n to this union is on
an annual quota basis, and this is December, and the quota's full. So I
have to use them outside the reactor area, on fabrication and assembly
work. And I have to hire through the union, and that's handled on a
membership seniority basis, so I have to take what's thrown at me.
That's why I was careful to get that clause I was quoting to Sid written
into my contract.

"Now, here's what's going to happen. Most of the men'll take the test
without protest, but a few of them'll raise the roof about it. Nothing
burns a moron worse than to have somebody question his fractional
intelligence. The odds are that the ones that yell the loudest about
taking the test will be the ones who get scrubbed out, and when the test
shows that they're deficient, they won't believe it. A moron simply
cannot conceive of his being anything less than perfectly intelligent,
any more than a lunatic can conceive of his being less than perfectly
sane. So they'll claim we're framing them, for an excuse to fire them.
And the union will have to back them up, right or wrong, at least on the
local level. That goes without saying. In any dispute, the employer is
always wrong and the worker is always right, until proven otherwise. And
that takes a lot of doing, believe me!"

"Well, if they're hired through the union, on a seniority basis,
wouldn't they be likely to be experienced and competent workers?" she
asked.

"Experienced, yes. That is, none of them has ever been caught doing
anything downright calamitous ... yet," Melroy replied. "The moron I'm
afraid of can go on for years, doing routine work under supervision, and
nothing'll happen. Then, some day, he does something on his own
lame-brained initiative, and when he does, it's only at the whim of
whatever gods there be that the result isn't a wholesale catastrophe.
And people like that are the most serious threat facing our civilization
today, atomic war not excepted."

Dr. Doris Rives lifted a delicately penciled eyebrow over that. Melroy,
pausing to relight his pipe, grinned at her.

"You think that's the old obsession talking?" he asked. "Could be. But
look at this plant, here. It generates every kilowatt of current used
between Trenton and Albany, the New York metropolitan area included.
Except for a few little storage-battery or Diesel generator systems,
that couldn't handle one tenth of one per cent of the barest minimum
load, it's been the only source of electric curr