Read Online Cold is the Sea by Edward L. Beach - Free Book Online Page B

problem.
    â€œBaker,” he said. He nearly barked the name, realized too late he had reverted to type and used the man’s surname. Baker had been seeing to the film badges which, upon development in the lab, would accurately measure the degree of radiation received by each person.
    â€œYessir!”
    â€œRed, I wasn’t aboard when the trouble started, and my dosimeter is still on zero. I’m going into the reactor compartment to take a good look through the periscopes, and I’ll watch my dosimeter at the same time. I’ll come back out here before it hits the peg at the top. We’ve got to find out where the steam is coming from.”
    â€œIt’s got to be in the primary loop, Rich. The radiation level went up at the same time as the leak was discovered. In fact, that’s how we found it.”
    â€œWhere in the primary loop? That’s the question. If we can find out which line is leaking, perhaps we might be able to do something about it.”
    â€œMaybe we should scram out anyway. I hate to think of anyone going in there. . . .”
    â€œYou told me you were in the upper level for five minutes yourself, just now, and your dosimeter didn’t even peg. Youdidn’t get as strong a dose as from an ordinary radium-dial wristwatch!”
    Radium-dial watches had been banned from Mark One because their presence set off all the delicately tuned warning devices. Richardson could tell from the look on Baker’s face that he had got in a telling point. “Okay, sir, maybe we’ll have something from the film lab by the time you come back out.”
    â€œGood, Red. Ask them to send down a new film badge for me, too, and we’ll send up the one I’ve got on to see how badly it got fogged.” Richardson spun the dogging handwheel, pushed open the submarine-style door, stepped inside. Directly in front of him, dominating the compartment, was the tall, cylindrical stainless-steel shell, on top of the reactor, which protected the control rod drive mechanisms and the tops of the control rod housings. On either side of the reactor compartment two large, heavily insulated domes projected through the floor and nearly touched the curved overhead. These were the steam generators, corresponding to boilers in a conventionally powered ship. From the tops of the two domes a pair of large insulated pipes passed through huge steam stop valves and then joined together in a single larger pipe which led aft to the engineroom. A profusion of smaller equipment, mostly control and monitoring panels, filled the remainder of the space except for the narrow walkway in the middle and around the reactor top.
    Richardon’s first move was to inspect his dosimeter, which he held up, telescope-fashion, to the nearest light. The index was moving, but not perceptibly. That was good. The radiation level was at least well within human tolerance. Clipping the device back into his shirt pocket, he grasped one of the periscopes and looked down into it. Unlike a submarine attack periscope, which went up, had two magnifications and could measure range, this one went down through the deck and had no magnification at all. It combined all its far simpler controls in a single handle by which it could be swung around to permit inspection of about half the space beneath the deck, where the reactor itself, and all its principal components, were located. He had expected to find the place foggy with steam, but there was only a slight mist issuing from somewhere on the other side of the tremendous steel pressure vessel housing the reactor proper.
    He moved to the other periscope, looked a long searching moment through it. The point of issuance of the steam, a tiny stream of vapor, could not be directly seen. There must be the tiniest of cracks in one of the auxiliary pipes, not a main one. The wisp of steam was issuing from its other side. It was what he had hoped to find. A leak in the primary loop itself