They went into the kitchen and Carol began making cocoa. Alec was
fishing in the cupboard for the cookie jar when the vidiphone buzzed.
He went to the wall and pressed the "Answer" button.
The worried face of Jordan Plumber snapped onto the screen.
"Alec," he said grimly, "get over to the office right away. All hell's
broken loose."
"I'll be there as soon as I can dress," Alec said. "What's happened?"
"The quake has cracked the Spokima Reservoir. Right now we've already
lost nearly a million acre feet and God only knows how much more is
going out. Snap it up." The screen went blank.
Alec turned to Carol. Her face was ashy and she bit on a knuckle to
fight for control.
He put an arm around her. "We'll manage it, baby. I've got to go." He
turned and hurried from the kitchen to dress. At the door he paused
and turned back. "Fill up every possible container you've got empty
with water. Right now! Fill the bathtub and half the kitchen sink.
Just use the other half for drain. And make every drop count. I don't
know how long I'll be gone but I'm sure they'll be cutting the
domestic water off any minute now."
* * * * *
Alec heard the wail of sirens in the distance as he climbed into his
car. Threading his way onto the expressway, he switched the radio to
standard broadcast band.
[Illustration]
"... Is little damage reported," the voice of newscaster said in
matter-of-fact tones. "Seismologists at the University of California
and Seattle University have placed the epicenter of the quake within
fifty miles of Pullman, Washington. We repeat, there has been little
damage and no reports of personal injury in the Spokane area. However,
communications with the Pullman-Moscow, Idaho area have been
temporarily disrupted. Early reports from the quake center seem to
indicate possibility of heavy damage and possible injuries there.
There is no confirmation at this time but stay tuned for details as
they ..." the announcer paused, then continued. "Here is a bulletin
just handed me from the Greater Spokane Municipal Authority.
"The quake has caused some minor damage to water mains in some areas
in the city. Crews are now being dispatched to the scene to make
repairs but in the meanwhile, domestic water supplies are being shut
down while the repairs are in progress to conserve water supplies.
Only emergency water line are being maintained for fire and disaster
control. The Authority says water service will be resumed shortly and
there is no need for alarm."
Alec shut off the radio and concentrated on the traffic. By the time
he reached Regional headquarters, traffic flow was already increasing
and he caught glimpses of family cars piled high with obviously
tossed-in belongings, heading out of the city.
The gate to Region Six headquarters normally stood open twenty-four
hours a day. Now it was closed as an armed security guard stopped him.
The officer stooped and peered into the car. "Hi, Dr. Patterson, go
right in." He waved to another guard on the gate and the portals swung
open.
"What's the check for, officer?" Alec asked.
"I don't really know, doctor," the guard replied. "Must be something
to do with the quake. All I know is that we got ordered to check all
persons coming in and not allow anyone in who's not connected with the
division." He waved Alec ahead.
Patterson parked his car and walked quickly to Snow Hydrology. He
entered the offices to be struck by a bedlam of sound. Men were
scurrying from cubicles, hands loaded with papers. Others were talking
rapidly to distant vidiphone reporters. Alec skirted around one group
huddled over some topographical maps and headed for his office.
From across the room Plumber spotted him and shouted: "Alec, staff
briefing in the conference auditorium in five minutes."
Alec nodded and went into his office. He gathered a notebook from a
desk drawer and then walked around the partition and looked in to see
if Troy had arrived. Braden's coat was hanging from the back of his
chair, but he was not in the office. Notebook in hand, Alec headed
down the corridor for the big conference room in the adjacent wing.
People from every section in the headquarters were streaming towards
the same location and the outer doors along the corridor kept swinging
open as latecomers dashed in.
* * * * *
Alec joined the crowd squeezing into the auditorium conference room.
Inside, he looked around and spotted Troy against the side wall. He
worked his way to his side.
"Hi" Troy said. "How's Carol and Jimmy?"
"They're O.K.," Alec said. "I told her to fill up everything in the
house with water and I think she had time to get them filled before
the water shut down. How bad is it?"
"It's not good," Troy said. "At this point, I don't think anyone knows
just how bad or how good it really is. Spokima ruptured and is
spilling but it doesn't appear to be going out too fast. The worst
situation seems to be in the Columbia Riverbed System. Unofficially,
the grapevine has it that Moses Lake and McNary tanks have had it and
God only knows how many aqueducts have been fractured. We're in deep
trouble, buddy."
The babble of voices in the jammed auditorium stilled as the figure of
Regional Director James Harbrace and his staff of sectional
supervisors came onto the stage.
Harbrace moved quickly to the rostrum microphones.
"I won't waste words or time," he began. "As of ten minutes ago,
Regions Five and Six have been on Emergency One Condition. They will
remain on Emergency One indefinitely--certainly until we have had a
chance to assess full damages to the systems and have made what
repairs we can."
Emergency One conditions put all water control for the entire United
States under the direct supervision of Harbrace and his counterpart
director in Region Five. It meant all but emergency fire and disaster
systems shut off; industrial supplies halted; domestic waters limited
to a pint of water per person per day. Since it was midwinter,
agricultural waters were not running in the Northwest. But in Region
Five, already in short supply, only those crops nearing maturity and
having essential food needs for the populace, would be given minimal
supplies to bring them to harvest. The later-growing crops were
doomed.
