Chernobyl

by Frederik Pohl

  "We will see the maid again," Smin said heavily, "when pigs fly. Or when this situation is under control, whichever comes first. And the clothes I just took off are in a paper bag. Don't open it, just throw them away."

  "Your good suit!"

  Smin sighed and didn't answer. Then, mopping up the last of the soup: "When Vasya wakes up, don't let him go out. If anyone comes for him, say he has been vomiting; they will think it is radiation sickness and they will leave him alone."

  "Radiation sickness!"

  "Can't you do anything but repeat what I say?" Smin asked almost jocularly. "Please. Do it. And don't go out yourself. When I have an opportunity I will arrange to have both of you evacuated, perhaps back to Babushka in Kiev. Pack what you need, but no more than two suitcases."

  "For how long must I pack?" Selena asked. She was not surprised when her husband didn't answer. He got up from the table and walked slowly into their bedroom, moving as though his back pained him, as it often did.

  She cleared the table, bent to find some old newspapers, and began carrying out her husband's instructions about wiping up dust. When she dampened the wadded-up papers, the flow from the kitchen faucet was even weaker than before. She thought she would weep. Instead, she flung the papers to the floor and marched into the bedroom.

  Smin was not in bed. He was standing at the window, looking at the pall of smoke. "Selena," he said without looking at her, "it is really very bad. It exploded. There was no chance to do anything. If we don't put it out there will be dead people all over the Soviet Union from the radiation in that smoke, and how we will put it out God alone knows. Nothing is working."

  She said desperately, "You will find a way, Simya."

  "I hope so. I do not have your confidence."

  "But you will! I am sure of it! And then, when the inquiry

  is held, of course the Director will have to go, and then your tum—'"

  She stopped, because her husband had turned to stare at her. "My dear Selena," he said, "are you thinking that I will gain from this?"

  "Everyone knows you do all his work! Certainly you are entitled to promotion."

  "Promotion!"

  "It is true," she insisted. "The Director — he wasn't ever here — And he is, after all, the man in charge. As everyone understands, you simply correct his mistakes and cover up his failings. Surely he is the one to blame!"

  Smin studied his wife for a moment. "Can you really believe," he asked gently, "that there will not be blame enough for everyone?"

  Chapter 13

  Sunday, April 27

  The town of Pripyat, with its shops, its film theater, its library, its five schools, its hostels and apartments for nearly fifty thousand people, exists only to serve the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. Pripyat is a new town, enclosed by wide fir and pine forests. Few of the buildings are much more than ten years old. Neither is the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station itself. During the Great Patriotic War, the ground where the town stands was a battlefield where Germans and Soviets slaughtered each other in thousands. When the foundations were dug for the pretty sixteen-story apartment towers, skeletons of men and machines came up with the backhoes.

  The people who live in Pripyat think themselves lucky. They are affluent, because pay is good at the power plant, and even at the radio factory and the construction works that are the town's other chief industries. They are young — the average age is no more than thirty, even without counting all the children. Their town is architecturally "advanced." Town planners come from all over the USSR to study it. It was purpose-built, but it serves its purposes not only well but gracefully. Even with a human dimension; Pripyaters are proud to say that their main avenue was redirected so that three cherished old apple trees, that somehow survived the war, could be preserved. The apartment buildings are faced with ceramic tile, white

  and pink and blue, and they glow in the sun. The boulevards are wide. It was sensible to make them so. After all, the land was cheap, being nothing much but sand. The town is filled with greenery. No Pripyater would ever have considered being tempted away with another job — at least, until now.

  Senior Operator Bohdan Kalychenko woke to a thunderous pounding at his door. Kalychenko crossed himself as he hurried to answer, but when he opened it, the person standing there was not from the First Department of the plant, come to demand to know why Kalychenko had run away from his post. It was only Zakharin, the man from the milk store around the corner. Without his white jacket and little white cap Zakharin looked quite different, and he was oddly hesitant after his violent banging. "Did I wake you, Comrade Kalychenko?" he asked. "I wasn't sure you were here. I thought you might be at the power plant."

