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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18949-8.txt b/18949-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d36443 --- /dev/null +++ b/18949-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1771 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Day of the Moron, by Henry Beam Piper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Day of the Moron + +Author: Henry Beam Piper + +Release Date: July 31, 2006 [EBook #18949] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAY OF THE MORON *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + DAY OF THE MORON + + BY H. BEAM PIPER + +[Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science +Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + + + +_It's natural to trust the unproven word of the fellow who's "on my +side"--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 the +mighty, leashed forces Man employs now...._ + + + + +There were still, in 1968, a few people who were afraid of the nuclear +power plant. Oldsters, in whom the term "atomic energy" produced +semantic reactions associated with Hiroshima. Those who saw, in the +towering steam-column above it, a tempting target for enemy--which still +meant Soviet--bombers and guided missiles. Some of the Central +Intelligence and F.B.I. people, who realized how futile even the most +elaborate security measures were against a resourceful and suicidally +determined saboteur. And a minority of engineers and nuclear physicists +who remained unpersuaded that accidental blowups at nuclear-reaction +plants were impossible. + +Scott Melroy was among these last. He knew, as a matter of fact, that +there had been several nasty, meticulously unpublicized, +near-catastrophes at the Long Island Nuclear Reaction Plant, all +involving the new Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactors, and that there +had been considerable carefully-hushed top-level acrimony before the +Melroy Engineering Corporation had been given the contract to install +the fully cybernetic control system intended to prevent a recurrence of +such incidents. + +That had been three months ago. Melroy and his people had moved in, been +assigned sections of a couple of machine shops, set up an assembly shop +and a set of plyboard-partitioned offices in a vacant warehouse just +outside the reactor area, and tried to start work, only to run into the +almost interminable procedural disputes and jurisdictional wranglings of +the sort which he privately labeled "bureau bunk". It was only now that +he was ready to begin work on the reactors. + +He sat at his desk, in the inner of three successively smaller offices +on the second floor of the converted warehouse, checking over a +symbolic-logic analysis of a relay system and, at the same time, +sharpening a pencil, his knife paring off tiny feathery shavings of +wood. He was a tall, sparely-built, man of indeterminate age, with +thinning 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 shabby +leather jacket, to the left shoulder of which a few clinging flecks of +paint showed where some military emblem had been, long ago. While his +fingers worked with the jackknife and his eyes traveled over the page of +closely-written symbols, his mind was reviewing the eight different ways +in which one of the efficient but treacherous Doernberg-Giardano +reactors could be allowed to reach critical mass, and he was wondering +if there might not be some unsuspected ninth way. That was a possibility +which always lurked in the back of his mind, and lately it had been +giving him surrealistic nightmares. + +"Mr. Melroy!" the box on the desk in front of him said suddenly, in a +feminine 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 told +him 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 had +been a hint of suppressed amusement in his secretary's voice. Then the +door opened and he stopped wondering. Dr. Rives wasn't a him; she was a +her. Very attractive looking her, too--dark hair and eyes, rather +long-oval features, clear, lightly tanned complexion, bright red +lipstick put on with a micrometric exactitude that any engineer could +appreciate. She was tall, within four inches of his own six-foot mark, +and she wore a black tailored outfit, perfectly plain, which had +probably cost around five hundred dollars and would have looked severe +and mannish except that the figure under it curved and bulged in just +the right places and to just the right degree. + +Melroy rose, laying down knife and pencil and taking his pipe out of his +mouth. + +"Good afternoon," he greeted. "Dr. von Heydenreich gave me quite a +favorable account of you--as far as it went. He might have included a +few 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," she +suggested. "Suppose I'd been an Englishman with a name like Evelyn or +Vivian?" + +Melroy tried to visualize her as a male Englishman named Vivian, gave +up, and grinned at her. + +"Let this be a lesson," he said. "Inferences are to be drawn from +objects, or descriptions of objects; never from verbal labels. Do you +initial your first name just to see how people react when they meet +you?" + +"Well, no, though that's an amusing and sometimes instructive +by-product. It started when I began contributing to some of the +professional journals. There's still a little of what used to be called +male sex-chauvinism among my colleagues, and some who would be favorably +impressed with an article signed D. Warren Rives might snort in contempt +at the same article signed Doris Rives." + +"Well, fortunately, Dr. von Heydenreich isn't one of those," Melroy +said. "How is the Herr Doktor, by the way, and just what happened to +him? Miss Kourtakides merely told me that he'd been injured and was in a +hospital in Pittsburgh." + +"The Herr Doktor got shot," Doris Rives informed him. "With a charge of +BB'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 a +turkey. Nothing really serious, but he's face down in bed, cursing +hideously in German, English, Russian, Italian and French, mainly +because he's missing deer hunting." + +"I might have known it," Melroy said in disgust. "The ubiquitous +lame-brain with a dangerous mechanism.... I suppose he briefed you on +what I want done, here?" + +"Well, not too completely. I gathered that you want me to give +intelligence tests, or aptitude tests, or something of the sort, to some +of your employees. I'm not really one of these so-called industrial +anthropologists," she explained. "Most of my work, for the past few +years, has been for public-welfare organizations, with subnormal +persons. I told him that, and he said that was why he selected me. He +said one other thing. He said, 'I used to think Melroy had an obsession +about fools; well, after stopping this load of shot, I'm beginning to +think it's a good subject to be obsessed about.'" + +Melroy nodded. "'Obsession' will probably do. 'Phobia' would be more +exact. I'm afraid of fools, and the chance that I have one working for +me, here, affects me like having a cobra crawling around my bedroom in +the dark. I want you to locate any who might be in a gang of new men +I'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 to +Democrats, and vice versa." + +"Well, I apply it to people who do things without considering possible +consequences. People who pepper distinguished Austrian psychologists in +the pants-seat with turkey-shot, for a starter. Or people who push +buttons to see what'll happen, or turn valves and twiddle with +dial-knobs because they have nothing else to do with their hands. Or +shoot insulators off power lines to see if they can hit them. People who +don't know it's loaded. People who think warning signs are purely +ornamental. People who play practical jokes. People who--" + +"I know what you mean. Just day-before-yesterday, I saw a woman toss a +cocktail into an electric heater. She didn't want to drink it, and she +thought it would just go up in steam. The result was slightly +spectacular." + +"Next time, she won't do that. She'll probably throw her drink into a +lead-ladle, if there's one around. Well, on a statistical basis, I'd +judge that I have three or four such dud rounds among this new gang I've +hired. I want you to put the finger on them, so I can bounce them before +they 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 speaking +of has an I.Q. well inside the meaning of normal intelligence. She just +doesn'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 five +years ago. The intelligence test is based on the new French Sūreté test +for mentally deficient criminals. Then there's a memory test, and tests +for judgment and discrimination, semantic reactions, temperamental and +emotional makeup, and general mental attitude." + +She took the folder and leafed through it. "Yes, I see. I always liked +this 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 these +memory-course boys trying to make visual images of six pairs of Don +Alfonso tweezers. And I'm going to make a copy of this word-association +list. It's really a semantic reaction test; Korzybski would have loved +it. And, of course, our old friend, the Rorschach Ink-Blots. I've always +harbored the impious suspicion that you can prove almost anything you +want to with that. But these question-suggestions for personal interview +are really crafty. Did Heydenreich get them up himself?" + +"Yes. And we have stacks and stacks of printed forms for the written +portion of the test, and big cards to summarize each subject on. And we +have a disk-recorder to use in the oral tests. There'll have to be a +pretty 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 and +commenting blasphemously on the weather. He advanced into the room until +he saw the woman in the chair beside the desk, and then started to back +out. + +"Come on in, Sid," Melroy told him. "Dr. Rives, this is our general +foreman, Sid Keating. Sid, Dr. Rives, the new dimwit detector. Sid's in +direct charge of personnel," he continued, "so you two'll be working +together 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'm +afraid we'll have trouble, then." + +"Look, Sid," Melroy said. "We've been all over that. Once we start work +on the reactors, you and Ned Puryear and Joe Ricci and Steve Chalmers +can't be everywhere at once. A cybernetic system will only do what it's +been assembled to do, and if some quarter-wit assembles one of these +things wrong--" He left the sentence dangling; both men knew what he +meant. + +Keating shook his head. "This union's going to bawl like a branded calf +about it," he predicted. "And if any of the dear sirs and brothers get +washed 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, faintly +scandalized. + +"Neither can I, and they probably won't either," Keating told her. "But +they'll go ahead and do it. Why, Scott, they're pulling the Number One +Doernberg-Giardano, tonight. By oh-eight-hundred, it ought to be cool +enough to work on. Where will we hold the tests? Here?" + +"We'll have to, unless we can get Dr. Rives security-cleared." Melroy +turned to her. "Were you ever security-cleared by any Government +agency?" + +"Oh, yes. I was with Armed Forces Medical, Psychiatric Division, in +Indonesia in '62 and '63, and I did some work with mental fatigue cases +at 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. "Take +them in relays. I'll talk to Ben about it, and we'll work up some kind +of 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't +try to make you carry a pistol, too." + +"A pistol?" For a moment, she must have thought he was using some +technical-jargon term, and then it dawned on her that he wasn't. "You +mean--?" She cocked her thumb and crooked her index finger. + +"Yeah. A rod. Roscoe. The Equalizer. We all have to." He half-lifted one +out of his side pocket. "We're all United States deputy marshals. They +don't bother much with counterespionage, here, but they don't fool when +it comes to countersabotage. Well, I'll get an order cut and posted. Be +seeing 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 about +fifty of my own men, from Pittsburgh, here, but they can't work on the +reactors because they don't belong to the Industrial Federation of +Atomic Workers, and I can't just pay their initiation fees and union +dues and get union cards for them, because admission to this union is on +an annual quota basis, and this is December, and the quota's full. So I +have to use them outside the reactor area, on fabrication and assembly +work. And I have to hire through the union, and that's handled on a +membership 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 written +into my contract. + +"Now, here's what's going to happen. Most of the men'll take the test +without protest, but a few of them'll raise the roof about it. Nothing +burns a moron worse than to have somebody question his fractional +intelligence. The odds are that the ones that yell the loudest about +taking the test will be the ones who get scrubbed out, and when the test +shows that they're deficient, they won't believe it. A moron simply +cannot conceive of his being anything less than perfectly intelligent, +any more than a lunatic can conceive of his being less than perfectly +sane. 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 the +local level. That goes without saying. In any dispute, the employer is +always wrong and the worker is always right, until proven otherwise. And +that 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?" she +asked. + +"Experienced, yes. That is, none of them has ever been caught doing +anything downright calamitous ... yet," Melroy replied. "The moron I'm +afraid of can go on for years, doing routine work under supervision, and +nothing'll happen. Then, some day, he does something on his own +lame-brained initiative, and when he does, it's only at the whim of +whatever gods there be that the result isn't a wholesale catastrophe. +And people like that are the most serious threat facing our civilization +today, 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. But +look at this plant, here. It generates every kilowatt of current used +between 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 minimum +load, it's been the only source of electric current here since 1962, +when the last coal-burning power plant was dismantled. Knock this plant +out and you darken every house and office and factory and street in the +area. You immobilize the elevators--think what that would mean in lower +and midtown Manhattan alone. And the subways. And the new endless-belt +conveyors that handle eighty per cent of the city's freight traffic. And +the railroads--there aren't a dozen steam or Diesel locomotives left in +the 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, you +can't imagine what it'd be like. It's too gigantic. But what you can +imagine would be a nightmare. + +"You know, it wasn't so long ago, when every home lighted and heated +itself, and every little industry was a self-contained unit, that a fool +couldn't do great damage unless he inherited a throne or was placed in +command of an army, and that didn't happen nearly as often as our +leftist social historians would like us to think. But today, everything +we depend upon is centralized, and vulnerable to blunder-damage. Even +our food--remember that poisoned soft-drink horror in Chicago, in 1963; +three thousand hospitalized and six hundred dead because of one man's +stupid mistake at a bottling plant." He shook himself slightly, as +though to throw off some shadow that had fallen over him, and looked at +his 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 Midtown +City hotel, on Forty-seventh Street: I had my luggage sent on there from +the airport and came out on the Long Island subway." + +"Fine. I have a room at Midtown City, myself, though I sleep here about +half the time." He nodded toward a door on the left. "Suppose we go in +and have dinner together. This cafeteria, here, is a horrible place. +It's run by a dietitian instead of a chef, and everything's so +white-enamel antiseptic that I swear I smell belladonna-icthyol ointment +every time I go in the place. Wait here till I change clothes." + + * * * * * + +At the Long Island plant, no one was concerned about espionage--neither +the processes nor the equipment used there were secret--but the +countersabotage security was fantastically thorough. Every person or +scrap of material entering the reactor area was searched; the +life-history of every man and woman employed there was known back to the +cradle. A broad highway encircled it outside the fence, patrolled night +and day by twenty General Stuart cavalry-tanks. There were a thousand +soldiers, and three hundred Atomic Power Authority police, and only God +knew how many F.B.I, and Central Intelligence undercover agents. Every +supervisor and inspector and salaried technician was an armed United +States deputy marshal. And nobody, outside the Department of Defense, +knew how much radar and counter-rocket and fighter protection the place +had, but the air-defense zone extended from Boston to Philadelphia and +as far inland as Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. + +The Long Island Nuclear Power Plant, Melroy thought, had all the +invulnerability of Achilles--and no more. + +The six new Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactors clustered in a circle +inside a windowless concrete building at the center of the plant. Beside +their primary purpose of plutonium production, they furnished heat for +the sea-water distillation and chemical extraction system, processing +the water that was run through the steam boilers at the main power +reactors, condensed, redistilled, and finally pumped, pure, into the +water mains of New York. Safe outside the shielding, in a corner of a +high-ceilinged room, was the plyboard-screened on-the-job office of the +Melroy Engineering Corporation's timekeepers and foremen. Beyond, along +the far wall, were the washroom and locker room and lunch room of the +workmen. + +Sixty or seventy men, mostly in white coveralls and all wearing +identification badges and carrying dosimeters in their breast pockets +and midget Geigers strapped to their wrists, were crowded about the +bulletin-board in front of the makeshift office. There was a hum of +voices--some perplexed or angry, but mostly good-humored and bantering. +As Melroy and Doris Rives approached, the talking died out and the men +turned. 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 hush +him. The bellicose voice continued, and Melroy spotted the +speaker--short, thick-set, his arms jutting out at an angle from his +body, his heavy features soured with anger. + +"Like we was a lotta halfwits, 'r nuts, 'r some'n! Well, we don't hafta +stand for this. They ain't got no right--" + +Doris Rives clung tighter to Melroy's arm as he pushed a way for himself +and her through the crowd and into the temporary office. Inside, they +were met by a young man with a deputy marshal's badge on his flannel +shirt and a .38 revolver on his hip. + +"Ben Puryear: Dr. Rives," Melroy introduced. "Who's the mouthy character +outside?" + +"One of the roustabouts; name's Burris," Puryear replied. "Wash-room +lawyer." + +Melroy nodded. "You always get one or two like that. How're the rest +taking it?" + +Puryear shrugged. "About how you'd expect. A lot of kidding about who's +got any intelligence to test. Burris seems to be the only one who's +trying to make an issue out of it." + +"Well, what are they doing ganged up here?" Melroy wanted to know. "It's +past 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 test +together, and start the personal interviews and oral tests as soon as +they're through." He turned to Doris Rives. "Can you give all of them +the written test together?" he asked. "And can Ben help +you--distributing forms, timing the test, seeing that there's no +fudging, 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 the +interview subject." + +"Right over here, doctor." Puryear said. "And here are the forms and +cards, and the sound-recorder, and blank sound disks." + +"Yes," Melroy added. "Be sure you get a recording of every interview and +oral 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 a +protuberant Adam's apple; beside his identity badge, he wore a two-inch +celluloid 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 newcomer +shook his head, twisting his mouth into a smirk. + +"Not that one; the one with the whisper mouthpiece," he said. "This is +private union business." + + * * * * * + +Melroy shrugged and indicated another phone. The man with the union +steward's badge picked it up, dialed, and held a lengthy conversation +into it, turning his head away in case Melroy might happen to be a lip +reader. Finally he turned. + +"Mr. Crandall wants to talk to you," he said, grinning triumphantly, the +phone extended to Melroy. + +The engineer picked up another phone, snapping a button on the base of +it. + +"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 of +the 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 in +your 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 anything +against his will. If anybody objects to taking these tests, he can say +so, 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 these +men want to keep their jobs they'll have to take this test." + +"Well, that's stated more or less correctly," Melroy conceded. "Let's +just put it that taking--and passing--this test is a condition of +employment. My contract with your union recognizes my right to establish +standards of intelligence; that's implied by my recognized right to +dismiss any person of 'unsound mind, deficient mentality or emotional +instability.' Psychological testing is the only means of determining +whether or not a person is classifiable in those terms." + +"Then, in case the test purports to show that one of these men is, let's +say, 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 have +to insist on reviewing the grounds for dismissal." + +"My contract with your union says nothing whatever about any right of +review being reserved by the union in such cases. Only in cases of +disciplinary dismissal, which this is not. I take the position that +certain minimum standards of intelligence and mental stability are +essentials in this sort of work, just as, say, certain minimum standards +of literacy are essential in clerical work." + +"Then you're going to make these men take these tests, whatever they +are?" + +"If they want to work for me, yes. And