He really is a messy programmer. Thank goodness I moved the non-varying code out into sub-routines, or it would take months to sort this lot out. Look at this! He’s put in a correction for that fat lady but it’s not nearly large enough. The woman’s a mountain; she must weigh at least 250 pounds; I felt the vibrations through the floor. And he didn’t correct for the change in ionospheric thickness at the later departure time. Dear-oh-dear. We would never have got off the ground!
For the next three-quarters of an hour he scanned through the program, making the necessary corrections and adjustments, and tidying up some of the code. He set it up for a departure time of nine o’clock in the morning. He made sure the departure time was displayed prominently, so that the Professor or Alex would see it as soon as they powered up. Alex would keep them on schedule. Then he put the computer back into sleep mode and sighed.
I hope there’s something solid to eat when we get back. Those canapés were tasty, but they go nowhere on a dog my size.
He retraced his steps, sniffed around on the floor to find the precise place where he’d been lying before and settled himself down, his dewlaps spreading over his crossed paws. The movements of his eyebrows were the only indication that he was taking a last look around, and then finally he closed his eyes and swiftly went back to sleep.
*
It was over. The return journey had been accomplished successfully. Cornelia Fortis had hurried off to her meeting, her disposition none the sweeter for a pounding headache. A couple of news teams had turned up to cover the rescheduled arrival; they had been rewarded with suitable interviews and dismissed. Koussalis had then gone to the office building to make some telephone calls. Duval had returned home to share his triumph with his wife (unfortunately, she was out, having her hair done). Alex had been urged to take the rest of the day off and, after checking round the lab, even she had gone home.
A crew arrived and were soon dismantling the podium and taking down the big screen. Professor William Bullivant watched them for a moment, feeling a pang of regret now that all the excitement was over. He went back into the cavernous interior of the laboratory building to find Benson still waiting patiently in the capsule. Benson’s head came up and he emitted a short whine ending in a woofle.
“Well, well, well, this has been quite a day for us, eh, Benson? Yes, indeed. Quite a day.” He crouched down, gathered up Benson’s great floppy ears and massaged them around on his head. Benson did his best to pretend that he enjoyed this attention.
You wouldn’t happen to have a bone around, would you? I could murder a bone right now.
“I tell you what, Benson. How about a nice meaty bone? Come on, I’ve got one in the lab for you.”
And perhaps we could go for a walk after that. I have a serious need to check out those trees on the perimeter.
“And then we’ll take you for a nice walkies, shall we?”
Good man.
The Professor sighed and slapped the dog affectionately on the flanks. “Dear old Benson. What would I do without you?”
[First published in Alexei’s Tree and Other Stories, Matador, 2005]
Murder in the Jungle
“Let me start, ladies and gentlemen, by asking you a question. What goes through your mind when I say ‘Great Apes’? Does this phrase conjur up for you a picture of inoffensive vegetarians, of orang utans swinging slowly through the trees, picking fruit and berries with large, fastidious fingers, or of mighty but gentle mountain gorillas, laboriously stripping the impossibly bitter pith out of banana stems? If that is the picture in your minds, and if you want to hold onto it, or if you are of a nervous disposition, then this is not the place for you, because what we’re going to be talking about this morning, ladies and gentlemen, is not for the squeamish. We are going to be talking about organized, premeditated murder. So I’ll just pause here and those of you who want to leave can do so at this point.”
It was the introductory lecture in a session on “Primate-Primate Aggression”. The speaker was Dr. Chris Stebbens, and he was warning the audience because this session was open to members of the public and the media. In a sense that was why I was here, too: I thought it would be a bit more accessible to a mere engineer like myself. If I’d known where it would lead to – that within a year I would be sitting, handcuffed, on the dirt floor of a mud hut in Africa, under arrest for murder – then maybe I’d have chosen a different session. But then, you can’t always predict these things.
So what, you may ask, was I doing at the World Symposium on Primate Behaviour in the first place? Well, it’s easy enough. I came out of Stanford with a good degree in electronics and the nagging feeling that I should have done Life Sciences instead. So when the Goodfellow Institute of Primate Biology advertised a vacancy for an Instrumentation Technologist I went for it. One of my first projects was a video monitoring system for caged marmosets. It was quite a challenge and I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out. So were the people running the study, and they decided to present a paper on it at the World Symposium. I was a co-author and they asked if I’d go along, just in case there were technical questions they couldn’t answer. I thought it might be fun. So here I was.
No one left the auditorium. As for me, I don’t think my jaw closed for the next two hours. We saw a lot of footage of the wild chimpanzees in Gombe National Park. We saw them getting all excited and then setting off through the trees and along the forest floor, in search of red colobus monkeys. There seemed to be a division of effort; some gave chase and others laid ambush. Whatever the game plan was, it was very effective. We heard the screams of the monkeys as the chimps tore them apart, and there were some pretty stomach-churning scenes of chimps feasting on monkey limbs. Other speakers explored the relationship between this predatory behaviour and the social status of males within chimpanzee society, and the insights all this might provide into the hunting patterns of early hominids.
Not to mention modern man, was my thought.
