Chernobyl Read online

  It occurred to him that Boris was not likely to wake, and Tamara would probably not yet be asleep in their warm bed.

  Sheranchuk told himself that it was wrong for him to lose sleep over matters that were someone else's responsibility. He went back to bed. Tamara was already asleep on her side of the bed, and Sheranchuk put his arm around her experimentally. She made a faint, agreeable noise, but then turned away.

  Ah, well.

  He turned over and tried to sleep.

  Half an hour later he sighed, got up and began to dress. At one o'clock he was down on the cold street, for there was no point in being awake at home, worrying about the plant, when he could just as well be awake and worrying about it on the scene. He was almost alone at this hour, the trolleybuses long since stopped for the night, only an occasional lighted window in the apartment buildings. There was a scent of lilacs in the spring night air.

  In a way, Sheranchuk was pleased to be a part of the work at the power plant at such odd hours. It reminded him of the special importance of what they did. All over the country factories had long since shut down, people were turning off their lights and TV sets; electrical demand was dropping minute by minute. Oil powered turbine plants would be ceasing operations for the night. Coal and peat steam plants would be banking their fires; the hydroelectric generators would be slowing as the sluices were closed to preserve the heads of water behind the huge dams. But Chernobyl went on. Nuclear power was baseline power. You kept it going.

  It was a warm night, with a few clouds among the stars overhead as he walked through the silent streets of Pripyat. He wondered why Smin was not on hand this night. True, the Deputy Director made a policy of leaving day-to-day operations to the people in charge of them. It was nevertheless also true that Smin had a habit of turning up when and where he was needed. He was a good man. Sheranchuk thought of the conversation in the sauna. When Smin had readjusted the sheet around himself, Sheranchuk could see the wide, pale, almost glistening burn scars that went from the left side of his face clear down his back; they were from the Great Patriotic War, Sheranchuk knew, but just how Smin had received them he never said. Sheranchuk wondered what it was like to be in a war. He was an infant in the Great Patriotic War; his own Army service had been in peacetime — a general sort of peace, at least, not counting a few skirmishes along the Amur with the Chinese, but Sheranchuk had been three thousand kilometers away from any fighting.

  Sheranchuk's little flat was three kilometers from the plant, but this night luck was with him. An ambulance moved slowly past, and at his hail it stopped and gave him a lift. Sheranchuk half-recognized the doctor as a colleague of Tamara's, and the man knew who Sheranchuk was as soon as he gave his name. He had just had a call to attend a little girl who had swallowed something she shouldn't have, he explained — yes, yes, the child was quite all right, only a little sick from having her stomach pumped out — and he was now on his way back to the clinic. But there was no real hurry, and he was glad to go a couple of minutes out of his way for Tamara Sheranchuk's husband.

  The ambulance circled around a man on a bicycle to take the engineer to the plant fence. He thanked the doctor and got out, fumbling for his papers as he watched the ambulance slowly start away. Although on the other side of the fence the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station was almost as brightly lighted as in daytime, on this side it was a peaceful middle-of-the-night scene. The only things moving were the ambulance, the bicyclist, and some early-rising health faddist, it seemed, walking with great arm-swinging strides along the road and not even glancing at Sheranchuk or the gate guard.

  The funny thing was, Sheranchuk discovered, that now that he was actually at the plant, he was beginning to feel quite drowsy at last. He could turn around and go back to bed easily enough.

  He smiled to himself, his mind made up; no, he was this far, he would go in and see for himself just what they were doing with Reactor No. 4.. .

  He was actually displaying his paprusbka to the gate guard when the world changed around him.

  There was a sudden orange-white flare of light, a flower of flame overhead, the shattering, hurtful sound of a vast explosion. "In God's name!" Sheranchuk cried, clutching at the guard's arm as the two of them stared up in horror.

  The noise did not stop. A siren screamed inside one of the buildings. There was a distant sound of men shouting. "But this is quite impossible," the guard bawled accusingly in Sheranchuk's ear.