"Here's what we know right now," Harbrace turned to an illuminated map
of the region and using a light beam indicator, began pointing to the
various storage and supply facilities.
"Spokima is leaking at the rate of a quarter million acre feet an
hour. We've got sub scanners working the bottom now to survey the
crack. The bottom has gone out of Moses Lake and the whole east end of
McNary is shot. Hanford has enough water in emergency storage to
continue reduced power output for about another seventy-two hours."
The point of light moved east towards the Snake, Clearwater and
Kootenai rivers in Idaho.
"All aqueducts leading into the Columbia system have been closed and
we can give thanks that this has come in winter rather than in the
spring runoff. Even so, we're going to have some flooding problems as
the rivers back up.
"We feel that the aqueducts in the Pullman area are probably gone
although we haven't verified. Our big problem now is to find out what
transfer systems are still functional and start salvaging what we can.
"Secondly, if and when we can make repairs, we've got to get water
back into the critical areas and figure some way of storing and
valving to keep it functional.
"That's the big picture and it's damned black. Public Information is
taking care of the video and radio information. We want to avoid panic
if we can and to avoid mass exodus into outlying areas that couldn't
possibly cope with the population demands because of the messed-up
system. We've got to handle it where we are, keep the people in place
and face it here. And by here I mean not only Spokane but Portland,
Seattle and all the rest of the major cities. We live or die on this
situation. Now let's get to work. You'll have detailed instructions
from your section leaders in fifteen minutes."
* * * * *
Back at Snow Hydrology, Alec and Troy lighted cigarettes and waited
for Plumber to show up with their assignments. Of all of the sections,
theirs was the one which would have the least immediate action. The
bulk of the emergency was falling on the waterflow and engineering
sections.
"Let's go have a look at the profiles," Troy suggested. "This quake
could have set off quite a few avalanches."
They went into the survey data room where a half dozen technicians
were running bank scans of the gauges throughout the Region. At the
desk on a raised dais in the center of the room, the junior duty
engineer was poring over a fresh set of graphs.
"How's it look, Walt?" Troy asked. The young engineer looked up at
them and smiled. "Hi Troy, Alec. Oh, not too bad from our point of
view." He indicated the graphs on his desk. "We've had some shifting
in loose pack and ice stratas along the Palouse Range, a little in the
Sheep Mountain Range. But so far, we've been lucky. The worst one is
right here, on Lookout Peak. She must have dumped at least a hundred
thousand tons down the slope and into the valley and she stripped
right down to the rock and took out every gauge on the way. Then it
piled up in the valley and knocked out all but three gauges there. And
they're reading anywhere from sixty-five to more than one hundred foot
depths. We'll lose some of that if it's not lying right for
retardation spraying."
The three engineers studied the new profiles as they came in from the
techs. They were huddled over the desk when Plumber entered the room
and joined them at the table.
"What's the word, Jordan?" Alec asked.
"Nothing for us right now," Plumber said. "We're to remain on standby
alert, possible fill-in in other sections for the time being. Then
we'll have to come up with some new figures as quickly as possible."
He glanced down at the charts and then asked the duty engineer, "How
many positions knocked out?"
"No reports from sixty-eight gauges on this last scan," Walt reported,
"most of them in Idaho. But there may be a few more before noon
tomorrow. According to my last avalanche report before this thing hit,
there should be at least ten more cornices that could have been
cracked by this shock but that haven't fallen yet. It's still snowing
over most of the Sawtooths but it's due to let up by dawn and a
warming trend set in. That ought to trigger the others and when they
go then we'll have just about all the replacement figures we'll get.
What's the chance for more quakes?"
Plumber shrugged. "Seismology says we can expect settling tremblors
for as long as four more weeks and possibly even another sharp jolt. I
wish those guys were a little more scientific in their predictions."
Troy hid a grin. "Want us to get ready to head back to the hills,
Boss?"
"No," Plumber said, "you two stay put for the moment. You just got
back and unless I really need you, I want you here for the moment.
I'll get a couple of other teams together to take care of the
replacements. For the time being, see what you can come up with in
some equations for the Pullman-Moscow potential east of the aqueducts.
Break it down, stream by stream for me. I can't tell you which systems
are going to be functioning or how we'll be able to divert if needed,
so keep the equations at gate-head pressures and flow."
The two engineers nodded and headed back to their offices. Alec
punched his home number on the vidiphone and Carol's face appeared on
the second ring. "Oh, Alec, I'm so glad you called, honey," she said.
"I've been worried sick since I heard the broadcast."
"You get that job done that I told you to do before I left," Alec
asked.
"All filled," Carol replied with a smile. "What do we do now,
darling?"
"You and Jimmy just stay put," Alec warned. "You've got a pretty good
supply of food in the apartment right now. In the morning, go down to
the store in the building and see what you can buy in the way of
staples and long-storage foods. And get all the juices you can. Don't
worry about the money end of it now. Spend it like it was going out of
style."
"That bad, Alec?"
"Nothing that can't be handled," he replied, "but it may take a while
and it may get awfully dry before it gets wetter. And listen Carol,
you and Jimmy are to stay in the apartment and don't let anyone else
in. You understand?"
