Wade Curtis - Ecology Now! [ss]

In a world Man dominates, the most critical ecological area has never been reduced to a science - it's handled entirely by rule-of-thumb engineers.

Dr. Arturo Martinez decided he wasn't as young as he used to be. It wasn't a completely new decision, and at this hour of the morning he didn't even regret it At his age a man had no business staying up all night, not when he had to get up early in the morning. But Dianne had enjoyed the company expense account night in Los Angeles; in fact, she enjoyed it so much that Art had to get his own breakfast.

Art Martinez felt a perverse satisfaction in noting that his houseguest looked no better than he did despite being fifteen years younger than Martinez's forty-eight. Bill Adams might be a bright young fellow with accountant's ink instead of blood, but he sat gloomily across the breakfast table, staring with pale-blue eyes at his eggs and saying almost nothing. Arturo grinned.

"Feel all right?"

"About as well as you do," Adams answered. He managed a smile, smoothed back crew cut sandy hair. "I don't suppose we've got time for much breakfast anyway."

"No." Dr. Martinez hesitated. Adams was a friendly young Anglo, but you never could tell... "Look, Bill, I am not sure just what it is you want to do out there today - "

Adams shook his head, winced slightly at the exertion. "I keep telling you, don't worry about it. You're Acting Director and you're in charge. I'm just a visiting fireman. With a hangover."

"Well, O.K.," Art answered. Bill Adams had flown in from Santa Barbara the night before. A likable young fellow; quick to smile, interested in every aspect of Nuclear General's San Juan Capistrano Breeder and Power Reactor. He didn't act at all like one of the almost legendary people old man Lewis kept around him, the young fellows with no heart and eyes to see figures only. Adams carried a small circular slide rule, had a habit of popping it out to make extrapolations from the figures he was given. He knew more about nuclear reactions than the accountants and more about the economics of power sale than the physicists, and he listened to everything with a genuine appearing smile. The only trouble was that he had been sent down by Mr. Lewis, and the rumor was that Nuclear General only sent Adams where trouble was expected. Dr. Martinez tightened thin lips over while slightly gapped teeth bit the thought. There wasn't any trouble at San Juan Reactor and there wasn't going to be any trouble. The physicists were happy with the reactor, the business manager satisfied with power sales, and Art himself supervised the ocean farms.

They finished their breakfast and Art led the way to the garage. He unplugged his Oldsmobile Electric and waited for Adams to comment as they got in. People always did.

"You like this?" Adams asked.

"It's all right, looks like a car and will out-accelerate anything you've got, I bet. Corners very well, too."

He settled in, buckled his safety belt. Adams ignored his.

"What about the range?"

"There you have exposed the weak point," Martinez admitted.

They drove through the quiet streets of the walled housing development. Dr. Martinez looked around with quiet satisfaction. When he was growing up, going to college, chicanos did not live in places like this. Now he had a home as fine as anyone else, and he called no man "Patron." It was a long time since he had. He eased the car over an enormous road hump, but wasn't gentle enough for Bill Adams's head.

"Sort of rough on cars, those things, aren't they?"

Art smiled. "Sure, if you are not careful you will lose some springs. Better than losing the children to hotrodders ... about the electric car, Bill. I admit it is not as nice as a natural gas/gasoline vehicle such as the Jaguar we took to Los Angeles last night, but if the bossman ecologist in this town won't set a good example, who will?"

He took the road through the town of San Juan Capistrano, past the old Mission where he and Dianne and Henrietta attended mass. His son Candelario was at Nuclear General College and Monsignor O'Malley was outside and waving to them. The men stopped work on the Mission to wave as well. All the workmen wore Nuclear General coveralls.

"Advertising?" Adams asked.

"You might call it that, but it comes From the Community Relations budget. The old Mission was hit very hard by the last earthquake. With Nuclear General construction technology this repair should be the last. The only difficult part is hiding the fiberglass and resilient bracing so the Mission looks as it used to."

"Pretty old building ... Eighteenth Century?"'

"Yes."

"You seem pretty proud of it"

"All of us in this town are proud of it," Martinez said. He didn't want to, but decided to explain. Dianne thought he should be very careful with this young man who was eyes and ears for el patron Lewis. The title his family used for the president brought a thin smile. "Look, the men were not doing anything. We don't start construction on the new building for a month, and I do not need them for work at the plant. The earthquake did us no damage. Why should I not send them out to work on the Mission?"

"Easy," Adams protested. "I wasn't complaining. I keep trying to tell you, Art, you're the Acting Director. Until Mr. Lewis makes up his mind whether he can put a non-physicist permanently in charge of a reactor, you're running the show. Personally, I think he's going to give it to you ... if you want it. Do you?"

