DAY OF THE MORON

 BY H. BEAM PIPER

[Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the copyright on this publication was renewed. ]

_It's natural to trust the unproven word of the fellow who's "on myside"--but the emotional moron is on no one's side, not even his own. Once, such an emotional moron could, at worst, hurt a few. But with themighty, leashed forces Man employs now. .. . _

There were still, in 1968, a few people who were afraid of the nuclearpower plant. Oldsters, in whom the term "atomic energy" producedsemantic reactions associated with Hiroshima. Those who saw, in thetowering steam-column above it, a tempting target for enemy--which stillmeant Soviet--bombers and guided missiles. Some of the CentralIntelligence and F. B. I. People, who realized how futile even the mostelaborate security measures were against a resourceful and suicidallydetermined saboteur. And a minority of engineers and nuclear physicistswho remained unpersuaded that accidental blowups at nuclear-reactionplants were impossible. 

Scott Melroy was among these last. He knew, as a matter of fact, thatthere had been several nasty, meticulously unpublicized, near-catastrophes at the Long Island Nuclear Reaction Plant, allinvolving the new Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactors, and that therehad been considerable carefully-hushed top-level acrimony before theMelroy Engineering Corporation had been given the contract to installthe fully cybernetic control system intended to prevent a recurrence ofsuch incidents. 

That had been three months ago. Melroy and his people had moved in, beenassigned sections of a couple of machine shops, set up an assembly shopand a set of plyboard-partitioned offices in a vacant warehouse justoutside the reactor area, and tried to start work, only to run into thealmost interminable procedural disputes and jurisdictional wranglings ofthe sort which he privately labeled "bureau bunk". It was only now thathe was ready to begin work on the reactors. 

He sat at his desk, in the inner of three successively smaller officeson the second floor of the converted warehouse, checking over asymbolic-logic analysis of a relay system and, at the same time, sharpening a pencil, his knife paring off tiny feathery shavings ofwood. He was a tall, sparely-built, man of indeterminate age, withthinning sandy hair, a long Gaelic upper lip, and a wide, half-humorous, half-weary mouth; he wore an open-necked shirt, and an old and shabbyleather jacket, to the left shoulder of which a few clinging flecks ofpaint showed where some military emblem had been, long ago. While hisfingers worked with the jackknife and his eyes traveled over the page ofclosely-written symbols, his mind was reviewing the eight different waysin which one of the efficient but treacherous Doernberg-Giardanoreactors could be allowed to reach critical mass, and he was wonderingif there might not be some unsuspected ninth way. That was a possibilitywhich always lurked in the back of his mind, and lately it had beengiving him surrealistic nightmares. 

"Mr. Melroy!" the box on the desk in front of him said suddenly, in afeminine voice. "Mr. Melroy, Dr. Rives is here. "

Melroy picked up the handphone, thumbing on the switch. 

"Dr. Rives?" he repeated. 

"The psychologist who's subbing for Dr. Von Heydenreich, " the box toldhim patiently. 

"Oh, yes. Show him in, " Melroy said. 

"Right away, Mr. Melroy, " the box replied. 

 * * * * *

Replacing the handphone, Melroy wondered, for a moment, why there hadbeen a hint of suppressed amusement in his secretary's voice. Then thedoor opened and he stopped wondering. Dr. Rives wasn't a him; she was aher. Very attractive looking her, too--dark hair and eyes, ratherlong-oval features, clear, lightly tanned complexion, bright redlipstick put on with a micrometric exactitude that any engineer couldappreciate. She was tall, within four inches of his own six-foot mark, and she wore a black tailored outfit, perfectly plain, which hadprobably cost around five hundred dollars and would have looked severeand mannish except that the figure under it curved and bulged in justthe right places and to just the right degree. 

Melroy rose, laying down knife and pencil and taking his pipe out of hismouth. 

"Good afternoon, " he greeted. "Dr. Von Heydenreich gave me quite afavorable account of you--as far as it went. He might have included afew more data and made it more so. .. . Won't you sit down?"

The woman laid her handbag on the desk and took the visitor's chair, impish mirth sparking in her eyes. 

"He probably omitted mentioning that the D. Is for Doris, " shesuggested. "Suppose I'd been an Englishman with a name like Evelyn orVivian?"

Melroy tried to visualize her as a male Englishman named Vivian, gaveup, and grinned at her. 

"Let this be a lesson, " he said. "Inferences are to be drawn fromobjects, or descriptions of objects; never from verbal labels. Do youinitial your first name just to see how people react when they meetyou?"

"Well, no, though that's an amusing and sometimes instructiveby-product. It started when I began contributing to some of theprofessional journals. There's still a little of what used to be calledmale sex-chauvinism among my colleagues, and some who would be favorablyimpressed with an article signed D. Warren Rives might snort in contemptat the same article signed Doris Rives. "

"Well, fortunately, Dr. Von Heydenreich isn't one of those, " Melroysaid. "How is the Herr Doktor, by the way, and just what happened tohim? Miss Kourtakides merely told me that he'd been injured and was in ahospital in Pittsburgh. "

"The Herr Doktor got shot, " Doris Rives informed him. "With a charge ofBB's, in a most indelicate portion of his anatomy. He was out hunting, the last day of small-game season, and somebody mistook him for aturkey. Nothing really serious, but he's face down in bed, cursinghideously in German, English, Russian, Italian and French, mainlybecause he's missing deer hunting. "

"I might have known it, " Melroy said in disgust. "The ubiquitouslame-brain with a dangerous mechanism. .. . I suppose he briefed you onwhat I want done, here?"

"Well, not too completely. I gathered that you want me to giveintelligence tests, or aptitude tests, or something of the sort, to someof your employees. I'm not really one of these so-called industrialanthropologists, " she explained. "Most of my work, for the past fewyears, has been for public-welfare organizations, with subnormalpersons. I told him that, and he said that was why he selected me. Hesaid one other thing. He said, 'I used to think Melroy had an obsessionabout fools; well, after stopping this load of shot, I'm beginning tothink it's a good subject to be obsessed about. '"

Melroy nodded. "'Obsession' will probably do. 'Phobia' would be moreexact. I'm afraid of fools, and the chance that I have one working forme, here, affects me like having a cobra crawling around my bedroom inthe dark. I want you to locate any who might be in a gang of new menI've had to hire, so that I can get rid of them. "

 * * * * *

"And just how do you define the term 'fool', Mr. Melroy?" she asked. "Remember, it has no standard meaning. Republicans apply it toDemocrats, and vice versa. "

"Well, I apply it to people who do things without considering possibleconsequences. People who pepper distinguished Austrian psychologists inthe pants-seat with turkey-shot, for a starter. Or people who pushbuttons to see what'll happen, or turn valves and twiddle withdial-knobs because they have nothing else to do with their hands. Orshoot insulators off power lines to see if they can hit them. People whodon't know it's loaded. People who think warning signs are purelyornamental. People who play practical jokes. People who--"

"I know what you mean. Just day-before-yesterday, I saw a woman toss acocktail into an electric heater. She didn't want to drink it, and shethought it would just go up in steam. The result was slightlyspectacular. "