One of the speakers was Dr. Richard Gainsville. He was at Washington, D.C. and he had an international reputation for his work on the evolution of primate behaviour. I’d come across his name before, but I hadn’t realized he was English. He was a tall, rangy, fair-haired, guy, and the way he was dressed it was like he couldn’t wait to get back into the bush. He raised a lot of questions about how the roles of individual animals in the hunt were assigned, and how it affected their share in the spoils and their subsequent access to females.
“These animals can’t know in advance where the colobus are going to be and how they’re going to react. So how do they coordinate the attack? Colobus are wary, so they probably can’t use sound cues – they’d just spook their prey. We do know that chimpanzees use a whole variety of facial expressions and postures to communicate, so perhaps visual cues like these play a part. Of course it would be really nice to know what signals actually do pass between the animals, but they’re moving fast, on the ground and in the trees, along totally unpredictable routes, so I’m afraid that’s an impossibility.”
In the coffee break after the session I found myself standing near Richard Gainsville, so I bit the bullet.
“Dr. Gainsville? I enjoyed your talk.”
He gave me a quick smile and nod, but his eyes were roving and it looked like he would move off at any moment, so I continued quickly:
“That problem you mentioned about monitoring visual cues passing between the chimps. It could be done, you know.”
For a moment he was all attention. “Really?” he said. “How?”
It was noisy in the coffee area so I could only give him a brief outline. When I’d finished he looked at me silently for a moment, chewing his lip. Then he just said, “Where can I get hold of you?”
There was a list of attendees and contact details in the back of the conference programme. I put a ring round my own entry, tore the page out and handed it to him. He stuffed it into his conference bag and then someone spirited him away.
To b
e honest I wasn’t expecting him to come back to me. Either he’d let the idea drop or he’d follow it up with one of his own people. But two weeks later he phoned me and invited me down to Washington.
He took the time to show me round the department, introducing me to staff as we encountered them in offices and labs. He’d put a hand on my shoulder and say “Ben here’s from the Goodfellow. He’s an electronics wiz”. I was warming to this guy.
After the tour we went back to his office, where some chairs were grouped around a low table. Two members of his research group joined us. Tina Bertheler was a postdoctoral fellow who’d originally graduated in psychology. She was quite handsome in a leonine kind of way, and she wore her honey-blond hair tied tightly back. Consuela Perez (her full name was a lot longer than that) was a biologist from Cuba. She was raven-haired and dark-skinned, and she spoke English with a voice like gravel. She was doing a Ph.D. And then a mature but athletic-looking guy came through the open door. Richard got up and greeted him warmly.
“This is Mark Pelham,” Richard said, after he’d introduced the three of us to him. “Mark’s an Associate Professor with Chris Stebbens. He and Chris have been to Africa – how many times, Mark?”
“Seven trips in all. At times it seemed like I was living there.”
“Apart from Chris himself I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who knows more than Mark about these animals, and the whole set-up out there.” He indicated a seat to Mark and sat down himself. “Now, Ben, why don’t you kick off by fleshing out this idea of yours.”
I’d given the whole thing more thought since I’d received Richard’s phone call, so I was prepared for this.
“Well, basically, the idea is to fit each of the key animals with an instrumented collar. We build in a miniature GPS location system, a radio transmitter, a microphone and a very small video camera. The camera has to see what the animal’s seeing, so we fit it with a lens that gives it the identical field of view. It’s not conventional video, by the way; it has to be of the security type.”
“What’s the difference?” asked Tina.
“In conventional video, successive frames are interlaced. In a security camera each frame is complete. That way all the pictures can be synchronized to a fraction of a second at the receiving end. So if two animals look at each other you can play it back frame by frame and see exactly which one is signalling and which one is reacting. I designed a system something like that for captive marmosets.”
Consuela’s dark eyes were wide. “This could be done?”
“Oh yes. The technology’s all available. The only thing is, you have to get permission to attach the collars. I thought that might be a problem.”
“It is,” Richard said, “but maybe not an insuperable one. I talked to Chris about it. We were already setting up a joint field trip for next year. He can’t come himself but he’s agreed that Mark should join us. And he thinks we might just get official sanction to use the instrumentation. Mark, I think you’ve got some questions about that.”
“Well, first off, how big would this collar have to be?”
“Not much bigger than one of the commercial collars people use for tracking animals the size of – what? – koalas, foxes? The camera and the circuitry can be packed into a really small volume; the main size and weight is going to be the battery. So it depends on what operating life you need.”
Richard said, “We can’t spend longer than two months out there.”
“No problem, then. We can use the smaller battery size, so long as we keep the collars switched off until they’re fitted. That way you’ll get the full operating life.”
Mark nodded thoughtfully. “There’s still a problem. We’d have to tranquillize the chimps to attach the collars and that might change their behaviour. And just wearing the collars might alter their position in the hierarchy.”
“This type of collar’s been used a lot for radio tracking,” said Richard. “It doesn’t usually affect social status.”
“I know, but these are sophisticated animals and we’re looking at a highly evolved behaviour. There’s a definite risk of coming away empty-handed.”
