[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
reaction-plant man." Cronnin nodded unthinkingly in confirmation. "All right,
then. Ask him what those Doernberg-Giardanos are like.
And then let me ask you: Suppose some moron fixed up something that would go
wrong, or made the wrong kind of a mistake himself, around one of those
reactors?"
It was purely a rhetorical question, but, much later, when he would have time
to think about it, Scott
Melroy was to wonder if ever in history such a question had been answered so
promptly and with such dramatic calamitousness.
Three seconds after he stopped speaking, the lights went out.
For a moment, they were silent and motionless. Then somebody across the table
from Melroy began to say, "What the devil ?" Doris Rives, beside him, clutched
his arm. At the head of the table, Lyons was fuming impatiently, and Kenneth
Leighton snapped a pocket-lighter and held it up.
The Venetian-screened windows across the room faced east. In the flicker of
the lighter, Melroy made his way around to them and drew open the slats of
one, looking out. Except for the headlights of cars, far down in the street,
and the lights of ships in the harbor, the city was completely blacked out.
But there was one other, horrible, light far away at the distant tip of Long
Island a huge ball of flame, floating upward at the tip of a column of fiery
gas. As he watched, there were twinkles of unbearable brightness at the base
of the pillar of fire, spreading into awesome sheet-flashes, and other
fireballs soared up. Then the sound and the shock-wave of the first blast
reached them.
"The main power-reactors, too," Melroy said to himself, not realizing that he
spoke audibly. "Too well shielded for the blast to get them, but the heat
melted the fissionables down to critical mass."
Leighton, the lighter still burning, was beside him, now.
"That's not God, it can't be anything else! Why, the whole plant's gone!
There aren't enough other generators in this area to handle a hundredth of
the demand."
"And don't blame that on my alleged strike-breakers," Melroy warned. "They
hadn't got security-cleared to enter the reactor area when this happened."
"What do you think happened?" Cronnin asked. "One of the Doernberg-Giardanos
let go?"
"Yes. Your man Crandall. If he survived that, it's his bad luck," Melroy said
grimly. "Last night, while
Page 18
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Fred Hausinger was pulling the fissionables and radioactives out of the Number
One breeder, he found a big nugget of Pu-239, about one-quarter CM. I don't
know what was done with it, but I do know that
Crandall had the maintenance gang repack that reactor, to keep my
people from working on it.
Nobody'll ever find out just what happened, but they were in a hurry; they
probably shoved things in any old way. Somehow, that big subcritical nugget
must have got back in, and the breeding-cans, which were pretty ripe by that
time, must have been shoved in too close to it and to one another. You know
how fast those D-G's work. It just took this long to build up CM for a
bomb-type reaction. You remember what I
was saying before the lights went out? Well, it happened. Some moron some
untested and undetected moron made the wrong kind of a mistake."
"Too bad about Crandall. He was a good kid, only he didn't stop to think often
enough," Cronnin said.
"Well, I guess the strike's off, now; that's one thing."
"But all those people, out there!" Womanlike, Doris Rives was thinking
particularly rather than generally and of humans rather than abstractions. "It
must have killed everybody for miles around."
Sid Keating, Melroy thought. And Joe Ricci, and Ben Puryear, and
Steve Chalmers, and all the workmen whom he had brought here from
Pittsburgh, to their death. Then he stopped thinking about them. It didn't do
any good to think of men who'd been killed; he'd learned that years ago, as a
kid second lieutenant in Korea. The people to think about were the millions in
Greater New York, and up the Hudson Valley to Albany, and as far south as
Trenton, caught without light in the darkness, without heat in the dead of
winter, without power in subways and skyscrapers and on railroads and
interurban lines.
He turned to the woman beside him.
"Doris, before you could get your Board of Psychiatry and Neurology diploma,
you had to qualify as a regular M.D., didn't you?" he asked.
"Why, yes "
"Then you'd better report to the nearest hospital. Any doctor at all is going
to be desperately needed, for
the next day or so. Me, I still have a reserve major's commission in
the Army Corps of Engineers.
They're probably calling up reserve officers, with any radios that are still
working. Until I hear differently, I'm ordering myself on active duty as of
now." He looked around. "Anybody know where the nearest
Army headquarters is?"
"There's a recruiting station down on the thirty-something floor," Quillen
said. "It's probably closed, now, though."
