So let me explain why I, among all the researchers here, have no results yet. Simple: I have no data. Why don't I have data? Unlike everyone else who can just go outside and collect samples or jet over the countryside and take photos, I have to make my observations without interfering with the subjects of my study. And since the DAF are potentially sentient, my mere presence might alter their behavior. So I need remote sensors. Lots of them.
Which brings me to how I have been entertaining myself for the last few weeks. I print off a batch of mounting brackets and bind them to sensor packages, then I trek the goat paths as far as I dare before I start to impinge on DAF territory and toss the sensors as far as I can. They creep along the ground looking like arthritic amputee squid in dire need of an ocean until I guide them to the perfect tree from the comfort of my hab sipping a Mai Tai.
At least that's the theory.
It did work in training, although in retrospect using the Kepler University greenhouse in Martian gravity might have been considered an improper test. Mission Support assured me the programming would work on Sigma 957, but that was before we knew about Razor Fern. The stuff builds up in layers on the jungle floor and the tiny stiff squid get hopelessly tangled. It's been like being obsessed with a really terrible real-time game that keeps you up all hours. As the squids call for help I have to measure the knot they have got themselves in and program a solution. Then they thrash away and I go on to the next one.
I figured it would be a simple matter to guide them manually, but after a week I just had to shut them all down and work on a global solution. A long audio-only session with Noriko (the Roam still isn't up yet) several false starts and restarts and I think they can get themselves out of their own knots now. They are at least making regular progress, albeit slow. Nearly a hundred cameras are perched in trees and have started to send images.
It's uncalibrated, and they are on the outskirts of the northern village, but I'm starting to see quite a bit of DAF activity. These are remarkably gracefully creatures, and I find I'm sometimes just staring at them as they walk by. It's kind of hypnotic. Until a clockwork squid calls for help.
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