SCENE 1. AUTOMATON
Finally, the team reaches the furthest extent of the past expeditions. Further in, mapping and ecological surveys of the jungle have only been made from the air or from outer space. The previous expeditions had cleared enough of the jungle at this location, near a ravine, that it did not take too long to clear it again to make room for the forward base camp and to assemble the ‘sampling’ gear.
The human pack animals are relieved to drop their heavy packs, and open them to inventory the contents. The ‘gear’, includes drones of different designs, two flying drones and two walking drones and ‘accessories’.
Moreau slowly removes his pack, curious about the ‘humanoid’ label that it has. Inside the tightly packed case is an item that at first appears to be a folded lawn chair. Once out of its pack, the item begins to autonomously extend itself, unfolding to reveal a more or less humanoid robot, an android, standing before the startled Moreau. As the robot comes to life, it turns its ‘head’ to survey its surroundings. It then turns its head to Moreau, lifts its arm, and points a metal finger at another pack. A startling monotone mechanical voice speaks.
“Would you, please, open that pack for me?”
The startled Moreau responds with a nod. “Okay”
Moreau opens the pack. Inside the pack are two rifles and a large mortar. Moreau points to the mortar.
“What is that?”
The robot responds to Moreau’s question in its mechanical voice.
“It shoots the net, to catch and restrain the tiger.”
The automaton walks to the pack with the mortar and kneels to lift the mortar out of the pack and stands up. The automaton then examines the mortar, turning it to examine it from all sides, apparently, wanting to do the checkout itself, without human help.
The team opens the other packs to inventory the contents. The ‘gear’, includes several more drones of different designs, for flying and for walking. In total, there are two flying drones and two walking drones. The walking drones are Moreau’s biped android and a quadruped, robot ‘dog’.
The group carefully inventories the drones and the accessories. All drones have numerous visual light, and infra-red cameras including infra-red illuminators for night missions. All drones have both local and satellite radio communications. The drones have an autonomous AI mode if radio contact is lost, to continue the mission or return to base if disconnected.
One flying drone and one walking drone are equipped with sensitive chromatographs, to ‘smell’ the air and compare against an internal library of natural smell molecular signatures. They will be used to locate and track tigers and other animals by their ‘smell’. The other flying drone is equipped with a telephoto tracking system and ground sensing radar. The walking drones also have sensors, for sounds through the air, vibration through the ground, as well as chromatography ‘smells’, both airborne and from surfaces.
Moreau notes that all drones are of the rugged military style housed in sturdy, military grade, plastic armor. The drones have mounts for ammunition magazines and two continuous feeding rifles, one rifle shoots tranquilizer darts, the other rifle shoots lethal solid projectile bullets.
Egad, what terrors has the military been up to. I hope that I never have to face one of these mechanized monsters myself some day. Immortal indeed!
Ernie approaches Moreau, “This is all pretty scary stuff, huh.”
“Did you request this military grade stuff? Was it expensive?”
“I sent requirements for our drones to the navy, but not for anything like this. The navy brass insisted that we test out some of their latest terrors for them. We got them for free, including the live ammunition, so I thought it was a pretty good deal. We got the plastic armor versions that are designed to be dropped from planes because they knew we had to carry them far into the jungle.”
The team is busy, setting up the control stations to monitor the drones. Several reconnoitering flights by the drones are planned, to carefully map the area, so target tracking can be done by the immortal drones, autonomously if necessary. The drone cameras are activated, the display screens brighten with the images. Numbers around the frame indicate the details of lighting, colors and stereoscopic distances.
Thin black lines on the screens outline items identified by the radar, overlaid on the optical image. The onboard AI identifies all the items the drone sees, such as identifying the team members by name that also appear on the monitor screen.
The team is fascinated by the agile, running, robot 'dog'. They claim that they are checking it out playing ‘fetch’, ‘roll over’, ‘sit’, ‘shake’, and ‘speak’.
SCENE 2. SCENT.
The drones begin their reconnoitering mission and map the area. The sniffers detect and locate a few antelope and tigers. The drones are careful not to get too close and spook the animals, so positive locations and counts are unknown for now.