anybody who fails to pass them +will be dropped from my payroll." + +"And who's going to decide whether or not these men have successfully +passed these tests?" Crandall asked. "You?" + +"Good Lord, no! I'm an electronics engineer, not a psychologist. The +tests are being given, and will be evaluated, by a graduate +psychologist, Dr. D. Warren Rives, who has a diploma from the American +Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a member of the American +Psychological Association. Dr. Rives will be the final arbiter on who is +or 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, she +is an extremely competent psychologist, however. She came to me most +highly recommended by Dr. Karl von Heydenreich, who is not inclined to +be careless with his recommendations." + +"Well, Mr. Melroy, we don't want any more trouble with you than we have +to have," Crandall told him, "but we will insist on reviewing any +dismissals which occur as a result of these tests." + +"You can do that. I'd advise, first, that you read over the contract you +signed with me. Get a qualified lawyer to tell you what we've agreed to +and what we haven't. Was there anything else you wanted to talk +about?... No?... Then good morning, Mr. Crandall." + +He hung up. "All right; let's get on with it," he said. "Ben, you get +them into the lunch room; there are enough tables and benches in there +for everybody to take the written test in two relays." + +"The union's gotta be represented while these tests is going on," the +union steward announced. "Mr. Crandall says I'm to stay here an' watch +what 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 the +written test, and gets first turn for the orals. That way he can spend +the rest of his time on duty here for the union, and will know in +advance what the test is like." He turned to Koffler. "But understand +this. You keep your mouth out of it. If you see anything that looks +objectionable, 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 for +a while, then picked up a big flashlight and dropped it into his +overcoat pocket, preparatory to going out to inspect some equipment that +had been assembled outside the reactor area and brought in. As he went +out, Koffler was straddling a chair, glowering at Doris Rives and making +occasional 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 the +temporary office, the oral testing was still going on; Koffler was still +on duty as watcher for the union, but the sport had evidently palled on +him, for he was now studying a comic book. + +Melroy left the reactor area and returned to the office in the converted +area. During the midafternoon, somebody named Leighton called him from +the Atomic Power Authority executive office, wanting to know what was +the trouble between him and the I.F.A.W. and saying that a protest +against his alleged high-handed and arbitrary conduct had been received +from the union. + +Melroy explained, at length. He finished: "You people have twenty Stuart +tanks, and a couple of thousand soldiers and cops and undercover-men, +here, guarding against sabotage. Don't you realize that a workman who +makes stupid or careless or impulsive mistakes is just as dangerous to +the plant as any saboteur? If somebody shoots you through the head, it +doesn't matter whether he planned to murder you for a year or just +didn't know the gun was loaded; you're as dead one way as the other. I +should think you'd thank me for trying to eliminate a serious source of +danger." + +"Now, don't misunderstand my position, Mr. Melroy," the other man +hastened to say. "I sympathize with your attitude, entirely. But these +people are going to make trouble." + +"If they do, it'll be my trouble. I'm under contract to install this +cybernetic 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 of +personnel, here; that makes me his top-priority target, all the time." + +"Well, what sort of a character is he, anyhow? When I contracted with +the I.F.A.W., my lawyer and their lawyer handled everything; I never +even met him." + +"Well--He has his job to do, the same as I have," Leighton said. "He +does it conscientiously. But it's like this--anything a workman tells +him 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. And +he goes off half-cocked a lot of times. He doesn't stop to analyze +situations very closely." + +"That's what I was afraid of. Well, you tell him you don't have any +control 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 the +tests and interviews completed," she said. "I'll have to evaluate the +results, 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 you +from 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 hundred +REM's--and the temperature's away up, too. That isn't lingering +radiation; that's prompt radiation." + +"Radioactivity hasn't dropped since morning; I'd think so, too," Melroy +said. "What are they getting on the breakdown counter?" + +"Mostly neutrons and alpha-particles. I talked to Fred Hausinger, the +maintenance boss; he doesn't like it, either." + +"Well, I'm no nuclear physicist," Melroy disclaimed, "but all that alpha +stuff looks like a big chunk of Pu-239 left inside. What's Fred doing +about it?" + +"Oh, poking around inside the reactor with telemetered scanners and +remote-control equipment. When I left, he had a gang pulling out +graphite blocks with RC-tongs. We probably won't get a chance to work on +it much before thirteen-hundred tomorrow." He unzipped a bulky brief +case he had brought in under his arm and dumped papers onto his desk. "I +still have this stuff to get straightened out, too." + +"Had anything to eat? Then call the cafeteria and have them send up +three dinners. Dr. Rives is eating here, too. Find out what she wants; I +want 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 the +door. Melroy could hear a recording of somebody being given a +word-association test. + +Half an hour later, when the food arrived, they spread their table on a +relatively clear desk in the middle office. Doris Rives had finished +evaluating the completed tests; after dinner, she intended going over +the 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. "Harvey +Burris and Julius Koffler." + +"Oh, _no_!" Keating wailed. "The I.F.A.W. steward, and the +loudest-mouthed I-know-my-rights boy on the job!" + +"Well, wasn't that to be expected?" Melroy asked. "If you'd seen the act +those two put on--" + +"They're both inherently stupid, infantile, and deficient in reasoning +ability and judgment," Doris said. "Koffler is a typical adolescent +problem-child show-off type, and Burris is an almost perfect +twelve-year-old schoolyard bully. They both have inferiority complexes +long enough to step on. If the purpose of this test is what I'm led to +believe it is, I can't, in professional good conscience, recommend +anything but that you get rid of both of them." + +"What Bob's getting at is that they're the very ones who can claim, with +the best show of plausibility, that the test is just a pretext to fire +them 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. Then +they'll have company," Keating suggested. + +"No, I can't do that." Doris was firm on the point. "The written part of +the test was solely for ability to reason logically. Just among the +three of us, I know some university professors who'd flunk on that. But +if the rest of the tests show stability, sense of responsibility, good +judgment, and a tendency to think before acting, the subject can be +classified as a safe and reliable workman." + +"Well, then, let's don't say anything till we have the tests all +finished," Keating proposed. + +"No!" Melroy cried. "Every minute those two are on the job, there's a +chance they may do something disastrous. I'll fire them at +oh-eight-hundred tomorrow." + +"All right," Keating shook his head. "I only work here. But don't say I +didn'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, who +accused him of having used the psychological tests as a fraudulent +pretext for discharging Koffler and Burris for union activities. When +Melroy rejected his demand that the two men be reinstated, Crandall +demanded to see the records of the tests. + +"They're here at my office," Melroy told him. "You're welcome to look at +them, and hear recordings of the oral portions of the tests. But I'd +advise you to bring a professional psychologist along, because unless +you're a trained psychologist yourself, they're not likely to mean much +to you." + +"Oh, sure!" Crandall retorted. "They'd have to be unintelligible to +ordinary 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, the +Atomic Power Authority man. + +"We're much disturbed about this dispute between your company and the +I.F.A.W.," he began. + +"Well, frankly, so am I," Melroy admitted. "I'm here to do a job, not +play Hatfields and McCoys with this union. I've had union trouble +before, and it isn't fun. You're the gentleman who called me last +evening, aren't you? Then you understand my position in the matter." + +"Certainly, Mr. Melroy. I was talking to Colonel Bradshaw, the security +officer, last evening. He agrees that a stupid or careless workman is, +under some circumstances, a more serious threat to security than any +saboteur. And we realize fully how dangerous those Doernberg-Giardanos +are, and how much more dangerous they'd be if these cybernetic controls +were improperly assembled. But this man Crandall is talking about +calling a strike." + +"Well, let him. In the first place, it'd be against me, not against the +Atomic Power Authority. And, in the second place, if he does and it goes +to Federal mediation, his demand for the reinstatement of those men will +be 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 rather +dim. "I wish you luck; you're going to need it." + + * * * * * + +Within the hour, Crandall arrived at Melroy's office. He was a young +man; he gave Melroy the impression of having recently seen military +service; probably in the Indonesian campaign of '62 and '63; he also +seemed a little cocky and over-sure of himself. + +"Mr. Melroy, we're not going to stand for this," he began, as soon as he +came into the room. "You're using these so-called tests as a pretext for +getting rid of Mr. Koffler and Mr. Burris because of their legitimate +union 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 complaints +that Mr. Koffler has made to us about different unfair work-assignments, +improper working conditions, inequities in allotting overtime work, and +other infractions of union-shop conditions, on behalf of Mr. Burris. So +you decided to get rid of both of them, and you think you can use this +clause in our contract with your company about persons of deficient +intelligence. The fact is, you're known to have threatened on several +occasions to get rid of both of them." + +"I am?" Melroy looked at Crandall curiously, wondering if the latter +were 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 you +account for the fact that those two men, and only those two men, were +dismissed for alleged deficient intelligence?" + +"The tests aren't all made," Melroy replied. "Until they are, you can't +say that they are the only ones disqualified. And if you look over the +records of the tests, you'll see where Koffler and Burris failed and the +others passed. Here." He laid the pile of written-test forms and the +summary and evaluation sheets on the desk. "Here's Koffler's, and here's +Burris'; these are the ones of the men who passed the test. Look them +over if you want to." + +Crandall examined the forms and summaries for the two men who had been +discharged, and compared them with several random samples from the +satisfactory pile. + +"Why, this stuff's a lot of gibberish!" he exclaimed indignantly. "This +thing, here: ... five Limerick oysters, six pairs of Don Alfonso +tweezers, seven hundred Macedonian warriors in full battle array, eight +golden crowns from the ancient, secret crypts of Egypt, nine lymphatic, +sympathetic, peripatetic old men on crutches, and ten revolving +heliotropes from the Ipsy-Wipsy Institute!' Great Lord, do you actually +mean that you're using this stuff as an excuse for depriving men of +their jobs?" + +"I warned you that you should have brought a professional psychologist +along," Melroy reminded him. "And maybe you ought to get Koffler and +Burris 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. They +just didn't have the mental equipment to cope with them and the others +did. And for that reason, I won't run the risk of having them working on +this job." + +"That's just your word against theirs," Crandall insisted obstinately. +"Their complaint is that you framed this whole thing up to get rid of +them." + +"Why, I didn't even know who either of them were, until yesterday +morning." + +"That's not the way they tell it," Crandall retorted. "They say you and +Keating have been out to get them ever since they were hired. You and +your supervisors have been persecuting both of those men systematically. +The fact that Burris has had grounds for all these previous complaints +proves that." + +"It proves that Burris has a persecution complex, and that Koffler's +credulous enough to believe him," Melroy replied. "And that tends to +confirm the results of the tests they failed to pass." + +"Oh, so that's the line you're taking. You persecute a man, and then say +he has a persecution complex if he recognizes the fact. Well, you're not +going to get away with it, that's all I have to say to you." Crandall +flung the test-sheet he had been holding on to the desk. "That stuff's +not worth the paper it's scribbled on!" He turned on his heel in an +automatically correct about-face and strode out of the office. + + * * * * * + +Melroy straightened out the papers and put them away, then sat down at +his desk, filling and lighting his pipe. He was still working at 1215 +when Ben Puryear called him. + +"They walked out on us," he reported. "Harry Crandall was out here +talking to them, and at noon the whole gang handed in their +wrist-Geigers and dosimeters and cleared out their lockers. They say +they aren't coming back till Burris and Koffler come back to work with +them." + +"Then they aren't coming back, period," Melroy replied. "Crandall was to +see me, a couple of hours ago. He tells me that Burris and Koffler told +him that we've been persecuting Burris; discriminating against him. You +know of anything that really happened that might make them think +anything 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. Any +overtime 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 allowed +to 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, but +whatever 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's +down 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 partially +completed test records and come out to the office. You and the others +stay 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 his +secretary. + +"Joan, is Sid Keating out there? Send him in, will you?" + +Keating, when he entered, was wearing the lugubriously gratified +expression appropriate to the successful prophet of disaster. + +"All right, Cassandra," Melroy greeted him. "I'm not going to say you +didn't warn me. Look. This strike is illegal. It's a violation of the +Federal 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 it +a 'spontaneous work-stoppage.'" + +"Aah! I hope I can get Crandall on record to that effect; I'll fire +every one of those men for leaving their work without permission and +absence from duty without leave. How many of our own men, from +Pittsburgh, do we have working in these machine shops and in the +assembly 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 do +this work better than this gang we've had to hire here. Just to be on +the safe side, I'm promoting all of them, as of oh-eight-hundred this +morning, to assistant gang-foremen, on salaries. That'll take them +outside 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 the +execution of our contract with the Atomic Power Authority. You know what +I think? I think the I.F.A.W. front office is going to have to disavow +this. It'll hurt them to do it, but they'll have to. Crandall's put them +in 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 control +system on the U.S.S. _Alaska_, and the work we did on that +symbolic-logic computer for the Philadelphia Project. It may take all +day to get the red tape unwound, but I think we can be ready to start by +oh-eight-hundred tomorrow." + + * * * * * + +By the time Keating had rounded up all the regular Melroy Engineering +Corporation employees and Melroy had talked to Colonel Bradshaw about +security-clearance, it was 1430. A little later, he was called on the +phone 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 a +shot-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 told +Leighton what he had in mind. The Power Authority man was considerably +shaken before he had finished. + +"But they'll call a strike on the whole plant! Have you any idea what +that would mean?" + +"Certainly I have. They'll either call it in legal form, in which case +the whole thing will go to mediation and get aired, which is what I +want, or they'll pull a Pearl Harbor on you, the way they did on me. And +in that case, the President will have to intervene, and they'll fly in +technicians from some of the Armed Forces plants to keep this place +running. And in that case, things'll get settled that much quicker. This +Crandall thinks these men I fired are martyrs, and he's preaching a +crusade. He ought to carry an _advocatus diaboli_ on his payroll, to +scrutinize the qualifications of his martyrs, before he starts +canonizing them." + +A little later, Doris Rives came into the office, her hands full of +papers 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 seems +there was an additional test, and they all flunked it. Evinced +willingness to follow unwise leadership and allow themselves to be +talked into improper courses of action. You go on in to New York, and +take all the test-material, including sound records, with you. Stay at +the hotel--your pay will go on--till I need you. There'll be a Federal +Mediation 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 a +couple of stiff drinks: his voice was almost jaunty. + +"Well, the war's on," he announced. "The I.F.A.W.'s walking out on the +whole plant, at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow." + +"In violation of the Federal Labor Act, Section Eight, paragraphs four +and five," Melroy supplemented. "Crandall really has stuck his neck in +the guillotine. What's Washington doing?" + +"President Hartley is ordering Navy personnel flown in from +Kennebunkport Reaction Lab; they will be here by about oh-three-hundred +tomorrow. And a couple of Federal mediators are coming in to La Guardia +at seventeen hundred; they're going to hold preliminary hearings at the +new Federal Building on Washington Square beginning twenty hundred. A +couple of I.F.A.W. negotiators are coming in from the national union +headquarters at Oak Ridge: they should be getting in about the same +time. 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 voice +strained 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 One +Doernberg-Giardano; got a chain-reaction started again." + +"Who?" + +"Fred Hausinger's gang. Apparently at Harry Crandall's orders. The +excuse was that it would be unsafe to leave the reactor in its +dismantled condition during a prolonged shutdown--they were assuming, I +suppose, that the strike would be allowed to proceed unopposed--but of +course the real reason was that they wanted to get a chain-reaction +started 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 on +his shirt and that Luger on his hip for, but he said he had orders not +to 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're +able." + + * * * * * + +Doris Rives was waiting on the street level when Melroy reached the new +Federal Building, in what had formerly been the Greenwich Village +district of Manhattan, that evening. She had a heavy brief case with +her, which he took. + +"I was afraid I'd keep you waiting," she said. "I came down from the +hotel by cab, and there was a frightful jam at Fortieth Street, and +another one just below Madison Square." + +"Yes, it gets worse every year. Pardon my obsession, but nine times out +of ten--ninety-nine out of a hundred--it's the fault of some fool doing +something stupid. Speaking about doing stupid things, though--I did one. +Forgot to take that gun out of my overcoat pocket, and didn't notice +that I had it till I was on the subway, coming in. Have a big flashlight +in the other pocket, but that doesn't matter. What I'm worried about is +that somebody'll find out I have a gun and raise a howl about my coming +armed to a mediation hearing." + +The hearing was to be held in one of the big conference rooms on the +forty-second floor. Melroy was careful to remove his overcoat and lay it +on a table in the corner, and then help Doris off with hers and lay it +on top of his own. There were three men in the room when they arrived: +Kenneth Leighton, the Atomic Power Authority man, fiftyish, acquiring a +waistline bulge and losing his hair: a Mr. Lyons, tall and slender, with +white hair; and a Mr. Quillen, considerably younger, with plastic-rimmed +glasses. The latter two were the Federal mediators. All three had been +lounging in arm-chairs, talking about the new plays on Broadway. They +all rose when Melroy and Doris Rives came over to join them. + +"We mustn't discuss business until the others get here," Leighton +warned. "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 of +them. I suppose neither of you have had time to see any of the new +plays." + +Fortunately, Doris and Melroy had gone to the theater after dinner, the +evening-before-last; they were able to join the conversation. Young Mr. +Quillen wanted Doris Rives' opinion, as a psychologist, of the mental +processes of the heroine of the play they had seen; as nearly as she +could determine, Doris replied, the heroine in question had exhibited +nothing even loosely describable as mental processes of any sort. They +were still on the subject when the two labor negotiators, Mr. Cronnin +and Mr. Fields, arrived. Cronnin was in his sixties, with the +nearsighted squint and compressed look of concentration of an old-time +precision machinist; Fields was much younger, and sported a Phi Beta +Kappa key. + +Lyons, who seemed to be the senior mediator, thereupon called the +meeting to order and they took their places at the