“ALARA,” Byrnes grumbled.
“ALARA. Yes.”
Junko then gave a quick but thorough examination to all the technicians and engineers aboard the ship. Not surprisingly, those who had spent the most time on the ice — Carol and Byrnes among them — had received the highest doses of radiation, but even these still hardly approached levels for health concerns: less than two hundred milli Sieverts. After more than a week alongside the whales, only the two divers had experienced anything close to radiation sickness; for the time being it seemed that simply staying out of the water was sufficient to avoid dangerous levels of exposure.
Next, at Byrnes’s persistent request, came a thorough examination of all the sampling equipment that had been immersed in the water. The cables and winch spools, used for all equipment, were the hottest, but were still below hazardous levels. The syringes and field packs used to contain the whale samples also showed elevated levels, but Junko didn’t believe there was any immediate danger to those who had worked in and around the ice holes.
Garner and Junko continued their inspection. While no one aboard was in any immediate danger, the dosimeters’ revelation of the silent, invisible contamination of the ship was stunning. Every item of deck equipment, every yard of the outside surface, and all the cabins immediately inside hatches and doorways were checked, and all revealed at least some level of cesium, radium, or uranium contamination. As the investigation moved systematically along the vessel from bow to stern, the contamination teams tagged every hatch, horizontal surface, and piece of deck equipment with one of a series of color-coded tags ranging from safe to highly contaminated. The color of the tags helped to establish an initial estimate of the ship’s contamination. If the crew could indeed locate the source of the contamination and cruised upstream to find it, eventually everything that went outside might merit a “highly contaminated” tag.
Despite the vehement protestations of the two geologists on board, Carol gave the order to pull up the equipment at all stations and return to the ship for departure. She knew this was only the beginning of the inconveniences and broken promises for which she would be responsible. If this, the largest and highest-profile excursion of her directorship, were to become a laughingstock, the board could call for her resignation. She doubted that she could count on the Nolan Group’s legal advisors to back up a claim that she was taking the safest recourse to avoid future lawsuits from her passengers and employees. In the short term, the loss of station time was expensive enough; in the days and weeks that followed, the prospect that they would all be exposed to a major environmental health hazard was inestimable.
Before the contracted funds even reached the bank, the Phoenix would have to be completely refitted if it were ever to be useful again. Oh yes, the Nolan Group’s trustees were going to love hearing all about the Phoenix’s maiden voyage.
Given all the arrangements Carol had made to bring people to this place, it was the least she could do to transport those who wanted to leave back to safety with no loss of wages. She circulated word for the others to provide her with a list of everything and everyone they wanted taken off the ship. A helicopter would be called back the next day or the day after that, then the Phoenix would continue its grim sojourn in the north. It was reassuring that Byrnes and the rest of the Nolan Group employees volunteered, each and all, to stay with the Phoenix. Within the hour she received a call from Don Szilard of the True North program, the major sponsor of the Nolan Group study on the acoustic disturbance of marine mammals.
Szilard seemed utterly disinterested in the Phoenix’s exciting side trip to the Balaenoptera floe, except for the costly loss of the Snocat and the samples at Wichita. As the money behind the expedition, Szilard was much more concerned with speculation that the entire study might have to be abandoned, or at least postponed. To do so was an explicit breach of contract, and refunding the payroll of the returning personnel was a significant compromise to the budget.
“Why the hell are you sending people back?” Szilard asked for the third time in the past ten minutes.
“Because I think we could be in some real danger here, Don. My people mean more to me than any contract.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Szilard said, not clarifying whether it was the danger or the dropped contract that struck him most. “If you think the danger is that great, why isn’t everyone coming home? Why aren’t you notifying the proper authorities?”
“And just who would be the ‘proper authorities’?” Carol snapped back. “I’ve called every radiation watchdog from the EPA to the Coppertone girl and no one seems to give a damn.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t either,” Szilard pressed. “That’s not why you’re there True North is.”
Carol was struck by the condescension in Szilard’s voice. She could almost see the sweaty, misinformed, and grossly overweight Szilard admonishing her from behind his desk overlooking Ottawa’s Sparks Street Mall, and the thought made her flush with anger.
“I didn’t expect this either,” Carol said tightly, “but whatever it is, we’re awash in it now. It’s not like we’ll charge you any more for the study the program will just have to be delayed. Until we can find out whether or not there’s a need to panic, we’re the only ones willing and able to check it out.” She didn’t dare tell him that the ship had already been severely exposed to the radiation and could even have to be quarantined before long. Eventually the Phoenix could be too hot to continue work for True North or anyone. Given the recent turn of events, it would be a shorter journey to keep pressing forward until the radiation source could be stemmed.
“What does your onboard observer say?” Szilard asked. That he would confer any sort of jurisdiction on Seaborg, the Canadian kid, was annoying enough; that he might actually value Seaborg’s opinion over Carol’s was beyond insulting.
“He says he misses his Nintendo,” Carol said curtly. “He says he misses his mom’s cookies and milk.”
“Hold on.” Szilard took a long moment to respond, as if he were writing notes or trying some revised calculations. For a moment, Carol wondered if he was also considering some future legal or financial recourse. They both knew the first-year funds for the project had yet to be deposited; in Carol’s exuberance to win the contract she had offered to deficit-finance the first two cruises.
Any breach of contract could mean losing the entire project.
Szilard was clearly considering the same point.
“If we lose the season over this action,” Szilard said, “it will be my recommendation that we lose the Nolan Group as well. I will be putting a hold on your funding for this quarter until I see at least a preliminary report from this cruise.”
“You can’t do that!” Carol said. She knew she had let too much panic creep into her voice. Such administrative wrangling was unheard of usually.
“I can and I will,” Szilard said.
“Dammit, Don! You know how much I wanted this work,” Carol said.
“You know that no one can do it as well as the Nolan Group, and if you reassign the contract you’ll lose a lot more than one season. If we ignore these rad levels, leave them for someone else like God-knows-how-many people already have, then we could all be in a lot of trouble. Even True North isn’t worth my people getting sick or the loss of one human life. That’s why I’m not even on the clock. If you were here you’d see that. But you’re not. I am and I’m in charge and I say the acoustic study will have to wait.”