"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.