* * * *

"Now, gentlemen--and Dr. Rives--this will be simply an informal
discussion, so that everybody can see what everybody else's position in
the matter is. We won't bother to make a sound recording. Then, if we
have managed to reach some common understanding of the question this
evening, we can start the regular hearing say at thirteen hundred
tomorrow. Is that agreeable?"

It was. The younger mediator, Quillen, cleared his throat.

"It seems, from our information, that this entire dispute arises from
the discharge, by Mr. Melroy, of two of his employees, named Koffler and
Burris. Is that correct?"

"Well, there's also the question of the Melroy Engineering Corporation's
attempting to use strike-breakers, and the Long Island Atomic Power
Authority's having condoned this unfair employment practice," Cronnin
said, acidly.

"And there's also the question of the I.F.A.W.'s calling a Pearl Harbor
strike on my company," Melroy added.

"We resent that characterization!" Cronnin retorted.

"It's a term in common usage; it denotes a strike called without warning
or declaration of intention, which this was," Melroy told him.

"And there's also the question of the I.F.A.W. calling a general strike,
in illegal manner, at the Long Island Reaction Plant," Leighton spoke
up. "On sixteen hours' notice."

"Well, that wasn't the fault of the I.F.A.W. as an organization," Fields
argued. "Mr. Cronnin and I are agreed that the walk-out date should be
postponed for two weeks, in accordance with the provisions of the
Federal Labor Act."

"Well, how about my company?" Melroy wanted to know. "Your I.F.A.W.
members walked out on me, without any notice whatever, at twelve hundred
today. Am I to consider that an act of your union, or will you disavow
it so that I can fire all of them for quitting without permission?"

"And how about the action of members of your union, acting on
instructions from Harry Crandall, in re-packing the Number One
Doernberg-Giardano breeder-reactor at our plant, after the plutonium and
the U-238 and the neutron-source containers had been removed, in order
to re-initiate a chain reaction to prevent Mr. Melroy's employees from
working on the reactor?" Leighton demanded. "Am I to understand that the
union sustains that action, too?"

"I hadn't known about that," Fields said, somewhat startled.

"Neither had I," Cronnin added. "When did it happen?"

"About sixteen hundred today," Melroy