1632

When her eyes came to Rebecca, Melissa's frown deepened. The young Jewish refugee, hands clasped nervously in her lap, was sitting on the edge of her seat. Her chair was pushed back several feet from the circle.

Melissa stood up and pointed her finger imperiously to a spot next to her own chair. 'Young woman,' she stated, 'you move that chair here. Right now.'

If Rebecca had any difficulty with Melissa's Boston accent-still as pronounced as ever, after all these years-she gave no sign of it. Hastily, like a thousand schoolgirls before her, she obeyed the voice of command.

Melissa bestowed the smile upon her. 'Attagirl. Remember: United we stand, divided we fall.'

Melissa sniffed at the men. 'Do something useful, why don't you?' She pointed to a row of long tables lining the back wall. 'Move those together into the center of the room. Make a big conference table out of them. Then push these silly desks away and go get us some real chairs. Ed'll show you where they are. We'll be meeting here from now on, I imagine. May as well set things up properly.'

She turned away, briskly striding toward a cabinet. 'I, meanwhile, will demonstrate the marvels of modern technology.' Over her shoulder, with a snort: 'Stenography. Ha!'

The next few minutes were taken up with a flurry of activity. When the meeting resumed, a large and expensive-looking tape recorder occupied a prominent place in the center of the jury-rigged 'conference table.'

Melissa turned it on, recorded the time and date, and turned to Mike.

'You're on, Mister Chairman.'

Mike cleared his throat. 'All right. The first thing I want to take care of is this 'constitutional convention' business. It's important, of course-more important, in the long run, than probably anything else. But we've got way too much emergency business to take care of for this entire committee to spend any time on it.'

He could see Melissa's gathering frown out of the corner of his eye. Hurriedly: 'So what I want to propose is that we set up a small subcommittee to work on it. When they come up with a proposal, we can discuss it. Until then, the rest of us will concentrate on immediate matters.'

'Sounds okay to me,' said Nat Davis. 'I wouldn't know where to start, anyway. Not with that problem. Who do you want on the subcommittee?'

Mike's first two names came instantly. 'Melissa and Ed. She's the history teacher and Ed used to teach civic affairs.' Pause. 'One or two more people.'

Everyone's eyes glanced at everyone else's. Melissa cut through the hesitation. 'Willie Ray. He served a few terms as a state representative, way back in the Stone Age. Give us some practical experience, even if he was a chiseling politician like all the rest of them.' Everyone chuckled except Hudson, who laughed aloud. 'And Dr. Nichols should be on it too.'

Nichols' eyes widened. 'Why?' he demanded. 'I don't know anything about constitutional law.' He cocked his head. The gesture was both quizzical and half-suspicious. 'If it's because I'm the only-'

'Of course it's because you're the only black man in the room!' snapped Melissa. Her eyes challenged Nichols, and then the other men. 'Grow up-all of you. I didn't propose him out of tokenism. There's a good and simple reason to include someone whose people had a different history than most of ours. Whether he knows any law or not, I suspect Dr. Nichols won't be quite as complacent as everyone else about the received wisdom of the ages.'

Mike wasn't sure he agreed with Melissa's reasoning. In general, that is. But he realized that he would feel a bit more confident himself, knowing that Nichols had a hand in shaping their new constitution.

'I've got no problems with that. James? Do you accept?'

Nichols shrugged. 'Sure, why not?' Grinning: 'Man does not live by chitlins alone, after all.'

When the laughter died down, Mike moved on to immediate business. He started with the power-plant manager.

'Bill, the way I see it, power is the key to everything. As long as we have electricity, we'll have a gigantic edge over everybody else in this new world of ours. All the way from modern machine tools to computers. So-how long? And what can we do to keep the power coming?'

Porter ran fingers through his thinning hair. 'I don't know how much anybody here knows about power plants. The truth is, the design of steam-water cycle power plants hasn't changed much in a long time. They're simple machines, when you get down it. As long as we're provided with water and coal, we can keep running until we use up our small stock of critical spare parts. That'll probably happen somewhere between a year and a half and two years from now. After that, we're shut down for good.'

He shook his head. The gesture was both rueful and half-amused. 'We've got enough coal stockpiled to last for six months. Water's not a problem at all. We used to get it from the Monongahela. The Ring of Fire cut the pipes, of course, but it turns out-talk about blind luck!-that there's another river pretty much right in the same place. Not as big, but it'll do.'

'I don't understand about the spare parts,' said Frank. 'Can't we make them? We've got three machine shops in town.'

Porter shook his head. 'That's not the problem, Frank. I wish it was! We've got four machine shops in town, actually. We have a maintenance shop in the plant itself.' He glanced at Piazza. 'And now that I think about, I just remembered the high school's technical training center has a pretty good shop, too.'

Piazza nodded. Porter turned to Davis, the machine-shop owner. 'Tell 'em, Nat.'

Nat Davis was a pudgy man in late middle age. When he puffed out his cheeks, he bore such an uncanny resemblance to a frog that Mike almost laughed.

'Not a chance, folks. Bill's right.' He shrugged. 'Oh, sure, I could make lots of parts. Shafts, you name it. But some things-like gears, and bearings, and mechanical seals-are specialty work. I don't think there's a job shop in the country that could handle that stuff. Not without spending years at it. We just don't have the tooling.'

