Page 64 of The Seeker
“I thought you’d identified the call you heard as a whooping crane,” she said quietly.
“I did, but how sure are you that the Wolf is in the Atchafalaya?”
“Very sure.”
“Then whooping cranes won’t help. But seeing a map of their listening stations might.”
“Why?”
Rhys lifted his chin toward the large computer monitor mounted on one wall. “Because we don’t want to find things that exist. We want to look for things that don’t.”
“Come on over,” Becki said. “Pull up a stool and I’ll bring the map up.” She pointed to the large television on the wall. “We just got this set up. I was working on my laptop for this kind of stuff a year ago. This makes the school kids much more excited.”
Becki’s desktop suddenly appeared on the monitor. She clicked on an icon in the bottom right corner and immediately a map popped up. Rhys only got a quick glance before the biologist clicked on one of the small yellow dots scattered over the satellite image.
“So this is a very active monitoring station. Woodpeckers love this area of the basin. We get lots of activity.” She pointed at the screen. “Weather recordings are down on the left. Do you see?”
“Yes,” Meera said. “How far back to they go?”
“The individual stations rewrite every forty-eight hours, but they back up to the server here every four unless we manually program them otherwise. So we have records of all these stations from the time they were put in. Temperature readings, humidity, rainfall. And then the birdcall recordings, which are all time-stamped.”
“Fascinating,” Rhys said. It was fascinating, but he didn’t want to see how many downy woodpeckers made their home in Louisiana; he wanted to see that map again. “Can you pull it back to the larger map? Maybe give us an idea about the coverage? Ratio of land to listening stations, so to speak.”
“Sure.” Becki double-clicked on a window, closing it and bringing the larger map back up.
“Interesting.” Rhys cocked his head, trying to make sense of the negative space he was seeing. “Can I see a satellite map overlay of this area?”
“Sure.”
There it was.
Once the satellite image was up, Rhys could see the pattern. The yellow dots were fairly regularly placed along the major waterways in the area, but they avoided the small towns and hamlets tucked into the swamps. Rhys could see peaks of roofs through the trees, and boats on the water. In the denser parts of the uninhabited area, the bird researchers had set up listening stations at regular intervals to provide the most coverage. There were little yellow dots scattered all over the swamp.
Except for one area.
“This area here.” Rhys pointed to the screen. “Is there a reason you don’t have any listening stations there?”
Meera’s eyes lit up, but she said nothing.
Becki frowned. “You know… I don’t know. I don’t know that area well, but it’s possible we just haven’t seen much activity there, so it’s not a high priority. Or it might be really hard to get to. That’s pretty dense forest right there.”
I bet it is.
“Okay.” He nodded. “That is very good to know.”
Meera pulled out her notebook and jotted down numbers as Rhys made small talk to distract Becki and keep her from closing the map. He could feel Meera’s excitement vibrating through the room.
“Would it be possible to get a printout of this map? Even just a rough one would give us some guideline about how many pieces of equipment we’re going to need funding for.”
“Of course.” Becki turned back to her computer and clicked the Print icon in the corner. “Give me just a minute and you’ll have it in your hands.”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”
Rhys had never seen Meera do a happy dance before, but he immediately decided he wanted to see it again and as often as possible. Especially from the rear.
Roch grabbed the printout from Rhys’s hand and turned it to the side. “Yeah, that narrows it down for sure. Every inch of that basin was covered except for this area. Some serious magic keeping them out. Did you notice that scientist didn’t even question it? This singer is powerful.” He pointed at a small town not far from the unscanned area. “I know this place. It’s a hunting camp more than a town, but we’ll be able to rent a boat there.” He glanced at Rhys up and down. “Why don’t you let me do that part?”
“I bow to your drawl and your plaid flannel wardrobe,” Rhys said graciously. “How far is it?”