The extent of the range of the animal communities is determined by the drones over several days. The ability of the drones to uniquely identify relationships and locate family groups by smell is an unexpected and useful bonus.
The aerial drones proceed to identify and map the range of several isolated populations of antelope and tigers.
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…
Moreau has walked away from the group to look out over a small ravine, melancholy, as he misses his steed friend more than he thought he would, as he is slowly recovering from saddle sores.
“Can you still hear me? I can read you the expedition report.”
A quiet response, in a female voice, seemingly, from far away, across the valley.
“Yes, please. I would like that.”
Moreau is suddenly motivated to complete the expedition report for today. He quickly gathers Ernie’s videos and videos taken from the survey drones.
I am going to broadcast a live report today. And narrate it for my friends.
The viewers are ecstatic about the aerial views of the jungle and that the connection from the jungle is good enough for a live stream online.
The live video expedition report for the day is a hit, with three million views.
SCENE 3. TRACK.
Finally, the day has come to hunt down the animals. It is decided to first run a trial mission on an antelope colony to see if the methods work on the antelope before trying it on tigers. A small, remote antelope herd is chosen, far away as possible from any tigers to avoid spooking them before their collection day.
The quadruped robot dog is then sent out, without rifles, to scout the area where the antelope were detected from the air. Its mission is to smell and take pictures, from a distance, and look for any recent signs of tigers in that area.
Everyone is watching the monitor screen as the robot performs its mission. The robot can get quite close to individual antelope who exhibit curiosity about the robot. One antelope walks up and sniffs the robot’s main camera. Everyone gasps as the antelope head fills the monitor screen. Ernie laughs.
“I think we are ready to sample antelope. Maybe we should just set up a blood donation table here, with a carrot reward for each antelope’s contribution to science.”
Moreau grins at Ernie’s flip suggestion.
Actually, obtaining voluntary contributions from wildlife for rewards is not a bad idea.
The drones detected no signs of recent tiger activity in this area. It is decided that this location and population will be used for the procedure testing mission, and also to get much good information on the antelope as well. The antelope collars will be tracked by satellite from space to monitor the health of the population for the next eight years or so, until the collared animals are eaten or die from old age.
Everyone, including the air and ground drones, are issued a radio and a stun rifle. The group moves out to surround the antelope colony, stun them, collar them, and retrieve blood and saliva samples.
The mission begins, the surprised antelope are flushed from the forest by the humans and drones, they dart about in a panic, fast and agile, but not fast enough. The entire colony is shot with stun rounds from the air by the drones over a short period. The antelope colony is larger than first thought, consisting of over fifty animals, of all ages. All appear to be in good health, but they are given vaccinations just in case and samples are collected. The colony is then guarded against predators until the animals regain their senses. No free lunch for tigers today.
The mission is regarded as a success, with a video report to follow.
SCENE 4. IMMORTAL.
A mission hunting tigers is a different mission from hunting antelope. Although an antelope kick can hurt, it is rarely lethal. However, the tiger is a powerful ‘ambush’ predator that can quickly disable its prey by crushing its windpipe with its powerful jaws and long, sharp teeth. The tiger can rip apart large animals with its strong claws.
So, it is decided that the tigers will be hunted, flushed, and stunned using the autonomous immortals, the robots, alone.
The humans will remain in the camp armed with rifles, and bullets, instantly lethal to tigers. Annoying these large, fast, strong, and deadly predators may elicit reprisals, so the camp has to be ready for that possibility. Since the drones will be out hunting tigers, guarding the camp must be done by the humans.
Moreau’s humanoid robot is assigned to the dangerous task of restraining and netting one female tiger. The net containing the tiger will be hoisted from the forward camp by sky-crane helicopter and airlifted to the navy ship to be caged for the voyage back.
Because of the uncertainty regarding logistics and the use of drones for the critical operations, a dry run with virtual tigers will be performed before the real, wild tiger operation is performed.
Moreau examines the motionless brigade of outfitted drones, standing or perched, stationary, at attention, still shiny and new.
I wonder how many of the drones will ‘survive’ this mission to capture the tiger. Ha! Survive indeed!
How could something that has never lived, ever die?
End of Chapter 3.