everybody can see what everybody else's position inthe matter is. We won't bother to make a sound recording. Then, if wehave managed to reach some common understanding of the question thisevening, we can start the regular hearing say at thirteen hundredtomorrow. Is that agreeable?"
It was. The younger mediator, Quillen, cleared his throat.
"It seems, from our information, that this entire dispute arises fromthe discharge, by Mr. Melroy, of two of his employees, named Koffler andBurris. Is that correct?"
"Well, there's also the question of the Melroy Engineering Corporation'sattempting to use strike-breakers, and the Long Island Atomic PowerAuthority's having condoned this unfair employment practice," Cronninsaid, acidly.
"And there's also the question of the I.F.A.W.'s calling a Pearl Harborstrike on my company," Melroy added.
"We resent that characterization!" Cronnin retorted.
"It's a term in common usage; it denotes a strike called without warningor declaration of intention, which this was," Melroy told him.
"And there's also the question of the I.F.A.W. calling a general strike,in illegal manner, at the Long Island Reaction Plant," Leighton spokeup. "On sixteen hours' notice."
"Well, that wasn't the fault of the I.F.A.W. as an organization," Fieldsargued. "Mr. Cronnin and I are agreed that the walk-out date should bepostponed for two weeks, in accordance with the provisions of theFederal Labor Act."
"Well, how about my company?" Melroy wanted to know. "Your I.F.A.W.members walked out on me, without any notice whatever, at twelve hundredtoday. Am I to consider that an act of your union, or will you disavowit so that I can fire all of them for quitting without permission?"
"And how about the action of members of your union, acting oninstructions from Harry Crandall, in re-packing the Number OneDoernberg-Giardano breeder-reactor at our plant, after the plutonium andthe U-238 and the neutron-source containers had been removed, in orderto re-initiate a chain reaction to prevent Mr. Melroy's employees fromworking on the reactor?" Leighton demanded. "Am I to understand that theunion sustains that action, too?"
"I hadn't known about that," Fields said, somewhat startled.
"Neither had I," Cronnin added. "When did it happen?"
"About sixteen hundred today," Melroy told him.
"We were on the plane from Oak Ridge, then," Fields declared. "We knownothing about that."
"Well, are you going to take the responsibility for it, or aren't you?"Leighton insisted.
Lyons, who had been toying with a small metal paperweight, rapped on thetable with it.
"Gentlemen," he interrupted. "We're trying to cover too many subjects atonce. I suggest that we confine ourselves, at the beginning, to thequestion of the dismissal of these men, Burris and Koffler. If we findthat the I.F.A.W. has a legitimate grievance in what we may call theBurris-Koffler question, we can settle that and then go on to theseother questions."
"I'm agreeable to that," Melroy said.
"So are we," Cronnin nodded.
"All right, then. Since the I.F.A.W. is the complaining party in thisquestion, perhaps you gentlemen should state the grounds for yourcomplaints."
Fields and Cronnin exchanged glances: Cronnin nodded to Fields and thelatter rose. The two employees in question, he stated, had been thevictims of discrimination and persecution because of union activities.Koffler was the union shop-steward for the men employed by the MelroyEngineering Corporation, and Burris had been active in bringingcomplaints about unfair employment practices. Furthermore, it was theopinion of the I.F.A.W. that the psychological tests imposed on theirmembers had been a fraudulent pretext for dismissing these two men, and,in any case, the practice of compelling workers to submit to such testswas insulting, degrading, and not a customary condition of employment.
With that, he sat down. Melroy was on his feet at once.
"I'll deny those statements, categorically and seriatim," he replied."They are based entirely upon misrepresentations made by the two men whowere disqualified by the tests and dropped from my payroll because ofbeing, in the words of my contract with your union, 'persons of unsoundmind, deficient intelligence and/or emotional instability.' Whathappened is that your local official, Crandall, accepted everything theytold him uncritically, and you accepted everything Crandall told you, inthe same spirit.
