The Golden Age Of Science Fiction Vol Iv Part 90

"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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sess 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 d.a.m.ned black. Public Information is taking care of the video and radio information. We want to avoid panic if we can and to avoid ma.s.s 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 a.s.signments. 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 r.e.t.a.r.dation 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 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 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 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.

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 cha.s.sis 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 cl.u.s.tered 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 cl.u.s.tered 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?"