The question was casual, but Art knew the answer would be important. What could he say? The director was an important man, perhaps the most important man in the community. What would it mean to the chicanos to have as top employer the son of a wetback bean picker? And not just the young men with education, but the dropouts, the militants, might see hope ...

"Yes, I want it. But I will not resign if I do not get it."

"Good."

They stopped at a traffic light in Mission Square. There seemed to be more of the long-haired counter culture youths than usual. They called themselves strange names, such as happies and jeepies, which were two different things although Martinez didn't know which was which.

"You get many of those here?" Adams asked. "We're generally surrounded by them at Corporate Headquarters."

"San Juan is not much of a hangout for them," Arturo answered. "The Mission is not a state park, you know. Monsignor O'Malley will not put up with any nonsense on the Mission grounds, throws them out for nudity, drugs - "

"There's one who's on your side." Adams indicated a young man wearing a large button proclaiming "ECOLOGY NOW!"

"Yes."

"You're not very enthusiastic."

"Should I be?" Dr. Martinez drove on through the old town, down toward the beach. His mouth tightened again as he spat the words out. "It took me ten years of study to become an ecological engineer, and even now I see just how little I understand. It was not easy study, for me. And I did not go where they had special programs for chicanos. I went to Cal Tech, and after that to Westinghouse. Now some cabrone with a major in 'brotherhood' pins on a green and white badge, and by God he is an ecologist fit to tell me how to operate the reactor."

"Easy," Bill Adams grinned. 'That's the baby there, eh? Pretty, isn't it'"

It was an impressive sight, although Arturo had seen it too often to notice unless someone called his attention to it. The reactor was built on an artificial island some fifty acres in extent, connected to the mainland by a wide causeway. A yacht harbor and fishing boat complex nestled in the sheltered bays the island had created, each boat swimming in a plastic bath to protect it from bottom growth. The sailboats were deserted, but Fishboat Harbor was a bustle of activity.

The reactor complex was large, but there was little to see. Three big blast retention domes housing two completed reactors and the skeleton of the new one under construction, two office buildings, a windowless fiberglass laboratory, all surrounded by wire fence. The generator house was also windowless, a combination of pre-stressed concrete and more fiberglass. A circuit breaker farm stood outside the powerhouse, impressive with its crazyquilt of oil bath transformers, insulators hanging like Spanish moss from transmission towers, a jumble of wires, but hardly unusual.

At the far end the island was being slowly expanded. When it was completed there would be a complex of pools with ordered rows of piping and valves in geometric perfection, the desalinization plant. Its construction had been delayed because the voracious demand for power in southern California outstripped even the need for water, and the fresh water facility would have to wait until the new reactor was complete. When it was done - provided it wasn't needed as power again - fifty million gallons of water a day would be available for Imperial valley farms.

The most spectacular sight at the San Juan Reactor complex was offshore. Arturo pointed proudly: this was his, and it was unique in all the world.

"The colored areas are the plankton blooms," he explained. "We take raw sewage from San Juan Capistrano, part of San Diego, San Clemente and other beach cities. It is treated in special underground vertical holding tanks, and we are able to use waste heat from the reactor to speed up the process. Then we take the effluent, heat it again with more so-called waste heat, and dump it onto the bottom along five miles of pipe. Because it is warm it rises through the baffles and is eaten by the plankton strains we have developed. It is very warm out there, 100degF and that means the diatoms and rotifers have a very high metabolic rate."

"Pretty impressive," Adams said. He shaded his eyes with one hand, stared at the water, ignoring the pain the bright morning sun was causing. "What brings about all the colors? It looks like a rainbow."

"Those are different temperature areas, each feeding a different predominant species. Now look out to the edge of the bloom areas, where the boats are. That is heated water also. We have special species of herring, smelt, sardine, and cod living there. The heated water keeps predators away, and we harvest over six hundred tons of protein to the square mile - "

"That's pretty good," Adams said. Then he laughed. "Actually I don't know if it's good or not. Nothing to compare it with."

Art smiled. He could like this man. "Ordinary pasture ashore will yield about fifty tons to the square mile. The best natural fishing waters in the world, which are off Peru, give four hundred or so."

"I am impressed." Adams whipped out his circular slide rule, spun the index wheel rapidly. He put it back in his pocket and whistled.

"Yes." Martinez drove down toward the reactor island. "And we are only starting. We have planted oysters on rafts also. In other places they harvest yields of tons of protlien to the square mile that way, but we have had trouble developing strains that will survive and breed in high temperatures."

