Frederik Pohl: Chernobyl

Chernobyl was not merely a power plant, it was nearly a city. Each RBMK-1000 reactor by itself was immense, with its tons of graphite blocks that slowed the neutrons; its nearly seventeen hundred jacketed steel pipes that carried water through the cores; its drying tanks, where all seventeen hundred tubes met to wring the droplets of water out of the steam and pass the energy-loaded steam itself on to the turbines; its huge macadam turbine floor, where the engines droned or howled away; its two feet of steel and six feet of concrete that surrounded each reactor-insurance against the wholly improbable chance that something, some time, should go wrong. And there were four of the RBMK-1000s already on line in the Chernobyl power station plant; and the plant itself was only one structure in a municipality of storage spaces and workshops and administration offices-and a medical center-and baths for the people who worked there-and cafeterias-and lounges for parties and resting after shifts-and everything else that Smin could imagine, and through begging or bribes manage to obtain, to make Chernobyl perfect.

That was the job of the Deputy Director, and the fact that a goal of perfection was impossible to attain did not keep Smin from continuing to try. Against all odds. In spite of all frustrations. There were plenty of those, starting with the workers themselves. If they did not drink on the job, they absented themselves without permission; if they did not do either, then they all too often drifted away to other jobs as soon as they were trained. In theory that was not easy to do in the USSR, since no one got a job without a report from his last employer and employers were supposed to discourage vagabonding of that sort. In practice, people who had worked at Chernobyl were in such demand that even a negative report was disregarded. And those were only the problems of personnel. If the workers were somehow placated and even motivated, then there were the problems of materiel. Materials of decent quality were always hard to get-for anything-and Smin was shameless and tireless in doing what had to be done to find unflawed steel and well-made cables and high-grade cement and even the best and freshest produce from the private plots of the nearby kolkhozists to go into the kitchens of the plant's cafeterias. Just weeks before there had been a story in Literaturna Ukraina that had harshly exposed the sordid history of incompetent people and defective materials; it had been a great embarrassment to Smin's superiors, but in the long run the story had added force to Smin's own dedicated routine of demanding and urging and shaming and even, when necessary- and it was often necessary-bribing. It was not how Smin would have preferred to do his job, but it was unfortunately the only way, sometimes, that the job could be done.

Because Smin was in a hurry, he didn't show the Yemenis everything. He skipped the oil storage rooms, high up over the reactors, where the diesel fuel was kept for the emergency pumps in case of power failure; he gave them only a quick peek through the heavy glass windows at the refueling chamber, where the huge, spidery refueling machine crept on its massive tracks from fuel tube to fuel tube as needed, lifting out the spent fuel and replacing it with new while the reactor kept right on generating power. He skipped the Red Room and the cafeteria and the baths, though he was proud of them all for the proof they gave of his constant concern for the four thousand men and women who worked at Chernobyl. He did not, of course, allow the visitors in any of the four reactor chambers, though he permitted a quick look, again through the heavy glass port, at No. 1, oldest of Chernobyl's reactors and still pouring out energy-with, he called over the noise of steam and turbines, the best safety and performance record in the USSR! He even let them look at the huge pipes of the water system, because they were in their line of travel anyway; and then they turned away and the leading Yemeni jumped back as he saw the hissing, spitting, eye-paining flames of the hydrogen burner.

"What is that thing? I thought atomic power meant you did not have to burn oil!"

"Oh, but it isn't oil," Smin explained reassuringly. "It has nothing to do with the steam, simply a way of getting rid of gases that might otherwise be dangerous. As water goes through the reactor, you see, a little bit each time is broken down into the gases hydrogen and oxygen through radiolysis. We cannot have this in the system, you know, it would be dangerous! So we flare it off here and burn it." Then he let them walk through the turbine room itself, with plugs in their ears and hard hats on their heads, because he knew they would not linger in that painfully noisy place, to get to the control room for Reactors 1 and 2.

While the interpreter was dealing with their questions for the chief shift engineer, Smin picked up a phone and checked again. Yes, the comrade guests were already gathering to observe the experiment, which was still on schedule. So, he found, checking his watch, was his tour. He had ten minutes yet to get rid of the Yemenis before going to the main control room, and so he approached them, smiling.

The shift engineer was not smiling. He turned away and muttered to Smin, "They are asking me about Luba Kovalevska."

Smin sighed and turned to the Yemenis. "Have you some questions for me, then?" he asked politely.

The older Yemeni gazed at him. It was difficult to read the man's expression, but he said only, "One has heard stories."

Smin kept his smile. "What stories are those?" he asked, though he knew the answer.

"There have been reports in your own press," the man said apologetically. He put on spectacles and took a paper out of his pocket. "From your magazine Literaturna Ukraina, is that how you say it? An article which speaks of poor design, of unsafe materials, of bad discipline among the workers-of course," he added, folding the paper, "if one had read such things in the Western press, one would understand they are not to be taken seriously. But in your own journals?"

"Ah," said Smin, nodding, "it is what we call glasnost." He used the Russian word and translated quickly. "That is to say, candor. Frankness. Openness." He smiled in a friendly manner. "I suppose you are surprised to see such harsh criticism in a Soviet magazine, but, you see, there is a new time now. Our general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, has properly said that we need glasnost. We need to speak openly and honestly and in public about shortcomings and errors of all kinds. Mrs. Kovalevska's article is an example of this." He shrugged in humorous deprecation. "It is very useful to us to be called to account in public for any faults. I will not say it isn't painful, but that is how faults can be found in time to correct them. Sometimes it goes too far, perhaps. A writer like Mrs. Kovalevska hears rumors and she puts them in a newspaper-well, it is good that rumors should be aired, so that they can be investigated. But one shouldn't imagine that every word is true."

"Then this report in Literaturna Ukraina is untrue?"

"Not entirely untrue," Smin conceded, the shift engineer scowling as he hung on every word, trying to follow the French. "Certainly some mistakes have been made. But they are being corrected. And furthermore, please note, my dear friends, that these things Mrs. Kovalevska lists in so much detail refer principally to matters of faulty construction and operation. They do not suggest for one moment that there is anything wrong with the RBMK-1000 reactor itself! Our reactors are totally safe. Anyone can understand that this is true from the fact that never, in the history of atomic power, has the Soviet Union had a nuclear accident of any kind."

"Ah?" said the Yemeni shrewdly. "Is that correct? Then what about the accident in Kyshtym in 1958?"