"That's all right, then. How's the reactor, now?"
"Hausinger says the count's down to safe limits, and the temperature's down to inactive normal. He and his gang found a big chunk of plutonium, about one-quarter CM, inside. He got it out."
"All right. Tell Dr. Rives to gather up all her completed or partially completed test records and come out to the office. You and the others stay on the job; we may have some men for you by this afternoon; tomorrow morning certainly."
He hung up, then picked up the communicator phone and called his secretary.
"Joan, is Sid Keating out there? Send him in, will you?"
Keating, when he entered, was wearing the lugubriously gratified expression appropriate to the successful prophet of disaster.
"All right, Cassandra," Melroy greeted him. "I'm not going to say you didn't warn me. Look. This strike is illegal. It's a violation of the Federal Labor Act of 1958, being called without due notice of intention, without preliminary negotiation, and without two weeks' time-allowance."
"They're going to claim that it isn't a strike. They're going to call it a 'spontaneous work-stoppage.'"
"Aah! I hope I can get Crandall on record to that effect; I'll fire every one of those men for leaving their work without permission and absence from duty without leave. How many of our own men, from Pittsburgh, do we have working in these machine shops and in the assembly shop here? About sixty?"
"Sixty-three. Why? You're not going to use them to work on the reactor, are you?"