"Next time, she won't do that. She'll probably throw her drink into alead-ladle, if there's one around. Well, on a statistical basis, I'djudge that I have three or four such dud rounds among this new gang I'vehired. I want you to put the finger on them, so I can bounce them beforethey blow the whole plant up, which could happen quite easily. "

"That, " Doris Rives said, "is not going to be as easy as it sounds. Ordinary intelligence-testing won't be enough. The woman I was speakingof has an I. Q. Well inside the meaning of normal intelligence. She justdoesn't use it. "

"Sure. " Melroy got a thick folder out of his desk and handed it across. "Heydenreich thought of that, too. He got this up for me, about fiveyears ago. The intelligence test is based on the new French Sūreté testfor mentally deficient criminals. Then there's a memory test, and testsfor judgment and discrimination, semantic reactions, temperamental andemotional makeup, and general mental attitude. "

She took the folder and leafed through it. "Yes, I see. I always likedthis Sūreté test. And this memory test is a honey--'One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four corpulent porpoises, five Limerick oysters, six pairs of Don Alfonso tweezers. .. . ' I'd like to see some of thesememory-course boys trying to make visual images of six pairs of DonAlfonso tweezers. And I'm going to make a copy of this word-associationlist. It's really a semantic reaction test; Korzybski would have lovedit. And, of course, our old friend, the Rorschach Ink-Blots. I've alwaysharbored the impious suspicion that you can prove almost anything youwant to with that. But these question-suggestions for personal intervieware really crafty. Did Heydenreich get them up himself?"

"Yes. And we have stacks and stacks of printed forms for the writtenportion of the test, and big cards to summarize each subject on. And wehave a disk-recorder to use in the oral tests. There'll have to be apretty complete record of each test, in case--"

 * * * * *

The office door opened and a bulky man with a black mustache entered, beating the snow from his overcoat with a battered porkpie hat andcommenting blasphemously on the weather. He advanced into the room untilhe saw the woman in the chair beside the desk, and then started to backout. 

"Come on in, Sid, " Melroy told him. "Dr. Rives, this is our generalforeman, Sid Keating. Sid, Dr. Rives, the new dimwit detector. Sid's indirect charge of personnel, " he continued, "so you two'll be workingtogether quite a bit. "

"Glad to know you, doctor, " Keating said. Then he turned to Melroy. "Scott, you're really going through with this, then?" he asked. "I'mafraid we'll have trouble, then. "

"Look, Sid, " Melroy said. "We've been all over that. Once we start workon the reactors, you and Ned Puryear and Joe Ricci and Steve Chalmerscan't be everywhere at once. A cybernetic system will only do what it'sbeen assembled to do, and if some quarter-wit assembles one of thesethings wrong--" He left the sentence dangling; both men knew what hemeant. 

Keating shook his head. "This union's going to bawl like a branded calfabout it, " he predicted. "And if any of the dear sirs and brothers getwashed out--" That sentence didn't need to be completed, either. 

"We have a right, " Melroy said, "to discharge any worker who is, quote, of unsound mind, deficient mentality or emotional instability, unquote. It says so right in our union contract, in nice big print. "

"Then they'll claim the tests are wrong. "

"I can't see how they can do that, " Doris Rives put in, faintlyscandalized. 

"Neither can I, and they probably won't either, " Keating told her. "Butthey'll go ahead and do it. Why, Scott, they're pulling the Number OneDoernberg-Giardano, tonight. By oh-eight-hundred, it ought to be coolenough to work on. Where will we hold the tests? Here?"

"We'll have to, unless we can get Dr. Rives security-cleared. " Melroyturned to her. "Were you ever security-cleared by any Governmentagency?"

"Oh, yes. I was with Armed Forces Medical, Psychiatric Division, inIndonesia in '62 and '63, and I did some work with mental fatigue casesat Tonto Basin Research Establishment in '64. "

Melroy looked at her sharply. Keating whistled. 

"If she could get into Tonto Basin, she can get in here, " he declared. 

"I should think so. I'll call Colonel Bradshaw, the security officer. "

"That way, we can test them right on the job, " Keating was saying. "Takethem in relays. I'll talk to Ben about it, and we'll work up some kindof a schedule. " He turned to Doris Rives. "You'll need a wrist-Geiger, and a dosimeter. We'll furnish them, " he told her. "I hope they don'ttry to make you carry a pistol, too. "

"A pistol?" For a moment, she must have thought he was using sometechnical-jargon term, and then it dawned on her that he wasn't. "Youmean--?" She cocked her thumb and crooked her index finger. 

"Yeah. A rod. Roscoe. The Equalizer. We all have to. " He half-lifted oneout of his side pocket. "We're all United States deputy marshals. Theydon't bother much with counterespionage, here, but they don't fool whenit comes to countersabotage. Well, I'll get an order cut and posted. Beseeing you, doctor. "

 * * * * *

"You think the union will make trouble about these tests?" she asked, after the general foreman had gone out. 

"They're sure to, " Melroy replied. "Here's the situation. I have aboutfifty of my own men, from Pittsburgh, here, but they can't work on thereactors because they don't belong to the Industrial Federation ofAtomic Workers, and I can't just pay their initiation fees and uniondues and get union cards for them, because admission to this union is onan annual quota basis, and this is December, and the quota's full. So Ihave to use them outside the reactor area, on fabrication and assemblywork. And I have to hire through the union, and that's handled on amembership seniority basis, so I have to take what's thrown at me. That's why I was careful to get that clause I was quoting to Sid writteninto my contract. 

"Now, here's what's going to happen. Most of the men'll take the testwithout protest, but a few of them'll raise the roof about it. Nothingburns a moron worse than to have somebody question his fractionalintelligence. The odds are that the ones that yell the loudest abouttaking the test will be the ones who get scrubbed out, and when the testshows that they're deficient, they won't believe it. A moron simplycannot conceive of his being anything less than perfectly intelligent, any more than a lunatic can conceive of his being less than perfectlysane. So they'll claim we're framing them, for an excuse to fire them. And the union will have to back them up, right or wrong, at least on thelocal level. That goes without saying. In any dispute, the employer isalways wrong and the worker is always right, until proven otherwise. Andthat takes a lot of doing, believe me!"

"Well, if they're hired through the union, on a seniority basis, wouldn't they be likely to be experienced and competent workers?" sheasked. 

"Experienced, yes. That is, none of them has ever been caught doinganything downright calamitous . .. Yet, " Melroy replied. "The moron I'mafraid of can go on for years, doing routine work under supervision, andnothing'll happen. Then, some day, he does something on his ownlame-brained initiative, and when he does, it's only at the whim ofwhatever gods there be that the result isn't a wholesale catastrophe. And people like that are the most serious threat facing our civilizationtoday, atomic war not excepted. "

Dr. Doris Rives lifted a delicately penciled eyebrow over that. Melroy, pausing to relight his pipe, grinned at her. 

