Frederik Pohl - Chernobyl

"That sounds wonderful," said Sheranchuk.

She pursed her lips, preparing to announce some surprising news. "And did you know, Leonka, that one of them is not an American at all, but from Israel?"

That was astonishing; Israel and the USSR had no diplomatic relations at all. Therefore no Israeli citizen could possibly get a visa to enter the Soviet Union-unless, of course, someone very high up ordered that the laws be forgotten for this case. "That is even more surprising than a machine," he conceded. "Still, we've given the Israelis plenty of people, they can lend us one in return."

"The American doctor even said that in his country a hospital like this would be air-conditioned!"

"The Americans," Smin grinned, "will be air-conditioning their cars next." His arm was getting tired. He sank back on his bed, curled facing his wife as she went on describing the technological wonders that had flown in from California. Her manner was, after all, a bit puzzling. He welcomed the conversation because he didn't have many visitors and it was tiring to hold a book to read, but were these the subjects a wife would normally discuss under these circumstances? Was it possible she was keeping something from him? What could it be? "What about Boris?" he asked suddenly.

She broke off. "Boris?" she said, as though trying to recall who he was talking about. "Well, yes. It is a pity, but his cells do not match yours. Still, you may not need a transfusion at all-"

"I already know that," he grumbled. "I was asking if you had heard from him since he left."

"Oh, but of course I have," she said penitently. "He has been evacuated to the Artek camp-on the Black Sea-the very best Komsomol camp in the whole country, and it's all free for him."

"I have been told that too. I asked if you had heard from the boy himself."

"Certainly! Oh! I was forgetting-he even sent some photographs-look," she said, fumbling some out of her bag, "these were taken on a trip to Yalta." While Tamara was proudly telling him how Boris was actually learning to ride a horse, Sheranchuk gazed at the color prints. There was Boris on a beach, his arm on the shoulder of another teenage boy Sheranchuk had never seen before. Both were in swim trunks, grinning into the camera. Behind them was a gaggle of stout, middle-aged women in bikinis, industriously tossing a volleyball. One had a huge caesarean scar across her belly.

"Can you trust him around such bathing beauties as these?" Sheranchuk smiled.

She took the pictures back, studying them for a moment before putting them away. "In a summer camp one can be tempted," she sighed.

Sheranchuk smiled a real smile. That at least was more like the old Tamara. "Or in a hospital, perhaps? So you think I am misbehaving with Dr. Guskova? She is a bit old for me, as well as a trifle heavyset for my taste. But there is a nurse on the night duty-"

But Tamara only pouted instead of railing back at him. "I saw that Serena Smin was here," she said.

"She has been very good with her husband," Sheranchuk said. "I admire her a great deal."

"Yes, and I saw that she admires you as well," his wife said flatly.

"Oh," said Sheranchuk, understanding at last. He grinned at his wife. "You saw her kiss me. Yes, of course; she and I have been doing all sorts of things here, with her husband asleep in the next bed and her son standing guard in the corridor."

"I do not like to joke about these matters," Tamara said.

Sheranchuk groaned faintly. Was it possible that she was being seriously jealous again? He opened his mouth to reassure her, and then he caught a flicker of motion.

He turned to the door. A sunburned young man in Air Force blue was standing there. "I am Senior Lieutenant Nikolai Smin," he announced. "Is my father here?"

"Yes," Tamara Sheranchuk began, "but you must wear a robe if you want to-" And she was interrupted by a voice from behind the screens.

"Is that my son? Put the nightshirt on him, please, and let him come in!"

Nikolai Smin took the visitor's chair from beside Sheranchuk's bed, now politely empty as Sheranchuk let his wife escort him out of the way of the reunion, and put it next to his father's. He started to pull the screens away, but his father stopped him. "Leave them," he ordered. "You don't want to see me too well."

That statement was distressingly validated. Nikolai could not helping the freezing of the expression on his face as he got a good look at his father. Suddenly Smin was an old man, and one apparently close to a repulsive death. What were those awful pus-filled black blobs on his face? What were the red sores on his neck and shoulders that wept colorless fluid? And that unpleasant smell?

"Don't touch me, Kolya," Smin said. "Kiss the air for me and I will kiss it back."

Nikolai did as he was ordered, but protested, "I'm not afraid of catching something from you."

"But I am afraid for you. Also, it hurts if you touch me."

"At least you are, well-" Nikolai fumbled, looking for something positive to say.

"Conscious? Lucid? Yes, Kolya, for sometimes half an hour at a time, so please let's not waste it with pretending. I am wonderfully pleased to see you, my son. Was it bad where you were?"

Nikolai hesitated, choosing his words. "It is not that dangerous to be flying an MI-24 gunship in Afghanistan, Father. But it is dirty and boring, and no one but a lunatic loves shooting at civilians from the air. It is true that some of those civilians shoot back, but none have come close to me."

"And when you are done here you will go back to Afghanistan?"

Nikolai looked rebellious. "Of course," he said.

"I see. Still, your mother said something about volunteering to fly in the helicopters that are dropping things over the reactor-"

"It was an idle thought. They have no further need for pilots to drop dirt on your reactor, Father, so they have discontinued the drops."

"Oh?" said Smin, interested. "Then the core is completely safe now?"

"I think," Nikolai said, "that it is at least safer to continue to deal with it by other means than to have pilots dodging that stack. I have seen the photos, Father; it is not what a helicopter pilot likes to find in his path. Anyway, they've stopped. Then I asked if there were any other flying jobs in the area. They said not. Or almost none; the only flying missions related to what happened to your plant are now Yaks dropping iodine crystals into the clouds before they get to Chernobyl, so they won't rain on the plant. But unfortunately they don't need me for that."

"Unfortunately," Smin repeated. "Why unfortunately?"

Nikolai shrugged morosely. "No, really," his father insisted. "I would like to understand what you feel. Are you determined to retrieve the family honor? Do you think the accident was my fault and you must do something heroic to make up for it?"

Nikolai pondered for a moment. "I don't know what I think about that," he said at last. "Does it matter? At least I am here now."

"And I am grateful," said his father, willing to let the subject be changed. "I appreciate that you are here to try to save my life."

"If I can. I am to be tested this afternoon." The young man swallowed involuntarily, and Smin noticed.

"It isn't pleasant, what they want you to do," he said gently. "I am sorry to have to ask you to do it. And even sorrier that it is necessary. Kolya? Are you ashamed of your father?"

"Ashamed? But, Father! You did your best!"

"I thought that was what I was doing, yes," Smin agreed.

"No, really! My mother and Vassili have told me all about it. In the past three years you have made everything work so much better-"

"In three years, yes. And in another five years, perhaps, I would have finished the task and Chernobyl would have been fully up to standards in every respect. It is a pity, but I didn't have those five years."