He pointed to a little line running from the western slope of the mountain down to the rock dike. "This was where we wanted to dig a channel. Now it is too late to go all the way to the rock. The heat would be too great. But if we could drive a hole through, with great suddenness, the magma would be released and the eruption would be away from the island and into the sea."
"How would you do this?" the governor asked.
"By getting help from the U. S. government, from Army Engineers and Seabees, who are U. S. Navy engineers. We would drive the tunnel as far down as time permitted. Of course we would keep track of the magma constantly. Then, as time ran out, we would place a charge in the hole—a shaped charge, as it is called—which would drive the hole most of the way to the magma. It would also crack the rock dike. The magma would seek the weakest spots, of course. It is under enormous pressure. And we would have the result we want."
"But what kind of explosive would be enough for such an undertaking?" Montoya demanded. "Not enough dynamite could be packed into the tunnel to do the work."
"We weren't thinking of dynamite," Hartson Brant said quietly. "We were thinking of a nuclear explosion."
Rick gasped. He had no warning of this. The scientists had evidently arrived at the conclusion while he was flying around over the diamond seekers.
Montoya gasped, too. "But that would kill everyone on the island!"
"Not at all," Zircon boomed. "It would kill no one. Of course we would clear the area with troops."
"But the radioactivity," the governor protested. "I have read it is deadly!"
"Only if it can reach people," Hartson Brant explained. "This shot would be far underground. There would be no fall-out, as it is called, at all. Of course the earth around the explosion would be greatly radioactive. Some of the activity would be trapped in the magma. But where would it come to rest? On the bottom of the sea. There might be some danger to bottom fish in the vicinity, but I think the water would get so hot from the lava that fish would avoid it, anyway. And eventually the radioactivity would decay of itself to low levels. Sir, I see no other way."