Chernobyl

Four Seasons, after all!' He glanced up. The helicopter from Kiev had completed its leisurely tour and was fluttering down toward them. 'Well, here come the experts from the Ministry of Nuclear Energy, so we'll have everything straightened out quickly now.'

It was a way of trying to reassure the football player, but it was not, Smin admitted to himself, a realistic statement. Even the experts from the Ministry had had no experience of anything like this, since nothing like it had ever happened before. Not even in America, Smin thought wryly, remembering how he had boasted to the Americans just the night before. It was a definite first in nuclear technology, and once again the Soviet Union had led the way.

There were four of the experts from the Ministry of Nuclear Energy jumping out of the helicopter, and Chief Engineer Varazin was ducking under the blades even before they had stopped revolving to greet them. Smin recognized a couple of the men, but Varazin introduced them all around anyway. 'Comrades Istvili, Rasputin, Lestilyan,' he said, and waited for them to introduce the fourth man. They didn't. Rasputin, the one Smin had not met before, shook Smin's hand heartily.

'No, I am not the mad monk,' he said, smiling. 'I'm simply from the section on biological effects of radiation. I'm not related to the writer, either.'

'A pity,' Varazin said chattily. 'My wife is a great admirer of his thrillers.' He hesitated. 'I had thought perhaps our Director Zaglodin might have been with you.'

Istvili shook his head. He was a tall, heavyset man, with the dark, almost Mediterranean look of a Georgian. 'We hoped that, too, but he had not been located when our special plane left Moscow — at six this morning,' he added. 'It's been a long trip.'

'Of course,' Varazin sympathized. 'Well. I've prepared a command post just five kilometers away; it will all be ready when you require it. I think it will be suitable. But first I'm sure you would like to inspect the station—'

Smin was listening in amazement to the casual chatter; why, Varazin was talking to these men exactly as though they were visiting Yemenis, no more than a mild annoyance to a busy man. 'Can I borrow your helicopter?' he asked brusquely.

Istvili understood at once. 'Of course. It's worth a look from above. Then' — he glanced at his watch—'it's eighteen minutes after nine now. Can we meet at ten in this command post for a first conference? Good, then let's go.'

Simyon Smin had seldom been in a helicopter before, but the rapid, efficient movements of the pilot didn't interest him on this occasion. His eyes were all for the plant. 'Stay away from that plume of smoke,' he ordered the pilot. 'Not too low — not below two hundred meters. But get as close as you can.'

'Of course,' the pilot said, not even looking around — no doubt he had had the same orders from his last passengers. But Smin wasn't listening, either. He was staring out the window, scuttling over to the seat on the other side as the helicopter turned, keeping the plant always in view. As they approached from the undamaged side, over the cooling pond, the plant looked almost normal — at least, if you did not count the pall of dark smoke that was drifting slowly northward from the still-smoldering embers. Firemen were methodically removing their suction hoses from the pond. The roof was not yet in view.

Then it was, and Smin groaned. There were still firemen on the roof, and they were still playing hoses on patches that smoked. Idiots! Didn't they know the debris on the roof was radioactive — some of it right out of the core itself? Then, as the helicopter lurched upward, the ruin of Reactor No. 4 came into view, and Smin forgot about the endangered firemen.

From the ground he had not seen quite how terrible the destruction was. There was actually nothing at all left of the reactor building, no refueling hall, no roof. He saw twisted metal that might once have been the refueling crane. Most of all, he saw the naked core itself. He squinted between his fingers, instinctively protected his eyes, suddenly aware that even two hundred meters was not too far to be from that radioactive ember. An arc of brilliant blue-white light from one edge showed the burning graphite — not more than ten percent of the exposed surface burning now, Smin thought, and wondered if that was less than an hour ago — or more.

The helicopter veered away from the smoke plume. The pilot called, 'Shall I duck under the smoke? Or would you like to go back around again?'

Smin sank back in his seat. 'I've seen enough,' he said.

Varazin's 'command center' turned out to be nothing more or less than Varazin's own comfortable dacha, set a hundred meters off the road in the fir forest. Its large main room was twice the size of anything in Smin's flat, but it was crowded by the time the meeting began. Smin, Varazin, the four men from the Ministry, the general of fire brigades, the head doctor from the Pripyat hospital, Khrenov (looking worn but confident), two men from the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian Republic (when had they arrived?), half a dozen from the Pripyat Party Committee, an Army general. Smin looked at the crowd in dismay. This was an emergency meeting, not a Party rally. It was his firm conviction that the effectiveness of any conference was in inverse ratio to the number of people sitting around the table, and over five you might as well sleep through the proceedings.

But Istvili, the Georgian from the Ministry of Nuclear Energy, took firm charge. For a man who'd been wakened at four in the morning and had been traveling ever since, he was surprisingly clear-eyed and collected. 'We won't wait for the people coming from Kiev by car,' he announced. 'Our first order of business is a situation report. I understand the Chernobyl plant is now completely shut down.'

'I gave the order for Reactors One and Two myself,' nodded Varazin. 'As a precaution. Of course, I consulted the load dispatchers in Kiev first.'

'So that situation is stable,' said Istvili. 'Now we come to damage control.'

'The fire was extinguished at eight minutes after three this morning,' said the general of fire brigades.

Smin cut in. 'Yes, but, excuse me, your firemen are still on the roof and the hoses are still going.'

The general looked down his nose at him. 'They are cooling the scene down and extinguishing small outbreaks.'

'I don't think I am making myself clear. All that water from the hoses is contaminated with radioactivity. It must go somewhere, and wherever it goes it's dangerous.'

'Radiation,' said the general thoughtfully. 'That's not our concern. Our business is fighting fires, and we put this one out in an hour and a half. Radiation is your business.'

'It's the business of your firemen too! They're in great danger, out there without protective gear!'

Istvili raised a hand. 'Please. Two issues have been raised now, contamination of water from the runoff from the fire and proper gear for the workers controlling the damage. When we have finished — What is it, Varazin?'

The Chief Engineer only wanted to announce, 'There is some tea and mineral water coming in now. My wife is bringing it.'

And his wife, with a young girl beside her, was hovering in the doorway, trays in their hands. 'Thank you, Comrade Varazin,' Istvili said dryly. 'As I was about to say, when we have finished this preliminary conference, we will establish working groups to deal with each of these. First we have to deal with immediate problems. The graphite in the core is still burning.'

Everyone turned to look at the fire commander. He looked annoyed. 'That is a different question from the fire in the structure,' he explained. 'However, we are continuing to hose it. We have more pumpers coming, even a couple of water cannon; they should drown it, just as the British did at Windscale.'

'No, no!' cried Smin, but the other man from the Ministry, Lestilyan, spoke ahead of him:

'That is unacceptable for the reasons Smin has given. Also, it probably will just fracture the graphite and expose more combustible surfaces to the air. We'll have to cover the core.'

'What with?' the fireman demanded. 'Foam's out of the question.'

'Things much denser than foam. Sand, clay, even lead. Probably boron, too, because that swallows neutrons.'

'And how are you going to get it on the core?' the fire commander asked sarcastically. 'Do you want my men to carry it up there in hods, like bricklayers?'

Lestilyan said crisply, 'Of course, we will need heavy earth-moving machinery. That, too, I think, should be referred to a working group?'

'Exactly,' Istvili said promptly. 'In fifteen minutes I will adjourn this meeting and we will start the work of the groups. Comrade Rasputin? Do you want to say anything about the casualties and risks?'

'All of the injured are being evacuated; the Pripyat hospital can't handle them all, so most of them are being