The Shaking

Chapter Thirty Eight

Dungeness power station control room. 07.41.

Alan Carter was supposed to be resting; allowing the relief shift headed by Paul Glover to take charge of the ailing reactors. But there was no way Carter could put the state of the complex out of his mind even for a short while; so he was secretly relieved when the call came through to the Contingency Control Centre urgently requesting his presence in the control room to assess the latest rise in Reactor Two's core temperature.

By now the aftershocks had become less of a surprise as the earth began settling into a new equilibrium; though to Alan the most recent ones actually felt more intense than the seismologists had forecast. This latest one brought to mind a mis-spent childhood TV science fiction series; the control panels flickering and people staggering as if on the bridge of a starship suffering the effects of Vorgon blaster strikes against a weakening force field. He wondered if in fact the tremors weren't becoming stronger; perhaps the shaking had yet to peak, but instead the newly opened fault was extending its way toward the power station?

"Alan!" Paul Glover called as an alarm began to sound. "Temperature and activity increasing rapidly around the Reactor Two hot spot we've been monitoring!"

"It must have been that last shock which did it. OK, silence that alarm and flood Two with nitrogen!"

"I'm on it!" Glover undid the clear acrylic protective panel covering the control switch. Turning the button through ninety degrees he pushed it firmly down. An electronic tone and green light confirmed the operation had commenced.

"Nitrogen gas flood of Reactor Two initiated electrically and proceeding!" he announced. Both men watched as a display tracked the effect of the injected gas flowing through a schematic diagram of the reactor; after a few nerve-wracking minutes the temperature began to stabilise along with the neutron flux. Then at last the readings began falling.

"Phew!" sighed Glover, relieved. "That was too close for comfort!"

"Too bloody right!" Carter agreed. "Let's hope the nitrogen can keep it under control until- uh-oh!" he said as he noticed the indications beginning to rise again.

"That does it!" Alan decided. "For the record I, Alan Carter, the Operations Manager am initiating a boron bead shutdown of Reactor Two!"

"Williams is going to go mental when he learns about this." cautioned Paul.

"Well as he was so eager to get flown out of here that leaves me as the most senior person on site, as well as the best technically qualified to decide the matter."

In a stride Carter was at the recess set deep into the control room wall where the bead release switch was located. The transparent plastic door to this panel was secured with a substantial catch which Alan flipped open; the actual lever was itself secured by a tear away plastic safety strip. Tugging that away he grasped the handle firmly, pulled it up, and turned it 180 degrees. Carter expected to hear the discordant fingernails down a blackboard screech of an alarm; the reactor's dying scream, but instead there was nothing.

"First attempt failed: Resetting: Trying again." Once more he attempted to start the boron bead shutdown; again there was no response. An indicator lamp located in the corner of the recess showed the circuit was powered up and so the fault preventing the beads from being released into the cooling system must lie elsewhere.

Alan Carter was a level-headed highly qualified senior nuclear engineer; used to acting calmly and methodically under pressure: His able intellect capable of finding a solution to any conceivable problem and not one given to panic or casual profanity. However there was only one response which came to mind as his second attempt failed.