  Sheranchuk's mouth was open as he stared up. The great ball of bright flame was floating away and diminishing, but behind it was a sullen, growing red glow. To the other noises was added the patter of a shower — no, a downpour! — but it was not rain that was falling. It was bits of stone and brick and metal, pelting down all around them. "Yes," Sheranchuk said dazedly, "it is quite impossible."

  But it had happened.

  Chapter 5

  Saturday, April 26

  The Chernobyl Power Station contains four units, each of them an RBMK-1000 "pressure-tube" reactor. The RBMK is not the Soviet Union's only nuclear power generator, but it is the favorite. Across the USSR nearly two dozen such units are installed and operational, and the 1000-series models, each of them rated at 1000 megawatts of electricity, are the largest and newest in operation, though even larger ones are beginning to appear.

  The fuel is uranium dioxide, which is encased in steel and zirconium tubes and inserted into a huge mass of graphite blocks. (The purpose of the graphite is to be a "moderator." Nothing is needed to make uranium atoms fission — that is to say, break apart — and when they do that they produce atomic energy in the form of heat. They do it naturally all the time; that is why uranium is called "radioactive." As each atom fissions, it releases neutrons which strike the cores of other atoms and cause them to fission too. However, the naturally released neutrons whisk through so fast that they only rarely cause fission in another atom; they need to be slowed down to make a reaction go at the right speed to be of use to human beings. Graphite, along with a few other materials, has the capacity to "moderate" or slow down these escaping neutrons, and so in a reactor the speed of the reaction can be controlled.)

  Along with the fuel tubes, the slab of graphite is pierced by nearly seventeen hundred pipes containing water. As the uranium fissions, it gives off heat. The water carries away this heat, thus preventing a runaway meltdown of the uranium, and also providing the steam that turns the turbines that generate the electricity. Like every other nuclear reactor in the world, the RBMK-1000 is designed to be totally safe. And it is, as long as nothing goes wrong.

  At ten o'clock that Friday night Bohdan Kalychenko was also trying to get to sleep, under circumstances less favorable than Leonid Sheranchuk's. He was in a bunk in the fire department of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station. Kalychenko had borrowed the bunk from a fireman friend — well, definitely a fireman and at least a sort of a friend — named Vissgerdis, who was a member of the plant's Fire Brigade No. 2. The bunk had been constructed for someone a lot shorter than a man with Lithuanian blood like Kalychenko — or like Vissgerdis himself for that matter. Kalychenko had difficulty in composing himself comfortably in it. It wasn't merely the bunk; it was his job, his boss, his boss's bosses like Khrenov, his girl, his approaching wedding — it was also the fact that before being allowed to get to sleep he had been wheedled into two hours of cards with the rest of the firemen. Now he was eight rubles fifty kopecks poorer than he had been that afternoon, and his fiancee, Raia, was sure to find out that he had been gambling again.

  He pulled the thin, sweaty blanket over his head to shut out the noise from the card game. It didn't work. It made it dark for him, but also hot; it did not keep out the men's voices from the next room, or even the reek of tobacco smoke from the game. It was Kalychenko's pride that he did not, at least, smoke. In fact, he was quite intolerant of people who did, like his fiancee — except that in her case it was useful to have her possess at least one vice he did not. It would be particularly valuable after they wer
e married, he thought gloomily. At least, that was when he would need it most.

  The idea of getting married was not all joy for Bohdan Kalychenko, Sooner or later, of course, it was what one did. But he was not ready for that sort of surrender, especially since he considered that it was entirely Raia's fault that she had become pregnant. Of course, he reminded himself, when they were married and had a room to themselves in the families' hostel, it would be quite nice to share a bed together every night — at least until the baby came, when one room would no longer seem quite enough for the three of them. And even in Pripyat there was a three-year waiting list for flats. To be sure, first there would be the honeymoon. . But even that, Kalychenko told himself sourly, would not be without its drawbacks. Raia was determined to go to the Black Sea. Neither of them had enough standing to get the plant or the union to get them into one of the special "sanitoria," so that meant paying seven rubles a day to some Crimean robber, and lucky if they didn't have six other beds in their room anyway.

