Chernobyl

by Frederik Pohl

  "I do," Sheranchuk cried.

  The general studied him for a moment. "Yes," he said, "that is what I thought."

  What Sheranchuk expected from the words "diving suit" was the kind of thing you saw in films, the big man-from-Mars helmets and trailing air hoses. It wasn't like that. What the volunteers got to breathe with were simply scuba masks, with tanks on their backs for air. What they wore on their bodies were wet suits, rubbery things that were stiff and cold and nasty to put on and chokingly tight where they were not chafingly loose to wear — of course, they had not had time to be very scrupulous about sizes. They did not have portable underwater lights. What they had was a floodlamp on a long cable— the electrician swore he had done his very best to make it watertight — and one of the two volunteers to carry it. They didn't have phones, either. Once they were in the water, there was no one to talk to, and nothing to hear.

  Nothing, that was, except the ominous creaks and thuds and settling sounds from the six or seven thousand tons of material that was waiting to fall on them from overhead.

  They couldn't help hearing those sounds. If their ears had been plugged, they still would have felt them as shudders and shakes in the water all around.

  At least they weren't cold. At first Sheranchuk thought that was a blessing, because the wet suit had been horribly clammy to put on. Then it was not so much of a blessing, because the water was distinctly warm — hotter than blood temperature, with the furious heat of the core raging just over it. Sheranchuk found himself sweating in a suit that gave the sweat no place to go.

  That was not the worst of it, either. Sheranchuk was angrily aware that the water was hot in other and even more unpleasant ways, for most of it had run down through mazes of radioactive rubble to fill the concrete passages they were swimming and pushing their way along. None of them had taken a dosimeter along. There was no point. The water was only mildly contaminated with radioactivity — as far as anyone could tell from outside — and anyway the job had to be done. It was essential.

  The only question was whether or not it was also impossible.

  The concrete-walled passages Sheranchuk had once walked along without a thought were now mazes. The floodlight showed the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the useless light fixtures, the inoperative instruments — but how different they, all looked when they were underwater! It took twenty minutes of struggle, more swimming than walking, to reach the passage where the plenum valves were located.

  When Sheranchuk was sure of what he was looking at, he splashed around to face his companions. Squinting into the watery glow of the thousand-watt lamp, he beckoned them to come to him.

  Just then, without flash or warning, the light went

  out.

  "God and your mother!" Sheranchuk shouted into the darkness. All he got for response was a mouthful of water as he dislodged the scuba mask, and a strangling coughing fit once he got it back in place. No one heard. No one spoke, either, or if they did, he could not tell.

  Hanging, almost floating, in that total underwater blackness, Sheranchuk could not tell up from down, could not guess where the walls were, much less where his comrades had gotten to. He thrashed about in panic until he caught one wall a bruising blow with his knuckles. Then he reached out for it and felt along it until he encountered a railing, pulling himself back along the rail until something caught him a violent kick in the side. He reached out and caught the foot of one of the other men.

  Which one? There was no way to tell until he felt the third man brush against him and, feeling his arms, found the useless floodlight with its cable.

  Sheranchuk thought for a moment. They could go back for another light. But would it work any better? And how much longer could he spend in this place without beginning to glow in the dark?

  He found the lamp bearer's shoulder and slapped it twice to get his attention, then thrust him gently back down the corridor: there was no further need for him. The other man he pulled toward the wall, found his hand, put it on the railing. Then he tugged the man forward as he himself turned and pulled himself farther down the flooded corridor.

  With thanks to the God he had never believed in,

  Sheranchuk felt the plenum pipe under his feet at the end of the corridor.

  From there it was, if not easy, at least simple. The two of them felt their way along the pipe until they came to the first valve. Sheranchuk put the other man's hand on it and there in the dark, with the contracting sounds of the core shaking them, they put their weight on it.

  It turned.

  A moment later they had found the second valve. It, too, turned; and through the water that surrounded them they felt the gurgling suck of the plenum emptying itself.

  In the open air Sheranchuk blinked at the light, fending off the workers who were trying to hug him as he was doing his best to strip off the wet suit. He was triumphant, but most of all he was very tired. He tripped on the duckboards at the floor of the miners' tunnel, but a half-dozen hands were quick to grab him.

  By the time he was back in the bunker he was ready for a cigarette, but when he saw a doctor coming toward him with a clipboard, he knew what she was going to say. He stood up to greet her.

  Funnily, he could see her mouth moving as though she were speaking to him, but he couldn't hear the words.

  As he was opening his mouth to tell her this interesting fact, the world began to spin around him and the lights, Sheranchuk's personal lights, went out. He could feel himself falling heavily forward into the doctor's arms, and then he could not feel anything at all.

  Chapter 23

  Saturday, May 3

  The Committee for State Security, or Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, is usually referred to by its Russian-language initials as the "KGB." It has been a constant presence in the life of every Soviet citizen as long as there has been a Soviet state. Its name has changed from time to time. So has its image — somewhat.

