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Urbanite ’s Metro/State reporters.
    The next several questions snapped off at the Con-Tri representatives bristled with scorn. “How much radiation was vented?”
    Not much. About four curies, about a quarter of that released at Three Mile Island. And everyone should note that in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster about fifty mega curies of radionuclides as pernicious as cesium 137 and iodine 131 had escaped. By that standard, Plant VanMeter’s “event” was a triviality—hardly a reason to evacuate the surrounding areas or to demand the total closure of the facility.
    “What’s the operational state of Reactor Number Four right now?”
    Plant operators were working steadily to achieve cold shutdown, a “scram” state they would effect within the next few hours. Decontamination procedures and repair work would then begin.
    Because of design modifications effected as a result of the Three Mile Island accident, the reactor would likely return to full operational capacity in six months—nothing like the seven years necessary to put the damaged reactor at the Susquehanna facility back on line. It would cost, and cost quite a lot, but Con-Tri, accepting full responsibility for the gremlinish valve failure, would bear this expense without a rate increase. Members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were being kept abreast of developments, as were members of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, and the President would visit the plant to show there was no real danger now and never had been.
    “We’ve come a long way handling breakdowns resulting neither from negligence nor operator error,” said Plant VanMeter’s spokesman. “The public should applaud the speed with which we detected it, and with which we’re remedying it.”
    “ Any breakdown is unacceptable!” a reporter said.
    “Hey,” said another, “how can the public applaud the idea that some breakdowns are random? That we can’t prevent them? That we’ve got to cope with this unpreventable crap after it’s happened?”
    “That’s not what we’re saying, only that omniscience in any complex mechanical-technological enterprise isn’t to be had. We’re not gods.”
    “Then what gives Con-Tri the right to play God with us and our children’s lives?”
    Another correspondent said, “Letting a kid juggle marshmallows is one thing, giving him a boxful of live grenades is another.”
    “The public can take confidence,” the sweating spokesman said, “from the fact we don’t claim infallibility. If we did, we wouldn’t be as vigilant as we are.”
    “Look,” said the engineer, “every important human activity has risks. You can sit in a padded room doing nothing, or you can go climb a mountain. You may fall into an abyss, or you may gut it on out to the summit and find out how big the world is. But you won’t end up with upholstery sores on your fanny.”
    “Hear, hear,” a reporter said sarcastically.

    After the news conference, Ivie Nakai buttonholed Xavier in the corridor. “You were up there. Placer Creek’s only fifteen miles from Plant VanMeter. Can you point to anything that might’ve tipped you off to the accident?”
    “No.”
    “You didn’t see or hear anything?”
    “Are you bucking for an investigative reporter’s job?”
    “No, sir. It’s just hard for me to be blasé about anything nuclear. I had family at Nagasaki.”
    “Okay. I understand. But the accident took place yesterday morning. At least, the recognition of the problem occurred then, and by that time I was on my way home. I couldn’t have had a clue to what was going on over there because even the folks at Con-Tri didn’t know what was happening yet.”
    Xavier rode EleRail home. He was convinced that his adventure above the power station, his near-capture by a security guard while spying on those antlike workers and that circling helicopter, had taken place only in a dream. A vivid dream (he could still see the urinous sheen enveloping the facility and