  "It is my day off," said Kalychenko, rubbing at his right arm, which was nestled in a siing made from a large red kerchief.

  "Oh? Are they keeping to a regular schedule, even now? But I thought—" The man from the milk store took a closer look at Kalychenko's arm. "Oh, but I see you are injured."

  Kalychenko cradled the arm in his other hand. "What do you want?" he demanded.

  The man cleared his throat. He was much shorter than Kalychenko. Looking up, he began diffidently, "You understand these things, Kalychenko. I do not. I am only a storekeeper. You have technical training. You see, we are frightened. This explosion — this smoke — some of us think it is not safe to stay in Pripyat. Is it so serious, do you think?"

  "The authorities will decide that," Kalychenko said gruffly. Zakharin was insistent. "The authorities are completely overwhelmed, Kalychenko. There is hardly a militiaman on the street. There is not a fireman left in Pripyat, or a piece of equipment. Hot coals have fallen in the woods! My own sister's husband saw them. What if this building should catch on fire now, what would we do?"

  "None of this is my concern," Kalychenko said angrily. He looked with hostility at the man from the milk store, quite strange in his Sunday morning suit and tie. Zakharin looked both older and less sure of himself than in his store, counting out eggs for a shopper or carefully stowing the plastic bags of milk in the cooling compartment. He also seemed quite frightened, though he was trying to conceal it. That touched a chord in Kalychenko's own heart. "I don't know what it is you want from me," he said unwillingly.

  "Information, first of all, if you please! You are a scientific man. My son, who is fourteen, says that the smoke from the power plant contains atoms of radium and other substances which can cause our hair to fall out and our blood to dry up, and perhaps to kill us. Is this true?"

  "No, not that," Kalychenko said. He hesitated, and then added, "But it is true that there can be danger from fallout."

  "Fallout! Like from the Americans testing nuclear bombs! Then should we not be taken somewhere else until the danger is past? Please, Comrade. I have three children. Several of us have talked of these matters — I have hardly slept all night — we think we should go to the authorities and demand that the children, at least, should be taken to a place of safety. But we don't know how to explain this; none of us are scientists. So, please, come with us to the Party headquarters—"

  "No! That is completely out of the question!"

  Zakharin stepped back before the vehemence of Kalychenko's tone. His eyes blinked; without his cap, Kalychenko saw that the man was nearly bald. "I must report in to the plant now," Kalychenko added firmly. "This is, after all, an emergency. I'm sorry I can't help you."

  "I will talk to the others again," the man said stubbornly as Kalychenko closed the door on him.

  Kalychenko did not, as it developed, "report in." He did seriously intend to. He actually had his hand on the telephone, not once but four times, and each time there was some confounded interruption that prevented him from making the call.

  First there was the need to go to the toilet. Then there was a sudden noise outside and he had to go to the window", to look out on the courtyard, where at least thirty people were standing together, talking, arguing, pointing in the direction of the plant; it was out of Kalyc
henko's sight, but he knew that it was the distant drift of smoke they were pointing at.

  Then, with his hand on the telephone, he said to himself, "But they have this telephone number, if they simply take the trouble to look for it. They will call me if they need me. In any case, I should shave before I report for work." And he did shave, with meticulous care, twice over, using the tube of shaving cream that his fiancee had given him for his birthday just days before.

  Kalychenko was a tall, pale man and his beard was so fair that shaving more than twice a week was no more than an affectation; but he told himself that if things were really as bad as they had seemed the day before, it might be a long time before he had an opportunity to shave again. Then he put the sling back on his right arm (which he had used quite freely while shaving), and marched firmly to the phone for the fourth time, and there was the door again.

  This time is was Raia, his fiancee. She squeezed in hastily, closing the door behind her. "The man from the milk store," she began, and Kalychenko groaned.

  "What, has he been after you too?"

