2040-05-21 First Steps

"If you are really planning to accomplish something in the Central African Republic, you have your work cut out for you."

No one has ever had an idea in a dress suit.—Frederick G. Banting

I tweaked the settings on the external microphones, stepping up the gain and spatially distributing the output across the array of speakers in my living space. With my eyes closed, I could now immerse myself in the myriad sounds of the jungle just above my head: water trickling, birds calling, insects clicking and chirping, the slow crackle and pop of plant growth, the occasional rustle and pad of animal movement. Intriguing.

Every jungle on Earth has a slightly different sound. The variation in botanical species, the insect and animal life, the landforms and weather, all contribute to variations in the acoustic environment. I had to acclimate myself to this new environment if I were to be maximally effective. I also had to begin training the expert systems and artificial intelligences that would be my assistants.

Periscope cameras gave me overlapping coverage of the entire perimeter. Tiny robot spiders had carried hair-fine optical fibers into the canopy, giving me treetop vantages without giving my position away through wireless emissions. Display surfaces in my underground habitat enabled me to see the finest details.

"System. Orient visual displays to audio outputs."

The floating projections rotated and sorted themselves so the image of a bird chirping was now superimposed over the speaker transmitting the chirps.

All this incoming data was being processed by the new computer systems. Pattern recognition algorithms were matching plants to cataloged examples. Others were classifying movement according to sources. Different camera angles and microphones were processed by different systems, and the computers' separate conclusions checked against one another. Eventually, the computers would be able to tell the difference between a leaf moving in a breeze and one disturbed by the passage of a concealed animal.

The subterranean sensors were doing their work as well. Self-propelling probes were travelling deeper into the soil, periodically anchoring themselves and sending out low-frequency pulses to map their surroundings. Basic chemical analysis and laser spectroscopy provided data about soil composition. The three-dimensional picture of the soil and rock around my habitat was becoming more detailed by the minute.

I had the jitters. I had been on an intermittent adrenaline jag for most of a day. The final preparations before departure, the flight itself, the landing and digging in, were all stressful. The flight was especially so, as I had no direct control over the aircraft and could only lie there and watch and listen and imagine all the ways things could go wrong. It had been a relief to finally be grounded and to be able to take some action. Unfortunately, that action was limited to a series of computer interfaces. My primate brain and body wanted to run around a savannah and climb a tree or two.