"Give them cooler water," Adams said." He caught himself and laughed.

"Sure." Martinez grinned cheerfully. "It gets to me that way, too. There is such a protein shortage you start thinking of what to do and forget the whole project is intended to use the waste heat from the reactor. But we are planting high temperature tolerant strains of mussels now, they grew well in the laboratory and we have hopes. Many countries are watching us."

The guards saluted as they passed through the outer gates. Art drove to his parking slot by the gleaming white main office building. The number two tombstone had his name painted on it. It had been a great day when that was painted, but now number one stood ominously blank. Martinez could have taken number one, but if he didn't make director he'd have to give it up.

It would be all right if he never became director, but to take complete charge and lose it would be intolerable. They walked silently inside, took film badges and dosimeters from the rack. Directors of reactor facilities are always physicists. And Anglos, he added to himself, but angrily dismissed the thought as unfair. Mr. Lewis was dedicated to profits, could hardly care if a man were chicano or purple if the two magic numbers came out right. ROI and PO, Return on Investment and Position in the Industry, these were Lewis's gods and his worship of them pushed oat lesser prejudices.

He'd kept his old offices, but he took Adams to the director's control desk. Three walls of the tower room were covered with functional diagrams of the reactors and the powerhouse/ecological complexes that served them. Lights winked, dials showed temperatures and flows, water and steam and liquid sodium, power output, sewage flow rates, sea temperatures, and always the winking green lights for safe temperature in the reactor cores. Models of the control rods hung above the plastic representation of the breeders, suspended by a magnetic field exactly as their real life counterparts were poised to plunge at the touch of a scram button.

A duty officer in another building had duplicates of the intricate console system. In practice the director never used his magnetic keys to unlock his desk and override his operating engineers' decisions, and the engineers themselves had little to do but watch the computer controlled operations. Still, the director's tower was the symbol of power and authority. From here everything could be done, provided the computer did not disagree and scram the reactors regardless of the director's will.

"Childe Harolde will be impressed with this," Arturo said. "Have a seat, Susie will bring us coffee."

"You take Senator McGehee a bit too lightly," Adams warned. "He's after Nuclear General because Mr. Lewis supported Garner last year. And that children's crusade of McGehee's isn't the joke some columnists want to make of it. The man's dangerous."

"We have no government support," Martinez protested. "This whole complex was built on Company funds. Lewis and Van Cott gambled everything they own on it after the AEC lost the appropriation for a fast breeder - "

"Easy," Adams laughed, "I know the story, Art." He chuckled and after a moment Art relaxed, laughed with him. "Sure, it was a legendary gamble that paid off," the trouble-shooter continued. "A new breeder process and power reactor without an experimental prototype. But your power sales are all that keeps this facility out of the hands of its creditors, and with Senator McGehee on the warpath, we're worried."

"So that is why you are down here?"

"Sure. We're not worried about technical questions. You've done well, as well as Gladstone, maybe better now that the fishing is making money and you've got sewage disposal payments from San Diego. We can't complain about any of that, but-"

Adams was interrupted by the arrival of Martinez's secretary. Adams grinned at her while Martinez hid his amusement. Last week she'd worn shorts, now she sported a thin nearly transparent skirt reaching within inches of her knees. Art's wife paid little attention to style changes and Henrietta took after her mother, but followed them slavishly. She set out the coffee, and saw the men were busy, vanished quickly in a flurry of bright blue and red checked stockings. Adams continued to grin after she was gone, then swiveled to face Martinez.

"Look, Art, get it through your head I'm not here after your job - Secretary, maybe, but hot your job." He winked. The Old Man was scared of this McGehee thing, sent me down to be on hand just in case. That's all, now relax." He sipped coffee, looked around the room. "Does this place explain the ecology system you've developed? Frankly I've seen reactors, we've got three more complexes, but this sewage disposal through protein production is unique."

"Surprised you don't know about it," Art said. He was gruff. "I've briefed corporate headquarters often enough."

Adams laughed again. "You keep misunderstanding, Art. I'm not one of the financial whiz kids, I'm not a management supervisory VP, I'm a troubleshooter. You've never had trouble, so there's a lot about your operation I don't know. I see I ought to learn more, since the Company's new seacoast reactors will probably have to use your systems - "

Senator MeGehee's helicopter arrived at eleven. Dr. Martinez, his dark hair disarranged by the whirling winds of the jet chopper, anxiously shook hands with the thin-faced senator. He's even younger than his pictures, Martinez decided. Of course he inherited his seat, as nearly as anyone can inherit a Senate seat in this country.

