"One more for good measure," Alec said as he fired again, this time to the right of the first shot. The plastic detonated in another geyser of smoke and snow, but the small cloud was instantly lost as the entire overhang broke and fell the ten to twelve feet from the crest to the face of the slope and then boiled and rolled, gathering more snow and greater mass and impetus as it thundered down the slope and was lost in the storm. The dense clouds of loose powder snow raised by the avalanche whipped away in the clutches of the wind.
"Well done, Dr. Patterson," Troy called as he leaned into his poles and moved out across the newly-crushed snow on the slope.
"Thank you, Dr. Braden," Alec called in his wake, "you may proceed to the patient."
They worked past the buried radiation gauge to the crest and then turned and came slowly back along the wind ridge, following directly behind the detection needle. Troy glanced at his intensity gauge. The needle was on the "danger" line in the red. He stopped. Behind him, Alec checked his drop slowly down the windward side of the slope, reading his own meter. When his intensity needle hit the same mark, he, too, halted about thirty feet to Troy's right.
"I'm dead on," Troy said, indicating with a ski pole an imaginary line straight ahead.
"I've got it about forty-five degrees left," Alec called, marking his position and a direction line in the crust with a pole. Each moved towards the other and from the mid-point of their two markings extended with their eyes the imaginary lines to an intersecting point some thirty feet from Troy's original sighting.
"Hand me the heat tank, doctor," Troy said, turning his back to Alec, "so that we can excavate the patient." Alec unclamped a hand tank and nozzle device from his pack.
With the tank slung under his arm and with nozzle in hand, Troy moved forward another ten feet, gauging the wind velocity. He aimed to the windward of the intersecting lines and triggered the nozzle. A stream of liquid chemical melting agent shot out into the wind and then curved back and cut a hole into the snow. Troy moved the nozzle in a slow arc, making a wide circle in the snow. Then he cut a trough on the downhill side for more than twenty feet. He adjusted the nozzle head and a wider stream sprayed out to fall within the already-melting circle. The concentrated solution was diluted with melting water and spread its action. As the hydrologists watched, the snow melted into a deep hole and the chemically-warmed water torrented down the drain cut to gush out on to the snow slope and quickly refreeze as it emerged into the sub-zero air.
Troy shut off the liquid and the two men waited and watched. "The gauge was recording ninety-seven inches of pack when it quit," Alec said. "Better give 'er another squirt."