Pavel and his father are very close--emotionally and intellectually, as the child's mother is abroad or perhaps even dead. Pavel is taught to put his faith in science, in the infallibility of computers, which can even confirm the safety of the ice on the nearby ponds. Before he goes off to ice-skate, Pavel--saddened by a dead dog--questions, "Why do people have to die at all?" When the father later hears that three children are feared dead on the ponds, he begins a frantic search to find his son.