We'll furnish them," he told her. "I hope they don't
try to make you carry a pistol, too."
"A pistol?" For a moment, she must have thought he was using some
technical-jargon term, and then it dawned on her that he wasn't. "You
mean--?" She cocked her thumb and crooked her index finger.
"Yeah. A rod. Roscoe. The Equalizer. We all have to." He half-lifted one
out of his side pocket. "We're all United States deputy marshals. They
don't bother much with counterespionage, here, but they don't fool when
it comes to countersabotage. Well, I'll get an order cut and posted. Be
seeing you, doctor."
* * * * *
"You think the union will make trouble about these tests?" she asked,
after the general foreman had gone out.
"They're sure to," Melroy replied. "Here's the situation. I have about
fifty of my own men, from Pittsburgh, here, but they can't work on the
reactors because they don't belong to the Industrial Federation of
Atomic Workers, and I can't just pay their initiation fees and union
dues and get union cards for them, because admission to this union is on
an annual quota basis, and this is December, and the quota's full.
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