"What's going on out there?" demanded McIlroy on the intercom. "Scale stuck in the valve," Cowalczk answered. "Are the reactors off?" "Yes. Vat blew. Shut up! Let me work, Mac!" "Sorry," McIlroy said, realizing that this was no time for officials. "Let me know when it's fixed." "Geiger's off scale," Lehman said. "We're probably O.K. in these suits for an hour," Cowalczk answered. "Is there a manual shut-off?" "Not that I know of," Lehman answered. "What about it, Cade?" "I don't think so," Cade said. "I'll get on the blower and rouse out an engineer." "O.K., but keep working that switch." "I checked the line as far as it's safe," said Lehman. "No valve." * * * * * "O.K.," Cowalczk said. "Listen, Cade, are the injectors still on?" "Yeah. There's still enough heat in these reactors to do some damage. I'll cut 'em in about fifteen minutes." "I've found the trouble," Lehman said. "The worm gear's loose on its shaft. It's slipping every time the valve closes. There's not enough power in it to crush the scale." "Right," Cowalczk said. "Cade, open the valve wide. Lehman, hand me that pipe wrench!" Cowalczk hit the shaft with the back of the pipe wrench, and it broke at the motor bearing. Cowalczk and Lehman fitted the pipe wrench to the gear on the valve, and turned it. "Is the light off?" Cowalczk asked. "No," Cade answered. "Water's stopped. Give us some pressure, we'll see if it holds." "Twenty pounds," Cade answered after a couple of minutes. "Take her up to ... no, wait, it's still leaking," Cowalczk said. "Hold it there, we'll open the valve again." "O.K.," said Cade. "An engineer here says there's no manual cutoff." "Like Hell," said Lehman. Cowalczk and Lehman opened the valve again. Water spurted out, and dwindled as they closed the valve. "What did you do?" asked Cade. "The light went out and came on again." "Check that circuit and see if it works," Cowalczk instructed. There was a pause. "It's O.K.," Cade said. Cowalczk and Lehman opened and closed the valve again. "Light is off now," Cade said. "Good," said Cowalczk, "take the pressure up all the way, and we'll see what happens." "Eight hundred pounds," Cade said, after a short wait. "Good enough," Cowalczk said. "Tell that engineer to hold up a while, he can fix this thing as soon as he gets parts. Come on, Lehman, let's get out of here." "Well, I'm glad that's over," said Cade. "You guys had me worried for a while." "Think we weren't worried?" Lehman asked. "And it's not over." "What?" Cade asked. "Oh, you mean the valve servo you two bashed up?" "No," said Lehman, "I mean the two thousand gallons of water that we lost." "Two thousand?" Cade asked. "We only had seven hundred gallons reserve. How come we can operate now?" "We picked up twelve hundred from the town sewage plant. What with using the solar furnace as a radiator, we can make do." "Oh, God, I suppose this means water rationing again."