Silence. 'A year and a half,' Ed muttered. 'Two at the most.' His frown conveyed both worry and exasperation.

Mike leaned forward, tapping the table with a stiff finger. 'I don't think the situation's that bad. Remember, we don't need to keep that power plant running. That monster's overkill, anyway. Just any power plant.'

Porter stopped running his fingers through his hair. His head popped up. 'You're right, Mike!' he exclaimed. Then, chuckling ruefully: 'We've got the thing running on minimal load condition as it is. Our plant could have provided power to the whole of Marion County. Over fifty thousand people, including all the industry in Fairmont. We can keep Grantville supplied with anything it needs with what amounts to a trickle.'

He was getting excited, now. 'Hell, yes-Mike's right! We can use that year or two grace period to gear down.' Seeing the blank expressions on several faces, Porter elaborated. 'Remember what I said. The basic principle of a coal-operated power plant is damn near ancient. We can build us a new one.' Another chuckle, full of cheer rather than chagrin. 'An old one, I should say. Forget about high-speed turbines and bearings. All we need, for our relatively modest purposes, is a good old-fashioned steam engine.'

He looked at Nat. 'We can build something like that, I imagine?'

Before Davis could respond, Willie Ray Hudson was laughing gleefully. 'You imagine? Bill, I know of at least four men in this town who build steam engines for a hobby.' The old farmer was grinning from ear to ear. 'The Oil and Gas Festival contest, you know.' He shrugged. 'They don't build anything as big as we'd want, of course. But they understand all the principles.'

Hudson slapped the table with his hand. 'And that's another thing! Let's not forget that this whole area started with natural gas and oil, before the coal mines started working.' The farmer pointed to the floor beneath his feet. 'We're still sitting on it. Natural gas mostly. I run my farm direct off the gas from my own land. All my vehicles are converted to operate on natural gas instead of gasoline. Don't pay the gas company a nickel for it. So we've got another energy source, right there!'

Frank joined in the excitement. 'You're right. Now that I think about, the whole town's heat comes from that gas supply. Even the high school. Right, Ed?'

The principal nodded, but his face was creased with worry. 'Yeah, but-' He looked down at the floor. 'Is it still there?'

For the first time, Greg Ferrara spoke. 'I'm pretty sure it is, Ed.' The science teacher made an apologetic face. 'I can't be sure, of course. But I examined what I could of the evidence left by the Ring of Fire. As near as I can tell, the-whatever it was-cut out a perfect circle. Right through everything. Dirt, trees-even rail lines and power cables-cut like a razor.'

Everybody was staring at the floor, now. 'I can't imagine anything that would have just skinned the planet's surface. It's far more likely that the Ring of Fire moved an entire hemisphere. Well, a sphere, actually-but the top half would have just been atmosphere.'

Ferrara paused, studying the tiles as if the answer were to be found there. 'I'm not positive, but I'll be surprised if we don't discover that we've got the same radius beneath our feet. Three miles down, at the center-maybe more. Way deeper than any gas and oil beds we'll be tapping into. Or coal seams.'

'We'll know soon enough,' said Mike forcefully. 'Quentin, we need to get that abandoned coal mine up and running. Six months from now, the power plant's stockpile will be gone. We've got to get the coal moving by then.'

Startled, the former mine manager looked up. 'But that belongs to-' He broke off, chuckling. 'Ah, screw 'em. I never liked that outfit anyway. And now I guess they're in no position to yap about property rights.'

Quentin's harsh chuckle was echoed by others. The abandoned coal mine was located less than two miles out of town. It was practically brand new. The largest coal operator in the United States had built the thing, run it for a few months, and then closed it down. The company claimed it was due to 'unfavorable market conditions.' Everyone in the town-including Quentin, who managed a competitor's mine-was certain that the mine had been built as a tax dodge.

Frank was grinning. 'Tell you what, Quentin. I'll get the bolt cutters, you bring the hacksaw. We'll have that sucker up and running in no time.'

'No-not you, Frank.' Mike's words were spoken softly, but decisively. 'Put Ken Hobbs in charge of it. That old-timer almost goes back to the days of pick-and-shovel mining, anyway. Which is what we're probably going to be reduced to. I doubt very much if the company left any continuous-mining machines down there. Or any long-wall equipment.'

He drove over Frank's gathering protest. 'I need you here, Frank-not buried hundreds of yards down in the ground. We've got to build us a real little army now. I'm counting on you to show me the ropes. You're a real veteran of a real war, which I'm not.'

Frank stared at him. Then at Quentin Underwood, then at James Nichols, and then at Ed Piazza. Those were the Vietnam War veterans in the room.

'I will be good God damned,' he mused. 'Whaddaya know? The Vietnam 'era' is finally classified as a for-real war.'

The other vets chuckled. Quentin eyed Mike. 'How 'bout me?' he demanded. 'You going to insist on putting me in a uniform too?'

Mike shook his head. 'No offense, Quentin, but you were stationed on an aircraft carrier. I need men with combat experience on dry land. James was in the Marines, but he's one of our only two doctors. Ed-'

The short, stocky principal laughed. 'Not me! Spent my whole tour of duty as a rear-echelon motherfu-' He broke off the vulgar term, glancing warily at Melissa. She responded with a grin and a wagging finger. 'The closest I ever got to action was being caught in a shoot-out in downtown Saigon between the police and some black marketeers. You want a real combat vet like Frank.'