"This is Jim Reilly," McGehee was saying. His voice was a mixture of Harvard and his native mid-west. "My Administrative Assistant" He made it sound as if he'd just introduced the President.

McGehee wore his hair in the tangled forward sweep made famous by his father, but unlike most of the McGehee official family Reilly made no attempt to copy his boss. He wore a drooping bandit moustache, long sideburns, and flowing locks. It was difficult to tell how old Reilly was, but Martinez decided he wasn't over twenty-five. McGehee was just over thirty, of course, barely eligible to be a senator of the United States.

"ECOLOGY NOW! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!" As the helicopter engines quieted they heard the shouts. A group of happies and jeepies was clamoring at the main gate. Dr. Martinez saw at least fifty, and more padding barefoot over the causeway from the mainland. Senator McGehee grinned boyishly and raised his fist in the waving salute his family affected. The bearded youths outside cheered.

"A MAN OF THE PEOPLE! POWER TO THE PEOPLE!"

"My public," McGehee said. "I suppose you have to keep them locked out there?"

"I... uh - " Arturo Martinez had no words.

"The Atomic Energy Commission insists that all visitors register in advance," Bill Adams said smoothly. "Shall we go inside, Senator?"

The young female technician who zeroed their dosimeters giggled loudly, obviously enraptured at the chance to touch the senator. No question about it, Martinez decided, this fellow is as near to an idol as the kids have today. Susie had barely been able to contain herself when she found he was coming, even Henrietta had wanted to come out to the plant... I wonder if he's earned it? They turned to go inside, and Arturo caught himself.

"You didn't register mine," he told the technician. There was an embarrassed silence before the girl took the proferred pen-like instrument, inserted it in the computer reader. In less than a second the instrument was reset, the dose readings registered in Dr. Martinez's permanent records. They went inside the reactor dome.

"What would have happened if you'd forgotten, too?" McGehee asked.

"The computer would have caught it; with its detectors it can spot an unregistered dosimeter."

"Would you have fired that nice young lady?" the senator insisted.

"Nuclear General doesn't operate that way," Adams said quickly. "Mr. Lewis thinks that if an employee isn't interested in doing a good job, he shouldn't be with the Company, and if he is, threats aren't needed."

Art nodded to himself. It was only because of that policy that he could ever be director. Of course the incident was already noted by the computer and now in the girl's training record. There was no need for her at that station, the computer and a guard would be enough, but all health physics trainees got a tour of gatewatching as a probationary test of attitude and thoroughness.

The reactor itself wasn't impressive since it was hidden behind layers of concrete and shielding, an enormous regular octagon in the middle of the huge white floor. Above the reactor the safety rods looked like thick javelins perpetually falling to earth. Martinez tried to explain the reactor operation, though he could see that the senator was paying little attention.

"The reactor burns Plutonium 239 in long stainless steel rods we call needles," Martinez said. "The plutonium fissions to give us residual fission products and neutrons. One of the neutrons is used in another plutonium fission reaction, while the others are free to hit the Uranium 238 blanket surrounding the core. When Uranium 238 captures a neutron it becomes Plutonium 239 after going through some intermediary stages. We can double our original fuel supply in about four years, meanwhile producing over 2,000 megawatts of power."

"That's slightly more than Hoover dam," Adams told the senator with a grin. "I can never keep these numbers straight. The power is sold to southern California electric companies, of course."

McGehee nodded. "The plutonium you produce. Will it make bombs?"

"Yes," Martinez answered. "We sell some of it to the AEC."

"I thought so," MqGehee said. "Make a note of that, Jim." Reilly nodded vigorously.

"We sell it to the AEC because the government requires us to do so," Bill Adams pointed out smoothly. "Actually, the world market price for fuel plutonium is well above what the AEC pays us."

"You don't lose money on it," McGehee said.

"No, sir, but we don't make nearly as much on weapons grade as we could on fuel grade." Adams spoke rapidly, but the senator was whispering something to his assistant. They went through the reactor building, past radiation monitor stations where they inserted their dosimeters, to the next dome.

"This is another breeder reactor," Martinez told them. "It is shut down now for routine servicing and recovery of fissionables. This one has several experimental features including an auxiliary breeding cycle to convert Thorium 232 into Uranium 233. There is no other like it in the world."

"It looks like a lump of concrete to me," McGehee sniffed.

"Well, yes, sir, they all do," Martinez answered. Tonto Anglo, he thought to himself, but growing up in an Anglo world had taught him control over his voice if not his thoughts. "If you would like, we can put on radiation armor and go inside the shielding. There are men working there now and it would be safe enough."

