Saw one with my own eyes today. I was on the north ridge picking up the drop package and working on the collector array. I didn't need the beacon for the package; it was right out in the field where it was supposed to be. Looked like a child's toy, a little plastic flying gizmo. The rod in the center had my accelerometers, so I wasn't treating it lightly. Funny that something like that glided from 2km up and hit the mark pretty exactly. The printer's chewing it up right now, breaking it down into blue dots and vital components.
He was on the main trail along the ridge line. I have to cross that to get from the array to the pump station that feeds it, and I was distracted so I didn't hear him. I saw him suddenly -- he was about 150 meters down the hill -- and I froze. My heart pounded, but he hadn't seen me yet so I kind of slowly crouched. I wish I hadn't. My thighs still hurt.
It was surprising how different it was to see one in person than to look at recordings or even my own monitors. He was a young male, perhaps 10 seasons old, the red markings on his ventral flanks relatively dim compared to the more mature males. Still he moved with confidence, and with the grace that's common to the species. He stopped for few moments and I thought my heart would stop. He picked up a small rock and placed it in his belt pouch and then passed me about 30 meters off. If he saw me he showed no sign at all.
The belt was typical of what Rangapoor called a "transient" -- a member of no family that serves as intermediary between settlement and tribe. It may be that these are not a specific social caste but rather youthful individuals who have been ejected from their family of origin but have not yet been accepted in a larger community. Some of this can be settled statistically, but I have to find some life histories to support the hypothesis. I have to remember to account for that in the data collection program.
Along with every other bit of the thosands of experiments I'm supposed to support! Not that I'm complaining. Seeing that DAF today was like dunking my head in cold water. It's really real. I'm here, and they're all around me.
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