table. + + * * * * * + +"Now, gentlemen--and Dr. Rives--this will be simply an informal +discussion, so that everybody can see what everybody else's position in +the matter is. We won't bother to make a sound recording. Then, if we +have managed to reach some common understanding of the question this +evening, we can start the regular hearing say at thirteen hundred +tomorrow. Is that agreeable?" + +It was. The younger mediator, Quillen, cleared his throat. + +"It seems, from our information, that this entire dispute arises from +the discharge, by Mr. Melroy, of two of his employees, named Koffler and +Burris. Is that correct?" + +"Well, there's also the question of the Melroy Engineering Corporation's +attempting to use strike-breakers, and the Long Island Atomic Power +Authority's having condoned this unfair employment practice," Cronnin +said, acidly. + +"And there's also the question of the I.F.A.W.'s calling a Pearl Harbor +strike on my company," Melroy added. + +"We resent that characterization!" Cronnin retorted. + +"It's a term in common usage; it denotes a strike called without warning +or 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 spoke +up. "On sixteen hours' notice." + +"Well, that wasn't the fault of the I.F.A.W. as an organization," Fields +argued. "Mr. Cronnin and I are agreed that the walk-out date should be +postponed for two weeks, in accordance with the provisions of the +Federal 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 hundred +today. Am I to consider that an act of your union, or will you disavow +it so that I can fire all of them for quitting without permission?" + +"And how about the action of members of your union, acting on +instructions from Harry Crandall, in re-packing the Number One +Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactor at our plant, after the plutonium and +the U-238 and the neutron-source containers had been removed, in order +to re-initiate a chain reaction to prevent Mr. Melroy's employees from +working on the reactor?" Leighton demanded. "Am I to understand that the +union 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 know +nothing 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 the +table with it. + +"Gentlemen," he interrupted. "We're trying to cover too many subjects at +once. I suggest that we confine ourselves, at the beginning, to the +question of the dismissal of these men, Burris and Koffler. If we find +that the I.F.A.W. has a legitimate grievance in what we may call the +Burris-Koffler question, we can settle that and then go on to these +other 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 this +question, perhaps you gentlemen should state the grounds for your +complaints." + +Fields and Cronnin exchanged glances: Cronnin nodded to Fields and the +latter rose. The two employees in question, he stated, had been the +victims of discrimination and persecution because of union activities. +Koffler was the union shop-steward for the men employed by the Melroy +Engineering Corporation, and Burris had been active in bringing +complaints about unfair employment practices. Furthermore, it was the +opinion of the I.F.A.W. that the psychological tests imposed on their +members had been a fraudulent pretext for dismissing these two men, and, +in any case, the practice of compelling workers to submit to such tests +was 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 who +were disqualified by the tests and dropped from my payroll because of +being, in the words of my contract with your union, 'persons of unsound +mind, deficient intelligence and/or emotional instability.' What +happened is that your local official, Crandall, accepted everything they +told him uncritically, and you accepted everything Crandall told you, in +the same spirit. + +"Before I go on," Melroy continued, turning to Lyons, "have I your +permission to let Dr. Rives explain about these tests, herself, and tell +how they were given and evaluated?" + + * * * * * + +Permission granted by Lyons, Doris Rives rose. At some length, she +explained the nature and purpose of the tests, and her method of scoring +and correlating them. + +"Well, did Mr. Melroy suggest to you that any specific employee or +employees of his were undesirable and ought to be eliminated?" Fields +asked. + +"Certainly not!" Doris Rives became angry. "And if he had, I'd have +taken the first plane out of here. That suggestion is insulting! And for +your information, I never met Mr. Melroy before day-before-yesterday +afternoon; I am not dependent upon him for anything; I took this job as +an accommodation to Dr. Karl von Heydenreich, who ordinarily does such +work 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 mention +of the distinguished Austrian psychologist's name. "If I may ask Mr. +Melroy a question: I gather that these tests are given to all your +employees. Why do you demand such an extraordinary level of intelligence +from your employees, even common laborers?" + +"Extraordinary?" Melroy echoed. "If the standards established by those +tests are extraordinary, then God help this country; we are becoming a +race 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 tests +is ordinary adult mental capacity. + +"My company specializes in cybernetic-control systems," he continued. +"In spite of a lot of misleading colloquial jargon about 'thinking +machines' and 'giant brains', a cybernetic system doesn't really think. +It only does what it's been designed _and built_ to do, and if somebody +builds a mistake into it, it will automatically and infallibly repeat +that mistake in practice." + +"He's right," Cronnin said. "The men that build a machine like that have +got to be as smart as the machine's supposed to be, or the machine'll be +as 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 an +old reaction-plant man." Cronnin nodded unthinkingly in confirmation. +"All right, then. Ask him what those Doernberg-Giardanos are like. And +then let me ask you: Suppose some moron fixed up something that would go +wrong, or made the wrong kind of a mistake himself, around one of those +reactors?" + +It was purely a rhetorical question, but, much later, when he would have +time to think about it, Scott Melroy was to wonder if ever in history +such a question had been answered so promptly and with such dramatic +calamitousness. + +Three seconds after he stopped speaking, the lights went out. + + * * * * * + +For a moment, they were silent and motionless. Then somebody across the +table from Melroy began to say, "What the devil--?" Doris Rives, beside +him, clutched his arm. At the head of the table, Lyons was fuming +impatiently, and Kenneth Leighton snapped a pocket-lighter and held it +up. + +The Venetian-screened windows across the room faced east. In the flicker +of the lighter, Melroy made his way around to them and drew open the +slats of one, looking out. Except for the headlights of cars, far down +in the street, and the lights of ships in the harbor, the city was +completely blacked out. But there was one other, horrible, light far +away at the distant tip of Long Island--a huge ball of flame, floating +upward at the tip of a column of fiery gas. As he watched, there were +twinkles 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 realizing +that he spoke audibly. "Too well shielded for the blast to get them, but +the 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's +gone! There aren't enough other generators in this area to handle a +hundredth 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 this +happened." + +"What do you think happened?" Cronnin asked. "One of the +Doernberg-Giardanos let go?" + +"Yes. Your man Crandall. If he survived that, it's his bad luck," Melroy +said grimly. "Last night, while Fred Hausinger was pulling the +fissionables and radioactives out of the Number One breeder, he found a +big nugget of Pu-239, about one-quarter CM. I don't know what was done +with it, but I do know that Crandall had the maintenance gang repack +that reactor, to keep my people from working on it. Nobody'll ever find +out just what happened, but they were in a hurry; they probably shoved +things in any old way. Somehow, that big subcritical nugget must have +got 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 know +how fast those D-G's work. It just took this long to build up CM for a +bomb-type reaction. You remember what I was saying before the lights +went out? Well, it happened. Some moron--some untested and undetected +moron--made the wrong kind of a mistake." + +"Too bad about Crandall. He was a good kid, only he didn't stop to think +often 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 thinking +particularly rather than generally and of humans rather than +abstractions. "It must have killed everybody for miles around." + +Sid Keating, Melroy thought. And Joe Ricci, and Ben Puryear, and Steve +Chalmers, and all the workmen whom he had brought here from Pittsburgh, +to their death. Then he stopped thinking about them. It didn't do any +good to think of men who'd been killed; he'd learned that years ago, as +a kid second lieutenant in Korea. The people to think about were the +millions in Greater New York, and up the Hudson Valley to Albany, and as +far south as Trenton, caught without light in the darkness, without heat +in the dead of winter, without power in subways and skyscrapers and on +railroads and interurban lines. + +He turned to the woman beside him. + +"Doris, before you could get your Board of Psychiatry and Neurology +diploma, 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 is +going to be desperately needed, for the next day or so. Me, I still have +a reserve major's commission in the Army Corps of Engineers. They're +probably calling up reserve officers, with any radios that are still +working. Until I hear differently, I'm ordering myself on active duty as +of now." He looked around. "Anybody know where the nearest Army +headquarters 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 a +medical 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, then +shrugged into his own overcoat and belted it about him, the weight of +the 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 of +vicious criminals, to whom this power-failure would be a perfect +devilsend. Handing Doris the light, he let her take his left arm. +Together, they left the room and went down the hallway to the stairs and +the long walk to the darkened street below, into a city that had +suddenly been cut off from its very life-energy. A city that had put all +its eggs in one basket, and left the basket in the path of any +blundering foot. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Day of the Moron, by Henry Beam Piper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAY OF THE MORON *** + +***** This file should be named 18949-8.txt or 18949-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/9/4/18949/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Beam Piper. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em; margin-left: 1em; + float: right; clear: right; margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; background: #eeeeee; border: dashed 1px;} + + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .figleft {float: left; clear: left; margin-left: 0; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: + 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .figright {float: right; clear: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0; padding: 0; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Day of the Moron, by Henry Beam Piper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Day of the Moron + +Author: Henry Beam Piper + +Release Date: July 31, 2006 [EBook #18949] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAY OF THE MORON *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill001.jpg"><img src="images/ill001.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + + + +<h1>DAY OF THE MORON</h1> + +<h2>BY H. BEAM PIPER</h2> + +<p>[Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science +Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><i>It's natural to trust the unproven word of the fellow who's "on my +side"—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 the +mighty, leashed forces Man employs now....</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p>There were still, in 1968, a few people who were afraid of the nuclear +power plant. Oldsters, in whom the term "atomic energy" produced +semantic reactions associated with Hiroshima. Those who saw, in the +towering steam-column above it, a tempting target for enemy—which still +meant Soviet—bombers and guided missiles. Some of the Central +Intelligence and F.B.I. people, who realized how futile even the most +elaborate security measures were against a resourceful and suicidally +determined saboteur. And a minority of engineers and nuclear physicists +who remained unpersuaded that accidental blowups at nuclear-reaction +plants were impossible.</p> + +<p>Scott Melroy was among these last. He knew, as a matter of fact, that +there had been several nasty, meticulously unpublicized, +near-catastrophes at the Long Island Nuclear Reaction Plant, all +involving the new Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactors, and that there +had been considerable carefully-hushed top-level acrimony before the +Melroy Engineering Corporation had been given the contract to install +the fully cybernetic control system intended to prevent a recurrence of +such incidents.</p> + +<p>That had been three months ago. Melroy and his people had moved in, been +assigned sections of a couple of machine shops, set up an assembly shop +and a set of plyboard-partitioned offices in a vacant warehouse just +outside the reactor area, and tried to start work, only to run into the +almost interminable procedural disputes and jurisdictional wranglings of +the sort which he privately labeled "bureau bunk". It was only now that +he was ready to begin work on the reactors.</p> + +<p>He sat at his desk, in the inner of three successively smaller offices +on the second floor of the converted warehouse, checking over a +symbolic-logic analysis of a relay system and, at the same time, +sharpening a pencil, his knife paring off tiny feathery shavings of +wood. He was a tall, sparely-built, man of indeterminate age, with +thinning 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 shabby +leather jacket, to the left shoulder of which a few clinging flecks of +paint showed where some military emblem had been, long ago. While his +fingers worked with the jackknife and his eyes traveled over the page of +closely-written symbols, his mind was reviewing the eight different ways +in which one of the efficient but treacherous Doernberg-Giardano +reactors could be allowed to reach critical mass, and he was wondering +if there might not be some unsuspected ninth way. That was a possibility +which always lurked in the back of his mind, and lately it had been +giving him surrealistic nightmares.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Melroy!" the box on the desk in front of him said suddenly, in a +feminine voice. "Mr. Melroy, Dr. Rives is here."</p> + +<p>Melroy picked up the handphone, thumbing on the switch.</p> + +<p>"Dr. Rives?" he repeated.</p> + +<p>"The psychologist who's subbing for Dr. von Heydenreich," the box told +him patiently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. Show him in," Melroy said.</p> + +<p>"Right away, Mr. Melroy," the box replied.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Replacing the handphone, Melroy wondered, for a moment, why there had +been a hint of suppressed amusement in his secretary's voice. Then the +door opened and he stopped wondering. Dr. Rives wasn't a him; she was a +her. Very attractive looking her, too—dark hair and eyes, rather +long-oval features, clear, lightly tanned complexion, bright red +lipstick put on with a micrometric exactitude that any engineer could +appreciate. She was tall, within four inches of his own six-foot mark, +and she wore a black tailored outfit, perfectly plain, which had +probably cost around five hundred dollars and would have looked severe +and mannish except that the figure under it curved and bulged in just +the right places and to just the right degree.</p> + +<p>Melroy rose, laying down knife and pencil and taking his pipe out of his +mouth.</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon," he greeted. "Dr. von Heydenreich gave me quite a +favorable account of you—as far as it went. He might have included a +few more data and made it more so.... Won't you sit down?"</p> + +<p>The woman laid her handbag on the desk and took the visitor's chair, +impish mirth sparking in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"He probably omitted mentioning that the D. is for Doris," she +suggested. "Suppose I'd been an Englishman with a name like Evelyn or +Vivian?"</p> + +<p>Melroy tried to visualize her as a male Englishman named Vivian, gave +up, and grinned at her.</p> + +<p>"Let this be a lesson," he said. "Inferences are to be drawn from +objects, or descriptions of objects; never from verbal labels. Do you +initial your first name just to see how people react when they meet +you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no, though that's an amusing and sometimes instructive +by-product. It started when I began contributing to some of the +professional journals. There's still a little of what used to be called +male sex-chauvinism among my colleagues, and some who would be favorably +impressed with an article signed D. Warren Rives might snort in contempt +at the same article signed Doris Rives."</p> + +<p>"Well, fortunately, Dr. von Heydenreich isn't one of those," Melroy +said. "How is the Herr Doktor, by the way, and just what happened to +him? Miss Kourtakides merely told me that he'd been injured and was in a +hospital in Pittsburgh."</p> + +<p>"The Herr Doktor got shot," Doris Rives informed him. "With a charge of +BB'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 a +turkey. Nothing really serious, but he's face down in bed, cursing +hideously in German, English, Russian, Italian and French, mainly +because he's missing deer hunting."</p> + +<p>"I might have known it," Melroy said in disgust. "The ubiquitous +lame-brain with a dangerous mechanism.... I suppose he briefed you on +what I want done, here?"</p> + +<p>"Well, not too completely. I gathered that you want me to give +intelligence tests, or aptitude tests, or something of the sort, to some +of your employees. I'm not really one of these so-called industrial +anthropologists," she explained. "Most of my work, for the past few +years, has been for public-welfare organizations, with subnormal +persons. I told him that, and he said that was why he selected me. He +said one other thing. He said, 'I used to think Melroy had an obsession +about fools; well, after stopping this load of shot, I'm beginning to +think it's a good subject to be obsessed about.'"</p> + +<p>Melroy nodded. "'Obsession' will probably do. 'Phobia' would be more +exact. I'm afraid of fools, and the chance that I have one working for +me, here, affects me like having a cobra crawling around my bedroom in +the dark. I want you to locate any who might be in a gang of new men +I've had to hire, so that I can get rid of them."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"And just how do you define the term 'fool', Mr. Melroy?" she asked. +"Remember, it has no standard meaning. Republicans apply it to +Democrats, and vice versa."</p> + +<p>"Well, I apply it to people who do things without considering possible +consequences. People who pepper distinguished Austrian psychologists in +the pants-seat with turkey-shot, for a starter. Or people who push +buttons to see what'll happen, or turn valves and twiddle with +dial-knobs because they have nothing else to do with their hands. Or +shoot insulators off power lines to see if they can hit them. People who +don't know it's loaded. People who think warning signs are purely +ornamental. People who play practical jokes. People who—"</p> + +<p>"I know what you mean. Just day-before-yesterday, I saw a woman toss a +cocktail into an electric heater. She didn't want to drink it, and she +thought it would just go up in steam. The result was slightly +spectacular."</p> + +<p>"Next time, she won't do that. She'll probably throw her drink into a +lead-ladle, if there's one around. Well, on a statistical basis, I'd +judge that I have three or four such dud rounds among this new gang I've +hired. I want you to put the finger on them, so I can bounce them before +they blow the whole plant up, which could happen quite easily."</p> + +<p>"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 speaking +of has an I.Q. well inside the meaning of normal intelligence. She just +doesn't use it."</p> + +<p>"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 five +years ago. The intelligence test is based on the new French Sûreté test +for mentally deficient criminals. Then there's a memory test, and tests +for judgment and discrimination, semantic reactions, temperamental and +emotional makeup, and general mental attitude."</p> + +<p>She took the folder and leafed through it. "Yes, I see. I always liked +this Sûreté 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 these +memory-course boys trying to make visual images of six pairs of Don +Alfonso tweezers. And I'm going to make a copy of this word-association +list. It's really a semantic reaction test; Korzybski would have loved +it. And, of course, our old friend, the Rorschach Ink-Blots. I've always +harbored the impious suspicion that you can prove almost anything you +want to with that. But these question-suggestions for personal interview +are really crafty. Did Heydenreich get them up himself?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And we have stacks and stacks of printed forms for the written +portion of the test, and big cards to summarize each subject on. And we +have a disk-recorder to use in the oral tests. There'll have to be a +pretty complete record of each test, in case—"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The office door opened and a bulky man with a black mustache entered, +beating the snow from his overcoat with a battered porkpie hat and +commenting blasphemously on the weather. He advanced into the room until +he saw the woman in the chair beside the desk, and then started to back +out.