"No, thank you." McGehee turned to his assistant "You have noted the elaborate precautions they take, even for a routine visit like this. Obviously a very dangerous place."

"Wait a moment, sir," Martinez protested. Bill Adams shook his head in warning, but Art persisted. "We take precautions here because anyone working around a reactor would be loco if he did not, but we have safer working conditions than steam generators."

"Certainly, certainly. And nuclear power is always safe, can't harm anyone," McGehee said caustically. "You needn't give me your standard snow job, Dr.. Martinez. I've heard it all before. Next you'll tell me the Santa Fe disaster didn't happen."

"It did not happen to a Nuclear General plant," Martinez insisted. He felt his voice rising out of control, fought to remain calm and polite to this, this Mio de cientos padres ... "We learned much from that blowup, with what we have learned..."

"With what we all have learned, we still go on building these pollution sources," McGehee said. "But I think we can put a stop to that..."

"DIRECTOR MARTINEZ, DIRECTOR MARTINEZ. 771, 771. DIRECTOR MARTINEZ."'

"Excuse me," Arturo said. He went to one of the many telephone stations, dialed 771.

"Pulaski, Security," the phone said. "Hate to bother you, sir, but there's a big ugly crowd at the main gate. Insist they'll talk to Senator McGehee. I think they're going to break in."

"I see. Have you called the local sheriffs station?"

"Yes, sir, we've got a couple carloads of deputies standing by, but them boys ain't going to do much, Dr. Martinez. Not since two of 'em got sent to jail by the Feds for violating the civil rights of them rioters at the Irvine University, they ain't. Deputies are scared of the Feds, and between you and 'me, Doctor, I'm scared, too."

"Yes. All right, Pulaski. Thank you." He turned back to the group. "There is trouble at the main gate. I think we had better go there."

The crowd was shouting. Some held up banners. "ECOLOGY NOW! END THERMAL POLLUTION! NO MORE DEFORMED CHILDREN! SHUT IT DOWN, SHUT IT DOWN, SHUT IT DOWN!" The shouts were random, but when Martinez and the others appeared they chanted in unison.

"ECOLOGY NOW, SHUT IT DOWN! ECOLOGY NOW, SHUT IT DOWN!" The crowd surged forward, pushed against the main gates. Someone flashed a wire cutter, and the gates flew open.

"What do we do, sir?"

Martinez turned to see Captain Pulaski. His company police were slowly falling back, facing the crowd. "Should we throw them out?"

"You'll do no such thing!" McGehee snapped. "They aren't hurting anything. Have you got a bullhorn?"

"Yes, sir."

"Give it here." McGehee took the speaker, turned to the crowd. "HELLO, I'M SENATOR MCGEHEE."

The chant stopped. Someone cheered, then all yelled approval. "POWER TO THE PEOPLE, POWER TO THE PEOPLE," the McGehee family slogan.

"YOU CAN BE SURE THAT WE WILL ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING HERE TODAY," McGehee told them. "NO LONGER "CAN THESE MONOPOLY COMPANIES GET AWAY WITH IGNORING THE ENVIRONMENT. BUT THIS fS NOT THE WAY TO DO IT. VIOLENCE IS NOT THE ANSWER. PLEASE BE PATIENT WHILE I SPEAK WITH DIRECTOR MARTINEZ."

"NO JIVE, SHUT IT DOWN. ECOLOGY NOW, SHUT IT DOWN! ECOLOGY NOW, SHUT IT DOWN!" The chant resumed, but the crowd seemed held in place near the main gates. Then suddenly a small group charged forward to the doors of the reactor dome.

"Pulaski, keep them out of there!" Martinez ordered. "Maria sanctissima if they get in that building - "

"Shall we go inside?" Bill Adams said quietly. "They don't seem anxious to break into the reactor just yet-"

"ECOLOGY NOW, SHUT IT DOWN! ECOLOGY NOW, SHUT IT DOWN!"

"Senator, don't you understand, we can't shut the system down," Martinez pleaded again. From the big control room in the director's tower they could see hundreds of counter culture students surging through the plant yards. Police held the doors of the reactor and laboratory buildings, but already the students were inside some of the offices and annexes. And where is Adams now that I need him? Martinez thought. Where has the great Anglo troubleshooter gone now that trouble has found us?

"They've trashed two offices and the biology annex," Pulaski reported. "Dr. Martinez, I'm willing to take the chance on a San Juan Capistrano jury acquitting me. Let me clear out those buildings."

"They have threatened to break into the reactor if you do, you would have to shoot someone to prevent that," Martinez said thoughtfully.