  At the present time its image is still feared, but perhaps mostly as a looming presence offstage, somewhat as lung cancer is feared by a heavy smoker who won't quit anyway. It is no longer feared in quite the same way as in Stalin times — it was called the OGPU then, and later the NKVD — when it was feared as plague is feared during an epidemic, when death and destruction strike often, ruthlessly and seemingly at random.

  The founder of the organization (which was then called by still a different name, the Cheka) was Felix Dzerzhinsky, the "divine Felix." (The great square in the center of Moscow that contains both the Lubyanka Prison and the city's most popular toy store is named after him.) It was said that Dzerzhinsky, if nothing else, was at least humanly fond of children. There is a story Russians tell about him. Once Dzerzhinsky was greeted at a railroad station by a pretty young girl who ran up to hand him a bunch of flowers. Dzerzhinsky hesitated for an awful moment. Then he smiled and patted the child on the head.

  "So he can be kind, after all," one Muscovite breathed to another. "So it seems," said the other. "After all, he could have had her shot."

  The first indication Smin had that the GehBehs were coming to visit him was when the nurse came hurriedly in to surround his bed with the heavy screens that were usually put around a patient who was terminally ill. "So I have company?" Smin asked, and was not surprised when the woman did not answer.

  He sighed and propped himself up as best he could. He — was quite sure he knew what was coming. The screens could not be to shield him from the gaze of his roommate, because his roommate had been taken away to surgery the night before and had not returned. But it was a nuisance to have the interrogators come to question him now. The doctor taking his blood samples just an hour before had told him that his Comrade Plumber, Sheranchuk, had just been admitted to Hospital No. 6. Smin had been planning to put on his slippers and go out to plead with the head nurse to allow Sheranchuk to occupy the now vacant bed. Smin had been quite looking forward to having his Comrade Plumber in the room to talk to, especially because he was feeling, really, qui
te good. Those confounded blisters were still there, and his arms were sore from the dozens of needles that had been thrust into them for samples of blood and to pour other things into his veins; but he was in no particular pain.

  Of course, that was only a temporary state, the result of the first transfusions of blood. The doctor had warned that his condition was critical. Smin didn't need to be told that. Although he had tried to refuse hospitalization, he knew quite well that those early blisters indicated something very wrong inside him. He was aware that this period of well-being might cjuite probably be the last such feeling he would ever have. He was determined to enjoy it while he had it.

  And what a nuisance that the Chekists should turn up to spoil it!

  There were two of them, of course. Smin saw immediately that these were the variety of GehBeh that advertised what it was. They could not wear the traditional slouch hats and trench coats in the hospital. They looked far less worrying in the white hospital gowns and caps all visitors were made to

  wear. "So, Simyon Mikhailovitch," said the younger of the two agreeably, "they tell us you are feeling much better today."

  "Temporarily," nodded Smin. Indeed, apart from the sores in his mouth and the weak dizziness and the diarrhea, he had been feeling fairly fit.

  "Oh, I hope more than temporarily," beamed the other. "But those scars? Surely they are not from this disaster?"

  Smin's sheet had fallen away, and the full extent of the wartime burn scars was visible. "Only an old memory," he said. "This, however" — he touched the little bandage where the doctors had pulled bone marrow out of his chest—"this is new, but unimportant. Surely you did not come here to discuss my health."

  "In general, no," conceded the younger one. "But we are, of course, concerned. We don't want to distress you with questions if you aren't feeling well."

  "Questions," Smin repeated. "I see. Please feel free to ask what you like."

  And they did. Politely at first. Even almost deferentially. Then less so. "You are of course aware, Simyon Mikhailovitch, that the decisions of the Twenty-seventh Party Congress projected that nuclear electrical power generation is to double by 1990 to three hundred ninety billion kilowatt hours?" ("Of course," said Smin.) "And you are familiar with the assurance given by Chairman Andronik Petrosants of the USSR State Committee for the Use of Atomic Energy to the Central Committee, just three years ago, that the odds were a million to one against a disaster such as yours?"

  "As mine?" Smin asked. "Are you calling it my disaster? Is that the same as accusing me of causing the explosion?"

  "You were the senior administrator present, Comrade Smin. The Director was absent. That counts against him, and, in fact, he has already been removed from his post and expelled from the Party, as you are perhaps aware. But you were in charge while he was away."

  "Actually," Smin remarked, "I wasn't present either. I was off duty when the explosion occurred."

  "Indeed you were," said the other one severely. "And where were you?" And then more unpleasant parts of the interrogation got started. Smin had left his post of duty to attend a religious service, had he not? Was he in fact a nonreg-istered believer? ("Not at all," Smin protested. "My mother—") But they were not interested in hearing about his mother. They put aside the question of religion and moved along. He had utilized the automobile furnished him by the state for this private expedition — diverting state property to his personal use — even dismissing the driver and driving it himself more than one hundred kilometers. And to what purpose? To consort with foreigners at a religious ceremony in the apartment in Kiev.

  As to that apartment, how had he obtained it? Was it not the case that, although it was nominally his mother's, he was actually, and quite illegally, the proprietor of the flat — in addition to his own home in Pripyat, and to the dacha he was proposing to build out in the countryside — Comrade, the older man said sorrowfully, addressing the younger, what sort of man have we here, who can live in three homes at once?