</p> + +<p>"Come on in, Sid," Melroy told him. "Dr. Rives, this is our general +foreman, Sid Keating. Sid, Dr. Rives, the new dimwit detector. Sid's in +direct charge of personnel," he continued, "so you two'll be working +together quite a bit."</p> + +<p>"Glad to know you, doctor," Keating said. Then he turned to Melroy. +"Scott, you're really going through with this, then?" he asked. "I'm +afraid we'll have trouble, then."</p> + +<p>"Look, Sid," Melroy said. "We've been all over that. Once we start work +on the reactors, you and Ned Puryear and Joe Ricci and Steve Chalmers +can't be everywhere at once. A cybernetic system will only do what it's +been assembled to do, and if some quarter-wit assembles one of these +things wrong—" He left the sentence dangling; both men knew what he +meant.</p> + +<p>Keating shook his head. "This union's going to bawl like a branded calf +about it," he predicted. "And if any of the dear sirs and brothers get +washed out—" That sentence didn't need to be completed, either.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Then they'll claim the tests are wrong."</p> + +<p>"I can't see how they can do that," Doris Rives put in, faintly +scandalized.</p> + +<p>"Neither can I, and they probably won't either," Keating told her. "But +they'll go ahead and do it. Why, Scott, they're pulling the Number One +Doernberg-Giardano, tonight. By oh-eight-hundred, it ought to be cool +enough to work on. Where will we hold the tests? Here?"</p> + +<p>"We'll have to, unless we can get Dr. Rives security-cleared." Melroy +turned to her. "Were you ever security-cleared by any Government +agency?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes. I was with Armed Forces Medical, Psychiatric Division, in +Indonesia in '62 and '63, and I did some work with mental fatigue cases +at Tonto Basin Research Establishment in '64."</p> + +<p>Melroy looked at her sharply. Keating whistled.</p> + +<p>"If she could get into Tonto Basin, she can get in here," he declared.</p> + +<p>"I should think so. I'll call Colonel Bradshaw, the security officer."</p> + +<p>"That way, we can test them right on the job," Keating was saying. "Take +them in relays. I'll talk to Ben about it, and we'll work up some kind +of 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't +try to make you carry a pistol, too."</p> + +<p>"A pistol?" For a moment, she must have thought he was using some +technical-jargon term, and then it dawned on her that he wasn't. "You +mean—?" She cocked her thumb and crooked her index finger.</p> + +<p>"Yeah. A rod. Roscoe. The Equalizer. We all have to." He half-lifted one +out of his side pocket. "We're all United States deputy marshals. They +don't bother much with counterespionage, here, but they don't fool when +it comes to countersabotage. Well, I'll get an order cut and posted. Be +seeing you, doctor."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"You think the union will make trouble about these tests?" she asked, +after the general foreman had gone out.</p> + +<p>"They're sure to," Melroy replied. "Here's the situation. I have about +fifty of my own men, from Pittsburgh, here, but they can't work on the +reactors because they don't belong to the Industrial Federation of +Atomic Workers, and I can't just pay their initiation fees and union +dues and get union cards for them, because admission to this union is on +an annual quota basis, and this is December, and the quota's full. So I +have to use them outside the reactor area, on fabrication and assembly +work. And I have to hire through the union, and that's handled on a +membership 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 written +into my contract.</p> + +<p>"Now, here's what's going to happen. Most of the men'll take the test +without protest, but a few of them'll raise the roof about it. Nothing +burns a moron worse than to have somebody question his fractional +intelligence. The odds are that the ones that yell the loudest about +taking the test will be the ones who get scrubbed out, and when the test +shows that they're deficient, they won't believe it. A moron simply +cannot conceive of his being anything less than perfectly intelligent, +any more than a lunatic can conceive of his being less than perfectly +sane. 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 the +local level. That goes without saying. In any dispute, the employer is +always wrong and the worker is always right, until proven otherwise. And +that takes a lot of doing, believe me!"</p> + +<p>"Well, if they're hired through the union, on a seniority basis, +wouldn't they be likely to be experienced and competent workers?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"Experienced, yes. That is, none of them has ever been caught doing +anything downright calamitous ... yet," Melroy replied. "The moron I'm +afraid of can go on for years, doing routine work under supervision, and +nothing'll happen. Then, some day, he does something on his own +lame-brained initiative, and when he does, it's only at the whim of +whatever gods there be that the result isn't a wholesale catastrophe. +And people like that are the most serious threat facing our civilization +today, atomic war not excepted."</p> + +<p>Dr. Doris Rives lifted a delicately penciled eyebrow over that. Melroy, +pausing to relight his pipe, grinned at her.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill008.jpg"><img src="images/ill008.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<p>"You think that's the old obsession talking?" he asked. "Could be. But +look at this plant, here. It generates every kilowatt of current used +between 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 minimum +load, it's been the only source of electric current here since 1962, +when the last coal-burning power plant was dismantled. Knock this plant +out and you darken every house and office and factory and street in the +area. You immobilize the elevators—think what that would mean in lower +and midtown Manhattan alone. And the subways. And the new endless-belt +conveyors that handle eighty per cent of the city's freight traffic. And +the railroads—there aren't a dozen steam or Diesel locomotives left in +the 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, you +can't imagine what it'd be like. It's too gigantic. But what you can +imagine would be a nightmare.</p> + +<p>"You know, it wasn't so long ago, when every home lighted and heated +itself, and every little industry was a self-contained unit, that a fool +couldn't do great damage unless he inherited a throne or was placed in +command of an army, and that didn't happen nearly as often as our +leftist social historians would like us to think. But today, everything +we depend upon is centralized, and vulnerable to blunder-damage. Even +our food—remember that poisoned soft-drink horror in Chicago, in 1963; +three thousand hospitalized and six hundred dead because of one man's +stupid mistake at a bottling plant." He shook himself slightly, as +though to throw off some shadow that had fallen over him, and looked at +his watch. "Sixteen hundred. How did you get here? Fly your own plane?"</p> + +<p>"No; I came by T.W.A. from Pittsburgh. I have a room at the new Midtown +City hotel, on Forty-seventh Street: I had my luggage sent on there from +the airport and came out on the Long Island subway."</p> + +<p>"Fine. I have a room at Midtown City, myself, though I sleep here about +half the time." He nodded toward a door on the left. "Suppose we go in +and have dinner together. This cafeteria, here, is a horrible place. +It's run by a dietitian instead of a chef, and everything's so +white-enamel antiseptic that I swear I smell belladonna-icthyol ointment +every time I go in the place. Wait here till I change clothes."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At the Long Island plant, no one was concerned about espionage—neither +the processes nor the equipment used there were secret—but the +countersabotage security was fantastically thorough. Every person or +scrap of material entering the reactor area was searched; the +life-history of every man and woman employed there was known back to the +cradle. A broad highway encircled it outside the fence, patrolled night +and day by twenty General Stuart cavalry-tanks. There were a thousand +soldiers, and three hundred Atomic Power Authority police, and only God +knew how many F.B.I, and Central Intelligence undercover agents. Every +supervisor and inspector and salaried technician was an armed United +States deputy marshal. And nobody, outside the Department of Defense, +knew how much radar and counter-rocket and fighter protection the place +had, but the air-defense zone extended from Boston to Philadelphia and +as far inland as Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.</p> + +<p>The Long Island Nuclear Power Plant, Melroy thought, had all the +invulnerability of Achilles—and no more.</p> + +<p>The six new Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactors clustered in a circle +inside a windowless concrete building at the center of the plant. Beside +their primary purpose of plutonium production, they furnished heat for +the sea-water distillation and chemical extraction system, processing +the water that was run through the steam boilers at the main power +reactors, condensed, redistilled, and finally pumped, pure, into the +water mains of New York. Safe outside the shielding, in a corner of a +high-ceilinged room, was the plyboard-screened on-the-job office of the +Melroy Engineering Corporation's timekeepers and foremen. Beyond, along +the far wall, were the washroom and locker room and lunch room of the +workmen.</p> + +<p>Sixty or seventy men, mostly in white coveralls and all wearing +identification badges and carrying dosimeters in their breast pockets +and midget Geigers strapped to their wrists, were crowded about the +bulletin-board in front of the makeshift office. There was a hum of +voices—some perplexed or angry, but mostly good-humored and bantering. +As Melroy and Doris Rives approached, the talking died out and the men +turned. In the sudden silence, one voice, harshly strident, continued:</p> + +<p>"... do they think this is, anyhow? We don't hafta take none of that."</p> + +<p>Somebody must have nudged the speaker, trying without success to hush +him. The bellicose voice continued, and Melroy spotted the +speaker—short, thick-set, his arms jutting out at an angle from his +body, his heavy features soured with anger.</p> + +<p>"Like we was a lotta halfwits, 'r nuts, 'r some'n! Well, we don't hafta +stand for this. They ain't got no right—"</p> + +<p>Doris Rives clung tighter to Melroy's arm as he pushed a way for himself +and her through the crowd and into the temporary office. Inside, they +were met by a young man with a deputy marshal's badge on his flannel +shirt and a .38 revolver on his hip.</p> + +<p>"Ben Puryear: Dr. Rives," Melroy introduced. "Who's the mouthy character +outside?"</p> + +<p>"One of the roustabouts; name's Burris," Puryear replied. "Wash-room +lawyer."</p> + +<p>Melroy nodded. "You always get one or two like that. How're the rest +taking it?"</p> + +<p>Puryear shrugged. "About how you'd expect. A lot of kidding about who's +got any intelligence to test. Burris seems to be the only one who's +trying to make an issue out of it."</p> + +<p>"Well, what are they doing ganged up here?" Melroy wanted to know. "It's +past oh-eight-hundred; why aren't they at work?"</p> + +<p>"Reactor's still too hot. Temperature and radioactivity both too high; +radioactivity's still up around eight hundred REM's."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, we'll give them all the written portion of the test +together, and start the personal interviews and oral tests as soon as +they're through." He turned to Doris Rives. "Can you give all of them +the written test together?" he asked. "And can Ben help +you—distributing forms, timing the test, seeing that there's no +fudging, and collecting the forms when they're done?"</p> + +<p>"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 the +interview subject."</p> + +<p>"Right over here, doctor." Puryear said. "And here are the forms and +cards, and the sound-recorder, and blank sound disks."</p> + +<p>"Yes," Melroy added. "Be sure you get a recording of every interview and +oral test; we may need them for evidence."</p> + +<p>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 a +protuberant Adam's apple; beside his identity badge, he wore a two-inch +celluloid button lettered: I.F.A.W. STEWARD.</p> + +<p>"Wanta use the phone," he said. "Union business."</p> + +<p>Melroy gestured toward a telephone on the desk beside him. The newcomer +shook his head, twisting his mouth into a smirk.</p> + +<p>"Not that one; the one with the whisper mouthpiece," he said. "This is +private union business."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Melroy shrugged and indicated another phone. The man with the union +steward's badge picked it up, dialed, and held a lengthy conversation +into it, turning his head away in case Melroy might happen to be a lip +reader. Finally he turned.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Crandall wants to talk to you," he said, grinning triumphantly, the +phone extended to Melroy.</p> + +<p>The engineer picked up another phone, snapping a button on the base of +it.</p> + +<p>"Melroy here," he said.</p> + +<p>Something on the line started going <i>bee-beep-beep</i> softly.</p> + +<p>"Crandall, executive secretary, I.F.A.W.," the man on the other end of +the line identified himself. "Is there a recorder going on this line?"</p> + +<p>"Naturally," Melroy replied. "I record all business conversations; +office routine."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Melroy, I've been informed that you propose forcing our members in +your employ to submit to some kind of a mental test. Is that correct?"</p> + +<p>"Not exactly. I'm not able to force anybody to submit to anything +against his will. If anybody objects to taking these tests, he can say +so, and I'll have his time made out and pay him off."</p> + +<p>"That's the same thing. A threat of dismissal is coercion, and if these +men want to keep their jobs they'll have to take this test."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's stated more or less correctly," Melroy conceded. "Let's +just put it that taking—and passing—this test is a condition of +employment. My contract with your union recognizes my right to establish +standards of intelligence; that's implied by my recognized right to +dismiss any person of 'unsound mind, deficient mentality or emotional +instability.' Psychological testing is the only means of determining +whether or not a person is classifiable in those terms."</p> + +<p>"Then, in case the test purports to show that one of these men is, let's +say, mentally deficient, you intend dismissing him?"</p> + +<p>"With the customary two weeks' severance-pay, yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, if you do dismiss anybody on those grounds, the union will have +to insist on reviewing the grounds for dismissal."</p> + +<p>"My contract with your union says nothing whatever about any right of +review being reserved by the union in such cases. Only in cases of +disciplinary dismissal, which this is not. I take the position that +certain minimum standards of intelligence and mental stability are +essentials in this sort of work, just as, say, certain minimum standards +of literacy are essential in clerical work."</p> + +<p>"Then you're going to make these men take these tests, whatever they +are?"</p> + +<p>"If they want to work for me, yes. And anybody who fails to pass them +will be dropped from my payroll."</p> + +<p>"And who's going to decide whether or not these men have successfully +passed these tests?" Crandall asked. "You?"</p> + +<p>"Good Lord, no! I'm an electronics engineer, not a psychologist. The +tests are being given, and will be evaluated, by a graduate +psychologist, Dr. D. Warren Rives, who has a diploma from the American +Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a member of the American +Psychological Association. Dr. Rives will be the final arbiter on who is +or is not disqualified by these tests."</p> + +<p>"Well, our man Koffler says you have some girl there to give the tests," +Crandall accused.</p> + +<p>"I suppose he means Dr. Rives," Melroy replied. "I can assure you, she +is an extremely competent psychologist, however. She came to me most +highly recommended by Dr. Karl von Heydenreich, who is not inclined to +be careless with his recommendations."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Melroy, we don't want any more trouble with you than we have +to have," Crandall told him, "but we will insist on reviewing any +dismissals which occur as a result of these tests."</p> + +<p>"You can do that. I'd advise, first, that you read over the contract you +signed with me. Get a qualified lawyer to tell you what we've agreed to +and what we haven't. Was there anything else you wanted to talk +about?... No?... Then good morning, Mr. Crandall."</p> + +<p>He hung up. "All right; let's get on with it," he said. "Ben, you get +them into the lunch room; there are enough tables and benches in there +for everybody to take the written test in two relays."</p> + +<p>"The union's gotta be represented while these tests is going on," the +union steward announced. "Mr. Crandall says I'm to stay here an' watch +what you do to these guys."</p> + +<p>"This man working for us?" Melroy asked Puryear.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Koffler, Julius. Electrical fitter; Joe Ricci's gang."</p> + +<p>"All right. See to it that he gets placed in the first relay for the +written test, and gets first turn for the orals. That way he can spend +the rest of his time on duty here for the union, and will know in +advance what the test is like." He turned to Koffler. "But understand +this. You keep your mouth out of it. If you see anything that looks +objectionable, make a note of it, but don't try to interfere."</p> + +<p>The written tests, done on printed forms, required about twenty minutes. +Melroy watched the process of oral testing and personal interviewing for +a while, then picked up a big flashlight and dropped it into his +overcoat pocket, preparatory to going out to inspect some equipment that +had been assembled outside the reactor area and brought in. As he went +out, Koffler was straddling a chair, glowering at Doris Rives and making +occasional ostentatious notes on a pad.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>For about an hour, he poked around the newly assembled apparatus, +checking the wiring, and peering into it. When he returned to the +temporary office, the oral testing was still going on; Koffler was still +on duty as watcher for the union, but the sport had evidently palled on +him, for he was now studying a comic book.</p> + +<p>Melroy left the reactor area and returned to the office in the converted +area. During the midafternoon, somebody named Leighton called him from +the Atomic Power Authority executive office, wanting to know what was +the trouble between him and the I.F.A.W. and saying that a protest +against his alleged high-handed and arbitrary conduct had been received +from the union.</p> + +<p>Melroy explained, at length. He finished: "You people have twenty Stuart +tanks, and a couple of thousand soldiers and cops and undercover-men, +here, guarding against sabotage. Don't you realize that a workman who +makes stupid or careless or impulsive mistakes is just as dangerous to +the plant as any saboteur? If somebody shoots you through the head, it +doesn't matter whether he planned to murder you for a year or just +didn't know the gun was loaded; you're as dead one way as the other. I +should think you'd thank me for trying to eliminate a serious source of +danger."</p> + +<p>"Now, don't misunderstand my position, Mr. Melroy," the other man +hastened to say. "I sympathize with your attitude, entirely. But these +people are going to make trouble."</p> + +<p>"If they do, it'll be my trouble. I'm under contract to install this +cybernetic 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?"</p> + +<p>"Have I had—!" Leighton sputtered for a moment. "I'm in charge of +personnel, here; that makes me his top-priority target, all the time."</p> + +<p>"Well, what sort of a character is he, anyhow? When I contracted with +the I.F.A.W., my lawyer and their lawyer handled everything; I never +even met him."</p> + +<p>"Well—He has his job to do, the same as I have," Leighton said. "He +does it conscientiously. But it's like this—anything a workman tells +him 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. And +he goes off half-cocked a lot of times. He doesn't stop to analyze +situations very closely."</p> + +<p>"That's what I was afraid of. Well, you tell him you don't have any +control over my labor relations. Tell him to bring his gripes to me."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At sixteen-thirty, Doris Rives came in, finding him still at his desk.</p> + +<p>"I have the written tests all finished, and I have about twenty of the +tests and interviews completed," she said. "I'll have to evaluate the +results, though. I wonder if there's a vacant desk around here, +anywhere, and a record player."</p> + +<p>"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 you +from the cafeteria. I'm going to be here all evening, myself."</p> + +<p>Sid Keating came in, a short while later, peeling out of his overcoat, +jacket and shoulder holster.</p> + +<p>"I don't think they got everything out of that reactor," he said. +"Radioactivity's still almost active-normal—about eight hundred +REM's—and the temperature's away up, too. That isn't lingering +radiation; that's prompt radiation."</p> + +<p>"Radioactivity hasn't dropped since morning; I'd think so, too," Melroy +said. "What are they getting on the breakdown counter?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill014.jpg"><img src="images/ill014.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Mostly neutrons and alpha-particles. I talked to Fred Hausinger, the +maintenance boss; he doesn't like it, either."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm no nuclear physicist," Melroy disclaimed, "but all that alpha +stuff looks like a big chunk of Pu-239 left inside. What's Fred doing +about it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, poking around inside the reactor with telemetered scanners and +remote-control equipment. When I left, he had a gang pulling out +graphite blocks with RC-tongs. We probably won't get a chance to work on +it much before thirteen-hundred tomorrow." He unzipped a bulky brief +case he had brought in under his arm and dumped papers onto his desk. "I +still have this stuff to get straightened out, too."