"You think that's the old obsession talking?" he asked. "Could be. Butlook at this plant, here. It generates every kilowatt of current usedbetween Trenton and Albany, the New York metropolitan area included. Except for a few little storage-battery or Diesel generator systems, that couldn't handle one tenth of one per cent of the barest minimumload, it's been the only source of electric current here since 1962, when the last coal-burning power plant was dismantled. Knock this plantout and you darken every house and office and factory and street in thearea. You immobilize the elevators--think what that would mean in lowerand midtown Manhattan alone. And the subways. And the new endless-beltconveyors that handle eighty per cent of the city's freight traffic. Andthe railroads--there aren't a dozen steam or Diesel locomotives left inthe whole area. And the pump stations for water and gas and fuel oil. And seventy per cent of the space-heating is electric, now. Why, youcan't imagine what it'd be like. It's too gigantic. But what you canimagine would be a nightmare. 

"You know, it wasn't so long ago, when every home lighted and heateditself, and every little industry was a self-contained unit, that a foolcouldn't do great damage unless he inherited a throne or was placed incommand of an army, and that didn't happen nearly as often as ourleftist social historians would like us to think. But today, everythingwe depend upon is centralized, and vulnerable to blunder-damage. Evenour food--remember that poisoned soft-drink horror in Chicago, in 1963;three thousand hospitalized and six hundred dead because of one man'sstupid mistake at a bottling plant. " He shook himself slightly, asthough to throw off some shadow that had fallen over him, and looked athis watch. "Sixteen hundred. How did you get here? Fly your own plane?"

"No; I came by T. W. A. From Pittsburgh. I have a room at the new MidtownCity hotel, on Forty-seventh Street: I had my luggage sent on there fromthe airport and came out on the Long Island subway. "

"Fine. I have a room at Midtown City, myself, though I sleep here abouthalf the time. " He nodded toward a door on the left. "Suppose we go inand have dinner together. This cafeteria, here, is a horrible place. It's run by a dietitian instead of a chef, and everything's sowhite-enamel antiseptic that I swear I smell belladonna-icthyol ointmentevery time I go in the place. Wait here till I change clothes. "

 * * * * *

At the Long Island plant, no one was concerned about espionage--neitherthe processes nor the equipment used there were secret--but thecountersabotage security was fantastically thorough. Every person orscrap of material entering the reactor area was searched; thelife-history of every man and woman employed there was known back to thecradle. A broad highway encircled it outside the fence, patrolled nightand day by twenty General Stuart cavalry-tanks. There were a thousandsoldiers, and three hundred Atomic Power Authority police, and only Godknew how many F. B. I, and Central Intelligence undercover agents. Everysupervisor and inspector and salaried technician was an armed UnitedStates deputy marshal. And nobody, outside the Department of Defense, knew how much radar and counter-rocket and fighter protection the placehad, but the air-defense zone extended from Boston to Philadelphia andas far inland as Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. 

The Long Island Nuclear Power Plant, Melroy thought, had all theinvulnerability of Achilles--and no more. 

The six new Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactors clustered in a circleinside a windowless concrete building at the center of the plant. Besidetheir primary purpose of plutonium production, they furnished heat forthe sea-water distillation and chemical extraction system, processingthe water that was run through the steam boilers at the main powerreactors, condensed, redistilled, and finally pumped, pure, into thewater mains of New York. Safe outside the shielding, in a corner of ahigh-ceilinged room, was the plyboard-screened on-the-job office of theMelroy Engineering Corporation's timekeepers and foremen. Beyond, alongthe far wall, were the washroom and locker room and lunch room of theworkmen. 

Sixty or seventy men, mostly in white coveralls and all wearingidentification badges and carrying dosimeters in their breast pocketsand midget Geigers strapped to their wrists, were crowded about thebulletin-board in front of the makeshift office. There was a hum ofvoices--some perplexed or angry, but mostly good-humored and bantering. As Melroy and Doris Rives approached, the talking died out and the menturned. In the sudden silence, one voice, harshly strident, continued:

". .. Do they think this is, anyhow? We don't hafta take none of that. "

Somebody must have nudged the speaker, trying without success to hushhim. The bellicose voice continued, and Melroy spotted thespeaker--short, thick-set, his arms jutting out at an angle from hisbody, his heavy features soured with anger. 

"Like we was a lotta halfwits, 'r nuts, 'r some'n! Well, we don't haftastand for this. They ain't got no right--"

Doris Rives clung tighter to Melroy's arm as he pushed a way for himselfand her through the crowd and into the temporary office. Inside, theywere met by a young man with a deputy marshal's badge on his flannelshirt and a . 38 revolver on his hip. 

"Ben Puryear: Dr. Rives, " Melroy introduced. "Who's the mouthy characteroutside?"

"One of the roustabouts; name's Burris, " Puryear replied. "Wash-roomlawyer. "

Melroy nodded. "You always get one or two like that. How're the resttaking it?"

Puryear shrugged. "About how you'd expect. A lot of kidding about who'sgot any intelligence to test. Burris seems to be the only one who'strying to make an issue out of it. "

"Well, what are they doing ganged up here?" Melroy wanted to know. "It'spast oh-eight-hundred; why aren't they at work?"

"Reactor's still too hot. Temperature and radioactivity both too high;radioactivity's still up around eight hundred REM's. "

"Well, then, we'll give them all the written portion of the testtogether, and start the personal interviews and oral tests as soon asthey're through. " He turned to Doris Rives. "Can you give all of themthe written test together?" he asked. "And can Ben helpyou--distributing forms, timing the test, seeing that there's nofudging, and collecting the forms when they're done?"

"Oh, yes; all they'll have to do is follow the printed instructions. "She looked around. "I'll need a desk, and an extra chair for theinterview subject. "

"Right over here, doctor. " Puryear said. "And here are the forms andcards, and the sound-recorder, and blank sound disks. "

"Yes, " Melroy added. "Be sure you get a recording of every interview andoral test; we may need them for evidence. "

He broke off as a man in white coveralls came pushing into the office. He was a scrawny little fellow with a wide, loose-lipped mouth and aprotuberant Adam's apple; beside his identity badge, he wore a two-inchcelluloid button lettered: I. F. A. W. STEWARD. 

"Wanta use the phone, " he said. "Union business. "

Melroy gestured toward a telephone on the desk beside him. The newcomershook his head, twisting his mouth into a smirk. 

"Not that one; the one with the whisper mouthpiece, " he said. "This isprivate union business. "

 * * * * *

Melroy shrugged and indicated another phone. The man with the unionsteward's badge picked it up, dialed, and held a lengthy conversationinto it, turning his head away in case Melroy might happen to be a lipreader. Finally he turned. 

"Mr. Crandall wants to talk to you, " he said, grinning triumphantly, thephone extended to Melroy. 

The engineer picked up another phone, snapping a button on the base ofit. 

"Melroy here, " he said. 

Something on the line started going _bee-beep-beep_ softly. 

"Crandall, executive secretary, I. F. A. W. , " the man on the other end ofthe line identified himself. "Is there a recorder going on this line?"

"Naturally, " Melroy replied. "I record all business conversations;office routine. "

"Mr. Melroy, I've been informed that you propose forcing our members inyour employ to submit to some kind of a mental test. Is that correct?"

