The Thirst Quenchers Part 5

"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 circ.u.mstances. 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 a.n.a.lyze 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 h.e.l.l 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 h.e.l.luva 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 cl.u.s.ter 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 a.s.sent 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 uns.h.i.+pping 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 s.h.i.+elds 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 ma.s.sively 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.