</p> + +<p>"Had anything to eat? Then call the cafeteria and have them send up +three dinners. Dr. Rives is eating here, too. Find out what she wants; I +want pork chops."</p> + +<p>"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 the +door. Melroy could hear a recording of somebody being given a +word-association test.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + + +<p>Half an hour later, when the food arrived, they spread their table on a +relatively clear desk in the middle office. Doris Rives had finished +evaluating the completed tests; after dinner, she intended going over +the written portions of the uncompleted tests.</p> + +<p>"How'd the finished tests come out?" Melroy asked her.</p> + +<p>"Better than I'd expected. Only two washouts," she replied. "Harvey +Burris and Julius Koffler."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>no</i>!" Keating wailed. "The I.F.A.W. steward, and the +loudest-mouthed I-know-my-rights boy on the job!"</p> + +<p>"Well, wasn't that to be expected?" Melroy asked. "If you'd seen the act +those two put on—"</p> + +<p>"They're both inherently stupid, infantile, and deficient in reasoning +ability and judgment," Doris said. "Koffler is a typical adolescent +problem-child show-off type, and Burris is an almost perfect +twelve-year-old schoolyard bully. They both have inferiority complexes +long enough to step on. If the purpose of this test is what I'm led to +believe it is, I can't, in professional good conscience, recommend +anything but that you get rid of both of them."</p> + +<p>"What Bob's getting at is that they're the very ones who can claim, with +the best show of plausibility, that the test is just a pretext to fire +them for union activities," Melroy explained. "And the worst of it is, +they're the only ones."</p> + +<p>"Maybe we can scrub out a couple more on the written tests alone. Then +they'll have company," Keating suggested.</p> + +<p>"No, I can't do that." Doris was firm on the point. "The written part of +the test was solely for ability to reason logically. Just among the +three of us, I know some university professors who'd flunk on that. But +if the rest of the tests show stability, sense of responsibility, good +judgment, and a tendency to think before acting, the subject can be +classified as a safe and reliable workman."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, let's don't say anything till we have the tests all +finished," Keating proposed.</p> + +<p>"No!" Melroy cried. "Every minute those two are on the job, there's a +chance they may do something disastrous. I'll fire them at +oh-eight-hundred tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"All right," Keating shook his head. "I only work here. But don't say I +didn't warn you."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>By 0930 the next morning, Keating's forebodings began to be realized. +The first intimation came with a phone call to Melroy from Crandall, who +accused him of having used the psychological tests as a fraudulent +pretext for discharging Koffler and Burris for union activities. When +Melroy rejected his demand that the two men be reinstated, Crandall +demanded to see the records of the tests.</p> + +<p>"They're here at my office," Melroy told him. "You're welcome to look at +them, and hear recordings of the oral portions of the tests. But I'd +advise you to bring a professional psychologist along, because unless +you're a trained psychologist yourself, they're not likely to mean much +to you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sure!" Crandall retorted. "They'd have to be unintelligible to +ordinary people, or you couldn't get away with this frame-up! Well, +don't worry, I'll be along to see them."</p> + +<p>Within ten minutes, the phone rang again. This time it was Leighton, the +Atomic Power Authority man.</p> + +<p>"We're much disturbed about this dispute between your company and the +I.F.A.W.," he began.</p> + +<p>"Well, frankly, so am I," Melroy admitted. "I'm here to do a job, not +play Hatfields and McCoys with this union. I've had union trouble +before, and it isn't fun. You're the gentleman who called me last +evening, aren't you? Then you understand my position in the matter."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Mr. Melroy. I was talking to Colonel Bradshaw, the security +officer, last evening. He agrees that a stupid or careless workman is, +under some circumstances, a more serious threat to security than any +saboteur. And we realize fully how dangerous those Doernberg-Giardanos +are, and how much more dangerous they'd be if these cybernetic controls +were improperly assembled. But this man Crandall is talking about +calling a strike."</p> + +<p>"Well, let him. In the first place, it'd be against me, not against the +Atomic Power Authority. And, in the second place, if he does and it goes +to Federal mediation, his demand for the reinstatement of those men will +be thrown out, and his own organization will have to disavow his action, +because he'll be calling the strike against his own contract."</p> + +<p>"Well, I hope so." Leighton's tone indicated that the hope was rather +dim. "I wish you luck; you're going to need it."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Within the hour, Crandall arrived at Melroy's office. He was a young +man; he gave Melroy the impression of having recently seen military +service; probably in the Indonesian campaign of '62 and '63; he also +seemed a little cocky and over-sure of himself.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill015.jpg"><img src="images/ill015.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Mr. Melroy, we're not going to stand for this," he began, as soon as he +came into the room. "You're using these so-called tests as a pretext for +getting rid of Mr. Koffler and Mr. Burris because of their legitimate +union activities."</p> + +<p>"Who gave you that idea?" Melroy wanted to know. "Koffler and Burris?"</p> + +<p>"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 complaints +that Mr. Koffler has made to us about different unfair work-assignments, +improper working conditions, inequities in allotting overtime work, and +other infractions of union-shop conditions, on behalf of Mr. Burris. So +you decided to get rid of both of them, and you think you can use this +clause in our contract with your company about persons of deficient +intelligence. The fact is, you're known to have threatened on several +occasions to get rid of both of them."</p> + +<p>"I am?" Melroy looked at Crandall curiously, wondering if the latter +were serious, and deciding that he was. "You must believe <i>anything</i> +those people tell you. Well, they lied to you if they told you that."</p> + +<p>"Naturally that's what you'd say," Crandall replied. "But how do you +account for the fact that those two men, and only those two men, were +dismissed for alleged deficient intelligence?"</p> + +<p>"The tests aren't all made," Melroy replied. "Until they are, you can't +say that they are the only ones disqualified. And if you look over the +records of the tests, you'll see where Koffler and Burris failed and the +others passed. Here." He laid the pile of written-test forms and the +summary and evaluation sheets on the desk. "Here's Koffler's, and here's +Burris'; these are the ones of the men who passed the test. Look them +over if you want to."</p> + +<p>Crandall examined the forms and summaries for the two men who had been +discharged, and compared them with several random samples from the +satisfactory pile.</p> + +<p>"Why, this stuff's a lot of gibberish!" he exclaimed indignantly. "This +thing, here: ... five Limerick oysters, six pairs of Don Alfonso +tweezers, seven hundred Macedonian warriors in full battle array, eight +golden crowns from the ancient, secret crypts of Egypt, nine lymphatic, +sympathetic, peripatetic old men on crutches, and ten revolving +heliotropes from the Ipsy-Wipsy Institute!' Great Lord, do you actually +mean that you're using this stuff as an excuse for depriving men of +their jobs?"</p> + +<p>"I warned you that you should have brought a professional psychologist +along," Melroy reminded him. "And maybe you ought to get Koffler and +Burris 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. They +just didn't have the mental equipment to cope with them and the others +did. And for that reason, I won't run the risk of having them working on +this job."</p> + +<p>"That's just your word against theirs," Crandall insisted obstinately. +"Their complaint is that you framed this whole thing up to get rid of +them."</p> + +<p>"Why, I didn't even know who either of them were, until yesterday +morning."</p> + +<p>"That's not the way they tell it," Crandall retorted. "They say you and +Keating have been out to get them ever since they were hired. You and +your supervisors have been persecuting both of those men systematically. +The fact that Burris has had grounds for all these previous complaints +proves that."</p> + +<p>"It proves that Burris has a persecution complex, and that Koffler's +credulous enough to believe him," Melroy replied. "And that tends to +confirm the results of the tests they failed to pass."</p> + +<p>"Oh, so that's the line you're taking. You persecute a man, and then say +he has a persecution complex if he recognizes the fact. Well, you're not +going to get away with it, that's all I have to say to you." Crandall +flung the test-sheet he had been holding on to the desk. "That stuff's +not worth the paper it's scribbled on!" He turned on his heel in an +automatically correct about-face and strode out of the office.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Melroy straightened out the papers and put them away, then sat down at +his desk, filling and lighting his pipe. He was still working at 1215 +when Ben Puryear called him.</p> + +<p>"They walked out on us," he reported. "Harry Crandall was out here +talking to them, and at noon the whole gang handed in their +wrist-Geigers and dosimeters and cleared out their lockers. They say +they aren't coming back till Burris and Koffler come back to work with +them."</p> + +<p>"Then they aren't coming back, period," Melroy replied. "Crandall was to +see me, a couple of hours ago. He tells me that Burris and Koffler told +him that we've been persecuting Burris; discriminating against him. You +know of anything that really happened that might make them think +anything like that?"</p> + +<p>"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. Any +overtime 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 allowed +to make overtime as much as any of the others."</p> + +<p>"Will the time-records show that?"</p> + +<p>"They ought to. I don't know what he and Koffler told Crandall, but +whatever it was, I'll bet they were lying."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, then. How's the reactor, now?"</p> + +<p>"Hausinger says the count's down to safe limits, and the temperature's +down to inactive normal. He and his gang found a big chunk of plutonium, +about one-quarter CM, inside. He got it out."</p> + +<p>"All right. Tell Dr. Rives to gather up all her completed or partially +completed test records and come out to the office. You and the others +stay on the job; we may have some men for you by this afternoon; +tomorrow morning certainly."</p> + +<p>He hung up, then picked up the communicator phone and called his +secretary.</p> + +<p>"Joan, is Sid Keating out there? Send him in, will you?"</p> + +<p>Keating, when he entered, was wearing the lugubriously gratified +expression appropriate to the successful prophet of disaster.</p> + +<p>"All right, Cassandra," Melroy greeted him. "I'm not going to say you +didn't warn me. Look. This strike is illegal. It's a violation of the +Federal Labor Act of 1958, being called without due notice of intention, +without preliminary negotiation, and without two weeks' time-allowance."</p> + +<p>"They're going to claim that it isn't a strike. They're going to call it +a 'spontaneous work-stoppage.'"</p> + +<p>"Aah! I hope I can get Crandall on record to that effect; I'll fire +every one of those men for leaving their work without permission and +absence from duty without leave. How many of our own men, from +Pittsburgh, do we have working in these machine shops and in the +assembly shop here? About sixty?"</p> + +<p>"Sixty-three. Why? You're not going to use them to work on the reactor, +are you?"</p> + +<p>"I just am. They're all qualified cybernetics technicians; they can do +this work better than this gang we've had to hire here. Just to be on +the safe side, I'm promoting all of them, as of oh-eight-hundred this +morning, to assistant gang-foremen, on salaries. That'll take them +outside union jurisdiction."</p> + +<p>"But how about our contract with the I.F.A.W.?"</p> + +<p>"That's been voided, by Crandall's own act, in interfering with the +execution of our contract with the Atomic Power Authority. You know what +I think? I think the I.F.A.W. front office is going to have to disavow +this. It'll hurt them to do it, but they'll have to. Crandall's put them +in the middle on this."</p> + +<p>"How about security clearance for our own men?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing to that," Melroy said. "Most of them are security-cleared, +already, from the work we did installing that counter-rocket control +system on the U.S.S. <i>Alaska</i>, and the work we did on that +symbolic-logic computer for the Philadelphia Project. It may take all +day to get the red tape unwound, but I think we can be ready to start by +oh-eight-hundred tomorrow."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>By the time Keating had rounded up all the regular Melroy Engineering +Corporation employees and Melroy had talked to Colonel Bradshaw about +security-clearance, it was 1430. A little later, he was called on the +phone by Leighton, the Atomic Power Authority man.</p> + +<p>"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 a +shot-stung bobcat. They claim you're going to bring in strike-breakers; +they're talking about picketing the whole reactor area."</p> + +<p>"News gets around fast, here, doesn't it?" Melroy commented. He told +Leighton what he had in mind. The Power Authority man was considerably +shaken before he had finished.</p> + +<p>"But they'll call a strike on the whole plant! Have you any idea what +that would mean?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly I have. They'll either call it in legal form, in which case +the whole thing will go to mediation and get aired, which is what I +want, or they'll pull a Pearl Harbor on you, the way they did on me. And +in that case, the President will have to intervene, and they'll fly in +technicians from some of the Armed Forces plants to keep this place +running. And in that case, things'll get settled that much quicker. This +Crandall thinks these men I fired are martyrs, and he's preaching a +crusade. He ought to carry an <i>advocatus diaboli</i> on his payroll, to +scrutinize the qualifications of his martyrs, before he starts +canonizing them."</p> + +<p>A little later, Doris Rives came into the office, her hands full of +papers and cards.</p> + +<p>"I have twelve more tests completed," she reported. "Only one washout."</p> + +<p>Melroy laughed. "Doctor, they're all washed out," he told her. "It seems +there was an additional test, and they all flunked it. Evinced +willingness to follow unwise leadership and allow themselves to be +talked into improper courses of action. You go on in to New York, and +take all the test-material, including sound records, with you. Stay at +the hotel—your pay will go on—till I need you. There'll be a Federal +Mediation hearing in a day or so."</p> + +<p>He had two more telephone calls. The first, at 1530, was from Leighton. +Melroy suspected that the latter had been medicating his morale with a +couple of stiff drinks: his voice was almost jaunty.</p> + +<p>"Well, the war's on," he announced. "The I.F.A.W.'s walking out on the +whole plant, at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow."</p> + +<p>"In violation of the Federal Labor Act, Section Eight, paragraphs four +and five," Melroy supplemented. "Crandall really has stuck his neck in +the guillotine. What's Washington doing?"</p> + +<p>"President Hartley is ordering Navy personnel flown in from +Kennebunkport Reaction Lab; they will be here by about oh-three-hundred +tomorrow. And a couple of Federal mediators are coming in to La Guardia +at seventeen hundred; they're going to hold preliminary hearings at the +new Federal Building on Washington Square beginning twenty hundred. A +couple of I.F.A.W. negotiators are coming in from the national union +headquarters at Oak Ridge: they should be getting in about the same +time. 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."</p> + +<p>"I will undoubtedly be there, complete with Dr. Rives," Melroy replied. +"It will be a pleasure!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<p>An hour later, Ben Puryear called from the reactor area, his voice +strained with anger.</p> + +<p>"Scott, do you know what those—" He gargled obscenities for a moment. +"You know what they've done? They've re-packed the Number One +Doernberg-Giardano; got a chain-reaction started again."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Fred Hausinger's gang. Apparently at Harry Crandall's orders. The +excuse was that it would be unsafe to leave the reactor in its +dismantled condition during a prolonged shutdown—they were assuming, I +suppose, that the strike would be allowed to proceed unopposed—but of +course the real reason was that they wanted to get a chain-reaction +started to keep our people from working on the reactor."</p> + +<p>"Well, didn't Hausinger try to stop them?"</p> + +<p>"Not very hard. I asked him what he had that deputy marshal's badge on +his shirt and that Luger on his hip for, but he said he had orders not +to use force, for fear of prejudicing the mediators."</p> + +<p>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're +able."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Doris Rives was waiting on the street level when Melroy reached the new +Federal Building, in what had formerly been the Greenwich Village +district of Manhattan, that evening. She had a heavy brief case with +her, which he took.</p> + +<p>"I was afraid I'd keep you waiting," she said. "I came down from the +hotel by cab, and there was a frightful jam at Fortieth Street, and +another one just below Madison Square."</p> + +<p>"Yes, it gets worse every year. Pardon my obsession, but nine times out +of ten—ninety-nine out of a hundred—it's the fault of some fool doing +something stupid. Speaking about doing stupid things, though—I did one. +Forgot to take that gun out of my overcoat pocket, and didn't notice +that I had it till I was on the subway, coming in. Have a big flashlight +in the other pocket, but that doesn't matter. What I'm worried about is +that somebody'll find out I have a gun and raise a howl about my coming +armed to a mediation hearing."</p> + +<p>The hearing was to be held in one of the big conference rooms on the +forty-second floor. Melroy was careful to remove his overcoat and lay it +on a table in the corner, and then help Doris off with hers and lay it +on top of his own. There were three men in the room when they arrived: +Kenneth Leighton, the Atomic Power Authority man, fiftyish, acquiring a +waistline bulge and losing his hair: a Mr. Lyons, tall and slender, with +white hair; and a Mr. Quillen, considerably younger, with plastic-rimmed +glasses. The latter two were the Federal mediators. All three had been +lounging in arm-chairs, talking about the new plays on Broadway. They +all rose when Melroy and Doris Rives came over to join them.</p> + +<p>"We mustn't discuss business until the others get here," Leighton +warned. "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 of +them. I suppose neither of you have had time to see any of the new +plays."</p> + +<p>Fortunately, Doris and Melroy had gone to the theater after dinner, the +evening-before-last; they were able to join the conversation. Young Mr. +Quillen wanted Doris Rives' opinion, as a psychologist, of the mental +processes of the heroine of the play they had seen; as nearly as she +could determine, Doris replied, the heroine in question had exhibited +nothing even loosely describable as mental processes of any sort. They +were still on the subject when the two labor negotiators, Mr. Cronnin +and Mr. Fields, arrived. Cronnin was in his sixties, with the +nearsighted squint and compressed look of concentration of an old-time +precision machinist; Fields was much younger, and sported a Phi Beta +Kappa key.</p> + +<p>Lyons, who seemed to be the senior mediator, thereupon called the +meeting to order and they took their places at the table.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"Now, gentlemen—and Dr. Rives—this will be simply an informal +discussion, so that everybody can see what everybody else's position in +the matter is. We won't bother to make a sound recording. Then, if we +have managed to reach some common understanding of the question this +evening, we can start the regular hearing say at thirteen hundred +tomorrow. Is that agreeable?"</p> + +<p>It was. The younger mediator, Quillen, cleared his throat.</p> + +<p>"It seems, from our information, that this entire dispute arises from +the discharge, by Mr. Melroy, of two of his employees, named Koffler and +Burris. Is that correct?"</p> + +<p>"Well, there's also the question of the Melroy Engineering Corporation's +attempting to use strike-breakers, and the Long Island Atomic Power +Authority's having condoned this unfair employment practice," Cronnin +said, acidly.</p> + +<p>"And there's also the question of the I.F.A.W.'s calling a Pearl Harbor +strike on my company," Melroy added.</p> + +<p>"We resent that characterization!" Cronnin retorted.</p> + +<p>"It's a term in common usage; it denotes a strike called without warning +or declaration of intention, which this was," Melroy told him.</p> + +<p>"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 spoke +up. "On sixteen hours' notice."</p> + +<p>"Well, that wasn't the fault of the I.F.A.W. as an organization," Fields +argued. "Mr. Cronnin and I are agreed that the walk-out date should be +postponed for two weeks, in accordance with the provisions of the +Federal Labor Act."