"H. Beam Piper - Day of the Moron" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

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.