A flicker of outrage licked the inside of her ribs, but she kept it in check. Now that she was closer, Destry could see a small cabin tucked into the trees, next to a collapsible trellis where a few pelts were stretched. They stood, technical jumper gleaming dull gray and shedding dust in the late afternoon sun. The person looked up, their flat, blank face twitching into an awkward grin. “I’m ERT Ranger Destry Thomas! D’you know you’re on unoccupied land?” “Hey stranger!” she called after a few minutes. Basic protocol in the Environmental Rescue Team was to approach in peace, no weapons drawn, aiming to help. Her short black hair was matted with sweat, and a trickle found its way down her cheek, leaving a clean brown streak in the gray dust that clung to her from the road. She was the only ranger built this way all her colleagues back home had to use bulky access devices if they wanted to ask a flower about its nitrogen uptake.ĭisconnecting from the ecosystem, Destry unfolded her muscular frame and ambled into talking range with the intruder. All she had were implants that made sensors recognize her as one of their own. Out here in the bush, she didn’t have the tools to analyze it. As Destry’s data surged across the field and into the forest, the sensors could see what she did, and their analysis coalesced into a strong probability: Homo sapiens in the region for eight days, causally linked to tree loss, small mammal loss, excrement buildup, complex toxins.īut there was no data emanating from the person, save for a persistent encrypted stream aimed at an orbital satellite. Each sensor’s evaluation joined the swelling chorus in her ears as the tiny machines voted on what their data points might mean: polymer, hair, carnivore, unprocessed excrement, dead trees, carbon cycle perturbation, predator, metal, fur, synthetic microbiome. The person’s feet on the ground registered as pressure on her back, and she smelled redox reactions in the fire. Her awareness stretched forward, racing through root systems and over insects, tasting acid levels in the soil. It was like her body had become the land. She could feel the sensors collaboratively reviewing the scene from her perspective, learning that she wanted to know more about the mammal at the edge of he forest. What she perceived she shared with the ecosystem. In this state, she too was a sensor, processing data through her eyes, nose, tongue, skin, and ears. Thousands of sensors welcomed her into the planet’s network, their collective perceptions knitting together from shards of cached memory, fragments of recorded sensation and perception. Sinking down on one knee, Destry pressed her bare fingers into the soil, spreading them wide, establishing a high bandwidth connection with the local ecosystem. He flicked an ear in acknowledgement as she slid off his back and into his long shadow. “Let’s stop,” she whispered to her mount, a thick-barreled moose with red-brown fur and a crown of antlers spreading from his forehead like a pair of massive, cupped hands. The sight was horrifying, and Destry flinched back reflexively. In their hands, a hare was speared and cooking on an expensive alloy spit. When the intruder crouched next to the flames, she caught a glimpse of red beard merging into a tangle of hair. The person’s skin was so pale she guessed it had hardly met real sunlight, which meant they were definitely not a stray worker from one of the construction camps. She squinted, trying to make out details from half a klick away. There was some kind of person – possibly Homo sapiens – tending a fire at the edge of the boreal forest. Destry could smell the smoke long before she saw its improbable source.
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