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eks, Mary Meehan and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
DAY OF THE MORON
BY H. BEAM PIPER
[Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidencethat the copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_It's natural to trust the unproven word of the fellow who's "on myside"--but the emotional moron is on no one's side, not even his own.Once, such an emotional moron could, at worst, hurt a few. But with themighty, leashed forces Man employs now...._
There were still, in 1968, a few people who were afraid of the nuclearpower plant. Oldsters, in whom the term "atomic energy" producedsemantic reactions associated with Hiroshima. Those who saw, in thetowering steam-column above it, a tempting target for enemy--which stillmeant Soviet--bombers and guided missiles. Some of the CentralIntelligence and F.B.I. people, who realized how futile even the mostelaborate security measures were against a resourceful and suicidallydetermined saboteur. And a minority of engineers and nuclear physicistswho remained unpersuaded that accidental blowups at nuclear-reactionplants were impossible.
Scott Melroy was among these last. He knew, as a matter of fact, thatthere had been several nasty, meticulously unpublicized,near-catastrophes at the Long Island Nuclear Reaction Plant, allinvolving the new Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactors, and that therehad been considerable carefully-hushed top-level acrimony before theMelroy Engineering Corporation had been given the contract to installthe fully cybernetic control system intended to prevent a recurrence ofsuch incidents.
That had been three months ago. Melroy and his people had moved in, beenassigned sections of a couple of machine shops, set up an assembly shopand a set of plyboard-partitioned offices in a vacant warehouse justoutside the reactor area, and tried to start work, only to run into thealmost interminable procedural disputes and jurisdictional wranglings ofthe sort which he privately labeled "bureau bunk". It was only now thathe was ready to begin work on the reactors.
He sat at his desk, in the inner of three successively smaller officeson the second floor of the converted warehouse, checking over asymbolic-logic analysis of a relay system and, at the same time,sharpening a pencil, his knife paring off tiny feathery shavings ofwood. He was a tall, sparely-built, man of indeterminate age, withthinning sandy hair, a long Gaelic upper lip, and a wide, half-humorous,half-weary mouth; he wore an open-necked shirt, and an old and shabbyleather jacket, to the left shoulder of which a few clinging flecks ofpaint showed where some military emblem had been, long ago. While hisfingers worked with the jackknife and his eyes traveled over the page ofclosely-written symbols, his mind was reviewing the eight different waysin which one of the efficient but treacherous Doernberg-Giardanoreactors could be allowed to reach critical mass, and he was wonderingif there might not be some unsuspected ninth way. That was a possibilitywhich always lurked in the back of his mind, and lately it had beengiving him surrealistic nightmares.
"Mr. Melroy!" the box on the desk in front of him said suddenly, in afeminine voice. "Mr. Melroy, Dr. Rives is here."
Melroy picked up the handphone, thumbing on the switch.
"Dr. Rives?" he repeated.
"The psychologist who's subbing for Dr. von Heydenreich," the box toldhim patiently.
"Oh, yes. Show him in," Melroy said.
"Right away, Mr. Melroy," the box replied.
* * * * *
Replacing the handphone, Melroy wondered, for a moment, why there hadbeen a hint of suppressed amusement in his secretary's voice. Then thedoor opened and he stopped wondering. Dr. Rives wasn't a him; she was aher. Very attractive looking her, too--dark hair and eyes, ratherlong-oval features, clear, lightly tanned complexion, bright redlipstick put on with a micrometric exactitude that any engineer couldappreciate. She was tall, within four inches of his own six-foot mark,and she wore a black tailored outfit, perfectly plain, which hadprobably cost around five hundred dollars and would have looked severeand mannish except that the figure under it curved and bulged in justthe right places and to just the right degree.
Melroy rose, laying down knife and pencil and taking his pipe out of hismouth.
"Good afternoon," he greeted. "Dr. von Heydenreich gave me quite afavorable account of you--as far as it went. He might have included afew more data and made it more so.... Won't you sit down?"