"Repression!" McGehee snorted. "Your only answer. Have you tried listening to them?"

"Si, we have tried, but they are not reasonable, they only chant," Arturo answered. "Ecology now, shut it down ... end thermal pollution ... end birth defects. When I try to explain, they chant louder. They will not listen to me."

"They've had to listen to people like you all their lives," McGehee said. "They don't see any point in it now. Dr. Martinez, these are intelligent students. They've heard all the arguments, they know what you're going to say, why should they hear it again? Listening just puts off action, and they want action, not rhetoric. If you really want them to leave, shut down the reactor!"

"But I have told you, we cannot shut down the reactor - "

"Oh, come off it," Reilly said. Martinez looked up in amazement. The Administrative Assistant had hardly spoken, never except in response to the senator. "Look," Reilly continued smugly. "You jokers put out two thousand megawatts and sell the stuff for three cents a kilowatt hour. That's about thirty grand an hour. You can afford that"

"Thank you," McGehee said. "You see, Dr. Martinez, all you have to do is shut down the plant for today. The students will see that you have listened to them and go home. Certainly a third of a million dollars is a lot of money, but I'm sure Nuclear General will survive the loss."

"But that is not the important loss at all," Martinez insisted. He shook his head wearily. Where was Adams, he was good at talking, they might listen to him. But the troubleshooter had vanished when they came into the office, hadn't been seen for an hour. "Senator, I have tried to explain before. If the reactor is shut down, there is a Buildup of certain fission by-products. The most important is Xenon-135. These poison the nuclear reactions so that the reactor cannot be restarted until it has been flushed." He strode rapidly around the room, his hands moving in flowing gestures. Madre de Dios, give me strength to convince them. Arturo stopped by the window, pointed out to the sea.

"Out there in the Pacific we have an ecological balance, Senator. It is maintained by high temperatures in the water. If we shut down the plant, before it can be restarted the water will cool. Our tropical strains will die from thermal shock. Predators will move into the rich seas. It will take months, perhaps years, to bring the system back to balance because meanwhile the sewage has to go somewhere. Without the reactor there is no treatment and our farms will be polluted with raw sewage."

"Then this misplanned facility ought to be closed," McGehee snapped. "If the balance is that delicate, it should never have been started in the first place. We're better off without it, which is what I've always maintained."

"But - " Arturo tried again to explain. That the secondary reactor was usually in operation and could provide enough heat to keep the thermal bio-system operative in case of primary reactor scram. That the cities produced sewage no matter what and - It was no use. McGehee had picked up the phone and was talking to newsmen.

"And that's not satisfactory," the senator was saying. "Repression is never satisfactory in America. We will have no KKK tactics here, not while I am on the scene. We will show everyone it is time for the monopolies to listen to the people."

Susie came into the room, touched Martinez on the shoulder. "Bill... uh, Mr. Adams would like to see you outsde, Dr. Martinez," she whispered. Did she whisper to keep it a secret from McGehee or because she was reverent in the great presence?

McGehee was busy on the phone, and young Reilly had plugged his attach case into the terminals of another phone, was punching data into the small console, probably getting speech material for the senator from the lawmaker's office computer back east. Martinez thought neither was paying attention to him.

Adams was outside sitting on the edge of Susie's desk. "How's it going?" the troubleshooter asked. He seemed calm as ever, maddeningly calm.

"Not well," Arturo answered. "They have given us two hours to shut down the reactor before they break in and do it. Of course if they get into the reactor dome we will have no choice but to scram, otherwise there could be an accident. I have alerted Southern California Edison about the possible power loss."

Adams nodded. "I've talked to Mr. Lewis and the Governor, in that order. The Governor's willing to send in the National Guard, but he'd rather not."

Martinez laughed, a hard bitter sound. "I suppose it would not be good for his chances of being President if the Guard fired on those cabrones."

"That's part of it," Adams agreed. "But Senator McGehee could get those kids out of here just by asking them to go. They listen to him."

"Sure, but he will not do so," Martinez said. "I have pleaded with him, and he says he cannot."

"Won't, not can't. He wants to keep what he calls his credibility with them. McGehee's in more trouble politically than you might think. The only national support he's got is from the happies and jeepies, and they're losing enthusiasm, demand action." Adams took a battered pack of Camels from his jacket, lit one and puffed slowly. "I think this whole thing was planned, Art. The reactor's not well understood, people are still afraid of nuclear energy. The earthquake and the Santa Fe mess scared them even more, so the 'nuclear pollution' war cry's got a lot of strength. McGehee's trying to ride the wave, hopes to make points by being the people's champ against the giants like Nuclear General. Did you know the underground papers have been urging their people to come here for the senator's visit? For the past three weeks?"

