In an attempt to ease the growing tension and welcome Junko, the galley crew declared this Monday “Hawaiian Night” and dressed in appropriately garish serving attire. The walls of the mess were decorated with coconuts and conch shells, and fresh fruit slices and paper umbrellas were inserted into the drinks, including the coffee.
Given the exquisite feast and the frenetic pace of the previous week, Junko’s first meal aboard the Phoenix took on an air of optimism and casual camaraderie.
The small group of scientists and deck crew occupied a corner table in the former officers’ mess and quickly became friends.
“The Arctic is a collector,” Junko related as dessert was served, “a deep-frozen museum and crystal ball for all the world’s problems. The Inuit in Greenland are no different than countless other native peoples, from Borneo to Africa to India. Everything about their culture is intertwined with the environment. Everything they know is inexorably tied to their ancestry as well as their descendants: what’s to follow is based on what has come before.”
“A fair analogy for science as well,” Garner observed.
“Yes,” Junko agreed. “And the Inuit are attracted to modern technology, or at least goaded into using it. After being displaced from the traditional ways, they are often asked to either step aside or lead the charge in exploiting their environment.”
“How bad are the areas you’ve been working in?” Carol asked.
“The Eastern Arctic is a good indicator of where the Inuit territory as a whole is going eventually. Alaska has its tourism and the Western Arctic has exploited natural reserves ranging from uranium to, recently, diamonds and oil. Where we are now, the change in native peoples has been more gradual, but the widening poverty gap is changing all that. The promising oil speculation studies of the 1970s haven’t produced many takers in today’s market. The Central Arctic can keep up with the white man or they can watch themselves drop from the thread of history.”
“What attracted you to the radiation biz?” Byrnes began. “Was it?” He stopped short, realizing his mouth had once again spoken before discretion engaged his brain.
“Hiroshima?” Junko nodded. “As a matter of fact it was.” At first, the others at the table didn’t know whether to believe her, because, “I wasn’t even born when the bomb was dropped,” Junko continued.
“In the months leading up to it, the Allies had been dropping one hundred thousand tons of bombs on Tokyo every month, so it seemed unlikely that any act of war could catch the Japanese off guard. The atomic bomb did. Three quarters of the city’s buildings were immediately destroyed. Seven thousand people were incinerated by the blast itself, and one hundred forty thousand dead from radiation sickness by the end of the year. After five years, two hundred thousand people, 54 percent of the population, were dead.”
“Were any of your family among them?” Zubov asked cautiously.
“My brothers,” Junko nodded. “Five of them in all. They were in school when it happened. Ours was a big family, and bigger all the time because my mother wanted a daughter but kept having sons. Eventually my parents couldn’t afford any more children. But after the bomb, my parents left Hiroshima and moved to Kyoto to start rebuilding their lives. Did you know that Kyoto had been the planned target for the first A-bomb? But as a former capital city and a center of culture and intellect, it was spared. War has such queer morality.”
“And in Kyoto your mother finally got her little girl,” Carol said. There were almost tears in her eyes.
“Yes,” Junko admitted. “So you see, were it not for the bomb and all the death it brought, I would not be here. And that, Mr. Byrnes, is what attracted me to the ‘radiation biz.”
The soft-spoken, almost maternal tone of Junko’s reply showed no trace of admonition, but it had a sobering effect around the table.
“Beautiful story,” Zubov said. It was the orphan in him talking, longing for his own happy ending.
Garner noticed the unexpected but palpable chemistry between his friend and the Japanese doctor and glanced at Carol. From the sly look she returned, she was as surprised as he.
“So here we are,” Junko concluded. “Each of us on this ice for different reasons, now embarking on a journey for the same reason. Discovery.”
“To discovery then,” Zubov said, raising his glass in a toast, paper umbrella and all. His eyes had not left Junko’s face in half an hour.
The second airdrop of field equipment came just after dawn the next day. The single large container contained another batch of radiation suits as well as more shielded cases and radiation detectors. The suits resembled a lightweight version of industrial firefighting gear — one piece silvered suits with cylinder-shaped helmets and self-contained, battery-operated respirators. Boots and gloves locked into place on gaskets attached to the suit’s cuffs and a single, squarish window allowed the wearer to see his or her surroundings, albeit with little peripheral vision. Carol thought it was like looking at the world from the bottom of a coffee can.
Junko gathered everyone together in the infirmary and gave them a quick tutorial in nuclear field medicine. She pulled a box of plastic swabs out of one of the delivery cases.
“These are nasal swabs,” she explained, demonstrating their use.
“Run them around the nostril, then check them for radionuclides. For the time being, inhalation is our worst enemy and the nose is the easiest way to be exposed. We’ll start with one swab per day per person, moving to two or more if we start getting higher exposure levels.”
Next, she took out several bottles of potassium iodide.
“Radioiodine has a short half-life and chances are it will evaporate before it affects us. But if it doesn’t, it will lodge in the thyroid gland. Supplements of regular iodine every day will offset that possibility.” Next came several bottles of calcium supplements and antacids.
“Similarly, radioactive strontium and radium soak into the bones in place of calcium. And potassium supplements counteract the uptake of radioactive cesium. So we’ll start taking these — not the best solution, but a cheap and convenient stopgap. From what we know of the isotopes out there, anything is possible. These are specific preventatives, but there are a lot of general habits you have to pick up, irrespective of the kind of radioactivity.”
She then regarded the assembled group with an expression as serious as anyone had yet seen.
“Until we know more about this, those airlocks must be used. Change clothes each time you pass through them and wear the space suits anytime you’re outside, over your cold weather gear. Back inside, shower and change into fresh clothing. Drink plenty of water and report any symptoms to me. Between examinations, wear these.” She handed out plastic film badges to everyone. The three-square-inch indicators could be clipped to the belt or lapel.
“These are our best hedge against incidental exposure. If you are exposed to any radiation, they’ll begin to fog up. Watch for fogging on your badges and those of your crewmates.”
“What about the hardware?” Byrnes asked. My hardware, his protective tone suggested.
“Following proper decontamination procedures, you should be hosing down every external surface with water,” Junko replied. “Ordinarily I suppose you could draw a hose directly from the water, but that isn’t an option for us, so we’ll just have to wait and see. It will depend on how much radiation is in the water passing over or through it.”