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knowledge of its
    membership.
    But all this came later. At La Mission, for some ninety minutes after the
    explosion, chaos reigned.
    Fire fighters, responding to an automatic alarm, had difficulty extin-
    guishing the oil fire and ventilating the main turbine ball and lower
    floors to remove the dense black smoke. When, at length, conditions were
    clear enough, the four bodies were removed. Those of the chief engineer and
    superintendent, scarcely recognizable, were described by a horrified plant
    employee as "like boiled lobsters"-tbe result of exposure to superheated
    steam.
    A quick assessment of damage to No. 5 revealed that it was slight. A seized
    bearing where the lubricating oil supply was cut off by the explosion would
    require replacement. That was all. Repair work, including replacement of
    broken steam lines, would take a week, after which the giant generator
    could be back in service. Ironically, in that time, the slight vibration
    which the chief engineer bad come to inspect could be corrected, too.
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3
    "An electrical distribution system that's gone into a widespread, non-
    scheduled blackout," Nim Goldman explained patiently, "is like the kids'
    game of 'Fifty-two Pickup! One minute you're looking at a full deck, then
    the next-witbout warning-a floor littered with cards. They have to be
    picked up one by one and the whole thing takes a while."
    He was in an observation gallery, slightly above and separated by a glass
    wall from the Energy Control Center, to which reporters from newspapers,
    TV and radio had been admitted a few minutes ago, The reporters had been
    dispatched hastily to GSP&L from their various news centers, and the
    utility's p.r. vice president, Teresa Van Buren, had appealed to Nim to
    be the company's spokesman. An impromptu press conference was the result.
    Already some of the press people were antagonistic because of what they
    saw as a paucity of answers to their questions.
    "Ob, for God's sake!" a reporter from the California Examiner, Nancy
    Molineaux, protested. "Spare us that homespun analogy crap and tell us
    what we came to find out. What went wrong? Who's responsible? What, if
    anything, will be done about it? When will the power be back on?"
    Ms. Molineaux was intense, attractive in a severe way-bigh cheekbones
    made her face seem haughty, which she sometimes was-and her usual
    expression was a mixture of curiosity and skepticism bordering on
    disdain. She was also chic, wore good clothes well on a willowy body, and
    was black. Professionally, she had achieved a reputation for investi-
    gating, then exposing, venality in public places. Nim regarded her as he
    would a needle-sharp icicle. Her reporting in the past bad made clear
    that GSP & L was not an institution Ms. Molineaux admired.
    Several other reporters nodded agreement.
    "What went wrong was an explosion at La Mission." Nim controlled an
    impulse to snap back angrily. "We believe that at least two of our people
    have been killed but there's an oil fire and dense smoke, and so far
    there are no more details."
    Someone asked, "Do you have names of the two dead?"
    "Yes, but they can't be released yet. The families must be informed
    first."
    "Do you know the cause of the explosion?"
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I I I
    'No.
    Ms. Molineaux injected, "What about the power?"
    "Some power," Nim said, "is already back now. Most of the rest should be
    restored within four hours, six at the outside. Everything else should
    be normal by tonight."
    Normal, Niin thought, except for Walter Talbot. Word of the chief's
    involvement in the explosion and his assumed death bad reached the Energy
    Control Center with shattering suddenness only minutes earlier. Nim, a
    longtime friend of the cbief's, hadn't had time yet to grasp the reality
    of the news, or to grieve, as he knew he would later. Nim had known
    Danieli, the La Mission plant superintendent, only slightly, so that his
    loss, while tragic, seemed more remote. Through the soundproof