"Three weeks! But we only knew he was coming a week ago ourselves!"

Adams nodded. "Precisely. Anyway we've got a couple of hours. Stall."

"Stall? But we must do something! Call in the Guard, we must protect the plant! What kind of advice is this, stall? Do you know how important this sea farm ecology is to the world? We must act!"

"Yeah, but I've got a secret weapon coming. I hope."

"But - no! We must take action," Arturo said.

Adams sighed deeply. What he was about to say was distasteful. "Dr. Martinez, on Mr. Lewis's authority you will do nothing without my O.K. I don't like to put it that way, but is it understood?"

"Si, Patron."

Adams looked pained, but the door was opening and they saw Senator McGehee come put. "Right. Sorry you feel that way, but that's it. Take any precautions you want, but before you move against those kids you check with me. And get hold of yourself man, it's going to be a long wait for both of us."

"ECOLOGY NOW, SHUT IT DOWN! ECOLOGY NOW, SHUT IT DOWN!"

"Time's almost up," McGehee observed. "What are you going to do, Director Martinez?"

"I still ask you to speak to them, Senator. You can persuade them to leave, and no one will be hurt."

"No. I couldn't, and I'm not interested anyway. I don't really care if your facility is destroyed, Martinez. I've no use for private nuclear reactors, I think they are dangerous and absurd. Why should the Lewises and Van Cotts make money from atomic energy when the research investment was made by all of the people?"

"But it wasn't, Senator," Adams said carefully.

"Are you trying to tell me the Manhattan Project was privately financed?" McGehee snapped.

"I wasn't referring to the Manhattan Project at all," Adams said. "That was years before you were born. I'm talking about private research, which was significant even back in the '60s, and the risk investment that built this plant. If Lewis and Van Cott hadn't put up their fortunes and borrowed every nickel they could get, these breeder techniques would never have been developed, not to mention Dr. Martinez's ecosystems which you won't even take the trouble to learn about"

"Humph." McGehee ran tapering fingers through his thick hair. He was not accustomed to being spoken to in that tone of voice and he resented it. "In any event I notice you are willing to commit murder. I see you have brought in National Guardsmen by sea."

"But we must protect the plant, Senator," Martinez insisted. "Don't you understand, Senator, the technology we are developing here can prevent famines, malnutrition, can-"

"No. I don't understand how further pollution of the environment is going to do all that," McGehee sniffed.

"But if you'd only listen," Martinez said despairingly. He was interrupted by a comment from outside the office door, a thick drawl.

"That always was Johnny's problem in a nutshell, he never did listen to anybody."

They swiveled to face the newcomer. He was short, almost dumpy, with a swelling paunch that forced out his bright-colored flowered vest. His white hair and wispy white moustache were alike uncombed, and with his dark coat he seemed almost a parody of the elderly politician, but there was nothing amusing about his eyes. Martinez recognized him now, Representative Craig, Chairman of the joint Senate-House Committee on Atomic Energy.

Adams got hastily to his feet and grinned. "Glad to see you, sir. You're in time, but just barely-"

"Saw the trouble outside." Craig faced Senator McGehee. "Understand you won't talk to that rabble, Senator."

"Don't use your imperial tone on me," McGehee snapped. "I don't have to take orders from you. Besides, you don't know any more about nuclear reactors than I do, I've heard you admit it."

"Maybe not," Craig drawled. He hitched his vest more comfortably over his spreading middle and looked around for a chair. "I never was much good at technical details, but I sure spend a tot of time looking at results. Now this plant turns out power, produces nuclear fuel, and gets rid of sewage. Last year, and the year before that, the Southern California Chamber of Commerce had me out here to present San Juan Reactor with a reward for the fewest lost-time accidents of any industry in the district. I understand that kind of results, boy."

"Competent scientists have assured me this place is unsafe," McGehee said. "Men from the Atomic Energy Commission labs."

"Why sure they did," Craig chuckled. "Did you understand a word they said or just hear what you wanted to? Those bureaucrats have a powerful motive for wanting their agency to take control of a successful operation like this one, and that's what they're after, Johnny. No way is this place going to be closed, the power's needed too much. Now, like I told you, look at results. It seems to me it was the AEC boys who had the only serious accident with reactors so far."

"The whole idea of nuclear power is dangerous and unneccessary!" McGehee shouted. The strain showed in his voice now, and something more as well. Martinez watched in fascination, remembering McGehee's precise self control when they were in the reactor domes, his studied disinterest but strange nervousness - the man was pathologically afraid of nuclear energy! There were a lot like him, but most were not senators.