</p> + +<p>"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 hundred +today. Am I to consider that an act of your union, or will you disavow +it so that I can fire all of them for quitting without permission?"</p> + +<p>"And how about the action of members of your union, acting on +instructions from Harry Crandall, in re-packing the Number One +Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactor at our plant, after the plutonium and +the U-238 and the neutron-source containers had been removed, in order +to re-initiate a chain reaction to prevent Mr. Melroy's employees from +working on the reactor?" Leighton demanded. "Am I to understand that the +union sustains that action, too?"</p> + +<p>"I hadn't known about that," Fields said, somewhat startled.</p> + +<p>"Neither had I," Cronnin added. "When did it happen?"</p> + +<p>"About sixteen hundred today," Melroy told him.</p> + +<p>"We were on the plane from Oak Ridge, then," Fields declared. "We know +nothing about that."</p> + +<p>"Well, are you going to take the responsibility for it, or aren't you?" +Leighton insisted.</p> + +<p>Lyons, who had been toying with a small metal paperweight, rapped on the +table with it.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen," he interrupted. "We're trying to cover too many subjects at +once. I suggest that we confine ourselves, at the beginning, to the +question of the dismissal of these men, Burris and Koffler. If we find +that the I.F.A.W. has a legitimate grievance in what we may call the +Burris-Koffler question, we can settle that and then go on to these +other questions."</p> + +<p>"I'm agreeable to that," Melroy said.</p> + +<p>"So are we," Cronnin nodded.</p> + +<p>"All right, then. Since the I.F.A.W. is the complaining party in this +question, perhaps you gentlemen should state the grounds for your +complaints."</p> + +<p>Fields and Cronnin exchanged glances: Cronnin nodded to Fields and the +latter rose. The two employees in question, he stated, had been the +victims of discrimination and persecution because of union activities. +Koffler was the union shop-steward for the men employed by the Melroy +Engineering Corporation, and Burris had been active in bringing +complaints about unfair employment practices. Furthermore, it was the +opinion of the I.F.A.W. that the psychological tests imposed on their +members had been a fraudulent pretext for dismissing these two men, and, +in any case, the practice of compelling workers to submit to such tests +was insulting, degrading, and not a customary condition of employment.</p> + +<p>With that, he sat down. Melroy was on his feet at once.</p> + +<p>"I'll deny those statements, categorically and seriatim," he replied. +"They are based entirely upon misrepresentations made by the two men who +were disqualified by the tests and dropped from my payroll because of +being, in the words of my contract with your union, 'persons of unsound +mind, deficient intelligence and/or emotional instability.' What +happened is that your local official, Crandall, accepted everything they +told him uncritically, and you accepted everything Crandall told you, in +the same spirit.</p> + +<p>"Before I go on," Melroy continued, turning to Lyons, "have I your +permission to let Dr. Rives explain about these tests, herself, and tell +how they were given and evaluated?"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Permission granted by Lyons, Doris Rives rose. At some length, she +explained the nature and purpose of the tests, and her method of scoring +and correlating them.</p> + +<p>"Well, did Mr. Melroy suggest to you that any specific employee or +employees of his were undesirable and ought to be eliminated?" Fields +asked.</p> + +<p>"Certainly not!" Doris Rives became angry. "And if he had, I'd have +taken the first plane out of here. That suggestion is insulting! And for +your information, I never met Mr. Melroy before day-before-yesterday +afternoon; I am not dependent upon him for anything; I took this job as +an accommodation to Dr. Karl von Heydenreich, who ordinarily does such +work for the Melroy company, and I'm losing money by remaining here. +Does that satisfy you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it does," Fields admitted. He was obviously impressed by mention +of the distinguished Austrian psychologist's name. "If I may ask Mr. +Melroy a question: I gather that these tests are given to all your +employees. Why do you demand such an extraordinary level of intelligence +from your employees, even common laborers?"</p> + +<p>"Extraordinary?" Melroy echoed. "If the standards established by those +tests are extraordinary, then God help this country; we are becoming a +race 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 tests +is ordinary adult mental capacity.</p> + +<p>"My company specializes in cybernetic-control systems," he continued. +"In spite of a lot of misleading colloquial jargon about 'thinking +machines' and 'giant brains', a cybernetic system doesn't really think. +It only does what it's been designed <i>and built</i> to do, and if somebody +builds a mistake into it, it will automatically and infallibly repeat +that mistake in practice."</p> + +<p>"He's right," Cronnin said. "The men that build a machine like that have +got to be as smart as the machine's supposed to be, or the machine'll be +as dumb as they are."</p> + +<p>Fields turned on him angrily. "Which side are you supposed to be on, +anyhow?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"You're probably a lawyer," Melroy said. "But I'll bet Mr. Cronnin's an +old reaction-plant man." Cronnin nodded unthinkingly in confirmation. +"All right, then. Ask him what those Doernberg-Giardanos are like. And +then let me ask you: Suppose some moron fixed up something that would go +wrong, or made the wrong kind of a mistake himself, around one of those +reactors?"</p> + +<p>It was purely a rhetorical question, but, much later, when he would have +time to think about it, Scott Melroy was to wonder if ever in history +such a question had been answered so promptly and with such dramatic +calamitousness.</p> + +<p>Three seconds after he stopped speaking, the lights went out.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>For a moment, they were silent and motionless. Then somebody across the +table from Melroy began to say, "What the devil—?" Doris Rives, beside +him, clutched his arm. At the head of the table, Lyons was fuming +impatiently, and Kenneth Leighton snapped a pocket-lighter and held it +up.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ill021.jpg"><img src="images/ill021.jpg" alt=""/></a> +</div> +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The Venetian-screened windows across the room faced east. In the flicker +of the lighter, Melroy made his way around to them and drew open the +slats of one, looking out. Except for the headlights of cars, far down +in the street, and the lights of ships in the harbor, the city was +completely blacked out. But there was one other, horrible, light far +away at the distant tip of Long Island—a huge ball of flame, floating +upward at the tip of a column of fiery gas. As he watched, there were +twinkles 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.</p> + +<p>"The main power-reactors, too," Melroy said to himself, not realizing +that he spoke audibly. "Too well shielded for the blast to get them, but +the heat melted the fissionables down to critical mass."</p> + +<p>Leighton, the lighter still burning, was beside him, now.</p> + +<p>"That's not—God, it can't be anything else! Why, the whole plant's +gone! There aren't enough other generators in this area to handle a +hundredth of the demand."</p> + +<p>"And don't blame that on my alleged strike-breakers," Melroy warned. +"They hadn't got security-cleared to enter the reactor area when this +happened."</p> + +<p>"What do you think happened?" Cronnin asked. "One of the +Doernberg-Giardanos let go?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Your man Crandall. If he survived that, it's his bad luck," Melroy +said grimly. "Last night, while Fred Hausinger was pulling the +fissionables and radioactives out of the Number One breeder, he found a +big nugget of Pu-239, about one-quarter CM. I don't know what was done +with it, but I do know that Crandall had the maintenance gang repack +that reactor, to keep my people from working on it. Nobody'll ever find +out just what happened, but they were in a hurry; they probably shoved +things in any old way. Somehow, that big subcritical nugget must have +got 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 know +how fast those D-G's work. It just took this long to build up CM for a +bomb-type reaction. You remember what I was saying before the lights +went out? Well, it happened. Some moron—some untested and undetected +moron—made the wrong kind of a mistake."</p> + +<p>"Too bad about Crandall. He was a good kid, only he didn't stop to think +often enough," Cronnin said. "Well, I guess the strike's off, now; +that's one thing."</p> + +<p>"But all those people, out there!" Womanlike, Doris Rives was thinking +particularly rather than generally and of humans rather than +abstractions. "It must have killed everybody for miles around."</p> + +<p>Sid Keating, Melroy thought. And Joe Ricci, and Ben Puryear, and Steve +Chalmers, and all the workmen whom he had brought here from Pittsburgh, +to their death. Then he stopped thinking about them. It didn't do any +good to think of men who'd been killed; he'd learned that years ago, as +a kid second lieutenant in Korea. The people to think about were the +millions in Greater New York, and up the Hudson Valley to Albany, and as +far south as Trenton, caught without light in the darkness, without heat +in the dead of winter, without power in subways and skyscrapers and on +railroads and interurban lines.</p> + +<p>He turned to the woman beside him.</p> + +<p>"Doris, before you could get your Board of Psychiatry and Neurology +diploma, you had to qualify as a regular M.D., didn't you?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes—"</p> + +<p>"Then you'd better report to the nearest hospital. Any doctor at all is +going to be desperately needed, for the next day or so. Me, I still have +a reserve major's commission in the Army Corps of Engineers. They're +probably calling up reserve officers, with any radios that are still +working. Until I hear differently, I'm ordering myself on active duty as +of now." He looked around. "Anybody know where the nearest Army +headquarters is?"</p> + +<p>"There's a recruiting station down on the thirty-something floor," +Quillen said. "It's probably closed, now, though."</p> + +<p>"Ground Defense Command; Midtown City," Leighton said. "They have a +medical section of their own; they'll be glad to get Dr. Rives, too."</p> + +<p>Melroy helped her on with her coat and handed her her handbag, then +shrugged into his own overcoat and belted it about him, the weight of +the 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 of +vicious criminals, to whom this power-failure would be a perfect +devilsend. Handing Doris the light, he let her take his left arm. +Together, they left the room and went down the hallway to the stairs and +the long walk to the darkened street below, into a city that had +suddenly been cut off from its very life-energy. A city that had put all +its eggs in one basket, and left the basket in the path of any +blundering foot.</p> + + +<p>THE END</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Day of the Moron, by Henry Beam Piper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAY OF THE MORON *** + +***** This file should be named 18949-h.htm or 18949-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/9/4/18949/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Day of the Moron + +Author: Henry Beam Piper + +Release Date: July 31, 2006 [EBook #18949] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAY OF THE MORON *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + DAY OF THE MORON + + BY H. BEAM PIPER + +[Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science +Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence +that the copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + + + +_It's natural to trust the unproven word of the fellow who's "on my +side"--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 the +mighty, leashed forces Man employs now...._ + + + + +There were still, in 1968, a few people who were afraid of the nuclear +power plant. Oldsters, in whom the term "atomic energy" produced +semantic reactions associated with Hiroshima. Those who saw, in the +towering steam-column above it, a tempting target for enemy--which still +meant Soviet--bombers and guided missiles. Some of the Central +Intelligence and F.B.I. people, who realized how futile even the most +elaborate security measures were against a resourceful and suicidally +determined saboteur. And a minority of engineers and nuclear physicists +who remained unpersuaded that accidental blowups at nuclear-reaction +plants were impossible. + +Scott Melroy was among these last. He knew, as a matter of fact, that +there had been several nasty, meticulously unpublicized, +near-catastrophes at the Long Island Nuclear Reaction Plant, all +involving the new Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactors, and that there +had been considerable carefully-hushed top-level acrimony before the +Melroy Engineering Corporation had been given the contract to install +the fully cybernetic control system intended to prevent a recurrence of +such incidents. + +That had been three months ago. Melroy and his people had moved in, been +assigned sections of a couple of machine shops, set up an assembly shop +and a set of plyboard-partitioned offices in a vacant warehouse just +outside the reactor area, and tried to start work, only to run into the +almost interminable procedural disputes and jurisdictional wranglings of +the sort which he privately labeled "bureau bunk". It was only now that +he was ready to begin work on the reactors. + +He sat at his desk, in the inner of three successively smaller offices +on the second floor of the converted warehouse, checking over a +symbolic-logic analysis of a relay system and, at the same time, +sharpening a pencil, his knife paring off tiny feathery shavings of +wood. He was a tall, sparely-built, man of indeterminate age, with +thinning 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 shabby +leather jacket, to the left shoulder of which a few clinging flecks of +paint showed where some military emblem had been, long ago. While his +fingers worked with the jackknife and his eyes traveled over the page of +closely-written symbols, his mind was reviewing the eight different ways +in which one of the efficient but treacherous Doernberg-Giardano +reactors could be allowed to reach critical mass, and he was wondering +if there might not be some unsuspected ninth way. That was a possibility +which always lurked in the back of his mind, and lately it had been +giving him surrealistic nightmares. + +"Mr. Melroy!" the box on the desk in front of him said suddenly, in a +feminine 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 told +him 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 had +been a hint of suppressed amusement in his secretary's voice. Then the +door opened and he stopped wondering. Dr. Rives wasn't a him; she was a +her. Very attractive looking her, too--dark hair and eyes, rather +long-oval features, clear, lightly tanned complexion, bright red +lipstick put on with a micrometric exactitude that any engineer could +appreciate. She was tall, within four inches of his own six-foot mark, +and she wore a black tailored outfit, perfectly plain, which had +probably cost around five hundred dollars and would have looked severe +and mannish except that the figure under it curved and bulged in just +the right places and to just the right degree. + +Melroy rose, laying down knife and pencil and taking his pipe out of his +mouth. + +"Good afternoon," he greeted. "Dr. von Heydenreich gave me quite a +favorable account of you--as far as it went. He might have included a +few 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," she +suggested. "Suppose I'd been an Englishman with a name like Evelyn or +Vivian?" + +Melroy tried to visualize her as a male Englishman named Vivian, gave +up, and grinned at her. + +"Let this be a lesson," he said. "Inferences are to be drawn from +objects, or descriptions of objects; never from verbal labels. Do you +initial your first name just to see how people react when they meet +you?" + +"Well, no, though that's an amusing and sometimes instructive +by-product. It started when I began contributing to some of the +professional journals. There's still a little of what used to be called +male sex-chauvinism among my colleagues, and some who would be favorably +impressed with an article signed D. Warren Rives might snort in contempt +at the same article signed Doris Rives." + +"Well, fortunately, Dr. von Heydenreich isn't one of those," Melroy +said. "How is the Herr Doktor, by the way, and just what happened to +him? Miss Kourtakides merely told me that he'd been injured and was in a +hospital in Pittsburgh." + +"The Herr Doktor got shot," Doris Rives informed him. "With a charge of +BB'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 a +turkey. Nothing really serious, but he's face down in bed, cursing +hideously in German, English, Russian, Italian and French, mainly +because he's missing deer hunting." + +"I might have known it," Melroy said in disgust. "The ubiquitous +lame-brain with a dangerous mechanism.... I suppose he briefed you on +what I want done, here?" + +"Well, not too completely. I gathered that you want me to give +intelligence tests, or aptitude tests, or something of the sort, to some +of your employees. I'm not really one of these so-called industrial +anthropologists," she explained. "Most of my work, for the past few +years, has been for public-welfare organizations, with subnormal +persons. I told him that, and he said that was why he selected me. He +said one other thing. He said, 'I used to think Melroy had an obsession +about fools; well, after stopping this load of shot, I'm beginning to +think it's a good subject to be obsessed about.'" + +Melroy nodded. "'Obsession' will probably do. 'Phobia' would be more +exact. I'm afraid of fools, and the chance that I have one working for +me, here, affects me like having a cobra crawling around my bedroom in +the dark. I want you to locate any who might be in a gang of new men +I'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 to +Democrats, and vice versa." + +"Well, I apply it to people who do things without considering possible +consequences. People who pepper distinguished Austrian psychologists in +the pants-seat with turkey-shot, for a starter. Or people who push +buttons to see what'll happen, or turn valves and twiddle with +dial-knobs because they have nothing else to do with their hands. Or +shoot insulators off power lines to see if they can hit them. People who +don't know it's loaded. People who think warning signs are purely +ornamental. People who play practical jokes. People who--" + +"I know what you mean. Just day-before-yesterday, I saw a woman toss a +cocktail into an electric heater. She didn't want to drink it, and she +thought it would just go up in steam. The result was slightly +spectacular." + +"Next time, she won't do that. She'll probably throw her drink into a +lead-ladle, if there's one around. Well, on a statistical basis, I'd +judge that I have three or four such dud rounds among this new gang I've +hired. I want you to put the finger on them, so I can bounce them before +they 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 speaking +of has an I.Q. well inside the meaning of normal intelligence. She just +doesn'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 five +years ago. The intelligence test is based on the new French Surete test +for mentally deficient criminals. Then there's a memory test, and tests +for judgment and discrimination, semantic reactions, temperamental and +emotional makeup, and general mental attitude." + +She took the folder and leafed through it. "Yes, I see. I always liked +this Surete 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 these +memory-course boys trying to make visual images of six pairs of Don +Alfonso tweezers. And I'm going to make a copy of this word-association +list. It's really a semantic reaction test; Korzybski would have loved +it. And, of course, our old friend, the Rorschach Ink-Blots. I've always +harbored the impious suspicion that you can prove almost anything you +want to with that. But these question-suggestions for personal interview +are really crafty. Did Heydenreich get them up himself?" + +"Yes. And we have stacks and stacks of printed forms for the written +portion of the test, and big cards to summarize each subject on. And we +have a disk-recorder to use in the oral tests. There'll have to be a +pretty 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 and +commenting blasphemously on the weather. He advanced into the room until +he saw the woman in the chair beside the desk, and then started to back +out. + +"Come on in, Sid," Melroy told him. "Dr. Rives, this is our general +foreman, Sid Keating. Sid, Dr. Rives, the new dimwit detector. Sid's in +direct charge of personnel," he continued, "so you two'll be working +together 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'm +afraid we'll have trouble, then." + +"Look, Sid," Melroy said. "We've been all over that. Once we start work +on the reactors, you and Ned Puryear and Joe Ricci and Steve Chalmers +can't be everywhere at once. A cybernetic system will only do what it's +been assembled to do, and if some quarter-wit assembles one of these +things wrong--" He left the sentence dangling; both men knew what he +meant. + +Keating shook his head. "This union's going to bawl like a branded calf +about it," he predicted. "And if any of the dear sirs and brothers get +washed 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, faintly +scandalized. + +"Neither can I, and they probably won't either," Keating told her. "But +they'll go ahead and do it. Why, Scott, they're pulling the Number One +Doernberg-Giardano, tonight. By oh-eight-hundred, it ought to be cool +enough to work on. Where will we hold the tests? Here?" + +"We'll have to, unless we can get Dr. Rives security-cleared." Melroy +turned to her. "Were you ever security-cleared by any Government +agency?" + +"Oh, yes. I was with Armed Forces Medical, Psychiatric Division, in +Indonesia in '62 and '63, and I did some work with mental fatigue cases +at 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. "Take +them in relays. I'll talk to Ben about it, and we'll work up some kind +of 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't +try to make you carry a pistol, too." + +"A pistol?" For a moment, she must have thought he was using some +technical-jargon term, and then it dawned on her that he wasn't. "You +mean--?" She cocked her thumb and crooked her index finger. + +"Yeah. A rod. Roscoe. The Equalizer. We all have to." He half-lifted one +out of his side pocket. "We're all United States deputy marshals. They +don't bother much with counterespionage, here, but they don't fool when +it comes to countersabotage. Well, I'll get an order cut and posted. Be +seeing 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 about +fifty of my own men, from Pittsburgh, here, but they can't work on the +reactors because they don't belong to the Industrial Federation of +Atomic Workers, and I can't just pay their initiation fees and union +dues and get union cards for them, because admission to this union is on +an annual quota basis, and this is December, and the quota's full. So I +have to use them outside the reactor area, on fabrication and assembly +work. And I have to hire through the union, and that's handled on a +membership 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 written +into my contract. + +"Now, here's what's going to happen. Most of the men'll take the test +without protest, but a few of them'll raise the roof about it. Nothing +burns a moron worse than to have somebody question his fractional +intelligence. The odds are that the ones that yell the loudest about +taking the test will be the ones who get scrubbed out, and when the test +shows that they're deficient, they won't believe it. A moron simply +cannot conceive of his being anything less than perfectly intelligent, +any more than a lunatic can conceive of his being less than perfectly +sane. 