"Ground Defense Command; Midtown City," Leighton said. "They have a medical
section of their own; [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl wyciskamy.pev.pl
reaction-plant man." Cronnin nodded unthinkingly in confirmation. "All right,
then. Ask him what those Doernberg-Giardanos are like.
And then let me ask you: Suppose some moron fixed up something that would go
wrong, or made the wrong kind of a mistake himself, around one of those
reactors?"
It was purely a rhetorical question, but, much later, when he would have time
to think about it, Scott
Melroy was to wonder if ever in history such a question had been answered so
promptly and with such dramatic calamitousness.
Three seconds after he stopped speaking, the lights went out.
For a moment, they were silent and motionless. Then somebody across the table
from Melroy began to say, "What the devil ?" Doris Rives, beside him, clutched
his arm. At the head of the table, Lyons was fuming impatiently, and Kenneth
Leighton snapped a pocket-lighter and held it up.
The Venetian-screened windows across the room faced east. In the flicker of
the lighter, Melroy made his way around to them and drew open the slats of
one, looking out. Except for the headlights of cars, far down in the street,
and the lights of ships in the harbor, the city was completely blacked out.
But there was one other, horrible, light far away at the distant tip of Long
Island a huge ball of flame, floating upward at the tip of a column of fiery
gas. As he watched, there were twinkles of unbearable brightness at the base
of the pillar of fire, spreading into awesome sheet-flashes, and other
fireballs soared up. Then the sound and the shock-wave of the first blast
reached them.
"The main power-reactors, too," Melroy said to himself, not realizing that he
spoke audibly. "Too well shielded for the blast to get them, but the heat
melted the fissionables down to critical mass."
Leighton, the lighter still burning, was beside him, now.
"That's not God, it can't be anything else! Why, the whole plant's gone!
There aren't enough other generators in this area to handle a hundredth of
the demand."
"And don't blame that on my alleged strike-breakers," Melroy warned. "They
hadn't got security-cleared to enter the reactor area when this happened."
"What do you think happened?" Cronnin asked. "One of the Doernberg-Giardanos
let go?"
"Yes. Your man Crandall. If he survived that, it's his bad luck," Melroy said
grimly. "Last night, while
Page 18
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Fred Hausinger was pulling the fissionables and radioactives out of the Number
One breeder, he found a big nugget of Pu-239, about one-quarter CM. I don't
know what was done with it, but I do know that
Crandall had the maintenance gang repack that reactor, to keep my
people from working on it.
Nobody'll ever find out just what happened, but they were in a hurry; they
probably shoved things in any old way. Somehow, that big subcritical nugget
must have got back in, and the breeding-cans, which were pretty ripe by that
time, must have been shoved in too close to it and to one another. You know
how fast those D-G's work. It just took this long to build up CM for a
bomb-type reaction. You remember what I
was saying before the lights went out? Well, it happened. Some moron some
untested and undetected moron made the wrong kind of a mistake."
"Too bad about Crandall. He was a good kid, only he didn't stop to think often
enough," Cronnin said.
"Well, I guess the strike's off, now; that's one thing."
"But all those people, out there!" Womanlike, Doris Rives was thinking
particularly rather than generally and of humans rather than abstractions. "It
must have killed everybody for miles around."
Sid Keating, Melroy thought. And Joe Ricci, and Ben Puryear, and
Steve Chalmers, and all the workmen whom he had brought here from
Pittsburgh, to their death. Then he stopped thinking about them. It didn't do
any good to think of men who'd been killed; he'd learned that years ago, as a
kid second lieutenant in Korea. The people to think about were the millions in
Greater New York, and up the Hudson Valley to Albany, and as far south as
Trenton, caught without light in the darkness, without heat in the dead of
winter, without power in subways and skyscrapers and on railroads and
interurban lines.
He turned to the woman beside him.
"Doris, before you could get your Board of Psychiatry and Neurology diploma,
you had to qualify as a regular M.D., didn't you?" he asked.
"Why, yes "
"Then you'd better report to the nearest hospital. Any doctor at all is going
to be desperately needed, for
the next day or so. Me, I still have a reserve major's commission in
the Army Corps of Engineers.
They're probably calling up reserve officers, with any radios that are still
working. Until I hear differently, I'm ordering myself on active duty as of
now." He looked around. "Anybody know where the nearest
Army headquarters is?"
"There's a recruiting station down on the thirty-something floor," Quillen
said. "It's probably closed, now, though."
"Ground Defense Command; Midtown City," Leighton said. "They have a medical
section of their own; [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]