  "But, Bohdan, isn't he right? Please! How many times have you told me how dangerous these radioactive chemicals can be? I am not concerned for the man in the milk store, or for you and me. Have you forgotten what I am carrying for you?" She spread the fingers of her hand over her still quite flat belly.

  "I have not forgotten for one second, Raia," he said sourly.

  "Then listen to what Zakharin says! I really think you should help him. Make the authorities understand what must be done!"

  "Raia," he said patiently, "it is not our responsibility to make such decisions. In any case, do you really want Pripyat evacuated? If they send everyone away, then what? Thousands of people must be moved in that case. There will be immense confusion. Suppose you are sent to Kiev and I to Kursk or some other place?"

  "Surely we can find a way to stay together."

  He said seriously, "Yes, perhaps, sooner or later. But it could take time, and what about our wedding? Can we make arrangements for a reception in a train station? Where will our friends be?"

  "People get married everywhere, Bohdan! So we won't be able to have a reception in the Red Room at the plant; all right, we'll get married anyway and have the party another time, after we all come back to Pripyat—"

  "Come back to Pripyat? With all this poison falling all over? And when would that be?" He started to say more, but checked himself as he saw her eyes widen at his words. "All right," he said reasonably. "Let's think this out, step by step. I agree, perhaps you should leave, for the sake of our baby. The next question is, can I leave too? I don't know; perhaps they will want every hand on duty at the plant. But let us say I can. Very well. You leave now; I will follow when I can. Your parents in Donetsk will put us up if we marry there. So you can take a bus—"

  "A bus! There aren't any buses, Bohdan. Even the streets are covered with white foam!"

  "White foam?" Kalychenko disliked the sound of that. Foam on the streets meant that someone had decided the danger of fallout was quite real.

  "Yes, foam, and no buses. Haven't you been outside at all? I went to the highway to see what was happening, and that's where the buses are, carrying militiamen and troops and firefighters. The highway is full of emergency traffic. No, please. The whole town must go or none of us will."

  "I do not think this is a good idea," Kalychenko groaned uneasily. Raia sighed in exasperation, then held out a hand.

  "At least let me see your arm," she ordered. He assumed a stoic expression as she unwrapped the scarf and pulled up the sleeve of his tunic. "Is it tender?" she asked, poking.

  "No. Yes — there, a little."

  She worked the arm back and forth gently, and then sighed. "Do you know," she said, "I think I have a sore throat this morning."

  "Because you smoke too much."

  "No, I don't think this is from smoking, dear Bohdan. Also my face — I can't describe it exactly — it tingles a bit. As though someone were poking tiny pins at it. I don't mean that it's painful. Simply strange."

  "Maybe all those cigarettes are cutting off your circulation."

  "But to my face? Well, if you don't think it's serious—"

  She put the bandaged arm down. "There's no bruise," she said doubtfully. "You should see a medic."

  "What, when there may be many people very much worse hurt?" He rose and said abruptly, "Excuse me, I must go to the bathroom." With the door closed behind him he felt better. These silly symptoms of Raia's were, of course, imaginary. He had never read of sore throat or pins in the face indicating exposure to radiation… but, of course, he told himself unhappily, he had never quite got around to reading all the stuff they threw at you when you came to work in a place like Chernobyl.

  With Kalychenko out of the room Raia took out a Stewardess cigarette and inhaled the menthol smoke deeply. And at once she began to worry. Should she be smoking at all? Would it be bad for the baby? Her husband-to-be had informed her quite definitely that it was, but at the clinic they had only shrugged and talked about moderation.

  She wished she had thought to ask at the clinic about radiation. But who could have imagined such questions were necessary? She touched her stomach hopefully, and worried. Until now the only questions seriously troubling had been whether her fiance would actually go through with the ceremony, and whether the child would have his blue eyes.

  Now — would it have any eyes at all?

  By the time Kalychenko came out of the bathroom, Raia had frightened herself into stubbornness. "You must come to the Party headquarters," she said firmly.

