#2x06 trinity

As far as is possible for me to tell, Harry Daghlian, in the 25 days after his fatal irradiation, never did research again, and I’d think a heroic effort like that would have been noticed by history.  I doubt he ever even picked up a pencil to record jack or shit.  Maybe some consent forms, when he was still lucid, before  the vital atomic structures of his body collapsed like a Jenga tower.

In fact, there’s this excerpt, from an article in The New Yorker about Louis Slotin’s similar death, nine months later.  Granted, Slotin’s dose was about four times higher than Daghlian’s, and it only took him nine days to die, but:

As the scientists waited for help to arrive, they tried to work out how much radiation they had received. Slotin made a sketch of where everyone had been standing when the slip occurred. He then tried to use a radiation detector on various items that were near the core—a bristle brush, an empty Coca-Cola bottle, a hammer, a measuring tape. But it proved difficult to get an accurate reading, because the detector itself had been heavily contaminated. Slotin instructed one of his colleagues to lay radioactivity-detecting film badges around the area, which required the scientist to go dangerously close to the still overheated core. The errand resulted in no useful data, and was mentioned in a later report as evidence that, after an exposure of this magnitude, human beings “are in no condition for rational behavior.”

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/demon-core-the-strange-death-of-louis-slotin

Rodney knew all this.

I had had sympathy for him, rationalized that he really did want to make Collins’s death more meaningful, and maybe he did, but he also manipulated John’s affections for him, such as they may have been, to get what he wanted.  He asked John to trust him after lying to John’s face.  A lie that wasn’t even necessary.  He could have just talked about scientists on the Manhattan Project being willing to put their lives at risk for something greater.  And they were putting their lives at risk, especially since safety protocols were little more than a joke, at least compared to today.

The question is, did John know?  Did he find out later?  Did he already know and gamble to back Rodney up anyway?  Here’s a beautiful fic by Hetrez that tries to answer it, if you haven’t read:

Something Else

Either way, Rodney failed his Hail Mary pass.  And it puts in greater perspective why John was so pissed.  The ultimate question:  Was he more angry at Rodney, or at himself?

I think it put a fracture in their relationship that probably never fully healed.  It’s always going to be there. 

Ugh.