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 the +local level. That goes without saying. In any dispute, the employer is +always wrong and the worker is always right, until proven otherwise. And +that 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?" she +asked. + +"Experienced, yes. That is, none of them has ever been caught doing +anything downright calamitous ... yet," Melroy replied. "The moron I'm +afraid of can go on for years, doing routine work under supervision, and +nothing'll happen. Then, some day, he does something on his own +lame-brained initiative, and when he does, it's only at the whim of +whatever gods there be that the result isn't a wholesale catastrophe. +And people like that are the most serious threat facing our civilization +today, 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. But +look at this plant, here. It generates every kilowatt of current used +between 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 minimum +load, it's been the only source of electric current here since 1962, +when the last coal-burning power plant was dismantled. Knock this plant +out and you darken every house and office and factory and street in the +area. You immobilize the elevators--think what that would mean in lower +and midtown Manhattan alone. And the subways. And the new endless-belt +conveyors that handle eighty per cent of the city's freight traffic. And +the railroads--there aren't a dozen steam or Diesel locomotives left in +the 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, you +can't imagine what it'd be like. It's too gigantic. But what you can +imagine would be a nightmare. + +"You know, it wasn't so long ago, when every home lighted and heated +itself, and every little industry was a self-contained unit, that a fool +couldn't do great damage unless he inherited a throne or was placed in +command of an army, and that didn't happen nearly as often as our +leftist social historians would like us to think. But today, everything +we depend upon is centralized, and vulnerable to blunder-damage. Even +our food--remember that poisoned soft-drink horror in Chicago, in 1963; +three thousand hospitalized and six hundred dead because of one man's +stupid mistake at a bottling plant." He shook himself slightly, as +though to throw off some shadow that had fallen over him, and looked at +his 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 Midtown +City hotel, on Forty-seventh Street: I had my luggage sent on there from +the airport and came out on the Long Island subway." + +"Fine. I have a room at Midtown City, myself, though I sleep here about +half the time." He nodded toward a door on the left. "Suppose we go in +and have dinner together. This cafeteria, here, is a horrible place. +It's run by a dietitian instead of a chef, and everything's so +white-enamel antiseptic that I swear I smell belladonna-icthyol ointment +every time I go in the place. Wait here till I change clothes." + + * * * * * + +At the Long Island plant, no one was concerned about espionage--neither +the processes nor the equipment used there were secret--but the +countersabotage security was fantastically thorough. Every person or +scrap of material entering the reactor area was searched; the +life-history of every man and woman employed there was known back to the +cradle. A broad highway encircled it outside the fence, patrolled night +and day by twenty General Stuart cavalry-tanks. There were a thousand +soldiers, and three hundred Atomic Power Authority police, and only God +knew how many F.B.I, and Central Intelligence undercover agents. Every +supervisor and inspector and salaried technician was an armed United +States deputy marshal. And nobody, outside the Department of Defense, +knew how much radar and counter-rocket and fighter protection the place +had, but the air-defense zone extended from Boston to Philadelphia and +as far inland as Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. + +The Long Island Nuclear Power Plant, Melroy thought, had all the +invulnerability of Achilles--and no more. + +The six new Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactors clustered in a circle +inside a windowless concrete building at the center of the plant. Beside +their primary purpose of plutonium production, they furnished heat for +the sea-water distillation and chemical extraction system, processing +the water that was run through the steam boilers at the main power +reactors, condensed, redistilled, and finally pumped, pure, into the +water mains of New York. Safe outside the shielding, in a corner of a +high-ceilinged room, was the plyboard-screened on-the-job office of the +Melroy Engineering Corporation's timekeepers and foremen. Beyond, along +the far wall, were the washroom and locker room and lunch room of the +workmen. + +Sixty or seventy men, mostly in white coveralls and all wearing +identification badges and carrying dosimeters in their breast pockets +and midget Geigers strapped to their wrists, were crowded about the +bulletin-board in front of the makeshift office. There was a hum of +voices--some perplexed or angry, but mostly good-humored and bantering. +As Melroy and Doris Rives approached, the talking died out and the men +turned. 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 hush +him. The bellicose voice continued, and Melroy spotted the +speaker--short, thick-set, his arms jutting out at an angle from his +body, his heavy features soured with anger. + +"Like we was a lotta halfwits, 'r nuts, 'r some'n! Well, we don't hafta +stand for this. They ain't got no right--" + +Doris Rives clung tighter to Melroy's arm as he pushed a way for himself +and her through the crowd and into the temporary office. Inside, they +were met by a young man with a deputy marshal's badge on his flannel +shirt and a .38 revolver on his hip. + +"Ben Puryear: Dr. Rives," Melroy introduced. "Who's the mouthy character +outside?" + +"One of the roustabouts; name's Burris," Puryear replied. "Wash-room +lawyer." + +Melroy nodded. "You always get one or two like that. How're the rest +taking it?" + +Puryear shrugged. "About how you'd expect. A lot of kidding about who's +got any intelligence to test. Burris seems to be the only one who's +trying to make an issue out of it." + +"Well, what are they doing ganged up here?" Melroy wanted to know. "It's +past 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 test +together, and start the personal interviews and oral tests as soon as +they're through." He turned to Doris Rives. "Can you give all of them +the written test together?" he asked. "And can Ben help +you--distributing forms, timing the test, seeing that there's no +fudging, 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 the +interview subject." + +"Right over here, doctor." Puryear said. "And here are the forms and +cards, and the sound-recorder, and blank sound disks." + +"Yes," Melroy added. "Be sure you get a recording of every interview and +oral 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 a +protuberant Adam's apple; beside his identity badge, he wore a two-inch +celluloid 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 newcomer +shook his head, twisting his mouth into a smirk. + +"Not that one; the one with the whisper mouthpiece," he said. "This is +private union business." + + * * * * * + +Melroy shrugged and indicated another phone. The man with the union +steward's badge picked it up, dialed, and held a lengthy conversation +into it, turning his head away in case Melroy might happen to be a lip +reader. Finally he turned. + +"Mr. Crandall wants to talk to you," he said, grinning triumphantly, the +phone extended to Melroy. + +The engineer picked up another phone, snapping a button on the base of +it. + +"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 of +the 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 in +your 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 anything +against his will. If anybody objects to taking these tests, he can say +so, 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 these +men want to keep their jobs they'll have to take this test." + +"Well, that's stated more or less correctly," Melroy conceded. "Let's +just put it that taking--and passing--this test is a condition of +employment. My contract with your union recognizes my right to establish +standards of intelligence; that's implied by my recognized right to +dismiss any person of 'unsound mind, deficient mentality or emotional +instability.' Psychological testing is the only means of determining +whether or not a person is classifiable in those terms." + +"Then, in case the test purports to show that one of these men is, let's +say, 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 have +to insist on reviewing the grounds for dismissal." + +"My contract with your union says nothing whatever about any right of +review being reserved by the union in such cases. Only in cases of +disciplinary dismissal, which this is not. I take the position that +certain minimum standards of intelligence and mental stability are +essentials in this sort of work, just as, say, certain minimum standards +of literacy are essential in clerical work." + +"Then you're going to make these men take these tests, whatever they +are?" + +"If they want to work for me, yes. And anybody who fails to pass them +will be dropped from my payroll." + +"And who's going to decide whether or not these men have successfully +passed these tests?" Crandall asked. "You?" + +"Good Lord, no! I'm an electronics engineer, not a psychologist. The +tests are being given, and will be evaluated, by a graduate +psychologist, Dr. D. Warren Rives, who has a diploma from the American +Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is a member of the American +Psychological Association. Dr. Rives will be the final arbiter on who is +or 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, she +is an extremely competent psychologist, however. She came to me most +highly recommended by Dr. Karl von Heydenreich, who is not inclined to +be careless with his recommendations." + +"Well, Mr. Melroy, we don't want any more trouble with you than we have +to have," Crandall told him, "but we will insist on reviewing any +dismissals which occur as a result of these tests." + +"You can do that. I'd advise, first, that you read over the contract you +signed with me. Get a qualified lawyer to tell you what we've agreed to +and what we haven't. Was there anything else you wanted to talk +about?... No?... Then good morning, Mr. Crandall." + +He hung up. "All right; let's get on with it," he said. "Ben, you get +them into the lunch room; there are enough tables and benches in there +for everybody to take the written test in two relays." + +"The union's gotta be represented while these tests is going on," the +union steward announced. "Mr. Crandall says I'm to stay here an' watch +what 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 the +written test, and gets first turn for the orals. That way he can spend +the rest of his time on duty here for the union, and will know in +advance what the test is like." He turned to Koffler. "But understand +this. You keep your mouth out of it. If you see anything that looks +objectionable, 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 for +a while, then picked up a big flashlight and dropped it into his +overcoat pocket, preparatory to going out to inspect some equipment that +had been assembled outside the reactor area and brought in. As he went +out, Koffler was straddling a chair, glowering at Doris Rives and making +occasional 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 the +temporary office, the oral testing was still going on; Koffler was still +on duty as watcher for the union, but the sport had evidently palled on +him, for he was now studying a comic book. + +Melroy left the reactor area and returned to the office in the converted +area. During the midafternoon, somebody named Leighton called him from +the Atomic Power Authority executive office, wanting to know what was +the trouble between him and the I.F.A.W. and saying that a protest +against his alleged high-handed and arbitrary conduct had been received +from the union. + +Melroy explained, at length. He finished: "You people have twenty Stuart +tanks, and a couple of thousand soldiers and cops and undercover-men, +here, guarding against sabotage. Don't you realize that a workman who +makes stupid or careless or impulsive mistakes is just as dangerous to +the plant as any saboteur? If somebody shoots you through the head, it +doesn't matter whether he planned to murder you for a year or just +didn't know the gun was loaded; you're as dead one way as the other. I +should think you'd thank me for trying to eliminate a serious source of +danger." + +"Now, don't misunderstand my position, Mr. Melroy," the other man +hastened to say. "I sympathize with your attitude, entirely. But these +people are going to make trouble." + +"If they do, it'll be my trouble. I'm under contract to install this +cybernetic 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 of +personnel, here; that makes me his top-priority target, all the time." + +"Well, what sort of a character is he, anyhow? When I contracted with +the I.F.A.W., my lawyer and their lawyer handled everything; I never +even met him." + +"Well--He has his job to do, the same as I have," Leighton said. "He +does it conscientiously. But it's like this--anything a workman tells +him 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. And +he goes off half-cocked a lot of times. He doesn't stop to analyze +situations very closely." + +"That's what I was afraid of. Well, you tell him you don't have any +control 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 the +tests and interviews completed," she said. "I'll have to evaluate the +results, 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 you +from 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 hundred +REM's--and the temperature's away up, too. That isn't lingering +radiation; that's prompt radiation." + +"Radioactivity hasn't dropped since morning; I'd think so, too," Melroy +said. "What are they getting on the breakdown counter?" + +"Mostly neutrons and alpha-particles. I talked to Fred Hausinger, the +maintenance boss; he doesn't like it, either." + +"Well, I'm no nuclear physicist," Melroy disclaimed, "but all that alpha +stuff looks like a big chunk of Pu-239 left inside. What's Fred doing +about it?" + +"Oh, poking around inside the reactor with telemetered scanners and +remote-control equipment. When I left, he had a gang pulling out +graphite blocks with RC-tongs. We probably won't get a chance to work on +it much before thirteen-hundred tomorrow." He unzipped a bulky brief +case he had brought in under his arm and dumped papers onto his desk. "I +still have this stuff to get straightened out, too." + +"Had anything to eat? Then call the cafeteria and have them send up +three dinners. Dr. Rives is eating here, too. Find out what she wants; I +want 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 the +door. Melroy could hear a recording of somebody being given a +word-association test. + +Half an hour later, when the food arrived, they spread their table on a +relatively clear desk in the middle office. Doris Rives had finished +evaluating the completed tests; after dinner, she intended going over +the 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. "Harvey +Burris and Julius Koffler." + +"Oh, _no_!" Keating wailed. "The I.F.A.W. steward, and the +loudest-mouthed I-know-my-rights boy on the job!" + +"Well, wasn't that to be expected?" Melroy asked. "If you'd seen the act +those two put on--" + +"They're both inherently stupid, infantile, and deficient in reasoning +ability and judgment," Doris said. "Koffler is a typical adolescent +problem-child show-off type, and Burris is an almost perfect +twelve-year-old schoolyard bully. They both have inferiority complexes +long enough to step on. If the purpose of this test is what I'm led to +believe it is, I can't, in professional good conscience, recommend +anything but that you get rid of both of them." + +"What Bob's getting at is that they're the very ones who can claim, with +the best show of plausibility, that the test is just a pretext to fire +them 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. Then +they'll have company," Keating suggested. + +"No, I can't do that." Doris was firm on the point. "The written part of +the test was solely for ability to reason logically. Just among the +three of us, I know some university professors who'd flunk on that. But +if the rest of the tests show stability, sense of responsibility, good +judgment, and a tendency to think before acting, the subject can be +classified as a safe and reliable workman." + +"Well, then, let's don't say anything till we have the tests all +finished," Keating proposed. + +"No!" Melroy cried. "Every minute those two are on the job, there's a +chance they may do something disastrous. I'll fire them at +oh-eight-hundred tomorrow." + +"All right," Keating shook his head. "I only work here. But don't say I +didn'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, who +accused him of having used the psychological tests as a fraudulent +pretext for discharging Koffler and Burris for union activities. When +Melroy rejected his demand that the two men be reinstated, Crandall +demanded to see the records of the tests. + +"They're here at my office," Melroy told him. "You're welcome to look at +them, and hear recordings of the oral portions of the tests. But I'd +advise you to bring a professional psychologist along, because unless +you're a trained psychologist yourself, they're not likely to mean much +to you." + +"Oh, sure!" Crandall retorted. "They'd have to be unintelligible to +ordinary 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, the +Atomic Power Authority man. + +"We're much disturbed about this dispute between your company and the +I.F.A.W.," he began. + +"Well, frankly, so am I," Melroy admitted. "I'm here to do a job, not +play Hatfields and McCoys with this union. I've had union trouble +before, and it isn't fun. You're the gentleman who called me last +evening, aren't you? Then you understand my position in the matter." + +"Certainly, Mr. Melroy. I was talking to Colonel Bradshaw, the security +officer, last evening. He agrees that a stupid or careless workman is, +under some circumstances, a more serious threat to security than any +saboteur. And we realize fully how dangerous those Doernberg-Giardanos +are, and how much more dangerous they'd be if these cybernetic controls +were improperly assembled. But this man Crandall is talking about +calling a strike." + +"Well, let him. In the first place, it'd be against me, not against the +Atomic Power Authority. And, in the second place, if he does and it goes +to Federal mediation, his demand for the reinstatement of those men will +be 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 rather +dim. "I wish you luck; you're going to need it." + + * * * * * + +Within the hour, Crandall arrived at Melroy's office. He was a young +man; he gave Melroy the impression of having recently seen military +service; probably in the Indonesian campaign of '62 and '63; he also +seemed a little cocky and over-sure of himself. + +"Mr. Melroy, we're not going to stand for this," he began, as soon as he +came into the room. "You're using these so-called tests as a pretext for +getting rid of Mr. Koffler and Mr. Burris because of their legitimate +union 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 complaints +that Mr. Koffler has made to us about different unfair work-assignments, +improper working conditions, inequities in allotting overtime work, and +other infractions of union-shop conditions, on behalf of Mr. Burris. So +you decided to get rid of both of them, and you think you can use this +clause in our contract with your company about persons of deficient +intelligence. The fact is, you're known to have threatened on several +occasions to get rid of both of them." + +"I am?" Melroy looked at Crandall curiously, wondering if the latter +were 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 you +account for the fact that those two men, and only those two