Frederik Pohl: Chernobyl

Even with the plugs in his ears, the vast roar of the turbines made his head ache. He was glad to see the Director, Zaglodin, at the far end of the room. With him were the Chief of the Personnel Section, Khrenov, and the Chief Engineer, Varazin, talking with a fourth man. Talking was not the right word. The four men seemed to be having a sort of perverted flirtation, there under the towering half-cylinders of the turbine housings. The three high officials had their heads close together, and the fourth man was thrusting his own face in among them, shouting to be heard over the turbine scream.

As Smin approached, the fourth man broke away and, scowling, walked past Smin to the door. It was Sheranchuk, the power station's hydrologist-engineer, usually a friendly man, but he gave Smin only a short nod as he stalked angrily past.

An engineering work team, taking readings on Turbine No. 6 with checklists in hand, was more agreeable. They all gave Smin a hand wave of respectful comradeship as he passed, and he returned it, smiling.

Khrenov noticed the exchange. Smin was not surprised. As Director of the plant's First Section, Personnel and Security- which was to say, the section that reported to the KGB-it was Khrenov's job to notice everything. The Director, on the other hand, was scowling. He gestured Smin to go back, and all four of the senior officers exited to the comparative quiet of the hallway outside.

As soon as their earplugs were out, Khrenov observed, "You are very popular with the workers, Smin."

"Popularity is not what matters," the Director said testily. "Have you heard, Smin? What do you think the dispatchers in Kiev are telling us now? The grid needs our power; we can't go off line today."

"I see," said Smin, understanding. The experiment could be performed only when one of the reactors was being shut down. "And the observers?"

"The observers," the Director said with a glance at the Chief Engineer, "are now Comrade Varazin's pleasure to look after. He has just volunteered to take care of them."

"God knows how," the Chief Engineer said gloomily. "Perhaps tomorrow I can give them a little tour of the reactor chambers. None of them are nuclear; this is all interesting to them."

"I'm sure they'll enjoy it," said Smin, pleased to learn that he, at least, was not expected to give up his weekend. He added with a smile, "At least we will now be able to overfulfill our plan for the month of April."

Director Zaglodin looked at him speculatively, then allowed himself to return the smile. "At least," he corrected, "I can now leave to catch my plane. Is there anything you would like me to bring back for you from Moscow?-not that I will have time, really, for shopping," he added quickly, in case Smin intended to surprise him and actually ask for something.

"My wife would no doubt have a list, Comrade Director," Smin said good-humoredly, "but she isn't here. Have you orders for me for your absence?"

Of course Zaglodin had orders. He ticked them off on his fingers, one by one. "The cement plant has already delivered five hundred tons for the base for Reactor Number Five. Well, naturally, we are not ready; and also I think the cement is not up to quality. See to it, Smin."

"Of course, Comrade Director." Smin caught the understanding look from Khrenov. He did not bother to comment. All of them knew that that meant that Smin now had the responsibility of either accepting substandard concrete or perhaps delaying pouring the foundation for the new reactor, which added up to a classical case of a no-win situation. How fortunate for Director Zaglodin that this weekend he was going hunting outside Moscow, with persons very high in authority!

"And then there is your man, Sheranchuk," the Director grumbled.

"I saw that he was talking to you," Smin said cautiously. "What did he want?"

"What does he always want? He is not satisfied with our power station, Smin. He wants to rebore all the valves again."

Smin nodded. It was understood between them that Sheranchuk, the hydrologist-engineer, was Smin's personal protege, which meant that the Director had, and exercised, the right to blame Smin every time the hydrologist annoyed him. "If he thinks they need it, he is probably right. Why not let him?"

"Why not let him tear the whole plant down and build a new one?" the Director fumed. Then he calmed somewhat. "You will be in charge while I'm in Moscow," he said. "Do what you like."

"Of course," said Smin, not pointing out that in matters of running the station he always did. The Director was, really, only nominally Smin's superior. That was another thing of Gorbachev's, to put the man who really did the work in the second position, so that he could get on with it, while the putative chief of the project was free to entertain visiting dignitaries, represent the organization in formal meetings, go to receptions-in short, to be a figurehead. Only in this Director's case he seemed to want Smin even to conduct parties of Yemenis around the plant!

"There is also a soccer game tomorrow," said Khrenov, watching Smin.

The Director lifted his head loftily. He was a little, sparrowlike man. All he needed was the little pointed beard to look exacdy like the statue of V. I. Lenin that stood in the plant's courtyard. It seemed that he knew it, for Zaglodin even stood there exactly the way Lenin stood in all his statues and portraits-eager, chin thrust forward, hands half-reaching for- for whatever it was that Lenin was always trying to grasp. Perhaps the world. Perhaps, Smin thought, that was what the Director really wanted, too, in which case it was not likely that he would ever attain it from his present position as mere head of one single power station, and one that was not even located in the RSFSR at that.

"So," smiled Zaglodin, "you want your best forward excused from shift duty tonight so he can be fresh for the game? Why not, Khrenov? Still, you'll have to ask Smin here, since I'll be away." And then at last the Director remembered the afternoon's visitors. "How did it go with the Yemenis?" he asked.

Smin shrugged. "They asked about Luba Kovalevska's story. They also asked about Kyshtym."

"Nothing happened at Kyshtym!" the Director said severely. "As to Kovalevska and her disloyal stories, that's why I have to go to Moscow, to reassure our superiors that we are not, after all, totally incompetent here." He gazed at Smin. "I hope that is true," he said.

Before they parted, the Personnel man invited Smin to take a little steam in the plant's baths with him, but Smin declined. "I'd better get back to my office," he said. "Who knows what's gone wrong while I've been escorting Arabs around?"

As it turned out, nothing much had. Still, there was at least another centimeter of papers added to the stack on his desk that Paraska had brought in while he was lollygagging around with the Yemenis. There seemed to be nothing more urgent in the new batch than any of the other, older urgencies waiting for his attention, but the papers would not sign themselves. "Paraska!" he called. "A cup of tea, if you will!" And began to lower the stack, bit by bit. Acknowledgments of orders for structural steel, replacement bearings, fireproof cables, bricks, tiles, generator parts, window glass, double-thick reinforced glass, flooring, piping, roofing compound. Letters from suppliers regretting that, extraordinarily, the orders just placed could not be filled on the dates specified, but every effort would be made to ship a month, or three months, later. Party directives thick with reminders of the decisions of the 27th Party Congress to increase production, and production figures from the suppliers to show how woefully that was needed. Absentee and lateness reports from Khrenov's First Department-not too bad, those, Smin reflected with some complacency; the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station was one of the best in the Soviet Union in those respects. As in most others. He found the little chit that excused Vladimir Pono-morenko from his duties on the four o'clock shift of the construction brigade at Reactor No. 5, and signed it with a little grin; the Ponomorenkos would all be busy practicing for the next day's football game and, after all, it did no harm to do Khrenov's First Department a small favor now and then.