Chernobyl

That was the job of the Deputy Director, and the fact that a goal of perfection was impossible to attain did not keep Smin from continuing to try. Against all odds. In spite of all frustrations. There were plenty of those, starting with the workers themselves. If they did not drink on the job, they absented themselves without permission; if they did not do either, then they all too often drifted away to other jobs as soon as they were trained. In theory that was not easy to do in the USSR, since no one got a job without a report from his last employer and employers were supposed to discourage vagabonding of that sort. In practice, people who had worked at Chernobyl were in such demand that even a negative report was disregarded. And those were only the problems of personnel. If the workers were somehow placated and even motivated, then there were the problems of materiel. Materials of decent quality were always hard to get — for anything — and Smin was shameless and tireless in doing what had to be done to find unflawed steel and well-made cables and high-grade cement and even the best and freshest produce from the private plots of the nearby kolkhozists to go into the kitchens of the plant's cafeterias. Just weeks before there had been a story in Literaturna Ukraina that had harshly exposed the sordid history of incompetent people and defective materials; it had been a great embarrassment to Smin's superiors, but in the long run the story had added force to Smin's own dedicated routine of demanding and urging and shaming and even, when necessary— and it was often necessary — bribing. It was not how Smin would have preferred to do his job, but it was unfortunately the only way, sometimes, that the job could be done.

Because Smin was in a hurry, he didn't show the Yemenis everything. He skipped the oil storage rooms, high up over the reactors, where the diesel fuel was kept for the emergency pumps in case of power failure; he gave them only a quick peek through the heavy glass windows at the refueling chamber, where the huge, spidery refueling machine crept on its massive tracks from fuel tube to fuel tube as needed, lifting out the spent fuel and replacing it with new while the reactor kept right on generating power. He skipped the Red Room and the cafeteria and the baths, though he was proud of them all for the proof they gave of his constant concern for the four thousand men and women who worked at Chernobyl. He did not, of course, allow the visitors in any of the four reactor chambers, though he permitted a quick look, again through the heavy glass port, at No. 1, oldest of Chernobyl's reactors and still pouring out energy — with, he called over the noise of steam and turbines, the best safety and performance record in the USSR! He even let them look at the huge pipes of the water system, because they were in their line of travel anyway; and then they turned away and the leading Yemeni jumped back as he saw the hissing, spitting, eye-paining flames of the hydrogen burner.

'What is that thing? I thought atomic power meant you did not have to burn oil!'

'Oh, but it isn't oil,' Smin explained reassuringly. 'It has nothing to do with the steam, simply a way of getting rid of gases that might otherwise be dangerous. As water goes through the reactor, you see, a little bit each time is broken down into the gases hydrogen and oxygen through radiolysis. We cannot have this in the system, you know, it would be dangerous! So we flare it off here and burn it.' Then he let them walk through the turbine room itself, with plugs in their ears and hard hats on their heads, because he knew they would not linger in that painfully noisy place, to get to the control room for Reactors 1 and 2.

While the interpreter was dealing with their questions for the chief shift engineer, Smin picked up a phone and checked again. Yes, the comrade guests were already gathering to observe the experiment, which was still on schedule. So, he found, checking his watch, was his tour. He had ten minutes yet to get rid of the Yemenis before going to the main control room, and so he approached them, smiling.

The shift engineer was not smiling. He turned away and muttered to Smin, 'They are asking me about Luba Kovalevska.'

Smin sighed and turned to the Yemenis. 'Have you some questions for me, then?' he asked politely.

The older Yemeni gazed at him. It was difficult to read the man's expression, but he said only, 'One has heard stories.'

Smin kept his smile. 'What stories are those?' he asked, though he knew the answer.

'There have been reports in your own press,' the man said apologetically. He put on spectacles and took a paper out of his pocket. 'From your magazine Literaturna Ukraina, is that how you say it? An article which speaks of poor design, of unsafe materials, of bad discipline among the workers — of course,' he added, folding the paper, 'if one had read such things in the Western press, one would understand they are not to be taken seriously. But in your own journals?'