"Not exactly. I'm not able to force anybody to submit to anythingagainst his will. If anybody objects to taking these tests, he can sayso, and I'll have his time made out and pay him off. "

"That's the same thing. A threat of dismissal is coercion, and if thesemen want to keep their jobs they'll have to take this test. "

"Well, that's stated more or less correctly, " Melroy conceded. "Let'sjust put it that taking--and passing--this test is a condition ofemployment. My contract with your union recognizes my right to establishstandards of intelligence; that's implied by my recognized right todismiss any person of 'unsound mind, deficient mentality or emotionalinstability. ' Psychological testing is the only means of determiningwhether or not a person is classifiable in those terms. "

"Then, in case the test purports to show that one of these men is, let'ssay, mentally deficient, you intend dismissing him?"

"With the customary two weeks' severance-pay, yes. "

"Well, if you do dismiss anybody on those grounds, the union will haveto insist on reviewing the grounds for dismissal. "

"My contract with your union says nothing whatever about any right ofreview being reserved by the union in such cases. Only in cases ofdisciplinary dismissal, which this is not. I take the position thatcertain minimum standards of intelligence and mental stability areessentials in this sort of work, just as, say, certain minimum standardsof literacy are essential in clerical work. "

"Then you're going to make these men take these tests, whatever theyare?"

"If they want to work for me, yes. And anybody who fails to pass themwill be dropped from my payroll. "

"And who's going to decide whether or not these men have successfullypassed these tests?" Crandall asked. "You?"

"Good Lord, no! I'm an electronics engineer, not a psychologist. Thetests are being given, and will be evaluated, by a graduatepsychologist, Dr. D. Warren Rives, who has a diploma from the AmericanBoard of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a member of the AmericanPsychological Association. Dr. Rives will be the final arbiter on who isor is not disqualified by these tests. "

"Well, our man Koffler says you have some girl there to give the tests, "Crandall accused. 

"I suppose he means Dr. Rives, " Melroy replied. "I can assure you, sheis an extremely competent psychologist, however. She came to me mosthighly recommended by Dr. Karl von Heydenreich, who is not inclined tobe careless with his recommendations. "

"Well, Mr. Melroy, we don't want any more trouble with you than we haveto have, " Crandall told him, "but we will insist on reviewing anydismissals which occur as a result of these tests. "

"You can do that. I'd advise, first, that you read over the contract yousigned with me. Get a qualified lawyer to tell you what we've agreed toand what we haven't. Was there anything else you wanted to talkabout?. .. No?. .. Then good morning, Mr. Crandall. "

He hung up. "All right; let's get on with it, " he said. "Ben, you getthem into the lunch room; there are enough tables and benches in therefor everybody to take the written test in two relays. "

"The union's gotta be represented while these tests is going on, " theunion steward announced. "Mr. Crandall says I'm to stay here an' watchwhat you do to these guys. "

"This man working for us?" Melroy asked Puryear. 

"Yes. Koffler, Julius. Electrical fitter; Joe Ricci's gang. "

"All right. See to it that he gets placed in the first relay for thewritten test, and gets first turn for the orals. That way he can spendthe rest of his time on duty here for the union, and will know inadvance what the test is like. " He turned to Koffler. "But understandthis. You keep your mouth out of it. If you see anything that looksobjectionable, make a note of it, but don't try to interfere. "

The written tests, done on printed forms, required about twenty minutes. Melroy watched the process of oral testing and personal interviewing fora while, then picked up a big flashlight and dropped it into hisovercoat pocket, preparatory to going out to inspect some equipment thathad been assembled outside the reactor area and brought in. As he wentout, Koffler was straddling a chair, glowering at Doris Rives and makingoccasional ostentatious notes on a pad. 

 * * * * *

For about an hour, he poked around the newly assembled apparatus, checking the wiring, and peering into it. When he returned to thetemporary office, the oral testing was still going on; Koffler was stillon duty as watcher for the union, but the sport had evidently palled onhim, for he was now studying a comic book. 

Melroy left the reactor area and returned to the office in the convertedarea. During the midafternoon, somebody named Leighton called him fromthe Atomic Power Authority executive office, wanting to know what wasthe trouble between him and the I. F. A. W. And saying that a protestagainst his alleged high-handed and arbitrary conduct had been receivedfrom the union. 

Melroy explained, at length. He finished: "You people have twenty Stuarttanks, and a couple of thousand soldiers and cops and undercover-men, here, guarding against sabotage. Don't you realize that a workman whomakes stupid or careless or impulsive mistakes is just as dangerous tothe plant as any saboteur? If somebody shoots you through the head, itdoesn't matter whether he planned to murder you for a year or justdidn't know the gun was loaded; you're as dead one way as the other. Ishould think you'd thank me for trying to eliminate a serious source ofdanger. "

"Now, don't misunderstand my position, Mr. Melroy, " the other manhastened to say. "I sympathize with your attitude, entirely. But thesepeople are going to make trouble. "

"If they do, it'll be my trouble. I'm under contract to install thiscybernetic system for you; you aren't responsible for my labor policy, "Melroy replied. "Oh, have you had much to do with this man Crandall, yourself?"

"Have I had--!" Leighton sputtered for a moment. "I'm in charge ofpersonnel, here; that makes me his top-priority target, all the time. "

"Well, what sort of a character is he, anyhow? When I contracted withthe I. F. A. W. , my lawyer and their lawyer handled everything; I nevereven met him. "

"Well--He has his job to do, the same as I have, " Leighton said. "Hedoes it conscientiously. But it's like this--anything a workman tellshim is the truth, and anything an employer tells him is a dirty lie. Until proven differently, of course, but that takes a lot of doing. Andhe goes off half-cocked a lot of times. He doesn't stop to analyzesituations very closely. "

"That's what I was afraid of. Well, you tell him you don't have anycontrol over my labor relations. Tell him to bring his gripes to me. "

 * * * * *

At sixteen-thirty, Doris Rives came in, finding him still at his desk. 

"I have the written tests all finished, and I have about twenty of thetests and interviews completed, " she said. "I'll have to evaluate theresults, though. I wonder if there's a vacant desk around here, anywhere, and a record player. "

"Yes, sure. Ask Joan to fix you up; she'll find a place for you to work. And if you're going to be working late, I'll order some dinner for youfrom the cafeteria. I'm going to be here all evening, myself. "

Sid Keating came in, a short while later, peeling out of his overcoat, jacket and shoulder holster. 

"I don't think they got everything out of that reactor, " he said. "Radioactivity's still almost active-normal--about eight hundredREM's--and the temperature's away up, too. That isn't lingeringradiation; that's prompt radiation. "

"Radioactivity hasn't dropped since morning; I'd think so, too, " Melroysaid. "What are they getting on the breakdown counter?"

"Mostly neutrons and alpha-particles. I talked to Fred Hausinger, themaintenance boss; he doesn't like it, either. "

"Well, I'm no nuclear physicist, " Melroy disclaimed, "but all that alphastuff looks like a big chunk of Pu-239 left inside. What's Fred doingabout it?"

"Oh, poking around inside the reactor with telemetered scanners andremote-control equipment. When I left, he had a gang pulling outgraphite blocks with RC-tongs. We probably won't get a chance to work onit much before thirteen-hundred tomorrow. " He unzipped a bulky briefcase he had brought in under his arm and dumped papers onto his desk. "Istill have this stuff to get straightened out, too. "

"Had anything to eat? Then call the cafeteria and have them send upthree dinners. Dr. Rives is eating here, too. Find out what she wants; Iwant pork chops. "

"Uh-huh; Li'l Abner Melroy; po'k chops unless otherwise specified. "Keating got up and went out into the middle office. As he opened thedoor. Melroy could hear a recording of somebody being given aword-association test. 