She nodded.
"I don't want you or the boy out on the street under any
circumstances. I'll probable be here at the office for at least
another day, but if I'm not, then we won't be away for very long. I
don't know when I can get home, but I'll call you every chance I get."
"All right Alec," Carol said. "I love you, darling. Do be careful."
Alec smiled and blew her a kiss and then snapped off the connection.
* * * * *
Troy had picked up the latest revised ten-, thirty and sixty-day
meteorology predictions and was beginning to lay them up against the
strip segments of the snow profiles from north to south along the
length of Region Six. He was engrossed in the problem when Alec stuck
his head in the cubicle.
"I'm bugged," the chunky engineer said. "Got a moment to talk?"
Troy shoved the papers back and waved to the chair. "Have a seat
doctor and unburden yourself. Relax, let your mind go blank. Tell me
about your childhood. Did you hate to take baths? Does the sound of
flowing water stir subconscious hatreds in you? Dr. Braden will
analyze all your problems."
Alec grinned and palled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one to
his partner.
"Now that I think about it," he quipped, "I used to tangle almost
every day in fifth grade with a kid that looked just like you.
Seriously, Troy, I've got a wild idea and I want to try it out on you
before I hit Jordan or The Scourge with it."
Troy leaned back and put his feet on the desk and listened.
"Actually, this is a little out of our line," Alec continued slowly,
"but something we did up in the hills day before yesterday brought
this on. The idea stems from the way we excavated that gauge, yet it
calls for an entirely different idea and technique.
"Now I haven't the slightest idea how bad Spokima is cracked or just
where the crack is, but I think there may be a way to recover some of
the lost water. And if it works, it might be used on Moses Lake and
McNary."
He paused and pulled a pad of scratch paper towards him and brought
out a pen to make rough sketches. Troy swung his feet off the desk and
leaned forward to watch.
"The idea came to me," Alec said, continuing to sketch, "from the
runoff trough you cut to carry off the snow melt from around the hot
box. Now just suppose that the crack in the reservoir is along the
bottom side, although that doesn't really make much difference ... yet
it might make the operation a little easier since it would concentrate
the leak runoff.
"We know the reservoir is set in the bed of the Columbia from the
confluence of the Spokane River down to old Grand Coulee. And we know
just what the strata formations are both below the reservoir and in
the aquifer downstream. That lost water is going into that strata and
is going to work its way down the slope of the terrain but it's also
going to level off on the first bedrock strata it hits and that's
where I think we can stop it.
"If we ran a deep and big enough bore down ahead of the flow and cut a
catch basin and then dropped a series of pumps into the basin, I think
we could save a lot of that water by getting back onto the surface."
Troy studied the sketch for a minute. "How are you going to sink a
bore that fast?"
"Laser," Alec replied simply.
"It would take one hell of a lot of industrial laser units," Troy
murmured thoughtfully, "but, if we could get them, it just might work.
What do we do if we can get the water back to the surface?"
"Same story," Alec pointed out. "If we can get the bores down behind
the old Grand Coulee Dam, then we cut a channel and drain it into the
old surface reservoir. Oh sure, we'll lose some surface evap until we
can get it back down underground again. But that would still be one
helluva lot better than letting millions of acre feet just seep out to
sea. And if we had to, we could use the lasers to cut a channel around
Grand Coulee and let it run down to the Okanogan where it would go
into the Lake Chelan reservoir."
Ten minutes later, Plumber and the two juniors were closeted with
Supervisor Wilson, going over Alec's plan. When Alec was through
talking, Wilson flipped a switch on his desk intercom. "Harbrace
here," the speaker sounded.
"Jim," Wilson said, "this is Morley. A couple of my harebrained kids
have come up with an idea that makes sense and looks like it might
salvage a lot of lost water. But we've got to move on it right now if
it's going to work."
"Get them over here," Harbrace snapped.
* * * * *
Six hours later, the first light of the cold winter morning began
competing with the batteries of floodlight tubes banked around a
rocky, gravel-based site in the dry bed of the Spokane River. More
than three hundred men had been thrown into the experimental project
and for three hours a steady stream of huge cargo carriers and
aircraft had been piling equipment around the site. A cluster of men
stood around a compact pole-beam laser unit aimed at the ground.
Upstream a line of metal poles extended up from the dry river bottom
for a mile.
"This should be the last one," Alec said. "Let 'er go."
The laser operator fired and the light beam shot down into the earth,
burning a narrow hole. "We'll set this one at one hundred and ten
feet," Alec told the operator. The man nodded and turned back to his
control panel. Two minutes later another metal pole was dropped into
the hole. Projecting from the bottom of the pole were several soil
moisture detectors. Extensions were coupled on section by section as
the electrodes dropped down into the hole. A dozen of the eight-foot
sections went down with the last section projecting from the river
bed. A technician slapped a meter box onto the connections. "Dry
here," he reported.
Alec, Troy and Harbrace, together with Wilson and a half dozen
engineers from research and hydraulics and two laser engineers,
consulted substrata profile readings.
