around at the wreckage.
In spite of Superintendent King’s anxiety, Lentz refused to be hurried in
passing judgment on the situation. Consequently, when be did present himself at
King’s office, and announced that he was ready to report, King was pleasantly
surprised as well as relieved. “Well, I’m delighted,” he said. “Sit down, doctor,
sit down. Have a cigar. What do we do about it?”
But Lentz stuck to his perennial cigarette, and refused to be hurried. “I
must have some information first: how important,” he demanded, “is the power from
your plant?”
King understood the implication at once. “If you are thinking about shutting
down – the plant for more than a limited period, it can’t be done.”
“Why not? If the figures supplied me are correct, your power output is less
than thirteen percent of the total power used in the country.”
“Yes, that is true, but we also supply another thirteen percent second hand
through the plutonium we breed here-and you haven’t analyzed the items that make up
the balance. A lot of it is domestic power which householders get from sunscreens
located on their roofs. Another big slice is power for the moving roadways-that’s
sunpower again. The portion we provide here directly or indirectly is the main power
source for most of the heavy industries-steel, plastics, lithics, all kinds of
manufacturing and processing. You might as well cut the heart out of a man-”
“But the food industry isn’t basically dependent on you?” Lentz persisted.
“No … Food isn’t basically a power industry though we do supply a certain
percentage of the power used in processing. I see your point, and will go on,
concede that transportation, that is to say, distribution food, could get along
without us. But good heavens, Doctor, you can’t stop atomic power without causing
the biggest panic this country has ever seen. It’s the keystone our whole industrial
system.”
“The country has lived through panics before, and we got past the oil
shortage safely.”
“Yes because sunpower and atomic power had to take the place of oil. You
don’t realize what would mean, Doctor. It would be worse than a war; in system like
ours, one thing depends on another. If you cut off the heavy industries all at once,
everything else stops too.”
“Nevertheless, you had better dump the pile.” The uranium in the pile was
molten, its temperature bell greater than twenty-four hundred degrees centigrade.
The pile could be dumped into a group of small containers when it was desired to
shut it down. The mass into one container would be too small to maintain progressive
atomic disintegration.
Icing glanced involuntarily at the glass-enclosed relay mounted on his
office wall, by which he, as well as the engineer on duty, could dump the pile, if
need be. “But ~ couldn’t do that … or rather, if I did, the plant wouldn’t stay
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shut down. The directors would simply replace me with someone who would operate it.”
“You’re right, of course.” Lentz silently considered the situation for some
time, then said, “Superintendent, will you order a car to fly me back to Chicago?”
“You’re going, doctor?”
“Yes.” He took the cigarette holder from his face, and, for once, the smile
of Olympian detachment was gone completely. His entire manner was sober, even
tragic.
“Short of shutting down the plant, there is no solution to your problem-none
whatsoever!”
“I owe you a full explanation,” he continued, presently.
“You are confronted here with recurring instances of situational
psychoneurosis. Roughly, the symptoms manifest themselves as anxiety neurosis, or
some form of hysteria.
The partial amnesia of your secretary, Steinke, is a good example of the
latter. He might be cured with shock technique, but it would hardly be a kindness,
as he has achieved a stable adjustment which puts him beyond the reach of the strain
he could not stand.
“That other young fellow, Harper, whose blowup was the immediate cause of
you sending for me, is an anxiety case. When the cause of the anxiety was eliminated
from his matrix, he at once regained full sanity. But keep a close watch on his
friend, Erickson- “However, it is the cause, and prevention, of situational