The planet-wetting speech which Jim Briskin delivered that night - taped earlier during the day and then beamed from the R-L satellite - was too painful for Salisbury Heim to endure.

Therefore, he took an hour off and sought relief as many men did: he boarded a jet'ab and shortly was on his way to the Golden Door Moments of Bliss satellite. Let Jim blab away about Bruno

Mini's crackpot engineering program, he said to himself as he rested in the rear seat of the rising

'ab, grateful for this interval of relaxation. Let him cut his own throat. But at least I don't have to be dragged down to defeat along with him; I'm tempted, sometime before election day, to cut myself loose and go over to the SRCD party.

Beyond doubt, Bill Schwarz would take him on. By an intricate route Heim had already sounded the opposition out. Schwarz had, through this careful, indirect linkage, expressed pleasure at the idea of Heim joining forces with him. However, Heim was not really ready to make his move; he had not pursued the topic further.

At least, not until today. This new, painful bombshell. And at a time when the party had troubles enough already.

The fact of the matter was - and he knew this from the latest polls - that Jim Briskin was trailing

Schwarz. Despite the fact that he had all the Col vote, and that included non-Negro dark races such as Puerto Ricans on the East Coast and the Mexicans on the West. It was not a shoo-in by any means. And why was Briskin trailing ? Because all the Whites would be going to the polls, whereas only about sixty per cent of the Cols would show up on election day. Incredibly, they were apathetic toward Jim. Perhaps they believed - and he had heard this said - that Jim had sold out to the White power structure. That he was not authentically a leader of the Col people as such. And in a sense this was true.