But that, too, was impossible to believe! Yes, certainly, the CIA or the Chinks, they were quite capable of blowing up a power plant simply to inconvenience the Soviets. But there was no way such a thing could have been possible without the concurrence of everyone in the main control room — and to believe that was as preposterous as to believe in simple, crass, spectacularly gross stupidity.
And the cost of it! Not simply the ruble cost, though that was going to be heavy. Not even the cost to the Plan; it was the cost to human beings that weighed on Simyon Smin. So many casualties! Nearly one hundred of the worst already on their way to the airstrip in the town of Chernobyl, where a special plane was going to take them right up to Moscow for treatment. And two dead already! One man never found, but dead all right because he had been last seen in the reactor hall itself, minutes before the blast. The other dying early this morning in the Pripyat hospital, with burns over eighty percent of his body and terrible radiation damage as well. . and there would be more—
He bent to the pad on his knee and wrote quickly:
Anti-flash cream?
Spl. burn facil. in hosp.?
"Comrade Smin?"
"Eh?" He looked up at the militiaman, who was replacing the microphone on the dashboard again.
"I said the helicopter from Kiev will be landing one kilometer away, by the river, in five minutes. With the team from the Ministry of Nuclear Energy."
"Oh, of course," said Smin, looking at his watch — nine o'clock! They'd made good time. "Would you mind driving me out to meet them?" And as the militia officer started to say of course, Smin said sharply, '"No, wait. Can you turn on that outside speaker of yours?" He was scowling out the window at the idle firemen in their white hoods and jumpsuits, clustered in knots as they watched their comrades playing water on the walls. "You there!" Smin cried into the microphone, and heard his amplified voice bounced back to him. "Get those men behind shelter! Have you forgotten everything you've just been taught about radiation?" As they turned to gaze at him, he snarled, "Do you want your balls fried?"
It was satisfying to see them jump — but how long had they been standing in the open like that before he noticed them?
As the militia car pulled away from the plant gate, Smin caught a glimpse through the trees of the bright towers of the town of Pripyat, prettily colored in the morning sun. He should, he thought, have put his message to his wife and son more strongly, so that they would keep away until things became more normal—
If things ever would. But Smin, at least, had a pretty clear idea of what the radionuclides that had erupted from Reactor No. 4 were going to do to the buildings, streets, and soil of Pripyat, once the wind changed — were already doing, no doubt, to the little farm villages in Byelorussia, just across the border to the north.
Smin recognized the little park by the river. It was where people swam in the summer, and the plant's football team practiced on its greensward. Now the goal cages had been torn away and the people there were not playing football. Some were on stretchers, waiting for the airlift to the larger hospital in Chernobyl.
Smin was surprised to see Chief Engineer Varazin bustling toward him. The man was neatly dressed, even freshly shaved, though the lines on his face suggested he had not slept. "Eh, Simyon," Varazin sighed gloomily. "What a night! Wouldn't you know, the minute the Director goes out of town!" Then he brightened. "You'll be glad to know that I've made sure all our observer guests are safe, and I've made arrangements for the new ones from the Ministry."
"Well, that's very good, anyway," Smin said wonderingly.
"Exactly! Put the past behind us. Get on with the work ahead, right, Simyon? But I'd better be doing it than talking about it," Varazin said, and trotted away, glancing up at the sky.
Smin shook his head. Was it possible the man thought that escorting the observers to Pripyat would do anything to ameliorate the miseries that lay ahead for him? Well, for both of them, to be sure, Smin thought resignedly; but there was no time to worry about that sort of thing now. He peered up into the sky. He could hear the helicopter approaching from the southeast, but it did not come directly to the pad. It veered away and slowly circled the Chernobyl plant. Sensible of them to take a good look at the ruin, Smin thought, and wished he could do the same.
"Deputy Director Smin?" It was one of the Ponomorenko brothers, the footballer they called Autumn.
Smin searched for his actual name and came up with it. "Hello, Vladimir. No game today, after all."
"No. Can you tell me, please, if you know anything of my cousin Vyacheslav? They say he is missing."
"Was he on duty?" Smin thought for a moment. "Yes, of course he was. On the night shift. Well, no, I haven't seen him. Probably he had the good sense to go home when the plant was evacuated."
"He isn't at home, Deputy Director Smin. Thank you, I'll go on looking." Ponomorenko hesitated. "My brother is in the hospital over there," he said, waving toward the distant towers of Pripyat. "He got some radio thing."
"He'll have the best of care," Smin promised, trying to sound more certain than he was. "We can't spare the 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—"