"Before I go on," Melroy continued, turning to Lyons, "have I yourpermission to let Dr. Rives explain about these tests, herself, and tellhow they were given and evaluated?"
* * * * *
Permission granted by Lyons, Doris Rives rose. At some length, sheexplained the nature and purpose of the tests, and her method of scoringand correlating them.
"Well, did Mr. Melroy suggest to you that any specific employee oremployees of his were undesirable and ought to be eliminated?" Fieldsasked.
"Certainly not!" Doris Rives became angry. "And if he had, I'd havetaken the first plane out of here. That suggestion is insulting! And foryour information, I never met Mr. Melroy before day-before-yesterdayafternoon; I am not dependent upon him for anything; I took this job asan accommodation to Dr. Karl von Heydenreich, who ordinarily does suchwork for the Melroy company, and I'm losing money by remaining here.Does that satisfy you?"
"Yes, it does," Fields admitted. He was obviously impressed by mentionof the distinguished Austrian psychologist's name. "If I may ask Mr.Melroy a question: I gather that these tests are given to all youremployees. Why do you demand such an extraordinary level of intelligencefrom your employees, even common laborers?"
"Extraordinary?" Melroy echoed. "If the standards established by thosetests are extraordinary, then God help this country; we are becoming arace of morons! I'll leave that statement to Dr. Rives for confirmation;she's already pointed out that all that is required to pass those testsis ordinary adult mental capacity.
"My company specializes in cybernetic-control systems," he continued."In spite of a lot of misleading colloquial jargon about 'thinkingmachines' and 'giant brains', a cybernetic system doesn't really think.It only does what it's been designed _and built_ to do, and if somebodybuilds a mistake into it, it will automatically and infallibly repeatthat mistake in practice."
"He's right," Cronnin said. "The men that build a machine like that havegot to be as smart as the machine's supposed to be, or the machine'll beas dumb as they are."
Fields turned on him angrily. "Which side are you supposed to be on,anyhow?" he demanded.
"You're probably a lawyer," Melroy said. "But I'll bet Mr. Cronnin's anold reaction-plant man." Cronnin nodded unthinkingly in confirmation."All right, then. Ask him what those Doernberg-Giardanos are like. Andthen let me ask you: Suppose some moron fixed up something that would gowrong, or made the wrong kind of a mistake himself, around one of thosereactors?"
It was purely a rhetorical question, but, much later, when he would havetime to think about it, Scott Melroy was to wonder if ever in historysuch a question had been answered so promptly and with such dramaticcalamitousness.
Three seconds after he stopped speaking, the lights went out.
* * * * *
For a moment, they were silent and motionless. Then somebody across thetable from Melroy began to say, "What the devil--?" Doris Rives, besidehim, clutched his arm. At the head of the table, Lyons was fumingimpatiently, and Kenneth Leighton snapped a pocket-lighter and held itup.
The Venetian-screened windows across the room faced east. In the flickerof the lighter, Melroy made his way around to them and drew open theslats of one, looking out. Except for the headlights of cars, far downin the street, and the lights of ships in the harbor, the city wascompletely blacked out. But there was one other, horrible, light faraway at the distant tip of Long Island--a huge ball of flame, floatingupward at the tip of a column of fiery gas. As he watched, there weretwinkles of unbearable brightness at the base of the pillar of fire,spreading into awesome sheet-flashes, and other fireballs soared up.Then the sound and the shock-wave of t
he first blast reached them.
"The main power-reactors, too," Melroy said to himself, not realizingthat he spoke audibly. "Too well shielded for the blast to get them, butthe heat melted the fissionables down to critical mass."
Leighton, the lighter still burning, was beside him, now.
"That's not--God, it can't be anything else! Why, the whole plant'sgone! There aren't enough other generators in this area to handle ahundredth of the demand."
"And don't blame that on my alleged
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