Colborn finished dealing with his own problem downstairs, and returned his attention to Westervelt. He requested a repeat. "I said that Joe went around the corner to check the power," babbled the youth. "What do I do if a space call comes in? He said to watch the set." "Oh," said Colborn. "You see the little red, star-shaped light at the left of the board under the screen?" "Yeah, yeah! It's out, Charlie!" "Well, it should be. It's an automatic call indicator set for our code. If it goes on, it shows you're getting a call even if you have the screen too dark or the audio too low to notice. So you look for a green one like it on the other side...." "Yeah. I see it." "You push the button beside it, and our code goes out automatically to acknowledge. Then you push the next button underneath, which puts out a repeating signal to stand by. Got that so far?" "I got it," said Westervelt. "Then what?" "Then you go scream for Joe at the top of your lungs. That covers everything. You are now a deep-space operator. Just don't touch any of those buttons until you get a license!" "But, Charlie--!" He was saved by the return of Rosenkrantz, for whom he thankfully vacated space before the phone. Colborn was again engaged in making faces at some other desperate commuter. "You were right, Charlie," said Rosenkrantz. "We're strictly on our own private power. The whole floor, as near as I can tell. I thought they were being fussy when they put it in, but maybe it will pay off at that. How does it look down there?" "It's a mess," said Colborn. "You wouldn't believe there were so many people working in our building." "No, no!" said Rosenkrantz. "I mean, what's the situation? Is it just this building that's cut off, or the whole city, or what?" "You can't believe anything they're saying," Colborn told them, "but they had somebody yapping on the public address system. It seems there's a whole section of the city, about fifty blocks square, cut off. They're talking about a main cable overloading." "I can imagine what they're saying," said Rosenkrantz. "The poor guys stuck with finding and replacing it, I mean." Colborn gave a hollow laugh. "You think they're the only ones stuck? There ain't a single subway belt moving to the surburban heliports. All the local surface monorails are stopped. You should see the way they're packing the ground taxis, and the cops won't let any more helicabs come down." "They're supposed only to pick up from the roofs," said Rosenkrantz. "That isn't where the people are. The people are all down here with me, and half of them are trying to get in the booth to tell their wives they won't be home. Well, there's a lot of us won't get home tonight, if the boys don't find that break pretty soon." Westervelt and Rosenkrantz exchanged glances. The youth shrugged; he had been planning on staying late anyhow.