"Well, if this scheme is going to work," the senior hydraulics man
said, "this is the place to try it. We're still ahead of the seepage
but not for long. We've got a good quarter-mile of deep rock for the
sump hole. Let's try it." Harbrace nodded in assent and the group
dispersed to the side of the dry river bed. Alec and Troy trudged up
the shallow slope to a mess truck sitting on the flat. "Nothing we can
do now but pray," Alec muttered. They picked up cups of hot coffee and
walked back to the bank to watch the operations.
The light laser unit had been moved out and ten huge crawler cargo
carriers with van were being mover into a wide circle around the last
soil moisture stake. Crews were unshipping the beam heads of the giant
industrial laser guns and making power connections to the series of
mobile power reactors that had been set up on the riverbank.
When all of the units were in place and connected, the crews pulled
out. At a safe distance from the bore site, a master control panel had
been jury-rigged to control all units simultaneously. Two programmers
and a pair of operators sat behind shields while the senior hydro
engineer took a place between them and focused on his remote video eye
at the site. A quarter of a mile away, vehicles still moved up with
new equipment, but the remaining vehicles and other gear had been
pulled back from the river bed to the bank.
The hydraulics chief looked around at Harbrace and waited. "Let's try
it," the director ordered.
"Three seconds at a time," the engineer ordered. The programmers
checked the timer cutoffs for a final time. "Ready?" The operators
nod.
"Fire," the engineer yelled.
Ten massively concentrated beams of high intensity light waves slammed
into the gravel bed. The earth shook and a great cloud of dust arose
from the site, momentarily hiding the laser units. A light morning
breeze drifted the dust downstream in a minute.
Ten huge holes gaped in the river bed underneath the laser beam heads
mounted on adjustable cranes out and away from their power units.
"Fire," came the order again. This time there was nothing but the
trembling of the earth as the beams cut a molten path through rock,
clay, sand and boulders.
"Measure," the engineer ordered. A radar gauge bounced a beam off the
bottom of one of the holes. "Eighty-seven feet," the technician called
out.
"Change to a two-second shot." The programmers changed timing.
"Fire and measure."
"One hundred and seventeen feet," the tech called out.
"That's it," the engineer ordered. "Core it out."
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later, a hundred-foot wide bore extended down to bed
rock. While the lasers were coring out the hole, six cargo cranes on
their 400-ton carrier chassis had been moved into position. Now the
cranes hooked onto three of the lasers, two cranes to each unit.
Minutes later, the light beam units were lowered to the bottom.
Additional video monitors together with portable lights followed them
down into the hole. The lasers were aimed upstream and began burning a
fan-shaped cut into the solid rock. The other three lasers were
lowered down to join them and the great catch basin began to take
shape.
If the geological survey was correct, the basin would be a good ten
feet below the water-bearing gravel strata that should be carrying the
bulk of the lost water from the ruptured underground Spokima Reservoir
fifteen miles upstream. The river bed lay in a slight natural fault
and the water should follow beneath the old river bed without too much
side loss.
In a half hour the six units had carved out a cavern in the solid
rock fifty feet high and extending six hundred feet upstream from the
vertical bore. The engineers divided the units, three to a side and
began widening to each side of the old stream bed and then working
back down towards the surface bore.
While the work was going on beneath the ground, technicians maintained
a constant monitoring of the moisture gauges upstream. The first of
the four huge, sealed nuclear sump pumps had just touched the floor of
the basin at the vertical bore when the tech at the gauge farthest
upstream yelped, "It's wet!"
Harbrace and the hydro engineer jumped for the communications phone.
"How deep is it?" the engineer snapped.
"Forty-two feet," came the reply, "now it's forty-seven. Moisture
content increasing. This is the head and it's coming fast."
"Get those lasers outta there," the engineer roared, "and get those
other pumps down, fast."
More cranes were clustered around the grate hole and the three other
pumps went quickly to the bottom. Down in the cavernous basin, the
laser rolled quickly back to the bore hole where crews slammed
magnaclamps on them and lofted them to the surface.
By the time they were starting to rise, three more closer gauges were
reporting underground water flow.
As soon as the first two lasers reached the surface and were swung
onto the gravel bed, they were sent waddling on their tracked carriers
a hundred feet upstream beyond the upper end of the underground
emergency cavern. The beams were set on angle and seconds later the
light lanced out and down into the earth, smashing down through the
strata and punching two great holes into the roof of the upper end of
the cavern. Clouds of superheated steam gushed out of the twin
punctures as the beams shut off. The beams had burned through the head
of the seeping waters. Now the other four lasers were on the line and
in rapid order, a dozen more holes were on punched down through the
bed and into the catch basin. The upstream roof of the cavern fell in
for forty feet and a torrent of mud cascaded into the basin.
The instant the last beam closed down a roar arose from the workers
clustered about the lip of the vertical pump bore. A wall of water
came surging down from the upstream end of the cavern and smashed into
the bore hole wall in a muddy, seething maelstrom. The strata-borne
water had found the hole and were pouring down into the cavern and
catch basin. The water began rising in the walls of the hole, sealed
into a shining shaft of fused rock and silicon by the laser beams.
"It works," Troy yelled, pounding his partner on the back, "you
harebrained son of an engineer, it works."
