Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [45]
He stopped to get coffee from the big urn at the construction supervisor's shack. They always had excellent coffee. He carried a cup up to his office and took out McCleve's memo.
A minute later he was screaming in anger.
He hadn't calmed down when Dolores arrived about eight-thirty. She came in with more coffee to find him pacing the office. "What's the matter?" she asked.
Another thing I love about her, Barry thought. She never demands anything personal at the office. "This." He lifted the memo. "Do you know what those idiots want?"
"Obviously not."
"They want me to hide the plant! They want us to bulldoze up a fifty-foot earth embankment around the whole complex!"
"Would that make the plant safer?" Dolores asked.
"No! Cosmetics, that's all. Not even cosmetics. Dammit, San Joaquin is pretty. It's a beautiful plant. We should be proud of it, not try to hide it behind a lot of dirt."
She put the coffee down and smiled uncertainly. "You have to do it?"
"I hope not, but McCleve says the Commissioners like the idea. So does the Mayor. I'll probably have to, and dammit, it messes hell out of the schedule! We'll have to pull men off the excavations for Number Four, and—"
"And meanwhile, your PTA ladies are due in fifteen minutes."
"Lord God. Thanks, Dee. I'll compose myself."
"Yes, you'd better do that. You sound like a bear. Be nice, these ladies are on our side."
"I'm glad somebody is." Barry went back to his desk and his coffee and looked at the piles of work he still had to do, and hoped the ladies wouldn't take long. Maybe he'd get a chance to call the Mayor, and just maybe the Mayor would be reasonable, and then he could get to work again …
The plant yard buzzed with activity. Bulldozers, forklifts, concrete trucks moved in an intricate, seemingly random pattern. Workmen carried materials for concrete forms. Barry Price led the group through this maelstrom almost without noticing it.
The ladies had seen the PR films, and they'd dressed sensibly in slacks and low shoes. They hadn't made any fuss about wearing the hard hats Dolores got for them. So far they hadn't had many questions, either.
Barry took them to the site of Number Three. It was a maze of steel girders and plywood forms, the dome-shaped containment only partially finished; it would be a good place to show them the safety features. Barry hoped they'd listen. Dolores said they'd seemed very reasonable to her, and he was hopeful, but past experience kept him on his guard. They reached a quieter area where there weren't any construction workers at the moment; there was still noise from the bulldozers and the carpenters putting up forms, boilermakers welding pipes …
"I know we're taking a lot of your time," Mrs. Gunderson said. "But we do think it's important. A lot of parents ask about the plant. The school's only a few miles away … "
Barry smiled agreement and tried to show her that it was all right, that he knew their visit was important. His heart wasn't in it. He was still thinking about McCleve's memo.
"Do all those people really work for you?" one of the other ladies asked.
"Well, they're employed by Bechtel," Barry said. "Bechtel Engineering builds the plants. The Department of Water and Power can't keep all those construction crews on permanent payroll."
Mrs. Gunderson wasn't interested in administrative details. She reminded Barry of himself: She wanted to get to the point, and quickly. An ample woman, well dressed. Her husband owned a big farm somewhere nearby. "You were going to show us the safety equipment," she said.
"Right." Barry pointed to the rising dome. "First there's the containment itself. Several feet