Half an hour later, when the food arrived, they spread their table on arelatively clear desk in the middle office. Doris Rives had finishedevaluating the completed tests; after dinner, she intended going overthe written portions of the uncompleted tests. 

"How'd the finished tests come out?" Melroy asked her. 

"Better than I'd expected. Only two washouts, " she replied. "HarveyBurris and Julius Koffler. "

"Oh, _no_!" Keating wailed. "The I. F. A. W. Steward, and theloudest-mouthed I-know-my-rights boy on the job!"

"Well, wasn't that to be expected?" Melroy asked. "If you'd seen the actthose two put on--"

"They're both inherently stupid, infantile, and deficient in reasoningability and judgment, " Doris said. "Koffler is a typical adolescentproblem-child show-off type, and Burris is an almost perfecttwelve-year-old schoolyard bully. They both have inferiority complexeslong enough to step on. If the purpose of this test is what I'm led tobelieve it is, I can't, in professional good conscience, recommendanything but that you get rid of both of them. "

"What Bob's getting at is that they're the very ones who can claim, withthe best show of plausibility, that the test is just a pretext to firethem for union activities, " Melroy explained. "And the worst of it is, they're the only ones. "

"Maybe we can scrub out a couple more on the written tests alone. Thenthey'll have company, " Keating suggested. 

"No, I can't do that. " Doris was firm on the point. "The written part ofthe test was solely for ability to reason logically. Just among thethree of us, I know some university professors who'd flunk on that. Butif the rest of the tests show stability, sense of responsibility, goodjudgment, and a tendency to think before acting, the subject can beclassified as a safe and reliable workman. "

"Well, then, let's don't say anything till we have the tests allfinished, " Keating proposed. 

"No!" Melroy cried. "Every minute those two are on the job, there's achance they may do something disastrous. I'll fire them atoh-eight-hundred tomorrow. "

"All right, " Keating shook his head. "I only work here. But don't say Ididn't warn you. "

 * * * * *

By 0930 the next morning, Keating's forebodings began to be realized. The first intimation came with a phone call to Melroy from Crandall, whoaccused him of having used the psychological tests as a fraudulentpretext for discharging Koffler and Burris for union activities. WhenMelroy rejected his demand that the two men be reinstated, Crandalldemanded to see the records of the tests. 

"They're here at my office, " Melroy told him. "You're welcome to look atthem, and hear recordings of the oral portions of the tests. But I'dadvise you to bring a professional psychologist along, because unlessyou're a trained psychologist yourself, they're not likely to mean muchto you. "

"Oh, sure!" Crandall retorted. "They'd have to be unintelligible toordinary people, or you couldn't get away with this frame-up! Well, don't worry, I'll be along to see them. "

Within ten minutes, the phone rang again. This time it was Leighton, theAtomic Power Authority man. 

"We're much disturbed about this dispute between your company and theI. F. A. W. , " he began. 

"Well, frankly, so am I, " Melroy admitted. "I'm here to do a job, notplay Hatfields and McCoys with this union. I've had union troublebefore, and it isn't fun. You're the gentleman who called me lastevening, aren't you? Then you understand my position in the matter. "

"Certainly, Mr. Melroy. I was talking to Colonel Bradshaw, the securityofficer, last evening. He agrees that a stupid or careless workman is, under some circumstances, a more serious threat to security than anysaboteur. And we realize fully how dangerous those Doernberg-Giardanosare, and how much more dangerous they'd be if these cybernetic controlswere improperly assembled. But this man Crandall is talking aboutcalling a strike. "

"Well, let him. In the first place, it'd be against me, not against theAtomic Power Authority. And, in the second place, if he does and it goesto Federal mediation, his demand for the reinstatement of those men willbe thrown out, and his own organization will have to disavow his action, because he'll be calling the strike against his own contract. "

"Well, I hope so. " Leighton's tone indicated that the hope was ratherdim. "I wish you luck; you're going to need it. "

 * * * * *

Within the hour, Crandall arrived at Melroy's office. He was a youngman; he gave Melroy the impression of having recently seen militaryservice; probably in the Indonesian campaign of '62 and '63; he alsoseemed a little cocky and over-sure of himself. 

"Mr. Melroy, we're not going to stand for this, " he began, as soon as hecame into the room. "You're using these so-called tests as a pretext forgetting rid of Mr. Koffler and Mr. Burris because of their legitimateunion activities. "

"Who gave you that idea?" Melroy wanted to know. "Koffler and Burris?"

"That's the complaint they made to me, and it's borne out by the facts, "Crandall replied. "We have on record at least half a dozen complaintsthat Mr. Koffler has made to us about different unfair work-assignments, improper working conditions, inequities in allotting overtime work, andother infractions of union-shop conditions, on behalf of Mr. Burris. Soyou decided to get rid of both of them, and you think you can use thisclause in our contract with your company about persons of deficientintelligence. The fact is, you're known to have threatened on severaloccasions to get rid of both of them. "

"I am?" Melroy looked at Crandall curiously, wondering if the latterwere serious, and deciding that he was. "You must believe _anything_those people tell you. Well, they lied to you if they told you that. "

"Naturally that's what you'd say, " Crandall replied. "But how do youaccount for the fact that those two men, and only those two men, weredismissed for alleged deficient intelligence?"

"The tests aren't all made, " Melroy replied. "Until they are, you can'tsay that they are the only ones disqualified. And if you look over therecords of the tests, you'll see where Koffler and Burris failed and theothers passed. Here. " He laid the pile of written-test forms and thesummary and evaluation sheets on the desk. "Here's Koffler's, and here'sBurris'; these are the ones of the men who passed the test. Look themover if you want to. "

Crandall examined the forms and summaries for the two men who had beendischarged, and compared them with several random samples from thesatisfactory pile. 

"Why, this stuff's a lot of gibberish!" he exclaimed indignantly. "Thisthing, here: . .. Five Limerick oysters, six pairs of Don Alfonsotweezers, seven hundred Macedonian warriors in full battle array, eightgolden crowns from the ancient, secret crypts of Egypt, nine lymphatic, sympathetic, peripatetic old men on crutches, and ten revolvingheliotropes from the Ipsy-Wipsy Institute!' Great Lord, do you actuallymean that you're using this stuff as an excuse for depriving men oftheir jobs?"

