Hall and a half dozen of his section chiefs stood at the base of one of the makeshift towers. The chief hydraulic engineer had a headset clamped on for contact with all the working units.
He turned to one of the men standing by. "Get me a pressure reading on that hole," he ordered. "I want to know how much weight it's going to take to get down through that mess."
"Why not just shut the other three down while we go down into the hole?" the assistant asked.
"Calculated risk," Hall said. "If she's going to blow, it isn't going to make any difference if the others are shut down or not. And, if we can keep pumping while we're working, we're staying ahead of the flow from the reservoir. Get me that reading."
The pressure report was back in minutes. "It'll take at least a four-ton mass to get down there fast and keep from being bucked around."
Hall looked around, "What have we got that's small enough and has that weight or better?"
"How about a van tractor?" one of the supervisors suggested. "They weigh closer to six tons but they're pretty compact."
"Fine," Hall snapped. "Rig it."
The bulky, almost square, tractor was rolled up and the rigging crews were swarming over it, clamping suspension cables from the running pulley that would ride the cable across the current.
"What's the radiation report?" Hall asked monitoring.