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