"I warned you that you should have brought a professional psychologistalong, " Melroy reminded him. "And maybe you ought to get Koffler andBurris to repeat their complaints on a lie-detector, while you're at it. They took the same tests, in the same manner, as any of the others. Theyjust didn't have the mental equipment to cope with them and the othersdid. And for that reason, I won't run the risk of having them working onthis job. "

"That's just your word against theirs, " Crandall insisted obstinately. "Their complaint is that you framed this whole thing up to get rid ofthem. "

"Why, I didn't even know who either of them were, until yesterdaymorning. "

"That's not the way they tell it, " Crandall retorted. "They say you andKeating have been out to get them ever since they were hired. You andyour supervisors have been persecuting both of those men systematically. The fact that Burris has had grounds for all these previous complaintsproves that. "

"It proves that Burris has a persecution complex, and that Koffler'scredulous enough to believe him, " Melroy replied. "And that tends toconfirm the results of the tests they failed to pass. "

"Oh, so that's the line you're taking. You persecute a man, and then sayhe has a persecution complex if he recognizes the fact. Well, you're notgoing to get away with it, that's all I have to say to you. " Crandallflung the test-sheet he had been holding on to the desk. "That stuff'snot worth the paper it's scribbled on!" He turned on his heel in anautomatically correct about-face and strode out of the office. 

 * * * * *

Melroy straightened out the papers and put them away, then sat down athis desk, filling and lighting his pipe. He was still working at 1215when Ben Puryear called him. 

"They walked out on us, " he reported. "Harry Crandall was out heretalking to them, and at noon the whole gang handed in theirwrist-Geigers and dosimeters and cleared out their lockers. They saythey aren't coming back till Burris and Koffler come back to work withthem. "

"Then they aren't coming back, period, " Melroy replied. "Crandall was tosee me, a couple of hours ago. He tells me that Burris and Koffler toldhim that we've been persecuting Burris; discriminating against him. Youknow of anything that really happened that might make them thinkanything like that?"

"No. Burris is always yelling about not getting enough overtime work, but you know how it is: he's just a roustabout, a common laborer. Anyovertime work that has to be done is usually skilled labor on this job. We generally have a few roustabouts to help out, but he's been allowedto make overtime as much as any of the others. "

"Will the time-records show that?"

"They ought to. I don't know what he and Koffler told Crandall, butwhatever it was, I'll bet they were lying. "

"That's all right, then. How's the reactor, now?"

"Hausinger says the count's down to safe limits, and the temperature'sdown to inactive normal. He and his gang found a big chunk of plutonium, about one-quarter CM, inside. He got it out. "

"All right. Tell Dr. Rives to gather up all her completed or partiallycompleted test records and come out to the office. You and the othersstay on the job; we may have some men for you by this afternoon;tomorrow morning certainly. "

He hung up, then picked up the communicator phone and called hissecretary. 

"Joan, is Sid Keating out there? Send him in, will you?"

Keating, when he entered, was wearing the lugubriously gratifiedexpression appropriate to the successful prophet of disaster. 

"All right, Cassandra, " Melroy greeted him. "I'm not going to say youdidn't warn me. Look. This strike is illegal. It's a violation of theFederal Labor Act of 1958, being called without due notice of intention, without preliminary negotiation, and without two weeks' time-allowance. "

"They're going to claim that it isn't a strike. They're going to call ita 'spontaneous work-stoppage. '"

"Aah! I hope I can get Crandall on record to that effect; I'll fireevery one of those men for leaving their work without permission andabsence from duty without leave. How many of our own men, fromPittsburgh, do we have working in these machine shops and in theassembly shop here? About sixty?"

"Sixty-three. Why? You're not going to use them to work on the reactor, are you?"

"I just am. They're all qualified cybernetics technicians; they can dothis work better than this gang we've had to hire here. Just to be onthe safe side, I'm promoting all of them, as of oh-eight-hundred thismorning, to assistant gang-foremen, on salaries. That'll take themoutside union jurisdiction. "

"But how about our contract with the I. F. A. W. ?"

"That's been voided, by Crandall's own act, in interfering with theexecution of our contract with the Atomic Power Authority. You know whatI think? I think the I. F. A. W. Front office is going to have to disavowthis. It'll hurt them to do it, but they'll have to. Crandall's put themin the middle on this. "

"How about security clearance for our own men?"

"Nothing to that, " Melroy said. "Most of them are security-cleared, already, from the work we did installing that counter-rocket controlsystem on the U. S. S. _Alaska_, and the work we did on thatsymbolic-logic computer for the Philadelphia Project. It may take allday to get the red tape unwound, but I think we can be ready to start byoh-eight-hundred tomorrow. "

 * * * * *

By the time Keating had rounded up all the regular Melroy EngineeringCorporation employees and Melroy had talked to Colonel Bradshaw aboutsecurity-clearance, it was 1430. A little later, he was called on thephone by Leighton, the Atomic Power Authority man. 

"Melroy, what are you trying to do?" the Power Authority man demanded. "Get this whole plant struck shut? The I. F. A. W. 's madder than ashot-stung bobcat. They claim you're going to bring in strike-breakers;they're talking about picketing the whole reactor area. "

"News gets around fast, here, doesn't it?" Melroy commented. He toldLeighton what he had in mind. The Power Authority man was considerablyshaken before he had finished. 

"But they'll call a strike on the whole plant! Have you any idea whatthat would mean?"

"Certainly I have. They'll either call it in legal form, in which casethe whole thing will go to mediation and get aired, which is what Iwant, or they'll pull a Pearl Harbor on you, the way they did on me. Andin that case, the President will have to intervene, and they'll fly intechnicians from some of the Armed Forces plants to keep this placerunning. And in that case, things'll get settled that much quicker. ThisCrandall thinks these men I fired are martyrs, and he's preaching acrusade. He ought to carry an _advocatus diaboli_ on his payroll, toscrutinize the qualifications of his martyrs, before he startscanonizing them. "

A little later, Doris Rives came into the office, her hands full ofpapers and cards. 

"I have twelve more tests completed, " she reported. "Only one washout. "

Melroy laughed. "Doctor, they're all washed out, " he told her. "It seemsthere was an additional test, and they all flunked it. Evincedwillingness to follow unwise leadership and allow themselves to betalked into improper courses of action. You go on in to New York, andtake all the test-material, including sound records, with you. Stay atthe hotel--your pay will go on--till I need you. There'll be a FederalMediation hearing in a day or so. "

He had two more telephone calls. The first, at 1530, was from Leighton. Melroy suspected that the latter had been medicating his morale with acouple of stiff drinks: his voice was almost jaunty. 

"Well, the war's on, " he announced. "The I. F. A. W. 's walking out on thewhole plant, at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow. "

"In violation of the Federal Labor Act, Section Eight, paragraphs fourand five, " Melroy supplemented. "Crandall really has stuck his neck inthe guillotine. What's Washington doing?"

"President Hartley is ordering Navy personnel flown in fromKennebunkport Reaction Lab; they will be here by about oh-three-hundredtomorrow. And a couple of Federal mediators are coming in to La Guardiaat seventeen hundred; they're going to hold preliminary hearings at thenew Federal Building on Washington Square beginning twenty hundred. Acouple of I. F. A. W. Negotiators are coming in from the national unionheadquarters at Oak Ridge: they should be getting in about the sametime. You'd better be on hand, and have Dr. Rives there with you. There's a good chance this thing may get cleared up in a day or so. "

"I will undoubtedly be there, complete with Dr. Rives, " Melroy replied. "It will be a pleasure!"

 * * * * *

An hour later, Ben Puryear called from the reactor area, his voicestrained with anger. 

"Scott, do you know what those--" He gargled obscenities for a moment. "You know what they've done? They've re-packed the Number OneDoernberg-Giardano; got a chain-reaction started again. "

"Who?"

