The office door opened and a bulky man with a black mustache entered, beating the snow from his overcoat with a battered porkpie hat and commenting blasphemously on the weather. He advanced into the room until he saw the woman in the chair beside the desk, and then started to back out.
“Come on in, Sid,” Melroy told him. “Dr. Rives, this is our general foreman, Sid Keating. Sid, Dr. Rives, the new dimwit detector. Sid’s in direct charge of personnel,” he continued, “so you two’ll be working together quite a bit.”
“Glad to know you, doctor,” Keating said. Then he turned to Melroy. “Scott, you’re really going through with this, then?” he asked. “I’m afraid we’ll have trouble, then.”
“Look, Sid,” Melroy said. “We’ve been all over that. Once we start work on the reactors, you and Ned Puryea
