The Thirst Quenchers
replied, "but it may take a whileand 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 elsein. You understand?"
She nodded.
"I don't want you or the boy out on the street under anycircumstances. I'll probable be here at the office for at leastanother day, but if I'm not, then we won't be away for very long. Idon'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-daymeteorology predictions and was beginning to lay them up against thestrip segments of the snow profiles from north to south along thelength of Region Six. He was engrossed in the problem when Alec stuckhis 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 seatdoctor and unburden yourself. Relax, let your mind go blank. Tell meabout your childhood. Did you hate to take baths? Does the sound offlowing water stir subconscious hatreds in you? Dr. Braden willanalyze all your problems."
Alec grinned and palled out a pack of cigarettes and offered one tohis partner.
"Now that I think about it," he quipped, "I used to tangle almostevery 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 youbefore 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 broughtthis on. The idea stems from the way we excavated that gauge, yet itcalls for an entirely different idea and technique.
"Now I haven't the slightest idea how bad Spokima is cracked or justwhere the crack is, but I think there may be a way to recover some ofthe lost water. And if it works, it might be used on Moses Lake andMcNary."
He paused and pulled a pad of scratch paper towards him and broughtout a pen to make rough sketches. Troy swung his feet off the desk andleaned forward to watch.
"The idea came to me," Alec said, continuing to sketch, "from therunoff trough you cut to carry off the snow melt from around the hotbox. Now just suppose that the crack in the reservoir is along thebottom side, although that doesn't really make much difference ... yetit might make the operation a little easier since it would concentratethe leak runoff.
"We know the reservoir is set in the bed of the Columbia from theconfluence of the Spokane River down to old Grand Coulee. And we knowjust what the strata formations are both below the reservoir and inthe aquifer downstream. That lost water is going into that strata andis going to work its way down the slope of the terrain but it's alsogoing to level off on the first bedrock strata it hits and that'swhere I think we can stop it.
"If we ran a deep and big enough bore down ahead of the flow and cut acatch basin and then dropped a series of pumps into the basin, I thinkwe 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 abore that fast?"
"Laser," Alec replied simply.
"It would take one hell of a lot of industrial laser units," Troymurmured 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 behindthe old Grand Coulee Dam, then we cut a channel and drain it into theold surface reservoir. Oh sure, we'll lose some surface evap until wecan get it back down underground again. But that would still be onehelluva lot better than letting millions of acre feet just seep out tosea. And if we had to, we could use the lasers to cut a channel aroundGrand Coulee and let it run down to the Okanogan where it would gointo the Lake Chelan reservoir."
Ten minutes later, Plumber and the two juniors were closeted withSupervisor Wilson, going over Alec's plan. When Alec was throughtalking, Wilson flipped a switch on his desk intercom. "Harbracehere," the speaker sounded.
"Jim," Wilson said, "this is Morley. A couple of my harebrained kidshave come up with an idea that makes sense and looks like it mightsalvage a lot of lost water. But we've got to move on it right now ifit's going to work."
"Get them over here," Harbrace snapped.
* * * * *
Six hours later, the first light of the cold winter morning begancompeting with the batteries of floodlight tubes banked around arocky, gravel-based site in the dry bed of the Spokane River. Morethan three hundred men had been thrown into the experimental projectand for three hours a steady stream of huge cargo carriers andaircraft had been piling equipment around the site. A cluster of menstood around a compact pole-beam laser unit aimed at the ground.Upstream a line of metal poles extended up from the dry river bottomfor 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 tenfeet," Alec told the operator. The man nodded and turned back to hiscontrol panel. Two minutes later another metal pole was dropped intothe hole. Projecting from the bottom of the pole were several soilmoisture detectors. Extensions were coupled on section by section asthe electrodes dropped down into the hole. A dozen of the eight-footsections went down with the last section projecting from the riverbed. A technician slapped a meter box onto the connections. "Dryhere," he reported.
Alec, Troy and Harbrace, together with Wilson and a half dozenengineers from research and hydraulics and two laser engineers,consulted substrata profile readings.
"Well, if this scheme is going to work," the senior hydraulics mansaid, "this is the place to try it. We're still ahead of the seepagebut not for long. We've got a good quarter-mile of deep rock for thesump hole. Let's try it." Harbrace nodded in assent and the groupdispersed to the side of the dry river bed. Alec and Troy trudged upthe shallow slope to a mess truck sitting on the flat. "Nothing we cando now but pray," Alec muttered. They picked up cups of hot coffee andwalked back to the bank to watch the operations.
The light laser unit had been moved out and ten huge crawler cargocarriers with van were being mover into a wide circle around the lastsoil moisture stake. Crews were unshipping the beam heads of the giantindustrial laser guns and making power connections to the series ofmobile power reactors that had been set up on the riverbank.
When all of the units were in place and connected, the crews pulledout. At a safe distance from the bore site, a master control panel hadbeen jury-rigged to control all units simultaneously. Two programmersand a pair of operators sat behind shields while the senior hydroengineer took a place between them and focused on his remote video eyeat the site. A quarter of a mile away, vehicles still moved up withnew equipment, but the remaining vehicles and other gear had beenpulled back from the river bed to the bank.
The hydraulics chief looked around at Harbrace and waited. "Let's tryit," the director ordered.
"Three seconds at a time," the engineer ordered. The programmerschecked the timer cutoffs for a final time. "Ready?" The operatorsnod.
"Fire," the engineer yelled.
Ten massively concentrated beams of high intensity light waves slammedinto the gravel bed. The earth shook and a great cloud of dust arosefrom the site, momentarily hiding the laser units. A light morningbreeze drifted the dust downstream in a minute.
Ten huge holes gaped in the river bed underneath the laser beam headsmounted on adjustable cranes out and away from their power units.
"Fire," came the order again. This time there was nothing but thetrembling 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 th
ebottom of one of the holes. "Eighty-seven feet," the technician calledout.
"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 bedrock. While the lasers were coring out the hole, six cargo cranes ontheir 400-ton carrier chassis had been moved into position. Now thecranes hooked onto three of the lasers, two cranes to each unit.Minutes later, the light beam