"Fred Hausinger's gang. Apparently at Harry Crandall's orders. Theexcuse was that it would be unsafe to leave the reactor in itsdismantled condition during a prolonged shutdown--they were assuming, Isuppose, that the strike would be allowed to proceed unopposed--but ofcourse the real reason was that they wanted to get a chain-reactionstarted to keep our people from working on the reactor. "

"Well, didn't Hausinger try to stop them?"

"Not very hard. I asked him what he had that deputy marshal's badge onhis shirt and that Luger on his hip for, but he said he had orders notto use force, for fear of prejudicing the mediators. "

Melroy swore disgustedly. "All right. Gather up all our private papers, and get Steve and Joe, and come on out. We only work here--when we'reable. "

 * * * * *

Doris Rives was waiting on the street level when Melroy reached the newFederal Building, in what had formerly been the Greenwich Villagedistrict of Manhattan, that evening. She had a heavy brief case withher, which he took. 

"I was afraid I'd keep you waiting, " she said. "I came down from thehotel by cab, and there was a frightful jam at Fortieth Street, andanother one just below Madison Square. "

"Yes, it gets worse every year. Pardon my obsession, but nine times outof ten--ninety-nine out of a hundred--it's the fault of some fool doingsomething stupid. Speaking about doing stupid things, though--I did one. Forgot to take that gun out of my overcoat pocket, and didn't noticethat I had it till I was on the subway, coming in. Have a big flashlightin the other pocket, but that doesn't matter. What I'm worried about isthat somebody'll find out I have a gun and raise a howl about my comingarmed to a mediation hearing. "

The hearing was to be held in one of the big conference rooms on theforty-second floor. Melroy was careful to remove his overcoat and lay iton a table in the corner, and then help Doris off with hers and lay iton top of his own. There were three men in the room when they arrived:Kenneth Leighton, the Atomic Power Authority man, fiftyish, acquiring awaistline bulge and losing his hair: a Mr. Lyons, tall and slender, withwhite hair; and a Mr. Quillen, considerably younger, with plastic-rimmedglasses. The latter two were the Federal mediators. All three had beenlounging in arm-chairs, talking about the new plays on Broadway. Theyall rose when Melroy and Doris Rives came over to join them. 

"We mustn't discuss business until the others get here, " Leightonwarned. "It's bad enough that all three of us got here ahead of them;they'll be sure to think we're trying to take an unfair advantage ofthem. I suppose neither of you have had time to see any of the newplays. "

Fortunately, Doris and Melroy had gone to the theater after dinner, theevening-before-last; they were able to join the conversation. Young Mr. Quillen wanted Doris Rives' opinion, as a psychologist, of the mentalprocesses of the heroine of the play they had seen; as nearly as shecould determine, Doris replied, the heroine in question had exhibitednothing even loosely describable as mental processes of any sort. Theywere still on the subject when the two labor negotiators, Mr. Cronninand Mr. Fields, arrived. Cronnin was in his sixties, with thenearsighted squint and compressed look of concentration of an old-timeprecision machinist; Fields was much younger, and sported a Phi BetaKappa key. 

Lyons, who seemed to be the senior mediator, thereupon called themeeting to order and they took their places at the table. 

 * * * * *

"Now, gentlemen--and Dr. Rives--this will be simply an informaldiscussion, so that everybody can see what everybody else's position inthe matter is. We won't bother to make a sound recording. Then, if wehave managed to reach some common understanding of the question thisevening, we can start the regular hearing say at thirteen hundredtomorrow. Is that agreeable?"

It was. The younger mediator, Quillen, cleared his throat. 

"It seems, from our information, that this entire dispute arises fromthe discharge, by Mr. Melroy, of two of his employees, named Koffler andBurris. Is that correct?"

"Well, there's also the question of the Melroy Engineering Corporation'sattempting to use strike-breakers, and the Long Island Atomic PowerAuthority's having condoned this unfair employment practice, " Cronninsaid, acidly. 

"And there's also the question of the I. F. A. W. 's calling a Pearl Harborstrike on my company, " Melroy added. 

"We resent that characterization!" Cronnin retorted. 

"It's a term in common usage; it denotes a strike called without warningor declaration of intention, which this was, " Melroy told him. 

"And there's also the question of the I. F. A. W. Calling a general strike, in illegal manner, at the Long Island Reaction Plant, " Leighton spokeup. "On sixteen hours' notice. "

"Well, that wasn't the fault of the I. F. A. W. As an organization, " Fieldsargued. "Mr. Cronnin and I are agreed that the walk-out date should bepostponed for two weeks, in accordance with the provisions of theFederal Labor Act. "

"Well, how about my company?" Melroy wanted to know. "Your I. F. A. W. Members walked out on me, without any notice whatever, at twelve hundredtoday. Am I to consider that an act of your union, or will you disavowit so that I can fire all of them for quitting without permission?"

"And how about the action of members of your union, acting oninstructions from Harry Crandall, in re-packing the Number OneDoernberg-Giardano breeder-reactor at our plant, after the plutonium andthe U-238 and the neutron-source containers had been removed, in orderto re-initiate a chain reaction to prevent Mr. Melroy's employees fromworking on the reactor?" Leighton demanded. "Am I to understand that theunion sustains that action, too?"

"I hadn't known about that, " Fields said, somewhat startled. 

"Neither had I, " Cronnin added. "When did it happen?"

"About sixteen hundred today, " Melroy told him. 

"We were on the plane from Oak Ridge, then, " Fields declared. "We knownothing about that. "

"Well, are you going to take the responsibility for it, or aren't you?"Leighton insisted. 

Lyons, who had been toying with a small metal paperweight, rapped on thetable with it. 

"Gentlemen, " he interrupted. "We're trying to cover too many subjects atonce. I suggest that we confine ourselves, at the beginning, to thequestion of the dismissal of these men, Burris and Koffler. If we findthat the I. F. A. W. Has a legitimate grievance in what we may call theBurris-Koffler question, we can settle that and then go on to theseother questions. "

"I'm agreeable to that, " Melroy said. 

"So are we, " Cronnin nodded. 

"All right, then. Since the I. F. A. W. Is the complaining party in thisquestion, perhaps you gentlemen should state the grounds for yourcomplaints. "

Fields and Cronnin exchanged glances: Cronnin nodded to Fields and thelatter rose. The two employees in question, he stated, had been thevictims of discrimination and persecution because of union activities. Koffler was the union shop-steward for the men employed by the MelroyEngineering Corporation, and Burris had been active in bringingcomplaints about unfair employment practices. Furthermore, it was theopinion of the I. F. A. W. That the psychological tests imposed on theirmembers had been a fraudulent pretext for dismissing these two men, and, in any case, the practice of compelling workers to submit to such testswas insulting, degrading, and not a customary condition of employment. 

With that, he sat down. Melroy was on his feet at once. 

"I'll deny those statements, categorically and seriatim, " he replied. "They are based entirely upon misrepresentations made by the two men whowere disqualified by the tests and dropped from my payroll because ofbeing, in the words of my contract with your union, 'persons of unsoundmind, deficient intelligence and/or emotional instability. ' Whathappened is that your local official, Crandall, accepted everything theytold him uncritically, and you accepted everything Crandall told you, inthe same spirit. 