  He pounded the pillow, threw the blanket off, and sat up angrily.

  How could these other men sleep so soundly here? There were at least half a dozen bunks filled, and gentle snores coming from most of them. From the nearest bunk, not so gentle; Kalychenko knew that the fireman there was the football player they called "Summer," the best scorer of the Four Seasons.

  Kalychenko was still trying to make up his mind whether it was worthwhile to lie down again, when Vissgerdis poked his head in the door. "Kalychenko? Telephone," he said. When Kalychenko mumbled a question about who would be calling him here, Vissgerdis only looked upward and jerked a thumb toward heaven before returning to his card game.

  That could mean one of two things, either God himself or the organs — the GehBeh. And what in hell could he want? Sure enough, the voice on the other end belonged to the Personnel and Security chief, Khrenov. "Operator Kalychenko," he said, voice warm and intimate, "how nice that you sleep alone for a change, but if you can bring yourself to report to work a bit early, we need you. The thermal output on Reactor Number Four is dropping fast."

  "With pleasure," snarled Kalychenko, looking at the clock. It was not even eleven yet! As he dressed he helped himself to half a cup of the concentrated tea the firemen kept for times they needed to wake up in a hurry. He pulled his clothes on rapidly. How like Khrenov to seek him out himself, instead of letting the shift chief do it! It was not that Khrenov interfered in the technical work of the power station — exactly — he was careful, always, to stay within his own sphere of authority.

  But where did that sphere end?

  Kalychenko didn't waste time resenting Khrenov's issuing orders, or in wondering how the Personnel man had known where to find him; of course Khrenov knew where to find anyone, all the time. What he did resent was Khrenov's continuing nagging little jokes about Kalychenko's relationship with the woman whom he was pledged to marry. Surely that was none of even the GehBehs' business!

  It did not occur to Kalychenko to complain to anyone about Khrenov's actions. Who was there to complain to about the KGB?

  Vissgerdis took time out from the game to look in on Kalychenko again. "What's up?" he asked. "There's a story that they're doing something strange with the Number Four Reactor tonight."

  Kalychenko paused as he pulled a boot on. "Oh, of course," he said, remembering. "No, it is nothing strange, simply a test of a new energy conservation measure." They were friends, of a sort — Vissgerdis was half Lithuanian, like Kalychenko himself, and so they both stood out as tall and pale among the stubby Slavs, which had made them at least acquaintances. Nevertheless Kalychenko never forgot that he was an accredited power operator, while Vissgerdis was only a fireman. So he said, in rough comradeship, "A technical matter. Nothing important." But, he reflected, the trouble was that when something like that was going on, they would be busy all night. That was a nuisance. Normally Kalychenko actually preferred night duty. After all, the Chernobyl power plant pretty well ran itself. All the operators drowsed off from time to time on the midnight shift; oh, they were careful to see that there was always someone watching the boards and listening for the telephone in case of any messages from the load dispatcher in Kiev, but, really, there was not that much to do at night, when the bosses were all tucked away.

  But tonight would be different, he thought glumly.

  Reluctantly he left the fire department's comfortable little quarters, waving thanks to Vissgerdis, already back at the card table. The power plant was not quiet — it was never that, with the turbine scream always in everyone's ears wherever they were in the structures — but it was almost deserted. There were hardly more than a hundred people anywhere in the vast expanse at this time of night; construction had stopped for the weekend, and the three thousand workers who swarmed around the plant in the daylight hours were all back in their homes.

  When Kalychenko got to the control room for Reactors 3 and 4, it did not look deserted. It was full. The four-to-midnight shift was still there, so were some of those who would take over at twelve, though it was only eleven-thirty by the big clock. And so was Khrenov, gazing thoughtfully at Kalychenko as he came in, and so, for a wonder, was the Chief Plant Engineer, Vitaly Varazin.

