Frederik Pohl - Chernobyl

"I? To my dosimeter? Why would I do that?" Smin asked, determined not to tell her of the switch.

"Because you wished to be a hero? I don't know, I only know that your physical condition does not match the dose record. According to the state of your white blood corpuscles, you must have received well over two hundred rads. It may have been as many as five hundred rads."

"That sounds like a great many rads," said Smin.

"If you remained untreated it is enough to kill you, without question, in approximately thirty days after exposure." She counted on her fingers. "Without treatment you would not be likely to die before the twenty-first of May, perhaps you might survive even until the beginning of June, but no longer. However," she went on, smiling her icy smile, "in this hospital we have the best treatment for radiation disease. Even perhaps when the patient is not cooperating as he should. Also, we now have a wonderful American doctor who has just arrived yesterday, a gift from our American friend Dr. Armand Hammer."

"Who is Dr. Hammer?"

"He is one of the good Americans, Deputy Director Smin. He has always been a friend to the Soviet Union, since the days of Lenin, and now he has brought us help in this unpleasant business. This Dr. Gale from America has developed special methods of treating people like yourself. We will get rid of the dying marrow in your bones and replace it with healthy new marrow-as soon as we can find a satisfactory donor."

"All right," Smin said. "Now just leave me alone until it's time for the operation."

The doctor said triumphandy, "Unfortunately, it is not that easy. First we will have to make you ready for the transplant. And that, I'm afraid, is not a very enjoyable process."

When the doctor had finished telling him how unenjoy-able the process was going to be, Smin lay with his eyes closed, thinking the matter out. He was not in pain. From time to time he found himself nauseated, or sweltering even under the light sheet. But there was no real pain now, and his head was clear.

He might have preferred a little less clarity, he thought.

It had all been explained to him and, yes, he agreed, there was nothing that one would enjoy in his immediate future. The real question was how much of a future he had.

The doctor had been quite clear about what was ahead. There were classically four stages in cases of radiation sickness- first, the "prodromal syndrome"-the onset of the illness- when there was vomiting and faintness. That, the doctor told him, was not serious; it was probably only the impact of the radiation on the nervous system that produced the symptoms, and they passed.

As they had, in only an hour or so.

Now he was in the "latent period." The patient felt better at this point-as Smin indeed did, not counting the badness of the feelings resulting from the things they were doing to him to try to save his life. Not counting that his hair seemed to be falling out. Not counting, especially, that the latent period would not last more than a couple of weeks, and then it would be time for the "febrile period."

It was in the febrile period that he would probably die, because the stage after that held only two possibilities: either he would slowly begin to recover. Or he would be dead.

He opened his eyes as he heard a sound at the door. His son Vassili came in, looking scared and very young in his cap and white robe and bootees. "They took a sample of my bone marrow," he said proudly. "Do you know what they did? They pushed a kind of a knife right into my chest! Right into the bone!" He gently touched his clavicle to show where the knife had gone.

"That must have been very painful," Smin said, wishing he could put his arms around the boy-if it were not so painful to move-if he did not know that Vassili was afraid, as everyone who came into the hospital seemed to be afraid, that somehow some of the radioactive materials would leap from his skin to theirs if they got too close.

Vassili bit his lips, pondering a response to make to that which would not be either teenage bragging or inadmissible sentimentality. "I was glad to do it," he said awkwardly, and changed the subject. "What will they do now?"

"Well," Smin said, changing position on the bed uncomfortably, "you see, because I am sick it is necessary to make me much sicker. Because the marrow of my bones has been damaged, they must now finish the job and destroy it completely, so that when they put your good marrow into me, it will find an empty place waiting for it."

Vassili swallowed, his eyes large. "Ah, but there is a bright side," Smin said quickly. "I've received so much radiation already that that, at least, they don't need to give me again. Only chemicals. All the medicines do is make me vomit, but I was doing that anyway."

But the boy was frowning. It was apparent that he had already been told what lay in store for his father. He said, "They took bone marrow from you too?"

"What little there was to take, yes," his father smiled, touching his breastbone. "Help me into the wheelchair-no, wait," he corrected himself, remembering that visitors should not touch the patients. "I'll get the nurse to do it later. I want to find out about my friend, the hydrologist-engineer, Sheranchuk."

"Yes," said the boy absently. "He is here, also with too much exposure to radiation." Then Vassili came back to the main subject on his mind. "Father? If my bone marrow isn't good for you, what will happen?"

"Then we will ask someone else to give me a bit," Smin said cheerfully. "It does not have to come from a relative. Simply that is usually the best place to find a match, but it could be taken from some total stranger who simply happens to match my type."

"And if there isn't such a stranger?"

"Then they will do a fetal liver injection, of course. Do you know what that is? Before they are born, children manufacture their white blood corpuscles in the liver; and when a supply of fetal liver is obtained, it is injected into people like me. Just like the bone marrow. Three people in this hospital have already received such injections." He did not add that all three had died. He changed the subject: "And have you been assigned to a school while you are here in Moscow?"

"Oh, yes," the boy said, his eyes gleaming. "Such a school, Father! There is a computer in the math class, and my teacher of English herself studied in America!" That reminded him: "And there are American doctors here, did you know? Two of them now, and more, they say, coming-with all sorts of medicines and machines and things; they will have you well in no time, I am sure!"

"Of course they will." The effort of reassuring his son was beginning to tell on Smin. He could feel himself sweating, and it was obvious that the boy still had something on his mind. Smin sighed and took the plunge. "What else is worrying you, Vassili?" he asked.

The boy bit his lip, and then forced out: "What did those men want?"

Smin sank back. Of course! "Ah, I see," he said. "The organs. They had simply questions to ask, of course. Naturally something like this must be investigated with complete thoroughness."

Vassili nodded doubtfully. "But you did nothing wrong," he protested, unable to keep it from sounding like a question.

Smin said gently, "The accident did not happen by itself, Vass. When everything has been studied, we will know who is at fault, that's all." He threw the sheet back, revealing himself in his red and white striped pajama bottoms, with no top. Even in front of his children Smin had always been shy about exposing the vast shiny burn scars on his torso, but right now, he thought, he would have welcomed Vassili's questions on the subject. What could be better for the boy to hear at this time than the tale of his father's ancient heroism in the tank battle before Kursk?