Alec's face was wreathed in smiles as the two of them hurried down the
bank to the edge of the bore. By the time they reached the lip, the water
level had risen past the underground upstream mouth of the catch basin and
was boiling steadily upwards past the sixty-foot mark towards the
surface. Despite the vent holes and the volume of water seeping through
the strata from the ruptured Spokima Reservoir, there still wasn't enough
pressure to raise the water level much above the fifty-foot mark, once the
catch basin filled. That was the purpose of the four nuclear pumps in the
sump hole. Their great million-gallon-a-minute jets forced the bore hole
water up to the surface and kept sucking up the waters cascading now into
the cavern.
"Get back," Harbrace yelled at the men still near the edge of the
hole. "When it comes over it's going to blow and backwater."
* * * * *
Troy and Alec joined the workmen and technicians hurrying back to the
safety of the riverbank. Two minutes later a deep-throated gurgle
echoed in the cold morning air and huge bubble, then a geyser of water
shot up into the air in a cloud of moisture and vapor spray. It fell
back to the dry river bed, spread once again upon the gravel that had
known only the gentle touch of rainfall for three-quarters of a
century and then boiled and roiled in a gathering head downstream
rolling loose boulders and logs in its teeth.
The water level in the river bed continued to rise and a backwater
began forming, extending nearly a quarter of a mile upstream before it
stopped. Now the bore hole was visible only as a muddy boil of
turbulence churning in the center of the newly-flowing river.
The regional director came over to Troy and Alec and slapped the pair
on the back. "You two have done a terrific thing here," he said with a
broad smile.
"Not me," Troy protested. "This was all Alec's idea. I never thought
the thing would work."
"Where's the water going?" Alec asked.
Harbrace pointed downriver to the hidden wall of the old Grand Coulee
Dam around the curve in the river bed. "We're dumping into the Grand
Coulee until we can get it back underground, probably into Chelan.
Meanwhile, we're going to see if your idea can be used at Moses lake
and McNary."
The great convoy of equipment and men was already on the move to join
the other task forces of similar equipment already on site at the two
other major damage locations.
"Nothing more for us to do here now, and the hydraulics people can
take it from here," Harbrace said. "I'm heading back to Spokane. You
two want to ride back with me?"
They turned and walked towards Harbrace's personal copter waiting
beside the road a couple of hundred yards away.
Without warning, the earth began to shift beneath their feet and the
trio staggered on the rolling surface. From deep within the ground
came a brief but ominous rumble. Harbrace stumbled and would have
fallen as the ground shook had not the two younger men caught him. The
shock was over in less than a minute.
"My God," Harbrace breathed, "not again."
He spun and looked towards the river. A wash of waves from the flowing
current lapped against the bank but from the center of the stream the
waters continued to boil. All three men silently watched for a full
minute. From the south where the tail of the convoy was still visible,
a light survey car came racing back down the road towards the river.
It slid to a halt beside the bank and Hall, the senior hydro engineer,
leaped out and came running towards the director and the two junior
engineers.
"Is it still pumping?" he panted anxiously as he surveyed the waters.
The four men eyed the boil for another half minute. Now it was just a
churning pool in the middle of the waters, no longer bubbling higher
than the surface of the waters. "It's still pumping," Hall muttered,
"but something's wrong."
He jumped for his car and grabbed the radio. "Swenson, Baker," he
called, "hold it up. Get that pump-monitoring rig back here on the
double. And get the rest of that gear turned around and headed back
this way. We've got more trouble."
The other three men had walked to the survey car. "What do you think's
wrong," Harbrace asked.
"I dunno," the hydro engineer said. "Maybe the shock triggered the
pile dampers on one of the pumps. Maybe something else." He squinted
at the barely churning waters over the bore hole. "Can't say until we
get a monitor on those pumps. If it's just a malfunction in one of the
units, I can dump another one down there. If it's something else,
we'll have to see then. One thing's sure, they aren't all pumping."
* * * * *
The pump section vehicles had been hauled out of the convoy and were
already pulling up along the riverbank before the rest of the convoy
of heavy equipment was turned around.
In the big monitor van, technicians already were running remote checks
on the underwater pumps. The engineers and the director climbed into
the van to wait the word.
"Number One's O.K.," the section chief reported, "so's Number Two."
The three technicians at the monitor panel punched and re-punched
banks of buttons and switches and watched the patterns on
oscilloscopes.
"Something sour on Number Three," the chief said. "Can't say what
yet."
"Skip over to Four," Hall ordered. "Let's see if that's O.K., then you
can go back to Three."
In two minutes Number Four had been checked out in working order. The
analysis concentrated back to Number Three pump.
"I'm getting a steady pile reading," the board man reported, "as a
matter of fact, it's running a little hot. But no response to damping
effect. She's running wide open."
"Yeah," the section chief muttered as his eyes shifted along the array
of scopes on the panel, "I see that, but why aren't we getting any
head pressure?"
The board men continued to run new series of response checks on the
rest of the pump system. Outside, the head of the heavy equipment
convoy came to a halt and the crews climbed out to wait beside their
vehicles.
Five minutes later the board men finished their checks and then
conferred briefly with the section chief. He came over to the
engineers.