men, were +dismissed for alleged deficient intelligence?" + +"The tests aren't all made," Melroy replied. "Until they are, you can't +say that they are the only ones disqualified. And if you look over the +records of the tests, you'll see where Koffler and Burris failed and the +others passed. Here." He laid the pile of written-test forms and the +summary and evaluation sheets on the desk. "Here's Koffler's, and here's +Burris'; these are the ones of the men who passed the test. Look them +over if you want to." + +Crandall examined the forms and summaries for the two men who had been +discharged, and compared them with several random samples from the +satisfactory pile. + +"Why, this stuff's a lot of gibberish!" he exclaimed indignantly. "This +thing, here: ... five Limerick oysters, six pairs of Don Alfonso +tweezers, seven hundred Macedonian warriors in full battle array, eight +golden crowns from the ancient, secret crypts of Egypt, nine lymphatic, +sympathetic, peripatetic old men on crutches, and ten revolving +heliotropes from the Ipsy-Wipsy Institute!' Great Lord, do you actually +mean that you're using this stuff as an excuse for depriving men of +their jobs?" + +"I warned you that you should have brought a professional psychologist +along," Melroy reminded him. "And maybe you ought to get Koffler and +Burris 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. They +just didn't have the mental equipment to cope with them and the others +did. And for that reason, I won't run the risk of having them working on +this job." + +"That's just your word against theirs," Crandall insisted obstinately. +"Their complaint is that you framed this whole thing up to get rid of +them." + +"Why, I didn't even know who either of them were, until yesterday +morning." + +"That's not the way they tell it," Crandall retorted. "They say you and +Keating have been out to get them ever since they were hired. You and +your supervisors have been persecuting both of those men systematically. +The fact that Burris has had grounds for all these previous complaints +proves that." + +"It proves that Burris has a persecution complex, and that Koffler's +credulous enough to believe him," Melroy replied. "And that tends to +confirm the results of the tests they failed to pass." + +"Oh, so that's the line you're taking. You persecute a man, and then say +he has a persecution complex if he recognizes the fact. Well, you're not +going to get away with it, that's all I have to say to you." Crandall +flung the test-sheet he had been holding on to the desk. "That stuff's +not worth the paper it's scribbled on!" He turned on his heel in an +automatically correct about-face and strode out of the office. + + * * * * * + +Melroy straightened out the papers and put them away, then sat down at +his desk, filling and lighting his pipe. He was still working at 1215 +when Ben Puryear called him. + +"They walked out on us," he reported. "Harry Crandall was out here +talking to them, and at noon the whole gang handed in their +wrist-Geigers and dosimeters and cleared out their lockers. They say +they aren't coming back till Burris and Koffler come back to work with +them." + +"Then they aren't coming back, period," Melroy replied. "Crandall was to +see me, a couple of hours ago. He tells me that Burris and Koffler told +him that we've been persecuting Burris; discriminating against him. You +know of anything that really happened that might make them think +anything 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. Any +overtime 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 allowed +to 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, but +whatever 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's +down 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 partially +completed test records and come out to the office. You and the others +stay 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 his +secretary. + +"Joan, is Sid Keating out there? Send him in, will you?" + +Keating, when he entered, was wearing the lugubriously gratified +expression appropriate to the successful prophet of disaster. + +"All right, Cassandra," Melroy greeted him. "I'm not going to say you +didn't warn me. Look. This strike is illegal. It's a violation of the +Federal 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 it +a 'spontaneous work-stoppage.'" + +"Aah! I hope I can get Crandall on record to that effect; I'll fire +every one of those men for leaving their work without permission and +absence from duty without leave. How many of our own men, from +Pittsburgh, do we have working in these machine shops and in the +assembly 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 do +this work better than this gang we've had to hire here. Just to be on +the safe side, I'm promoting all of them, as of oh-eight-hundred this +morning, to assistant gang-foremen, on salaries. That'll take them +outside 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 the +execution of our contract with the Atomic Power Authority. You know what +I think? I think the I.F.A.W. front office is going to have to disavow +this. It'll hurt them to do it, but they'll have to. Crandall's put them +in 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 control +system on the U.S.S. _Alaska_, and the work we did on that +symbolic-logic computer for the Philadelphia Project. It may take all +day to get the red tape unwound, but I think we can be ready to start by +oh-eight-hundred tomorrow." + + * * * * * + +By the time Keating had rounded up all the regular Melroy Engineering +Corporation employees and Melroy had talked to Colonel Bradshaw about +security-clearance, it was 1430. A little later, he was called on the +phone 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 a +shot-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 told +Leighton what he had in mind. The Power Authority man was considerably +shaken before he had finished. + +"But they'll call a strike on the whole plant! Have you any idea what +that would mean?" + +"Certainly I have. They'll either call it in legal form, in which case +the whole thing will go to mediation and get aired, which is what I +want, or they'll pull a Pearl Harbor on you, the way they did on me. And +in that case, the President will have to intervene, and they'll fly in +technicians from some of the Armed Forces plants to keep this place +running. And in that case, things'll get settled that much quicker. This +Crandall thinks these men I fired are martyrs, and he's preaching a +crusade. He ought to carry an _advocatus diaboli_ on his payroll, to +scrutinize the qualifications of his martyrs, before he starts +canonizing them." + +A little later, Doris Rives came into the office, her hands full of +papers 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 seems +there was an additional test, and they all flunked it. Evinced +willingness to follow unwise leadership and allow themselves to be +talked into improper courses of action. You go on in to New York, and +take all the test-material, including sound records, with you. Stay at +the hotel--your pay will go on--till I need you. There'll be a Federal +Mediation 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 a +couple of stiff drinks: his voice was almost jaunty. + +"Well, the war's on," he announced. "The I.F.A.W.'s walking out on the +whole plant, at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow." + +"In violation of the Federal Labor Act, Section Eight, paragraphs four +and five," Melroy supplemented. "Crandall really has stuck his neck in +the guillotine. What's Washington doing?" + +"President Hartley is ordering Navy personnel flown in from +Kennebunkport Reaction Lab; they will be here by about oh-three-hundred +tomorrow. And a couple of Federal mediators are coming in to La Guardia +at seventeen hundred; they're going to hold preliminary hearings at the +new Federal Building on Washington Square beginning twenty hundred. A +couple of I.F.A.W. negotiators are coming in from the national union +headquarters at Oak Ridge: they should be getting in about the same +time. 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 voice +strained 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 One +Doernberg-Giardano; got a chain-reaction started again." + +"Who?" + +"Fred Hausinger's gang. Apparently at Harry Crandall's orders. The +excuse was that it would be unsafe to leave the reactor in its +dismantled condition during a prolonged shutdown--they were assuming, I +suppose, that the strike would be allowed to proceed unopposed--but of +course the real reason was that they wanted to get a chain-reaction +started 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 on +his shirt and that Luger on his hip for, but he said he had orders not +to 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're +able." + + * * * * * + +Doris Rives was waiting on the street level when Melroy reached the new +Federal Building, in what had formerly been the Greenwich Village +district of Manhattan, that evening. She had a heavy brief case with +her, which he took. + +"I was afraid I'd keep you waiting," she said. "I came down from the +hotel by cab, and there was a frightful jam at Fortieth Street, and +another one just below Madison Square." + +"Yes, it gets worse every year. Pardon my obsession, but nine times out +of ten--ninety-nine out of a hundred--it's the fault of some fool doing +something stupid. Speaking about doing stupid things, though--I did one. +Forgot to take that gun out of my overcoat pocket, and didn't notice +that I had it till I was on the subway, coming in. Have a big flashlight +in the other pocket, but that doesn't matter. What I'm worried about is +that somebody'll find out I have a gun and raise a howl about my coming +armed to a mediation hearing." + +The hearing was to be held in one of the big conference rooms on the +forty-second floor. Melroy was careful to remove his overcoat and lay it +on a table in the corner, and then help Doris off with hers and lay it +on top of his own. There were three men in the room when they arrived: +Kenneth Leighton, the Atomic Power Authority man, fiftyish, acquiring a +waistline bulge and losing his hair: a Mr. Lyons, tall and slender, with +white hair; and a Mr. Quillen, considerably younger, with plastic-rimmed +glasses. The latter two were the Federal mediators. All three had been +lounging in arm-chairs, talking about the new plays on Broadway. They +all rose when Melroy and Doris Rives came over to join them. + +"We mustn't discuss business until the others get here," Leighton +warned. "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 of +them. I suppose neither of you have had time to see any of the new +plays." + +Fortunately, Doris and Melroy had gone to the theater after dinner, the +evening-before-last; they were able to join the conversation. Young Mr. +Quillen wanted Doris Rives' opinion, as a psychologist, of the mental +processes of the heroine of the play they had seen; as nearly as she +could determine, Doris replied, the heroine in question had exhibited +nothing even loosely describable as mental processes of any sort. They +were still on the subject when the two labor negotiators, Mr. Cronnin +and Mr. Fields, arrived. Cronnin was in his sixties, with the +nearsighted squint and compressed look of concentration of an old-time +precision machinist; Fields was much younger, and sported a Phi Beta +Kappa key. + +Lyons, who seemed to be the senior mediator, thereupon called the +meeting to order and they took their places at the table. + + * * * * * + +"Now, gentlemen--and Dr. Rives--this will be simply an informal +discussion, so that everybody can see what everybody else's position in +the matter is. We won't bother to make a sound recording. Then, if we +have managed to reach some common understanding of the question this +evening, we can start the regular hearing say at thirteen hundred +tomorrow. Is that agreeable?" + +It was. The younger mediator, Quillen, cleared his throat. + +"It seems, from our information, that this entire dispute arises from +the discharge, by Mr. Melroy, of two of his employees, named Koffler and +Burris. Is that correct?" + +"Well, there's also the question of the Melroy Engineering Corporation's +attempting to use strike-breakers, and the Long Island Atomic Power +Authority's having condoned this unfair employment practice," Cronnin +said, acidly. + +"And there's also the question of the I.F.A.W.'s calling a Pearl Harbor +strike on my company," Melroy added. + +"We resent that characterization!" Cronnin retorted. + +"It's a term in common usage; it denotes a strike called without warning +or 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 spoke +up. "On sixteen hours' notice." + +"Well, that wasn't the fault of the I.F.A.W. as an organization," Fields +argued. "Mr. Cronnin and I are agreed that the walk-out date should be +postponed for two weeks, in accordance with the provisions of the +Federal 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 hundred +today. Am I to consider that an act of your union, or will you disavow +it so that I can fire all of them for quitting without permission?" + +"And how about the action of members of your union, acting on +instructions from Harry Crandall, in re-packing the Number One +Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactor at our plant, after the plutonium and +the U-238 and the neutron-source containers had been removed, in order +to re-initiate a chain reaction to prevent Mr. Melroy's employees from +working on the reactor?" Leighton demanded. "Am I to understand that the +union 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 know +nothing 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 the +table with it. + +"Gentlemen," he interrupted. "We're trying to cover too many subjects at +once. I suggest that we confine ourselves, at the beginning, to the +question of the dismissal of these men, Burris and Koffler. If we find +that the I.F.A.W. has a legitimate grievance in what we may call the +Burris-Koffler question, we can settle that and then go on to these +other 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 this +question, perhaps you gentlemen should state the grounds for your +complaints." + +Fields and Cronnin exchanged glances: Cronnin nodded to Fields and the +latter rose. The two employees in question, he stated, had been the +victims of discrimination and persecution because of union activities. +Koffler was the union shop-steward for the men employed by the Melroy +Engineering Corporation, and Burris had been active in bringing +complaints about unfair employment practices. Furthermore, it was the +opinion of the I.F.A.W. that the psychological tests imposed on their +members had been a fraudulent pretext for dismissing these two men, and, +in any case, the practice of compelling workers to submit to such tests +was 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 who +were disqualified by the tests and dropped from my payroll because of +being, in the words of my contract with your union, 'persons of unsound +mind, deficient intelligence and/or emotional instability.' What +happened is that your local official, Crandall, accepted everything they +told him uncritically, and you accepted everything Crandall told you, in +the same spirit. + +"Before I go on," Melroy continued, turning to Lyons, "have I your +permission to let Dr. Rives explain about these tests, herself, and tell +how they were given and evaluated?" + + * * * * * + +Permission granted by Lyons, Doris Rives rose. At some length, she +explained the nature and purpose of the tests, and her method of scoring +and correlating them. + +"Well, did Mr. Melroy suggest to you that any specific employee or +employees of his were undesirable and ought to be eliminated?" Fields +asked. + +"Certainly not!" Doris Rives became angry. "And if he had, I'd have +taken the first plane out of here. That suggestion is insulting! And for +your information, I never met Mr. Melroy before day-before-yesterday +afternoon; I am not dependent upon him for anything; I took this job as +an accommodation to Dr. Karl von Heydenreich, who ordinarily does such +work 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 mention +of the distinguished Austrian psychologist's name. "If I may ask Mr. +Melroy a question: I gather that these tests are given to all your +employees. Why do you demand such an extraordinary level of intelligence +from your employees, even common laborers?" + +"Extraordinary?" Melroy echoed. "If the standards established by those +tests are extraordinary, then God help this country; we are becoming a +race 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 tests +is ordinary adult mental capacity. + +"My company specializes in cybernetic-control systems," he continued. +"In spite of a lot of misleading colloquial jargon about 'thinking +machines' and 'giant brains', a cybernetic system doesn't really think. +It only does what it's been designed _and built_ to do, and if somebody +builds a mistake into it, it will automatically and infallibly repeat +that mistake in practice." + +"He's right," Cronnin said. "The men that build a machine like that have +got to be as smart as the machine's supposed to be, or the machine'll be +as 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 an +old reaction-plant man." Cronnin nodded unthinkingly in confirmation. +"All right, then. Ask him what those Doernberg-Giardanos are like. And +then let me ask you: Suppose some moron fixed up something that would go +wrong, or made the wrong kind of a mistake himself, around one of those +reactors?" + +It was purely a rhetorical question, but, much later, when he would have +time to think about it, Scott Melroy was to wonder if ever in history +such a question had been answered so promptly and with such dramatic +calamitousness. + +Three seconds after he stopped speaking, the lights went out. + + * * * * * + +For a moment, they were silent and motionless. Then somebody across the +table from Melroy began to say, "What the devil--?" Doris Rives, beside +him, clutched his arm. At the head of the table, Lyons was fuming +impatiently, and Kenneth Leighton snapped a pocket-lighter and held it +up. + +The Venetian-screened windows across the room faced east. In the flicker +of the lighter, Melroy made his way around to them and drew open the +slats of one, looking out. Except for the headlights of cars, far down +in the street, and the lights of ships in the harbor, the city was +completely blacked out. But there was one other, horrible, light far +away at the distant tip of Long Island--a huge ball of flame, floating +upward at the tip of a column of fiery gas. As he watched, there were +twinkles 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 realizing +that he spoke audibly. "Too well shielded for the blast to get them, but +the 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's +gone! There aren't enough other generators in this area to handle a +hundredth 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 this +happened." + +"What do you think happened?" Cronnin asked. "One of the +Doernberg-Giardanos let go?" + +"Yes. Your man Crandall. If he survived that, it's his bad luck," Melroy +said grimly. "Last night, while Fred Hausinger was pulling the +fissionables and radioactives out of the Number One breeder, he found a +big nugget of Pu-239, about one-quarter CM. I don't know what was done +with it, but I do know that Crandall had the maintenance gang repack +that reactor, to keep my people from working on it. Nobody'll ever find +out just what happened, but they were in a hurry; they probably shoved +things in any old way. Somehow, that big subcritical nugget must have +got 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 know +how fast those D-G's work. It just took this long to build up CM for a +bomb-type reaction. You remember what I was saying before the lights +went out? Well, it happened. Some moron--some untested and undetected +moron--made the wrong kind of a mistake." + +"Too bad about Crandall. He was a good kid, only he didn't stop to think +often 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 thinking +particularly rather than generally and of humans rather than +abstractions. "It must have killed everybody for miles around." + +Sid Keating, Melroy thought. And Joe Ricci, and Ben Puryear, and Steve +Chalmers, and all the workmen whom he had brought here from Pittsburgh, +to their death. Then he stopped thinking about them. It didn't do any +good to think of men who'd been killed; he'd learned that years ago, as +a kid second lieutenant in Korea. The people to think about were the +millions in Greater New York, and up the Hudson Valley to Albany, and as +far south as Trenton, caught without light in the darkness, without heat +in the dead of winter, without power in subways and skyscrapers and on +railroads and interurban lines. + +He turned to the woman beside him. + +"Doris, before you could get your Board of Psychiatry and Neurology +diploma, 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 is +going to be desperately needed, for the next day or so. Me, I still have +a reserve major's commission in the Army Corps of Engineers. They're +probably calling up reserve officers, with any radios that are still +working. Until I hear differently, I'm ordering myself on active duty as +of now." He looked around. "Anybody know where the nearest Army +headquarters 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 a +medical 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, then +shrugged into his own overcoat and belted it about him, the weight of +the 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 of +vicious criminals, to whom this power-failure would be a perfect +devilsend. Handing Doris the light, he let her take his left arm. +Together, they left the room and went down the hallway to the stairs and +the long walk to the darkened street below, into a city that had +suddenly been cut off from its very life-energy. A city that had put all +its eggs in one basket, and left the basket in the path of any +blundering foot. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Day of the Moron, by Henry Beam Piper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAY OF THE MORON *** + +***** This file should be named 18949.txt or 18949.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/9/4/18949/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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