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."