The woman laid her handbag on the desk and took the visitor's chair,impish mirth sparking in her eyes.
"He probably omitted mentioning that the D. is for Doris," shesuggested. "Suppose I'd been an Englishman with a name like Evelyn orVivian?"
Melroy tried to visualize her as a male Englishman named Vivian, gaveup, and grinned at her.
"Let this be a lesson," he said. "Inferences are to be drawn fromobjects, or descriptions of objects; never from verbal labels. Do youinitial your first name just to see how people react when they meetyou?"
"Well, no, though that's an amusing and sometimes instructiveby-product. It started when I began contributing to some of theprofessional journals. There's still a little of what used to be calledmale sex-chauvinism among my colleagues, and some who would be favorablyimpressed with an article signed D. Warren Rives might snort in contemptat the same article signed Doris Rives."
"Well, fortunately, Dr. von Heydenreich isn't one of those," Melroysaid. "How is the Herr Doktor, by the way, and just what happened tohim? Miss Kourtakides merely told me that he'd been injured and was in ahospital in Pittsburgh."
"The Herr Doktor got shot," Doris Rives informed him. "With a charge ofBB's, in a most indelicate portion of his anatomy. He was out hunting,the last day of small-game season, and somebody mistook him for aturkey. Nothing really serious, but he's face down in bed, cursinghideously in German, English, Russian, Italian and French, mainlybecause he's missing deer hunting."
"I might have known it," Melroy said in disgust. "The ubiquitouslame-brain with a dangerous mechanism.... I suppose he briefed you onwhat I want done, here?"
"Well, not too completely. I gathered that you want me to giveintelligence tests, or aptitude tests, or something of the sort, to someof your employees. I'm not really one of these so-called industrialanthropologists," she explained. "Most of my work, for the past fewyears, has been for public-welfare organizations, with subnormalpersons. I told him that, and he said that was why he selected me. Hesaid one other thing. He said, 'I used to think Melroy had an obsessionabout fools; well, after stopping this load of shot, I'm beginning tothink it's a good subject to be obsessed about.'"
Melroy nodded. "'Obsession' will probably do. 'Phobia' would be moreexact. I'm afraid of fools, and the chance that I have one working forme, here, affects me like having a cobra crawling around my bedroom inthe dark. I want you to locate any who might be in a gang of new menI've had to hire, so that I can get rid of them."
* * * * *
"And just how do you define the term 'fool', Mr. Melroy?" she asked."Remember, it has no standard meaning. Republicans apply it toDemocrats, and vice versa."
"Well, I apply it to people who do things without considering possibleconsequences. People who pepper distinguished Austrian psychologists inthe pants-seat with turkey-shot, for a starter. Or people who pushbuttons to see what'll happen, or turn valves and twiddle withdial-knobs because they have nothing else to do with their hands. Orshoot insulators off power lines to see if they can hit them. People whodon't know it's loaded. People who think warning signs are purelyornamental. People who play practical jokes. People who--"
"I know what you mean. Just day-before-yesterday, I saw a woman toss acocktail into an electric heater. She didn't want to drink it, and shethought it would just go up in steam. The result was slightlyspectacular."
"Next time, she won't do that. She'll probably throw her drink into alead-ladle, if there's one around. Well, on a statistical basis, I'djud
ge that I have three or four such dud rounds among this new gang I'vehired. I want you to put the finger on them, so I can bounce them beforethey blow the whole plant up, which could happen quite easily."
"That," Doris Rives said, "is not going to be as easy as it sounds.Ordinary intelligence-testing won't be enough. The woman I was speakingof has an I.Q. well inside the meaning of normal intelligence. She justdoesn't use it."
"Sure." Melroy got a thick folder out of his desk and handed it across."Heydenreich thought of that, too. He got this up for me, about fiveyears ago. The intelligence test is based on the new