  The Security chief gave him one of those intimate, understanding looks. "Are you just out of bed, then, Kalychenko?" he asked — it was his way of showing he was in a good humor, but what was he in a good humor about? "Did you also manage, this time, to get a little sleep?"

  With someone like, say, Smin, Kalychenko would have managed some sort of retort to the effect that it was none of anyone's business whom he slept with, or when. Not with Khrenov. In a quite civil tone Kalychenko said, "Thank you, yes." He did not prolong the conversation. He relieved the other operator and took his seat before the big board, frowning as he saw that the main pumps were still disconnected. He called to the shift chief, "Shouldn't we turn these on again?"

  It was Chief Plant Engineer Varazin who answered. "Not at all, Kalychenko. We've been allowed to take Number Four off line after all, so now we are able to proceed with the planned experiment."

  And Khrenov, standing behind Kalychenko, said pleasantly, "Aren't you pleased?"

  Kalychenko didn't answer. He didn't have to, because two more men were coming into the main control room. They were strangers to Kalychenko, but obviously not to Khrenov, who turned away at once to greet them.

  Kalychenko scowled at the board. The best things about his job were that there was so little, really, to do, and that little could be done in comfort, without people standing around to watch you. This night was all different. Another stranger had just come hurrying in, looking as rumpled and sleepy-eyed as the first two. The shift chief whispered to Kalychenko that they were observers — from the turbine factory, from other power stations — but, whoever they were, they were not welcome to Kalychenko. Nor was Khrenov, who certainly had no business being present at this purely technical matter. As for Chief Plant Engineer Varazin, well, certainly the man had every right to be anywhere in the plant he chose, at any time. Still, Kalychenko had never before seen him in the control room after midnight before. With all these people present there would be no good chance to disappear for half an hour or so for a little rest from his duties.

  Both Khrenov and the Chief Engineer looked freshly washed and shaved, and humorously apologetic to their guests for getting them out of bed at this uncultured hour. "Still, now you can see how hard we work here at Chernobyl," Varazin said affably. "In any case, you're just in time. We've already begun to reduce power on Reactor Number Four."

  "Excellent," said one of the visitors politely, glancing around. "And the Director and Deputy Director?"

  "The Director has left the entire matter in the hands of Chief Plant Engineer Varazin." Khrenov smiled. "As to Smin, I tried to call him, but he is off on some private errand. So when they come in to work on Monday, we will be able to give them both a pleasant surprise."

  "Exactly," Varazin agreed, rubbing his
hands together. "Now, as designated test leader, I must give a briefing." He stepped toward the board and raised his voice. "May I have your attention, please? As provided by the regulations, it is my duty to brief you all on the experiment we are conducting. But don't stop what you are doing. Continue to reduce the power; we don't want to be here all night!"

  Kalychenko listened with half an ear. Most of his attention was on the tricky business of lowering, the temperature of Reactor No. 4, though what the Chief Engineer was saying was certainly interesting. Kalychenko almost forgot to be sleepy as he heard the plan.

  The basic intention of this experiment, Varazin announced, was to see if useful power could be generated from the heat usually wasted while a nuclear reactor was down for maintenance. The reactor never stopped being hot, of course; it never would until at last the plant was finally decommissioned, somewhere in the next century, and probably not for some time even then. But it was not the practice to try to use that heat while the reactor was being serviced. Now, perhaps Chernobyl could lead the way to new practices.

  By the time he got to the new practices, more of the observers were drifting in, looking sleepy. Varazin nodded affably to them, and added, "This is how we will lead the way for our colleagues all over the Soviet Union. Also," he went on, looking serious, "these measures could be of great importance under catastrophic conditions. They could insure a steady supply of power to keep our operations stable until, for example, the auxiliary diesels could be started. Are there any questions?"

  The shift chief raised his hand. "I do not quite understand what 'catastrophic conditions' we are preparing for, Vitaly Aleksandrovitch," he called.