"Before I go on, " Melroy continued, turning to Lyons, "have I yourpermission to let Dr. Rives explain about these tests, herself, and tellhow they were given and evaluated?"

 * * * * *

Permission granted by Lyons, Doris Rives rose. At some length, sheexplained the nature and purpose of the tests, and her method of scoringand correlating them. 

"Well, did Mr. Melroy suggest to you that any specific employee oremployees of his were undesirable and ought to be eliminated?" Fieldsasked. 

"Certainly not!" Doris Rives became angry. "And if he had, I'd havetaken the first plane out of here. That suggestion is insulting! And foryour information, I never met Mr. Melroy before day-before-yesterdayafternoon; I am not dependent upon him for anything; I took this job asan accommodation to Dr. Karl von Heydenreich, who ordinarily does suchwork for the Melroy company, and I'm losing money by remaining here. Does that satisfy you?"

"Yes, it does, " Fields admitted. He was obviously impressed by mentionof the distinguished Austrian psychologist's name. "If I may ask Mr. Melroy a question: I gather that these tests are given to all youremployees. Why do you demand such an extraordinary level of intelligencefrom your employees, even common laborers?"

"Extraordinary?" Melroy echoed. "If the standards established by thosetests are extraordinary, then God help this country; we are becoming arace of morons! I'll leave that statement to Dr. Rives for confirmation;she's already pointed out that all that is required to pass those testsis ordinary adult mental capacity. 

"My company specializes in cybernetic-control systems, " he continued. "In spite of a lot of misleading colloquial jargon about 'thinkingmachines' and 'giant brains', a cybernetic system doesn't really think. It only does what it's been designed _and built_ to do, and if somebodybuilds a mistake into it, it will automatically and infallibly repeatthat mistake in practice. "

"He's right, " Cronnin said. "The men that build a machine like that havegot to be as smart as the machine's supposed to be, or the machine'll beas dumb as they are. "

Fields turned on him angrily. "Which side are you supposed to be on, anyhow?" he demanded. 

"You're probably a lawyer, " Melroy said. "But I'll bet Mr. Cronnin's anold reaction-plant man. " Cronnin nodded unthinkingly in confirmation. "All right, then. Ask him what those Doernberg-Giardanos are like. Andthen let me ask you: Suppose some moron fixed up something that would gowrong, or made the wrong kind of a mistake himself, around one of thosereactors?"

It was purely a rhetorical question, but, much later, when he would havetime to think about it, Scott Melroy was to wonder if ever in historysuch a question had been answered so promptly and with such dramaticcalamitousness. 

Three seconds after he stopped speaking, the lights went out. 

 * * * * *

For a moment, they were silent and motionless. Then somebody across thetable from Melroy began to say, "What the devil--?" Doris Rives, besidehim, clutched his arm. At the head of the table, Lyons was fumingimpatiently, and Kenneth Leighton snapped a pocket-lighter and held itup. 

The Venetian-screened windows across the room faced east. In the flickerof the lighter, Melroy made his way around to them and drew open theslats of one, looking out. Except for the headlights of cars, far downin the street, and the lights of ships in the harbor, the city wascompletely blacked out. But there was one other, horrible, light faraway at the distant tip of Long Island--a huge ball of flame, floatingupward at the tip of a column of fiery gas. As he watched, there weretwinkles of unbearable brightness at the base of the pillar of fire, spreading into awesome sheet-flashes, and other fireballs soared up. Then the sound and the shock-wave of the first blast reached them. 

"The main power-reactors, too, " Melroy said to himself, not realizingthat he spoke audibly. "Too well shielded for the blast to get them, butthe heat melted the fissionables down to critical mass. "

Leighton, the lighter still burning, was beside him, now. 

"That's not--God, it can't be anything else! Why, the whole plant'sgone! There aren't enough other generators in this area to handle ahundredth of the demand. "

"And don't blame that on my alleged strike-breakers, " Melroy warned. "They hadn't got security-cleared to enter the reactor area when thishappened. "

"What do you think happened?" Cronnin asked. "One of theDoernberg-Giardanos let go?"

"Yes. Your man Crandall. If he survived that, it's his bad luck, " Melroysaid grimly. "Last night, while Fred Hausinger was pulling thefissionables and radioactives out of the Number One breeder, he found abig nugget of Pu-239, about one-quarter CM. I don't know what was donewith it, but I do know that Crandall had the maintenance gang repackthat reactor, to keep my people from working on it. Nobody'll ever findout just what happened, but they were in a hurry; they probably shovedthings in any old way. Somehow, that big subcritical nugget must havegot back in, and the breeding-cans, which were pretty ripe by that time, must have been shoved in too close to it and to one another. You knowhow fast those D-G's work. It just took this long to build up CM for abomb-type reaction. You remember what I was saying before the lightswent out? Well, it happened. Some moron--some untested and undetectedmoron--made the wrong kind of a mistake. "

"Too bad about Crandall. He was a good kid, only he didn't stop to thinkoften enough, " Cronnin said. "Well, I guess the strike's off, now;that's one thing. "

"But all those people, out there!" Womanlike, Doris Rives was thinkingparticularly rather than generally and of humans rather thanabstractions. "It must have killed everybody for miles around. "

Sid Keating, Melroy thought. And Joe Ricci, and Ben Puryear, and SteveChalmers, and all the workmen whom he had brought here from Pittsburgh, to their death. Then he stopped thinking about them. It didn't do anygood to think of men who'd been killed; he'd learned that years ago, asa kid second lieutenant in Korea. The people to think about were themillions in Greater New York, and up the Hudson Valley to Albany, and asfar south as Trenton, caught without light in the darkness, without heatin the dead of winter, without power in subways and skyscrapers and onrailroads and interurban lines. 

He turned to the woman beside him. 

"Doris, before you could get your Board of Psychiatry and Neurologydiploma, you had to qualify as a regular M. D. , didn't you?" he asked. 

"Why, yes--"

"Then you'd better report to the nearest hospital. Any doctor at all isgoing to be desperately needed, for the next day or so. Me, I still havea reserve major's commission in the Army Corps of Engineers. They'reprobably calling up reserve officers, with any radios that are stillworking. Until I hear differently, I'm ordering myself on active duty asof now. " He looked around. "Anybody know where the nearest Armyheadquarters is?"

"There's a recruiting station down on the thirty-something floor, "Quillen said. "It's probably closed, now, though. "

"Ground Defense Command; Midtown City, " Leighton said. "They have amedical section of their own; they'll be glad to get Dr. Rives, too. "

Melroy helped her on with her coat and handed her her handbag, thenshrugged into his own overcoat and belted it about him, the weight ofthe flashlight and the automatic sagging the pockets. He'd need both, the gun as much as the light--New York had more than its share ofvicious criminals, to whom this power-failure would be a perfectdevilsend. Handing Doris the light, he let her take his left arm. Together, they left the room and went down the hallway to the stairs andthe long walk to the darkened street below, into a city that hadsuddenly been cut off from its very life-energy. A city that had put allits eggs in one basket, and left the basket in the path of anyblundering foot. 

THE END