Chernobyl

Sheranchuk said, stricken. 'I let him go there! And I didn't even know he was here!'

'He was on another floor,' Autumn explained. 'They only moved him up here yesterday, when a room became vacant.' Sheranchuk winced. He knew how rooms became vacant in this wing of Hospital No. 6. Although he ate all of the good meal — the fish soup, and the shashlik and the cucumber salad and the heavy, dark bread — he hardly tasted any of it. 'Volya,' he said, 'are you finished? Then let's go see Arkady, please. I want to apologize for not coming to him before.'

But when they entered the pipefitter's room, Spring would have none of it. 'Apologize for not visiting me? But, Comrade Sheranchuk, I at least knew you were here, so it is I who am at fault for not coming to you.' And he grinned, because the plastic pouch of blood that was trickling into his arm was evidence for all that he was not in a position to pay social calls.

'When you're feeling better we will visit back and forth like grandmothers,' Sheranchuk promised.

But he knew it was not a promise they would be able to keep. The pipefitter was not likely to walk very far. Radiation sickness took different people in different ways, and what it had done to Spring was stop his digestive system. Big, tough, muscular Spring had suddenly become gaunt. He was no longer the flame that licked down the football field. He wasn't the shy, hesitant, preoccupied pipefitter Sheranchuk had worked with all these months, either. As his body grew weak, his spirit had become almost boisterous. He joked and laughed, and winked at the nurses.

'So you like it here,' Sheranchuk offered, feeling like a visitor instead of a fellow patient.

'Why not? The food is good, the nurses are pretty, and photographers come every day to take my picture. Next they will want me to autograph the photos for them. I may stay right here in Moscow. The Dynamo team can use a few good players!'

But the nurses would not let them stay very long, and when Sheranchuk walked out with Autumn, the other member of the Ponomorenko family was solicitous. Of Sheranchuk! He said seriously, 'You should not be tiring yourself, should you? Let me walk you back to your room.'

'I would like to see your other cousin,' Sheranchuk said obstinately.

'But he is on the first floor. The stairs—'

'I can manage a flight of stairs,' Sheranchuk growled. 'In any case, my roommate is having important visitors. It is probably better if I stay away for a while.'

Autumn shrugged. 'Imagine,' Sheranchuk went on, thinking about the disaster. 'Both your cousins in the hospital at once. What a terrible thing! But at least your brother Vyacheslav is not here—' He broke off as he saw the way the football player was looking at him. 'What is it? Has Winter been injured too?'

Autumn said apologetically, 'I thought you knew. My brother was in the Number Four reactor room itself. They say he was the first to die, but they haven't been able to find his body. It's still there, they think.'

Smin was dozing lightly when he became aware he had company again. 'We didn't wake you, I hope?' said the taller of the two men who had parted his curtains.

'It's a pleasure to know that I can still wake up,' Smin said, nodding to them. 'Fedor Vassilievitch Mishko. Andrei Pavlovich Milaktiev. I am honored to be visited by two members of the leadership.'

'By two old friends, Simyon Mikhailovitch,' Mishko corrected. 'If not friends, at least men with whom you have worked in the past. Are you feeling well?'

'I am feeling very poorly,' said Smin, his smile now an uncomfortable grimace. 'I would feel a little better if I knew whether you were here to inquire after my health or to tell me I am in disgrace.'

'Unfortunately, both,' Milaktiev said heavily. He was a slim old man except for a pot belly that his expensive, Western-cut clothes nearly succeeded in concealing. His hair was still dark and so was his thick, bristly mustache — almost a Stalin mustache, Smin thought.

'Nevertheless,' Mishko added, 'also as friends. I hope you believe that, Simyon Mikhailovitch.'

Smin thought that over carefully. The men had pulled the curtains behind them, but they had taken chairs in with them. They had seated themselves, waiting patiently for his answer. 'I believe,' he said at last, 'that my mother had the very highest regard for your father, Fedor Vassilievitch.'

Mishko grinned. He was taller than his partner, and dapper in a pale tan sports jacket and paisley tie. 'In fact,' he said, 'if my father had not been purged in the Stalin years, you and I might now be stepbrothers.'

'So my mother has told me,' Smin said. 'She has spoken often of the Stalin years.'

'Which, I am sure, she never wants to see return.'

They had been speaking softly in any case, but Mishko both lowered his voice still more and glanced at the gap in the curtains as he spoke. So even a member of the Central Committee wondered who might be listening at times! 'I do not suppose,' Smin said, 'that you came here to discuss the cult of personality with me. Would you mind telling me what you want?'

Mishko sighed. 'Actually we have two purposes. The official one is to ask you some questions about the accident.'

'The GehBehs have already asked me.'

'And no doubt they will ask you more.' Mishko nodded. 'The organs are still thorough. But it is, after all, a serious matter, Simyon Mikhailovitch. I suppose you know that every RBMK generator in the Soviet Union has been shut down?'

Smin was shaken. 'I didn't know that.'

'The economic consequences are serious. We've lost export sales of food because the foreigners think our tomatoes will make them glow in the dark. Production is down in the factories requiring electrical power. Tourism, of course — there is no tourism now. And I do not even speak of the loss of life.'

'Am I charged with sabotage?'

'Simyon,' the other man said gently, 'you aren't being charged with anything. Do you mind if I smoke?'

There were Ne kurit signs all over the room, but Smin shrugged. 'I wish I could join you.'

Milaktiev lighted up before he spoke. He considered for a moment. Then: 'When the Party entrusted you with a very high position, it expected you to live up to its responsibilities. Have you given your people good leadership?'

'I gave them good food, good housing, good pay, fair treatment — as much as I could, with the First Department breathing down my neck. I don't know how to measure leadership.'

'One way to measure it,' said Milaktiev, 'is by the number of shift chiefs, engineers, and others who deserted their jobs. There were one hundred fifty-eight of them at the Chernobyl Power Plant.'

'And nearly three thousand others remained for duty,' Smin replied.

'What about defective materials?'

'There were some, yes. I have reported this in full. They were not in essential places. After the article in Literaturna Ukraina appeared — I believe you are familiar with it—'

'Oh, yes,' Mishko smiled, answering for both of them.

'— I instituted a complete inspection of all essential systems. Where there were faults, I replaced them. In any case, if anything failed and so helped to cause the accident, it probably was the instrumentation.'

'The instrumentation?'

'Which was imported from France and Germany,' Smin pointed out. 'Go sue the French.'

The man from the Central Committee said, 'We are not speaking of lawsuits, Simyon Mikhailovitch. We are speaking of faults in the management of the plant. If you say to me, 'I did everything correcdy,' then I say to you, 'But still it happened.' '

Smin shrugged. 'I was only Deputy Director.'

Mishko sighed. 'The Director will face prosecution,' he

said.

'And will I?'

'I hope not, Simyon Mikhailovitch. Of course, you are likely to be dismissed from your post. You may also, of course, be expelled from the Party.'

'Of course,' said Smin bitterly. 'Now, if you will excuse me, I would like to vomit.'

The two men looked at each other. Then Milaktiev, stubbing out his cigarette, leaned forward and spoke more softly still. 'If you must vomit, do it. But now we're finished with the official part of our visit, and there is another matter to discuss.'