"I think we've got your answer," he said glumly, "but I don't think
you're going to like it. The best we can figure out is that the shock
must have created some kind of a lag turbulence down there and when it
was over the water piled into Number Four and slammed it over on its
side. Or maybe the shock just tipped it over. In any case, it's either
clogged the intake or jammed the nozzles. We don't know which. And
it's jammed the dampers."
"So," the hydraulics chief shrugged, "we put another unit down there."
"It's not that simple, Mr. Hall," the monitor chief continued. "That
pile's running wide open and no place to go. It's got to be stopped or
she'll blow right outta there. And if Four goes--blooey, there go the
other three."
The chief engineer sagged. "No chance of getting the dampers to
respond?"
The monitor man shook his head sadly.
Hall ran his hand tiredly over his face and stared silently at the
flickering oscilloscopes as if to force the damping device into
functioning by sheer will power.
He sighed and straightened up. "All right," he said, "how do we shut
it off. Is there an outer manual system?"
"There is," the monitor chief replied, "but in all likelihood it's
jammed, too, by the shock or tip-over--and I'm more inclined to buy
the tip-over than anything else."
"Any other way to shut it down?" Hall queried.
"Just one," the chief said. "Blow her apart chemically before she goes
critical. And that, chief, is a real tough one. Someone's got to go
down there and clamp some plastic blocks in the right place on the
pile housing. Even then, there's the chance that she might blow in the
wrong direction and the whole shebang will go up in big, fat mushroom
cloud."
Hall's eyes saddened. "If that's it," he sighed, "that's the way it
has to be. Let's get with it. Where does the plastic go?"
[Illustration]
"Better check that out with Barton in the main rig," the monitor chief
replied. "He's got the prints and he can show you the exact spot on
one of the spare pumps. Oh, and Mr. Hall," he paused, "you'd better
hurry it up. She's leaking a little of the pressure down there but
not nearly enough. I'd make a quick guess and say that we've got less
than two hours to either shut that pile down or relieve the pressure.
And if she's tipped, the time in getting it back up and checking out
damage on the pump system is going to take too long and it might not
be repairable. The best bet is to blow her."
Hall nodded and with Harbrace and the junior engineers in his wake
went to the central pump section vehicle.
Walking to the other vehicle, Alec looked at the water with stricken
eyes. "God in Heaven," he said aloud, "I never thought it would end
this way."
Harbrace broke stride and took Patterson gently by the arm.
"None of us did, Alec," he said. "This isn't your fault. You had a
fine idea and it worked. What happened afterwards is no worse than the
original quake that caused the damage. If this thing blows out, we
won't be out any more water than we would have been if you hadn't come
up with the idea in the first place."
"That's not what I meant," Alec said in a shaken voice. "If this does
blow out, not only do we lose the water but we're going to contaminate
this aquifer with radioactivity from here to the mouth of the
Columbia."
"I know that, too," Harbrace replied softly. "It's still not your
fault, son. And we're not licked yet. Come on."
* * * * *
Twenty minutes later, a double strand of durasteel cable stretched
across the three-hundred-foot wide current, suspended between the
raised crane towers of four of the mammoth crane carriers and passing
twenty feet above the churn of the bore hole.
Hall and a half dozen of his section chiefs stood at the base of one
of the makeshift towers. The chief hydraulic engineer had a headset
clamped on for contact with all the working units.
He turned to one of the men standing by. "Get me a pressure reading on
that hole," he ordered. "I want to know how much weight it's going to
take to get down through that mess."
"Why not just shut the other three down while we go down into the
hole?" the assistant asked.
"Calculated risk," Hall said. "If she's going to blow, it isn't going
to make any difference if the others are shut down or not. And, if we
can keep pumping while we're working, we're staying ahead of the flow
from the reservoir. Get me that reading."
The pressure report was back in minutes. "It'll take at least a
four-ton mass to get down there fast and keep from being bucked
around."
Hall looked around, "What have we got that's small enough and has that
weight or better?"
"How about a van tractor?" one of the supervisors suggested. "They
weigh closer to six tons but they're pretty compact."
"Fine," Hall snapped. "Rig it."
The bulky, almost square, tractor was rolled up and the rigging crews
were swarming over it, clamping suspension cables from the running
pulley that would ride the cable across the current.
"What's the radiation report?" Hall asked monitoring.
"Still building," came the reply. "But we've got a leak somewhere, Mr.
Hall. We're getting readings from the water down there. Not too much
yet, but it may change our time factor. I'd either get on it fast,
chief, or let's get outta here. That thing can go any minute now."
The tractor was rigged. Hall turned and bawled, "Where are those
divers?"
Alec Patterson and Troy Braden stepped out of a nearby van, dressed in
pressure suits and tanks, their helmet flaps open. Alec had a heavy
belt of ultra-high explosive plastic lashed around his midsection.
Troy carried a rack of small clamps strung across his shoulders.
"Where do you think you two are going?" Hall roared. "Get those suits
off and get outta here."
"Shut up and listen," Alec snarled. "I started this. I'll finish it.
This idiot partner of mine hasn't got any better sense than to go
along. We haven't time to argue, so just listen.
"Both of us have been trained in hydrology and have made many dives
before. We've both used this plastic and we've both handled hot stuff,
probably more than any of your people. Your man has checked us out on
the pump assembly and we know just what we're looking for. Let's go."
