"Because that slope is still too hot to be safe." He held up his left wrist. Instead of a watch, he wore a miniature radiation counter there. The needle was creeping up toward the red line.
"The radiation count is about forty right here at the mouth of this prospect hole," he pointed out.
"That is interesting," the nurse said. The tone of her voice said it was not important.
"Halfway up the slope, it will hit a hundred. At the top of the ridge, where the explosion took place, the count may reach a thousand." In his opinion, he had said enough.
In her opinion, he had not said anything at all. "That makes no difference. Wounded men are up there. I am a nurse. My duty is clear to me."
"If you try to help them under these circumstances, you will become a casualty yourself."
"But what of the men who need help?"
"They will simply have to get out of the radiation zone themselves, or wait until the area is clear and help can reach them."
"You are heartless!"
"Not at all," he denied. "If anything could be done to help them I would be doing it. Don't you understand what has happened? That was an Asian N bomb that exploded. In an N bomb the immediate effect is minor. The real purpose of the weapon is to spray the area with high intensity radiation, to make the ground unfit for living for months. Any living creature caught within the direct blast of the radiation is doomed, and neither you, nor I, nor the medics, can do anything to help them—" He broke off as another man began screaming up the slope.