The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy [80]
"Very well," Melekhin said, "now we check the pipes in the generator room. Come, Svyadov, we still need your young legs."
The next compartment aft contained the heat exchanger/steam generator, turboalternators, and auxiliary equipment. The main turbines were in the next compartment, now inactive while the electrically driven caterpillar was operating. In any case, the steam that turned them was supposed to be clean. The only radioactivity was in the inside loop. The reactor coolant, which carried short-lived but dangerous radioactivity, never flashed to steam. This was in the outside loop and boiled from uncontaminated water. The two water supplies met but never mixed inside the heat exchanger, the most likely site for a coolant leak because of its more numerous fittings and valves.
The more complex piping required a full fifty minutes to check. These pipes were not as well insulated as those forward. Svyadov nearly burned himself twice, and his face was bathed in perspiration by the time he finished his first sweep. "Readings all safe again, comrades."
"Good," Melekhin said. "Come down and rest a moment before you check it again."
Svyadov almost thanked his chief for that, but this would not have done at all. As a young, dedicated officer and member of the Komsomol, no exertion was too great. He came down carefully, and Melekhin handed him another cigarette. The chief engineer was a gray-haired perfectionist who took decent care of his men.
"Why, thank you, Comrade," Svyadov said.
Petrov got a folding chair. "Sit, Comrade Lieutenant, rest your legs."
The lieutenant sat down at once, stretching his legs to work out the knots. The officers at VVMUPP had told him how lucky he was to draw this assignment. Ramius and Melekhin were the two best teachers in the fleet, men whose crews appreciated their kindness along with their competence.
"They really should insulate those pipes," Ramius said. Melekhin shook his head.
"Then they'd be too hard to inspect." He handed the counter to his captain.
"Entirely safe," the captain read off the cumulative dial. "You get more exposure tending a garden."
"Indeed," Melekhin said. "Coal miners get more exposure than we do, from the release of radon gas in the mines. Bad badges, that's what it has to be. Why not take out a whole batch and check it?"
"I could, Comrade," Petrov answered. "But then, due to the extended nature of our cruise, we'd have to run for several days without any. Contrary to regulations. I'm afraid."
"You are correct. In any case the badges are only a backup to our instruments." Ramius gestured to the red-circled detectors all over the compartment.
"Do you really want to recheck the piping?" Melekhin asked.
"I think we should," Ramius said.
Svyadov swore to himself, looking down at the deck.
"There is no extravagance in the pursuit of safety," Petrov quoted doctrine. "Sorry, Lieutenant." The doctor was not a bit sorry. He had been genuinely worried, and was now feeling a lot better.
An hour later the second check had been completed. Petrov took Svyadov forward for salt tablets and tea to rehydrate himself. The senior officers left, and Melekhin ordered the reactor plant restarted.
The enlisted men filed back to their duty stations, looking at one another. Their officers had just checked the "hot" compartments with radiation instruments. The medical corpsman had looked pale a while earlier and refused to say anything. More than one engine attendant fingered his radiation badge and checked his wristwatch to see how long it would be before he went off duty.
THE EIGHTH DAY
FRIDAY 10, DECEMBER
HMS Invincible
Ryan awoke in the dark. The curtains were drawn on the cabin's two small portholes. He shook