'Ah,' said Smin, nodding, 'it is what we call glasnost.' He used the Russian word and translated quickly. 'That is to say, candor. Frankness. Openness.' He smiled in a friendly manner. 'I suppose you are surprised to see such harsh criticism in a Soviet magazine, but, you see, there is a new time now. Our general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, has properly said that we need glasnost. We need to speak openly and honestly and in public about shortcomings and errors of all kinds. Mrs. Kovalevska's article is an example of this.' He shrugged in humorous deprecation. 'It is very useful to us to be called to account in public for any faults. I will not say it isn't painful, but that is how faults can be found in time to correct them. Sometimes it goes too far, perhaps. A writer like Mrs. Kovalevska hears rumors and she puts them in a newspaper — well, it is good that rumors should be aired, so that they can be investigated. But one shouldn't imagine that every word is true.'

'Then this report in Literaturna Ukraina is untrue?'

'Not entirely untrue,' Smin conceded, the shift engineer scowling as he hung on every word, trying to follow the French. 'Certainly some mistakes have been made. But they are being corrected. And furthermore, please note, my dear friends, that these things Mrs. Kovalevska lists in so much detail refer principally to matters of faulty construction and operation. They do not suggest for one moment that there is anything wrong with the RBMK-1000 reactor itself! Our reactors are totally safe. Anyone can understand that this is true from the fact that never, in the history of atomic power, has the Soviet Union had a nuclear accident of any kind.'

'Ah?' said the Yemeni shrewdly. 'Is that correct? Then what about the accident in Kyshtym in 1958?'

'There was no accident in Kyshtym in 1958,' said Smin positively, and wondered if he were speaking the truth.

By the time Smin had his guests out of doors it was already two-twenty. He had managed to find out from the control-room operators that Reactor No. 4 was still at full power, so the experiment was not yet ready to begin. That meant he had a little more time. He used it to be a gracious host. 'See this lake?' he said, indicating the lake along whose borders they were walking. 'It is our cooling pond. Six kilometers long, and, as you see, a beautiful thing in itself. And it is stocked with fish; our local sportsmen say the fishing is even better here than in the Pripyat River.'

'Why is that?' the younger Yemeni asked politely.

'Because the water is warmed all through the year.'

'But I see ice in it,' the older one said dryly.

'But this is the Ukraine!' Smin said, smiling. 'Of course our winters are terribly cold. But even in the worst of the winter the pond does not freeze over entirely here, and the fish love it. And now — see the trees, the flowers; it is spring.' He stopped and gazed up at the towering buildings that housed Reactors 3 and 4.

'From here,' he said, 'you can see how large the Chernobyl Power Station is. Four operating reactors, each one producing one thousand megawatts of electrical energy, enough to light an entire city of one million people. And we have already begun construction of two new ones, even larger. When they are finished we will be able to supply a city of seven million.'

'We don't have any cities of seven million,' said the older Yemeni. 'Also, we don't have any lakes.'

'With such power you can create all the lakes you wish,' Smin said grandly. 'Come, I will show you where the new reactors are already being begun.'

And when they were on the lip of the giant excavation where the core of Reactor No. 5 would soon go, busy with excavation equipment and dump trucks carting the soil away, the Yemenis seemed still unsatisfied. 'These also will be RBMK-1000s?' the older one asked.

'No, no. Each will be even larger, fifteen hundred megawatts electric rated output!'

'But still graphite reactors,' mused the Yemeni. 'Although some people say that this design is not as good as the pressurized water reactor, like those in the West.'

'Ah, the West,' said Smin good-naturedly, his mood improved since he had seen the dark-blue Volga car that would take the Yemenis away creeping cautiously toward them, among the rumbling trucks and bulldozers. 'You see, in the first place, the Soviet Union also has pressurized-water reactors; we have both kinds in service. Each has its own special advantages. The Americans do not have this variety of choice. All of their nuclear energy comes from the submarine power plants.'