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So let them write, let them compile lists pedantically
pointing out oversights, let them count off at length the
failures to conform to labor standards and operating
procedures, to the Energy Code, to the material and moral
principles for acting in zones of elevated radioactive risk –
oversights, mistakes and unimplemented security measures
of primary importance. And in brief, including only the
gravest errors, for example, the following: that the workers
on the fifth shift shut down the emergency system, they
stopped and started the machine however they felt like,
doing the same with the automatic regulation system. And
what's this talk of cooling turbines, given that for the
purposes of this strange experiment all the back-up energy
sources were cut off and even sealed off in advance – let's
see what'll happen, those sharp minds said, let's just see.
And what happened? The temperature rose highly strangely
and strangely high, somehow quite perceptibly. The
reactor, of course, was itself a Party member, it didn't want
to explode and humiliate the great country, its scientists
and academics, who shouted all the livelong day that the
Soviet atom was the safest atom on the planet – the reactor
resisted, wringing its hands, trying desperately to keep itself
together. But here the masters of that deadly sport had
already put it in a headlock that no one could escape from –
not even Reactor Four of the world's third-largest atomic