Hall glared at the pair for a second and then whirled to the rigged
tractor. "Get that canopy off that thing," he ordered. "They can ride
it down in the seat."
He turned back to the junior engineers. "Got lights?" They both
indicated a pair of sealed handbeams on their belts. "All right, get
aboard."
"Casey," Hall called over the intercom, "got that communications line
rigged?"
"All set, boss," came the answer. "It will run out the cable and down
the cab. I've left them plenty of slack to move around when they get
down there."
"O.K.," Hall waved to the riggers, "everybody get outta here. Casey,
plug them in."
Alec and Troy had entered the cab. The communications man leaned over
and coupled the phone system into their helmets and then waved at
Hall.
"You two hear?" Hall demanded.
"Loud and clear," Alec replied.
"All right," Hall ordered, "let's get with it. This is a general
order. All vehicles and personnel not directly involved, pull back a
full mile."
Men and equipment began moving away.
"O.K., Number One crane, lift 'em."
The crane operator on the near bank eased his gears into motion and
the six-ton tractor lifted into the air with Alec and Troy aboard.
When it was five feet above the ground, the crane on the opposite
shore began hauling the draw line and the vehicle swung out over the
water.
"Now listen closely," Hall ordered the pair in the swinging vehicle,
"from this point, you are in control. Stop your slide over the hold by
just yelling "Stop." Number one crane is your up and down operator and
also will pull you towards this bank. If you need to go forward or
backwards when you get inside the hole, just say which way and both
crane carriers will move in the direction you want. Got it?"
"Affirmative," Alec replied.
A second later he yelled "Stop." The pull halted and the heavy vehicle
swayed just a foot above the churn in the waters. Alec waited a minute
until the tractor quite swinging and then ordered, "Let's go down."
* * * * *
Number One crane began paying out cable and the tractor and men
slipped beneath the surface of the turbulent waters.
Surging, silt-laden water rushed upwards past the sides of the heavy
cab and swirled around Troy and Alec. Both were clamped into the seat
by a steel mesh belt and the waters tore and whipped at them. Despite
the six-ton mass of the tractor, both men could feel it quiver against
the thrust of the waters rushing and breaking against its
undersurfaces. Although both had turned on their powerful suit lights,
the lamps made only a dim glow in the surging waters. When the tractor
had dropped some thirty feet, it was Troy who yelled "Hold it!"
The downward motion stopped.
"Let's get back against the wall," Troy yelled over the roar of the
torrent. "Those pumps are pretty well to the center of the bore and I
don't want to come down on top of one of them, even the bad one. Move
back!"
On shore, both cranes began inching up stream.
In the thundering bore, the tractor bumped against the wall of the
hole. "Hold it," Troy shouted. The carriers stopped. "Take 'er down."
Again the massive vehicle descended into the depths. The roaring
became louder with every foot and the constantly dinning noise rattled
the earphones of the crane and carrier operators. Hall stood on the
bank, his eyes glued to the thread of cable vanishing beneath the
waters.
The tractor was bumping against the wall with more violence and the
engineers could feel it tip and sway as the turbulence increased from
below.
"I think we're too close to Number Two pump," Alec yelled. "Let's get
a little more offshore." On the far bank, Number Two crane began
hauling the pulley towards him.
The undersurface bobbing lessened. "That's good, Number Two," Alec
shouted. The downward motion continued.
As suddenly as it began, the turbulence almost ceased and the sound
diminished in the black, watery hole. The big nuclear pumps stood
thirty feet high with their great jets at the top. The tractor had
descended blow the level of the jet thrust. At the same instant, there
was a forward motion and the tractor began to sweep toward the
downstream wall of the bore.
"Drop us, fast," Alec commanded. "We're being sucked."
Number One crane operator slammed his release button and the tractor
fell with a jarring crash to the floor of the catch basin. On the
floor, its mass held it in place against the drag of the three huge
pumps and the natural flow of the water.
The water was clearer and their lights penetrated a few feet into the
black-green hell around them.
"You see it?" Alec asked his partner.
"Not a thing," Troy replied, "but we can't be more than a few feet
from it. It's got to be somewhere in front of us and I think a little
to my side. The suction drag doesn't seem quite so heavy over here."
"Number One," Alec instructed, "give us a fast one-foot lift and drop
it immediately. The current will move us."
The operator took up the slack in the cable and then gave a short
burst of upwards pull and slammed the release. The tractor lifted and
was carried forward about five feet before it slammed down again and
stopped.
"There it is," Troy yelled, aiming his light to the right front of the
tractor. The beam picked out the massive casing of Number Four pump.
"Let's get in close." On instructions from the submerged engineers
both cranes lifted and hauled briefly. The tract slammed into the bulk
of the disabled pump. Troy and Alec played their lights over the
plate.
"This is the bottom plate," Alec said. "It's tipped all right. Got to
ease around to one side."
Again the cranes dragged and lifted and the massive tractor scraped
along the bottom plate of the overturned pump. Suddenly the vehicle
whipped forward. "Drop it," Troy yelled, and the carrier smashed to
the basin floor.
