There, in compartment 217/2 on mark +6, it encountered a gamma field so hot that the instrument reached its maximum reading and then—its mechanism overwhelmed—burned out. Whatever lay inside was stupendously radioactive and represented a possible clue to the location of the hundreds of tonnes of lost fuel. Yet anyone entering the blackness of corridor 217/2 to find out what it was risked absorbing a lethal dose of gamma radiation in minutes, or seconds.
