negotiation, and without two weeks' time-allowance."
"They're going to claim that it isn't a strike. They're going to call ita 'spontaneous work-stoppage.'"
"Aah! I hope I can get Crandall on record to that effect; I'll fireevery one of those men for leaving their work without permission andabsence from duty without leave. How many of our own men, fromPittsburgh, do we have working in these machine shops and in theassembly shop here? About sixty?"
"Sixty-three. Why? You're not going to use them to work on the reactor,are you?"
"I just am. They're all qualified cybernetics technicians; they can dothis work better than this gang we've had to hire here. Just to be onthe safe side, I'm promoting all of them, as of oh-eight-hundred thismorning, to assistant gang-foremen, on salaries. That'll take themoutside union jurisdiction."
"But how about our contract with the I.F.A.W.?"
"That's been voided, by Crandall's own act, in interfering with theexecution of our contract with the Atomic Power Authority. You know whatI think? I think the I.F.A.W. front office is going to have to disavowthis. It'll hurt them to do it, but they'll have to. Crandall's put themin the middle on this."
"How about security clearance for our own men?"
"Nothing to that," Melroy said. "Most of them are security-cleared,already, from the work we did installing that counter-rocket controlsystem on the U.S.S. _Alaska_, and the work we did on thatsymbolic-logic computer for the Philadelphia Project. It may take allday to get the red tape unwound, but I think we can be ready to start byoh-eight-hundred tomorrow."
* * * * *
By the time Keating had rounded up all the regular Melroy EngineeringCorporation employees and Melroy had talked to Colonel Bradshaw aboutsecurity-clearance, it was 1430. A little later, he was called on thephone by Leighton, the Atomic Power Authority man.
"Melroy, what are you trying to do?" the Power Authority man demanded."Get this whole plant struck shut? The I.F.A.W.'s madder than ashot-stung bobcat. They claim you're going to bring in strike-breakers;they're talking about picketing the whole reactor area."
"News gets around fast, here, doesn't it?" Melroy commented. He toldLeighton what he had in mind. The Power Authority man was considerablyshaken before he had finished.
"But they'll call a strike on the whole plant! Have you any idea whatthat would mean?"
"Certainly I have. They'll either call it in legal form, in which casethe whole thing will go to mediation and get aired, which is what Iwant, or they'll pull a Pearl Harbor on you, the way they did on me. Andin that case, the President will have to intervene, and they'll fly intechnicians from some of the Armed Forces plants to keep this placerunning. And in that case, things'll get settled that much quicker. ThisCrandall thinks these men I fired are martyrs, and he's preaching acrusade. He ought to carry an _advocatus diaboli_ on his payroll, toscrutinize the qualifications of his martyrs, before he startscanonizing them."
A little later, Doris Rives came into the office, her hands full ofpapers and cards.
"I have twelve more tests completed," she reported. "Only one washout."
Melroy laughed. "Doctor, they're all washed out," he told her. "It seemsthere was an additional test, and they all flunked it. Evincedwillingness to follow unwise leadership and allow themselves to betalked into improper courses of action. You go on in to New York, andtake all the test-material, including sound records, with you. Stay atthe hotel--your pay will go on--till I need you. There'll be a FederalMediation hearing in a day or so."
He had two more telephone calls. The first, at 1530, was from Leighton.Melroy suspected that the latter had been medicating his morale with acouple of stiff drinks: his voice was almost jaunty.
"Well, the war's on," he announced. "The I.F.A.W.'s walking out on thewhole plant, at oh-eight-hundred tomorrow."
"In violation of the Federal Labor Act, Section Eight, paragraphs fourand five," Melroy supplemented. "Crandall really has stuck his neck inthe guillotine. What's Washington doing?"
