkward and uncomfortable.

Georgos shivered. The October night was cold and a strong wind knifed

around crags and boulders of the rocky hill, making him wish he had worn

two sweaters beneath his dark blue denim jumpsuit instead of one.

Glancing back the way he had come, he saw that his woman, Yvette, was

just a few yards behind, and keeping up. It was important that she did.

For one thing she had the wire and detonators; for another, Georgos was

running behind schedule due to a traffic delay in getting out here from

the city, a journey of twenty miles. Now he wanted to make up time

because tonight's operation involved the destruction of three substations

by the entire Friends of Freedom force. At one of the other sites Ute and

Felix were working together; at the third Wayde was operating alone.

Their plan called for all three explosions to occur simultaneously.

When be reached the fence, Georgos detached a pair of heavy wire shears

from his belt and began cutting. All be Deeded was a small hole, close

to the ground. Then if a patrol came around, after the two of them had

gone and before the explosion, the cut fence might escape attention.

While Georgos worked he could see the widespread, shimmering lights of

Millfield below him. Well, all of them would be out soon; so would a lot

of others further south. He knew about Millfield and the other townships

nearby. They were bourgeois communities, peopled mainly by commuters-more

capitalists and lackeys!-and he was glad to be causing them trouble.

The hole in the fence was almost complete. In a minute or so Georgos and

Yvette could wiggle through. He glanced at the luminous dial of his

wristwatch. Time was tight! Once inside, they would have to work fast.

The targets of tonight's triple strike bad been chosen carefully. Tbere

used to be a time when Friends of Freedom bombed transmission towers,

toppling two or three at once in an attempt to knock out service over a

wide area. But not any more, Georgos and others had discovered that when

towers were toppled, power companies rerouted their power, so that

service was restored quickly, often within minutes. Also, fallen towers

were immediately replaced by temporary poles, so even that power highway

was soon in use again.

Large substations, though, were something else. They were vulnerable,

critical installations and could take weeks to repair or replace com-

pletely.

The damage which would be done tonight, if all went well, would

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cause a widespread blackout, extending far beyond Millfield, and it could

be days, perhaps a lot longer, before everything was switched back on.

Meanwhile the disruption would be tremendous, the cost enormous. Georgos

gloated at the thought. Maybe, after this, more people would take the

Friends of Freedom seriously.

Georgos thought: His small but glorious army had learned a lot since

their early attacks on the despicable enemy. Nowadays, well ahead of any

operation, they studied GSP&L's layout and working methods, seeking areas

of vulnerability, situations where the greatest havoc could be caused.

This aspect had been helped recently by an ex-GSP & L engineer, dismissed

for stealing, who now nursed a hatred of the companv. While not an active

member of Friends of Freedom, the former employee had been bought with

some of the fresh money supplied by Birdsong. Other money from the same

source had been used to buy more and better explosives.

Birdsong had let slip one day where the cash was coming from-the Sequoia

Club, which believed it was financing p & lfp. It greatly aniused Georgos

that a fat-cat, establishment outfit was unknowingly footing the bill for

revolution. In a way it was a pity that the dim-witted Sequoia crowd

would never find out.

Click! The last strand of wire was severed and the cut portion of the

fence fell away. Georgos pushed it inside the substation enclosure so it

would be less noticeable, then followed it with three packets of plastic

explosive, after which he wriggled through himself.

Yvette was still close behind. Her hand bad healed-after a fasbion -since

her loss of two fingers when a blasting cap exploded prematurely a couple

of montbs ago. The stumps of the fingers were ugly and not sewn up neatly

as would have happened if a surgeon had attended her. But Georgos had

done his best to keep the wounds clean and, largely through luck,

infection was avoided. Also avoided were the dangerous questions certain

to have been asked at a hospital or doctor's office.

Damn! His jumpsult bad caught on an end of wire. Georgos heard the denim

rip and felt a sharp pain as the wire penetrated his undershorts and

sliced into his thigh. In being cautious, be bad made the aperture too

small. He reached back, felt for the wire and managed to dislodge it,

then continued through the fence with no further trouble. Yvette, who was

smaller, followed without difficulty.

No talk was necessary. They had practiced beforehand and knew exactly

what to do. Cautiously, Georgos taped plastic explosive to the three

large transformers the substation housed. Yvette handed him detonators