Chap. 313 The Forester Geek

Chap. 313 The Forester Geek

“So you’re telling me that Landing wants you to catalog every tree species on Pern. You. Just one man and his dragon.”

“Yes,” K’ndar said.

Rand shook his head. “They may be bright sparks with things like making ‘computers’ and going up to the starship, but K’ndar, they’re morons when it comes to something like that.”

K’ndar felt a lump in his gut. I remember L’ichen, and his notes on plants, and I thought trees would be easier, he thought.

“Do they have any idea of how many trees there are in a temperate rain forest? I can count a dozen different species, just from here.”

“They don’t, Rand. For that matter, I don’t, either.”


Rand sighed. “And you came here hoping I could help.”

K’ndar looked at him with dismay. “I’m asking too much, aren’t I. I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I do, and I don’t. It’s not as if I’ve a full time job. I’m retired, eh? I spend most of my days puttering around. I love this rainforest, and every day she teaches me something new. But I also, well, honestly, resent that Landing just ups and says, here, K’ndar, do this. They’ve given you a spoon to bail the ocean. And I think you’ve bought into it, thinking it will be easy.”

K’ndar felt worse and worse.

“I wasn’t thinking like a rainforest. I was thinking like a steppe. Steppe trees aren’t very diverse.”

“Different living conditions, K’ndar. You’re lucky, right now, the trees are bare, you can see them. But come summer, well, you remember how gloomy it can be once the canopy’s closed up. It might be easier to move around, but one tree can look like any other species without leaves.”

K’ndar sighed. “I can’t, well, I am not sure what to do. Landing is requesting a fairly shallow identification. What is the common name, is there a Latin name, where does it grow, that sort of thing. I’ll take photos of it, mark it on the matrix, make some annotations and I’m done. At least for now. Maybe later, I will go deeper into the life of the tree.”


Rand looked past K’ndar, thinking. He liked the young dragonrider, and K’ndar had done him several good turns.

“Tell you what,” Rand said, “let’s give that data thing of yours a try. Isn’t there a way it can delineate a specific area? A transect? A box that you count everything inside?”

“Yes. A transect. But the only thing I know how to work on it is a matrix. Jansen made it specifically for this study.”

“I can at least show you what to look for, even though only one species of tree has leaves, right now. This one, right here. It’s covered with parasitic vines. It takes advantage of the open canopy. By spring time it will be done seeding when the other, taller trees are just getting started leafing out. I call it a vine tree.”

K’ndar dug out his notebook and began to scribble in his hurry to get the data down. Yes, I hear you, Jansen and virtually everyone at Landing, I hear you chiding me for writing notes rather than using the datalink. But I’m the entire team, so, notes first.

“Does it flower?”

“Um, not really. Tiny little flowers, white, no scent that I can think of. It puts out seeds that are, um, about as big as your thumbnail. Inedible to us, but the animals like it, especially the big ‘uns.”

Now I’ll use the datalink, he said to himself, stuffing the notebook under his arm. He activated the datalink, expecting to see Jansen’s matrix. But it didn’t appear on the screen.

Create transect? it asked.

“What?” he yelled at it. “Matrix! I want the matrix!”

Rand looked over his shoulder. “I don’t believe it can hear you, K’ndar. Is that question routine?”

“I don’t know what the shaff is routine with this thing. When I’m at Landing, it’s perfectly clear. Out here, it does things I don’t understand.”

“Well, tell it yes,” Rand said. He reached to press the yes button.

The datalink blinked, then: Linking to starship. Parameters desired:

“Um,” K’ndar said.

Rand gently reached out. “Here, lad, can I try? I don’t pretend to know what I’m doing, but it looks pretty simple.”

K’ndar handed it to the forester. “Go for it. I wanted the matrix and it’s showing me this. I don’t know what it’s doing. Or why.”

Rand laughed. “It’s just a thing, K’ndar. It wants numbers. How’s a hundred square meters sound?”

“Fine with me.”

Rand, finding the numbers, typed in 100

100×100 meters?

“See, K’ndar? It’s stupid.” He touched the yes button.

The screen lit up with a box outlined in red. In the center were two red spots.

K’ndar looked at it. “Those two dots, they’re us.”

“That makes sense.”

“Yes. See that icon there? I know you press that and you’ll see the rainforest.”

Rand pressed it. The screen bloomed with a full color image of the forest as seen from a great height. He instinctively looked upwards, then laughed. “Aye, I’m daft, looking up to see the starship in the daylight.”

“I really hate this thing, Rand. I’m far happier writing things down in a notebook, but Landing wants me to use this. Apparently it doesn’t want to give me the matrix.”

“You have to have this finished when?”

K’ndar shook his head. “At this rate, I’ll die before it’s done.”

Rand snickered. “In the meantime, though, life time employment, K’ndar.”

“Or a rapid descent into insanity,” he said, dismayed. He sighed. “I can take photos of it, if nothing else. Would you please hold my notebook for a few minutes?”

After digging the camera out of his backpack, he took several pictures, closeups of the leaves, although he planned on taking samples of the wood, the leaves, as well as the vines and the insects on it.

“Okay, that should do it,” he said, “Oh, shaff. Now, if you’ll hand me my notebook?”

“Want me to hold the camera, too?”

“Yes. I need three arms, apparently.” He stuffed the notebook into the backpack.

Rand took the camera and involuntarily pressed it against the datalink.

beeeedleeep! cried the datalink.

Rand thrust the two items out as far as his arms could reach.

“Did I break it? What have I done?”

“Don’t worry, you can’t break it. But what you did, I don’t know! I never heard it make that sound.”

Link broken. Replace camera against datalink it said.

There was no visible link, broken or not.

Rand pondered the message. Then he carefully placed the camera against the datalink.