"President Hartley is ordering Navy personnel flown in fromKennebunkport Reaction Lab; they will be here by about oh-three-hundredtomorrow. And a couple of Federal mediators are coming in to La Guardiaat seventeen hundred; they're going to hold preliminary hearings at thenew Federal Building on Washington Square beginning twenty hundred. Acouple of I.F.A.W. negotiators are coming in from the national unionheadquarters at Oak Ridge: they should be getting in about the sametime. You'd better be on hand, and have Dr. Rives there with you.There's a good chance this thing may get cleared up in a day or so."
"I will undoubtedly be there, complete with Dr. Rives," Melroy replied."It will be a pleasure!"
* * * * *
An hour later, Ben Puryear called from the reactor area, his voicestrained with anger.
"Scott, do you know what those--" He gargled obscenities for a moment."You know what they've done? They've re-packed the Number OneDoernberg-Giardano; got a chain-reaction started again."
"Who?"
"Fred Hausinger's gang. Apparently at Harry Crandall's orders. Theexcuse was that it would be unsafe to leave the reactor in itsdismantled condition during a prolonged shutdown--they were assuming, Isuppose, that the strike would be allowed to proceed unopposed--but ofcourse the real reason was that they wanted to get a chain-reactionstarted to keep our people from working on the reactor."
"Well, didn't Hausinger try to stop them?"
"Not very hard. I asked him what he had that deputy marshal's badge onhis shirt and that Luger on his hip for, but he said he had orders notto use force, for fear of prejudicing the mediators."
Melroy swore disgustedly. "All right. Gather up all our private papers,and get Steve and Joe, and come on out. We only work here--when we'reable."
* * * * *
Doris Rives was waiting on the street level when Melroy reached the newFederal Building, in what had formerly been the Greenwich Villagedistrict of Manhattan, that evening. She had a heavy brief case withher, which he took.
"I was afraid I'd keep you waiting," she said. "I came down from thehotel by cab, and there was a frightful jam at Fortieth Street, andanother one just below Madison Square."
"Yes, it gets worse every year. Pardon my obsession, but nine times outof ten--ninety-nine out of a hundred--it's the fault of some fool doingsomething stupid. Speaking about doing stupid things, though--I did one.Forgot to take that gun out of my overcoat pocket, and didn't noticethat I had it till I was on the subway, coming in. Have a big flashlightin the other pocket, but that doesn't matter. What I'm worried about isthat somebody'll find out I have a gun and raise a howl about my comingarmed to a mediation hearing."
The hearing was to be held in one of the big conference rooms on theforty-second floor. Melroy was careful to remove his overcoat and lay iton a table in the corner, and then help Doris off with hers and lay iton top of his own. There were three men in the room when they arrived:Kenneth Leighton, the Atomic Power Authority man, fiftyish, acquiring awaistline bulge and losing his hair: a Mr. Lyons, tall and slender, withwhite hair; and a Mr. Quillen, considerably younger, with plastic-rimmedglasses. The latter two were the Federal mediators. All three had beenlounging in arm-chairs, talking about the new plays on Broadway. Theyall rose when Melroy and Doris Rives came over to join them.
"We mustn't discuss business until the others get here," Leightonwarned. "It's bad enough that all three of us got here ahead of them;they'll be sure to think we're trying to take an unfair advantage ofthem. I suppose neither of you have had time to see any of the newplays."
Fortunately, Doris and Melroy had gone to the theater after dinner, theevening-before-last; they were able to join the conversation. Young Mr.Quillen wanted Doris Rives' opinion, as a psychologist, of the mentalprocesses of the heroine of the play they had seen; as nearly as shecould determine, Doris replied, the heroine in question had exhibitednothing even loosely describable as mental processes of any sort.
Theywere still on the subject when the two labor negotiators, Mr. Cronninand Mr. Fields, arrived. Cronnin was in his sixties, with thenearsighted squint and compressed look of concentration of an old-timeprecision machinist; Fields was much younger, and sported a Phi BetaKappa key.
Lyons, who seemed to be the senior mediator, thereupon called themeeting to order and they took their places at the table.
* * * * *
"Now, gentlemen--and Dr. Rives--this will be simply an informaldiscussion, so that