They were alongside the main outlet tube, now tilted downwards on an
angle towards the floor of the basin. Below them and under the
curvature of the tube was the pile housing. The explosive had to be
placed at the point where the pile housing, the pump base and the
outlet tub met.
Currents of water still swirled around them and tugged at the two men.
But it had much less force than during the downward descent. Alec
unclamped the seat belt, then slammed his magnetic clamp suit boots
against the outer plates of the carrier. His suit buoyancy dragged him
into an awkward crouching position and he swayed and fought against
both the upwards lift and the current swirl.
"Let's go," he said.
* * * * *
A hundred and seventeen feet above them, Hall and the crane operators
could hear the hollow clang of the magneboots as the two engineers
inched their way back alongside the tractor to a spot where the
tractor hull touched the pump housing. Alec cut one foot loose from
the vertical side of the tractor and slammed it against the pump base
and then quickly shifted the other foot and began forcing his way down
under the curve of the tube. Troy followed.
In the shelter of the base and tube, the current no longer pulled at
them and it was only the suit buoyancy to battle. It took them three
minutes to struggle their way to the juncture point. Alec wedged
himself in with his back against the housing above him and carefully
began unwinding the explosive belt he was wearing.
With his feet clamped on the vertical wall of the pump housing and
knees locked in a skier's stance, Troy handed over the first of the
magnetic clamps. Alec took it and carefully clamped the end of the
plastic explosive belt against the pile housing. They worked slowly
but steadily until the entire band of explosive was in place along a
five-foot arc of the housing.
During the entire operation, neither man spoke and on shore, the
listeners could hear only the heavy breathing of the pair and an
occasional muffled sound of a clamp going into place.
When the plastic was locked down, Troy carefully unclipped a timer
fused from his belt and handed it across. He spoke for the first time
since they left the tractor. "It's set for seven minutes." In the
wavering light of the murky waters, he saw Alec glance up at him and
then gingerly insert the fuse into the explosive.
"Get moving," Alec ordered. Troy started inching his way back along the
pump housing wall. Alec waited until Troy moved into the gloom and almost
out of sight, then flipped the water-tight switch that activated the fuse.
The device was armed. In seven minutes, if the pile didn't go critical
before then, the charge would detonate--whether they were back on the
surface or not.
He shoved himself free of the pile housing and followed Troy back
along the wall of the base. At the hull of the tractor, he made the
foot-at-a-time crossover and again fought suit and current to get back
to the cab. The seconds ticked off into the first minute and into the
second. Ahead, Troy had reached the aperture of the cab door and
reached in to grasp the end of the steel safety belt. He hauled
himself into the seat and looked back for Alec.
The other engineer had just reached the cab. He swung a leg over the
sill and at that moment, a surge of current whipped his suit. He
twisted, grabbed for a handhold and missed and shot up towards the
surface. In that same instant, Troy shot up out of the seat, holding
the end of the belt in one hand and grabbing for Alec's ankle with
the other. He caught it and clutched. "Up, fast," he screamed.
The tractor snapped up under them and threw both men against the seat.
Alec seized a control handle and hauled himself into the seat as the
vehicle surged upwards. Under full power, it was whipping towards the
surface and now, the water pressure was holding them down. The timer
passed the four-minute mark when the six-ton carrier burst out of the
water in a geyser of spray. The cable whipped and almost threw them
from the cab. Then there was a spine-snapping side jerk as the Number
One crane operator began smoking the cable pulling them to the shore.
Thirty seconds later the tractor slammed to the ground. Hall and the
crane carrier driver were waiting. They reached in and jerked the two
engineers from the seat and half carried them to the rear of the
massive crane carrier. The operator had already leaped from his cab
and was lying prone, face down on the ground.
Troy and Alec, together with Hall and the driver, stretched out
alongside each other in the dubious shelter of the carrier and waited.
The seconds ticked off. A minute later, a small geyser of water shot
up a few feet from the surface of the water and seconds later they
heard a slight rumble. Then there was only the sound of their
breathing and the rush of water in the river.
Hall jumped up first while the others were still scrambling to their
feet. He raced to the radio after a hasty look at the river.
"Monitor," he called, "what's the story?"
"They got it, boss," monitor answered. "The pile is dead. You've got
some hot material in the water but it's dissipating fast. All other
pumps in good order."
Hall broke into a big smile. He walked back to where Troy and Alec
were struggling out of their pressure suits.
In the distance, the director's copter was lifting from the ground and
heading towards the riverbank. A few minutes later, while a new pump
was being lowered into the bore hole, the copter took off en route to
Spokane. The two junior engineers were aboard. When it landed at
Region Six heliport, Alec jumped from the ramp and ran to the nearest
building. He found a vidiphone and called home.
Carol's worried face appeared and then lighted when she saw her
husband.
"Honey," Alec said, "You can go ahead and bathe the kid now."
He came out of the building to find Troy waiting. They grinned at each
other. At that moment, Supervisor Morley Wilson came hurrying by.
"All right you two," he snarled, "so you've solved one little problem.
Remember, you've got just nine days left to give me an answer on those
new production units." He hurried away.
Troy gazed at Wilson's departing back.
"That's what I like about working for DivAg," he murmured. "Nothing
ever changes."
* * * * *