Page 3 of Day of the Moron

MidtownCity hotel, on Forty-seventh Street: I had my luggage sent on there fromthe airport and came out on the Long Island subway."

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

  * * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  * * * * *

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

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

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

  "Melroy here," he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "I suppose he means Dr. Rives," Melroy replied. "I can assure you, sheis an extremely competent psychologist, however. She came to me mosthighly