  Smin listened attentively to all these charges but spoke little. For one thing, the sores at the corners of his mouth hurt when he spoke. For another, these were of no importance. The GehBehs were simply building up a case. In his heart Smin had been quite certain that sooner or later one would be made against him. Only when they turned to the specific details of the construction of the power plant did he sit up. "No," he said strongly, "I reject the assertion that any construction work that was being done was unauthorized. The plans were approved at the Ministry. Then in the day-to-day work the Director gave exact instructions. I followed his program completely in this respect."

  "Ah, I see," the older man nodded. "In this respect. But in others? Did the Director instruct you to use substandard materials?"

  And with a flourish he produced that copy of Literaturna Ukraina, with the article calling attention to the disastrous conditions of Chernobyl's projected fifth reactor — defective materials, poor maintenance, slipshod management. It seemed clear, the Chekist said sorrowfully, that it was not the suppliers who had tricked Smin with substandard cement and flawed piping, it was Smin who had conspired to cheat the State, heedless of danger to the property of the people.

  "But that was about Reactor Number Five. And it was not defective material that caused the accident," Smin burst out. "In any case, none of that material was used in essential construction — it was all discarded, and only satisfactory materials were employed." But that only led to the succeeding charge, that under Smin's management three thousand bags of expensive cement (substandard or not, what was the point of trying to defend himself in that way?) had been allowed to stay in the open until rains soaked them and turned them into blocks of crumbly stone, while scarce and costly steel piping (oh, that, too, was defective, Comrade Smin? But how much defective material did you accept, after all?) was allowed to rust. And then there was the question of the baths. "Why such lavish ones, Comrade Smin? Did you think your workers were ancient Romans?"

  "Workers dealing with radioactive materials must be allowed to shower when necessary," Smin pointed out.

  "So magnificendy?"

  "After all, we had plenty of hot water," Smin snapped.

  "And plenty of high-grade tiles?"

  "No," Smin said strongly. "Of that, none in surplus; all the good tiles went into the turbine room. But the rejects were good enough for the bath."

  "I see," said the investigator. "But why, please, did you endanger the plant by making the reactor more explosive."

  Smin sat up in bed at that one. He blinked at the man. "What did you say?"

  The KGB man peered at his notes. "You are stated to have authorized an increase in the uranium-two-thirty-five content of the core by eleven percent. That is, from one point eight to two percent of the total uranium."

  "J authorized that?" asked Smin, astonished. "But that was the Chief Engineer's decision. I merely initialed his order. And that did not make the core more explosive. It went the other way, in fart. It was to reduce feedback between steam generation and the nuclear activity of the core."

  The KGB man looked at him without expression. "You admit, then, that you approved this change. And at the same time you took out some graphite, is that right?"

  "We reduced the density, yes, if that's what you mean. It was part of the same procedure. But in that case I believe it was Director Zaglodin, not I, who initialed the order. In any case, really, that was more than two years ago!"

  The older Chekist sighed and glanced at his slim, obviously foreign wristwatch. "We promised we would not stay more than twenty minutes," he reminded his colleague.

  "Oh, but I feel quite able to answer questions, Comrades," Smin said. "Of course, you're very busy. I suppose you've already questioned Comrade Khrenov?"

  There was a change in the temperature of the room. The younger man said curiously, "For what purpose do you suppose we would be questioning Personnel Director Khrenov?"

  "Perhaps because he was there, as I was not?"

&nb
sp; Now the man was careful. "Are you suggesting that Comrade Khrenov was in any way involved in the accident?"

  Smin thought that over. Then he said justly, "No. I'm not. At worst, I am only saying that he was on the scene because he thought the experiment would succeed, and then he could claim some credit for it. But I have no reason to think he blew the reactor up; that was left to the operating technicians themselves."

  "We will take note that you see no wrongdoing on Comrade Khrenov's part. After all, how could there be? It wasn't a matter of personnel that caused the accident."

  "Wasn't it? But I think it was, Comrades. It was actually utter stupidity on the part of the entire control room crew that caused the explosion. One by one they turned off every safety device, and then they were surprised that the reactor wasn't safe any more."

  The elder man said mildly, "Are you trying to shift the blame for your failings of leadership onto someone else?"

  "Not at all! But what kind of leadership can there be when the First Department takes on the kind of people who drink, and stay home when they should be on duty, and even run away?.. Still," he added thoughtfully, "in a sense, I suppose you are right. The decisions of the Party congress to bar drunkenness and absenteeism were not merely Khrenov's responsibility to follow. I could have been more ingenious, I suppose. I managed to find uses for substandard tiles by putting them where they could do no harm. I suppose I could have done a better job of finding unimportant jobs for useless people."

  Hie men from the organs looked at each other. "Well," said the elder, standing up, "we must not tire you in your condition, Simyon Mikhailovitch. Perhaps on another day you will be feeling more cooperative."

  Smin closed his eyes and leaned back against the pillow. All he said, without looking at them, was, "I wouldn't count on it."

  What Smin needed more than anything else at that moment was a bedpan. Fortunately the nurse came at once. When he had relieved himself she began taking the screens away, Smin watching her.