Link re-established. Integrating data. Please wait.

A little white box blinked for several moments. K’ndar felt more foolish by the moment.

Completed. Data from camera loaded. Subject 001 located. Transferring data to transect.

The screen produced a red lined transect box that showed ten glowing green spots scattered within the borders.

Name of subject 001?

“Um, um, it’s got to have a name, Rand! The tree?”

“Oh, Vine covered tree.”

“Tell it that.”

Subject 001 is vine covered tree. 10 vine covered tree discovered within transect. Want distances from position to subjects?

Beneath the sentence were boxes for yes and no.

For several moments, Rand’s mind wrestled with the information on the screen. “Whoa,” he said, beginning to understand what it had done.

“K’ndar, look. It’s showing ten of these trees in the transect. It had to have taken the data from the camera! Did you know it would do this?”

“Not a clue. You’re better at it than I am.”

Rand touched the yes icon.

Green lines appeared, stretching from their positions to each dot, with a number alongside in meters.

“I’ll be switched,” Rand said, “This thing’s better than any compass. It shows the next tree is eighteen meters from here. I can see it!”

Without explanation, Rand moved through the undergrowth to the next vine tree. The screen changed to reflect their position, with the green lines changing the distance values.

The datalink screen changed.

Create random transects?

His confidence increasing, Rand touched yes.

Quantity?

Mentally shrugging, he typed in a seven.

7 transects added. Additional transects populated with subject 001 vine tree. Distances to and between added transects annotated.

The screen zoomed out to show a large portion of the rainforest, with seven additional transect boxes scattered in it. Distances between the boxes were overlaid. Each box had a number of glowing green spots in it, and the distance from the spot to where they were standing.

They were stunned. “K’ndar. It’s showing you where all the vine trees are, and the distance to each!”

He looked at the datalink with admiration. “This thing is incredible, K’ndar. This thing might make your cataloging a lot faster and easier. Here, let’s try something. Take a picture of that pussytoe tree, no, not that one, it’s just a sapling. The big ‘un over there.”

K’ndar obeyed, taking several shots of the bare limbed tree.

“Now, put the camera against the datalink, like last time,” Rand said.

Feeling oddly subordinate to a man who only a few minutes earlier had seemingly no knowledge of electronics, K’ndar obeyed.

The datalink said ‘beedleeeep!”

Subject 002 loaded. Name of subject 002?

Rand grinned, beginning to enjoy this. He typed in “Pussytoe tree”

The datalink hummed for a moment, then said, “Subject 002 Pussytoe tree located at your position

They waited for it to fill in the transects. Nothing happened.

Um, Rand thought. Maybe I’m a little too overconfident. “Why isn’t it doing like it did for the vine trees?”

“I don’t know!” K’ndar wailed, frustrated. “This is why I hate this thing. It expects me to know how to make it work.”

“Look, there’s a question mark, see it?” Rand pointed at the screen.

“It wants you to type in a question,” K’ndar said.

Rand typed Locate more pussytoe tree

Unable to locate more pussytoe tree by spectral analysis.

“Shaff you, I can see three of them, you piece of frustration!” K’ndar shouted at it.

“Calm down, lad. Maybe it’s just tired.”

“I’m tired of this thing, Rand.’

“I know. What the shaff, let me ask why not.”

Why not?

Null question

“Ah, you’re stupid,” Rand hissed. He typed How locate vine tree?

Vine tree located by spectral analysis. Spectrum is in green range. No green located on pussytoe tree. Change search parameter?

“I think it’s seeing the leaves, K’ndar, it’s the only green leafed tree right now. The pussytoes and just about everything else are bare.” He thought for a moment, his mind racing. “Let’s try this. Take another picture of the pussytoe tree,” Rand said, his mind working, “But this time, concentrate on the buttress roots.”

K’ndar did so.

“Now, touch the camera to the datalink,” Rand said.

The datalink beedleeped.

Subject 002 Additional data for Pussytoe tree loaded. Change search parameter?

“How do I change this? Oh, there. A little arrow by Parameter.” He touched it and a list unfolded. Rand said. “There. Physical characteristics,” he said. He touched it and all the pictures that K’ndar had shot of the tree popped up. Rand touched one that had the roots.

Parameter name?

Gaining confidence once again, Rand typed in ‘buttress root”.

Subject 002 Pussytoe tree located by buttress root. 5 pussytoe tree located within transect. Distances to pussytoe tree from present position annotated. Additional 7 transects populated with subject 002.

The screen bloomed with five blue spots, lines from their spots indicated in meters. Rand whooped.

K’ndar felt an odd dichotomy-one half of his brain was grateful that someone was better at the datalink than him, and the other dismayed that he wasn’t any smarter than a piece of electronic equipment.

“You’re just a ‘forester’? My arse,” K’ndar said, “you’re a genius.”

“Nay,” Rand said, gently, “I just seem able to think more logically than you. This thing is no smarter than my boot. Think, lad. You’re a horseman. When you train a horse to ride, do you just throw a saddle on his back and jump aboard?”

“No, of course not. You take a lot of little bitty steps before ever doing that.”

“Same here, K’ndar. This datalink is stupid, but full of information. You just needs to ask it correctly. Mind you, I’m a forester, but it’s logic. Little steps. That’s what it needs.” He handed the datalink back to K’ndar.

“Believe it or not, K’ndar, it’s easy. And I bet my boots it will make your work easier.”

K’ndar looked glum, yet felt hopeful. “I hope you’re right, Rand.”

“Trust me. Let’s do this one transect, what? See how many trees we can find, remember that you have to take into account the pussytoe saplings, it can’t see the saplings because they haven’t grown buttresses yet. Then you go home, take it to this lassie, Jansen? and see if it’s what they want.”


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