“Yes, but Mark, think about the data we could get if it worked! It would be mind-blowing! I think we’ll just have to take the chance. We’ll monitor the animals carefully, of course, before and after. If there’s a problem, then as you say, we’ll have to abandon the project.”
Mark grimaced. “Sorry, but that’s not all. You can’t just leave the animals behind with the collars on; the authorities won’t sit still for that. These are supposed to be wild animals. And they won’t be happy about us tranking them again either.”
There was a bit of a silence. Then I remembered something. “Um, there is a way around that,” I said. “You can fit the collars with radio-operated release systems. Before we leave we just send out the signal and the collars drop off.”
Mark and Richard looked at each other and grinned. “Nice one,” Richard said.
Mark added, “The collars will still be transmitting their positions, won’t they? I suppose we could go out and retrieve them?”
“You could if you wanted to. It would only be worth it if there’s some operating life left. Once the batteries are flat you can’t use them any more.”
Richard looked round the table. “Anyone see any other problems?”
I did. “Look, I think we need to be clear about this. Quite apart from the collars there’ll be a fair amount of equipment on the receiving side. Antennae to erect, receivers to tune, video channels, audio channels, video recorders, power generator… Someone’s got to be trained to set all that up.”
“Why, Ben,” said Richard, in what seemed like genuine surprise. “I assumed you’d be coming with us.”
I blinked and swallowed hard. My heart beat fast. I’d never been to Africa.
“Erm, I’m not sure my boss would be too happy about that.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll talk to him. I’m sure we can arrange a temporary Leave of Absence.”
*
And he did. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, because I already knew how persuasive Richard could be. The prospect of being tied into the two most famous primate biology research groups in the world must have been a fair incentive, not to mention the money that would be flowing into the Institute for the instrumentation I’d need to put together. But freeing me up for the work was one thing; Richard and Mark must have pulled all the stops out to get the project approved by the National Parks Authority and the Ministry. Chris Stebbens used his contacts as well and helped to smooth the way. I gather it was the radio-release collars that finally swung it. We got permission to attach collars to five key animals in the troupe. We’d take two more collars in case of accidents or failures.
I had to put together a budget, of course, but money wasn’t really a problem. Richard was well-connected: he had grants from the U.S. Government, World Wildlife Fund, National Geographic, and even a nature TV channel which wanted first refusal on any exceptional footage that made it into the public domain. With that kind of support there wasn’t any point in re-inventing the wheel, especially as time was short. The collars had to be robust, reliable, and weatherproof and the release mechanisms had to be totally dependable. I did the sensible thing and went to a company that specialises in this type of kit. They were interested and very helpful. I was allowed to purchase the collars with GPS, transmitter, and radio-release fitted but not encapsulated. I added the video and sound systems and then they took each collar and embedded everything except the camera lens in black resin to make it waterproof and, we hoped, chimpanzee-proof. After that I was kept pretty busy purchasing all the rest of the equipment, connecting it up and testing it. Finally everything had to be packed carefully and sent on ahead by air freight.
*
The crates were a bit large so we unpacked them to fit the stuff into the two trailers (we had two vehicles in case of breakdowns). It didn’t take us that long but it st
ill brought me out in a sweat, working in that climate. Finally we hit the road. Richard and Mark drove the Land Rovers and Tina, Consuela and I rode in one or the other. At the final village we were met by two rangers, who led us in, helped us set up camp, and made sure we had everything we needed. We got a fire going and offered to share our meal with them, but the light was fading and they wanted to get back. Before they left I set up our transmitter and we checked that we could communicate with them by radio, just in case of problems. We weren’t anticipating any; Mark knew the terrain very well and actually so did Richard.
Next day we put what we needed into backpacks and headed deep into the jungle. It was hot and humid, and the insects were a pain, but I was so excited I hardly noticed. Mark was fantastic; he led us in without any hesitation. We heard the chimps before we saw them. We spent all day observing them through binoculars, maintaining complete silence and concealment. We had a book, put together from previous trips, with pen sketches to identify individuals in the troupe. A chimpanzee’s facial creases are as characteristic as a fingerprint. From time to time Mark would point to an animal and then to a picture, helping Tina and Consuela to identify the animals, particularly the males. They repeated this exercise over the next few days, getting a baseline for the chimp’s behaviour and checking that the social hierarchy hadn’t changed since the last visit. After the first foray I stayed back at the camp, setting up the equipment tent. The next time we went out together I had the collars in my backpack, and Mark was carrying a dart gun.
They’d identified all five of our target animals: Leo, Phoenix, Aaron, Hector and Joseph. The idea was to wait until one of them strayed from the rest of the troupe, which they did when they were foraging; then we’d dart him and fit the collar. That was the theory. Tina loaded the syringes but Mark and Richard were very anxious about overdoing it so she was conservative with the dose. The first time we tried it, the dart brought the animal down, but it started to recover before we’d finished. Even in this half-paralysed condition it was unbelievably strong; it took four of us to control it while Richard fitted the collar. I was so scared I almost forgot to actuate the transmitter. After that first experience we upped the dose somewhat.
The Tomb and Other Stories Page 14