  "And leave the telephone? What if I'm needed at the plant?"

  She said reasonably, "How would they find you here? As far as the plant knows, you're still at the hostel for single men, isn't that so?"

  "I think I informed the plant that I would be staying here," he said, although it was a lie. Actually, he had not thought it anyone's business if he temporarily borrowed this apartment from the friend who had followed his wife to Odessa, hoping to talk her out of a divorce. In any case, judging from some of the remarks Khrenov had made, even this telephone number was almost certainly somewhere in the Personnel and Security files.

  "And in all this confusion will anyone remember that? No, really, Bohdan, if you're worried that the plant needs you, call them. But first come to the Party headquarters. There's nothing else to do, is there?"

  Perhaps there wasn't. Kalychenko could think of no way out. He could not simply go on hiding in his friend's apartment as he had done all the previous day. In the long run he sighed, threw up his hands at his fiancee's gentle nagging and went reluctantly out to tell the man from the milk store that after careful consideration, he had decided that he would go along to talk to the people at the Party committee building. It was not that he thought it was a good idea. He simply didn't have a better one.

  There were a hundred people in the crowd that marched doggedly through the streets to the Party headquarters. The white foam had caked solid and was soiled, and there was an unpleasant smoky, chemical, almost ammonia-like smell in the air. It was true enough that there were no buses on the streets this day. There was little traffic of any kind, with nothing coming in from outside the town. They strode along the center of the roadway itself, with no militia around to fine them for jaywalking. Zakharin was in the lead, with Kalychenko looking stern enough and determined enough as he strode along just behind him.

  It was still early morning, not as much as ten o'clock, but it was a sullen, coppery-colored sort of day. There weren't many clouds. The sun was bright enough, even hot. But overhead, covering half the sky, was a thin pall of smoke from Chernobyl. Citizens who would normally be sitting in their bathrobes, drinking tea in comfortable relaxation on their day off, were peering out the windows or standing on the sidewalks; they called back and forth to the clot of men moving down the center of the street, and some joined the march. Most merely looked worried.

  Outside the Party h
eadquarters the flag was stirring listlessly in the breeze. A couple of older, exhausted militiamen stood in front' of the door. "What is the matter with you people?" one of them demanded. "Why are you making a disturbance at this critical time?"

  "We want to speak to the Party secretary," Zakharin said boldly.

  "On a Sunday morning? Are you out of your mind?"

  "It is an emergency," Zakharin insisted.

  The other militiaman said, "Of course it is an emergency, and the Party secretary is at his post of duty. Go back to your homes at once."

  "No," said Zakharin. "We demand that something be done. The town must be evacuated! The danger is very great to all of us. Comrade Kalychenko here is an expert on such matters. He will explain it to you."

  But Comrade Kalychenko did not, because when Zakharin looked around for backing from his technical expert, Bohdan Kalychenko was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 14

  Sunday, April 27

  There is no "core meltdown" at the Chernobyl Power Station. At least that particular disaster was impossible, for uranium dioxide does not melt until it reaches a temperature of 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Even burning graphite never gets much hotter than half that. When the graphite burned, it was, after all, only a simple chemical matter of carbon combusting in the presence of oxygen, not basically different from the blazing logs in the fireplace of a split-level ranch house. Although it was a real nuclear explosion that started the disaster, the nuclear reaction blew itself out in the first fraction of a second after the initial blast. So there is no longer any real danger of that famous nuclear nightmare, a core meltdown, but another danger is most ominously present. In a way it has become even worse.

  As the carbon in the graphite reacts with the oxygen in the air in that fire, the smoke rises. It has no chimney, as the fireplace logs would, but it doesn't need one. At such temperatures the fire creates its own chimney, as the column of hot smoke and gases thrusts upward through the atmosphere. The column carries other gases and tiny bits of solid matter along with it. That is where the real, and most terrible danger lies. That smoke contains deadly poisons. It is not just the uranium in the core that is radioactively poisonous now. The reactor has created its