"Lord love you, civilization's dangerous," Craig was saying. He took off old-fashioned spectacles and polished them with his handkerchief. "You pack this many people in this small space, give 'em all the gadgets they think they got to have to stay alive and happy, of course it's going to be dangerous. Without the best technology we can develop, though, we won't live in danger. We just won't live at all."

McGehee started to say something, but Craig held up his hand, palm outward. "You just listen to me for a second, boy. What you're about to say is there're too many people and we have to do something about that, right? All I can say to that is anybody who uses a slogan like 'power to the people' sure looks funny with thoughts like that. Who you going to kill? The ones that voted for you, or the ones that didn't?"

McGehee sighed heavily and went to the window, pointedly watched the crowd below.

"Now you've stopped listening," Craig chuckled. "I don't blame you much, and maybe you've heard it before. But that's always been your trouble, you know, you never had to listen to anybody. You reach thirty years and your father's brother-in-law resigns the seat he's kept warm for you, and with all that money you never have to go out and campaign, don't listen to your constituents. And those Harvard professors of yours, scared to death of your name, hoping if you liked 'em you'd appoint 'em to the cabinet, you never listened to them. Or me either. You know, it's no wonder you're an arrogant little squirt not worth the powder to blow you up."

"You can't talk to the senator like that!" Reilly protested.

Craig laughed. It wasn't his usual chuckle, but a big hearty laugh, full of amusement, and somehow indicating a decision. "Why I sure can, and he's going to listen, too. You keep your long nose out of this, boy, before I get mad. Now I think I was talking, let's see, where was I?" He stared around the room at the clutter of dials, screens, moving pens and winking lights, instruments recording the smooth flow of as much power as the great falls of Hoover dam.

"I think I was explaining why you're going to make a speech, wasn't I Johnny?" He sighed, almost wistfully. "You know, when your father first came into Congress I'd been there a while. We got to be good friends, your father and I. And he always thought he wouldn't live out his three score and ten, so he asked me to keep a sort of political eye on you if anything happened to him. I did it, too; all the time wondering if you'd ever be half the man your father was, 'cause half that much man would still be a lot more than most of us. And boy, you have got a long way to go!"

The smile vanished from the elderly man's face. "I'd never do anything to hurt you, Johnny, but this time it's come to the crunch. Now will you go out and make that speech cause I'm asking you to speak to them?"

McGehee licked his lips nervously, brushed his hair back again and again as if he didn't know he was doing it. "I can't. Those people are expecting - "

Craig sighed heavily. "I know about that, too, Johnny. Know about a lot of things I never mentioned. Now, you and I, we better go in the next room and discuss what you're going to say to those happies down there, or unless the women in your state are more broadminded than I think they are, you are going to be the shortest term senator ever to come out of the midwest."

"What do you mean?" McGehee asked. There was panic in the question.

"You know what I mean, boy. I'm talking about a secretary name of Alicia Ann for a start. There's more I could say, but not in front of these people. Now are you coming with me, or should this hot-blooded assistant of yours start writing your resignation speech?"

"You've got to give me a little more time - "

"No. GET OFF THE DIME!"

McGehee stared at the older man, saw the congressman breathing hard, his lips flattened in determination. The senator looked at Craig for a long time, then carefully went to the desk phone and took the plug out of Reilly's briefcase console. "All right, Uncle Boyd. Let's go. When you're beaten, give up and save what you can. I guess you taught me that."

Martinez watched in amazement as the legislators left the office.

"You can leave, too, Mr. Reilly," Bill Adams said. He spoke quietly but his voice sounded loud in the suddenly still office. "You can wait in the lobby." Reilly nodded and left without a word.

"Ought to reinforce those gates," Adams said cheerfully. "Well, did you learn something from all this?"

"I have learned ..." Martinez hesitated. Trivial thoughts conflicted with the more significant. He felt emotionally drained. "I have learned we must increase the advertising budget to get the importance of our work before the public," Martinez answered. "And that I am not really able ... are you the new director?"

"No. I told Mr. Lewis we had a perfectly good man in charge, and he agreed. Besides, I'd be no use at all. I don't know either physics or ecology."

"A number of things, but I majored in political science," Adams was saying.

"Yes." Art laughed hard.

"What?" Bill Adams asked.

"Ecology. I have degrees in the field, but it is not enough to know only this." He waved toward the Pacific, blue with patches of reds and greens rising and falling in the gentle swells. "Today I find that politics may be the most important ecological sub-system of them all."

They laughed together as below them Senator McGehee went out into the plant yard and raised the bullhorn.