HBWnovel Chapter 51 The more you investigate, the more outrageous it becomes.
Chapter 51 The more you investigate, the more outrageous it becomes.
The leader of the investigation team walked about thirty meters in the monitored area, noticed the movement behind him, and turned around.
Two vehicles were advancing rapidly, with flags on their roofs, completely different from the survey team's vehicles.
The rest of the investigation team also turned around. The five of them stood there, watching the two unfamiliar cars parked twenty meters away from them.
The protection group members got out of the car. Some were holding something up, and some were talking in a loud voice, not in a tone of negotiation, but in a warning.
The investigation team members began to speak, in a different tone, as if they were explaining.
"We are a legitimate organization that has been commissioned."
Both sides were talking, but neither side was listening.
Chen Fei had seen a similar scene in an international news report in his previous life.
Two organizations, each with its own legal authorization, collided in the same area, each believing they had the right to be there and each viewing the other as an obstacle.
Next there will be radio communication, higher-level contact, waiting, and document verification.
This process can take anywhere from two hours to half a day.
During this period, the survey team will not continue to advance northwest; they will be stuck in place.
The surveillance cameras belonging to the protection organization have recorded the entire process of the investigation team entering the monitored area, including their license plates, equipment, and images of armed personnel.
This record will be entered into the organization's archives system.
Chen Fei stood up from behind the rock and walked towards where he had landed.
Meimei followed, walking two steps to his side and behind, keeping pace with him.
Behind me, a short, frustrated, and childish growl came from the bushes.
Big Head missed his target.
The gazelle's hooves made a series of crisp, rapid sounds across the grassland, growing fainter and fainter until they disappeared into the open grassland to the east.
Big Head emerged from the grass, head down, with a few grass stems tangled in its fur next to the thick scab on its left shoulder. It took a couple of steps, shook off the grass stems, raised its head again, and followed behind Chen Fei and Mei Mei.
It walked about twenty steps, then suddenly stopped and looked back in the direction where the gazelle had disappeared.
Then I caught up again, this time walking a little faster than before, with a rhythmic sense of digesting something in my steps.
Chen Fei did not turn around.
The sun rose directly above the grassland, compressing all shadows to their shortest length, and the grassland became quiet.
The survey team and the conservation organization were still locked in a standoff in the distance, radio waves swirling in the air, neither side willing to back down.
The landing spot was ahead, and Sel was guarding it. The stingy little devil's tender cries faintly came from the depths of the grass, drifting away with the wind. They were weak, but in the quiet of the entire grassland, Chen Fei's ears found them immediately.
He slowed his pace slightly, waited for Big Head to catch up, walked a few steps side by side, and then continued forward.
To the northwest, the buzzing of the radio continued; the survey team's progress for the day had come to an end.
...
Temporary camp on the north side.
The canvas tents were pitched in the shade of three acacia trees, and the hum of the generator came from the largest tent on the far right, mingling with the hot evening air and carrying far away.
The tent zipper was pulled open with a snap.
Maurice Banda was the first to walk in, threw his hat on the folding table, sat down in a chair, covered his face with his hands, and remained silent for about three seconds.
"Alright, everyone come in."
He didn't look up; his voice was muffled in his palm.
The four members of the investigation team filed in.
The leader was a white woman named Ira Foster, a PhD in animal behavior from University College London, and the only one in the project who insisted that there was a "scientific explanation" for the incident.
When she came in, she casually pulled the curtain closed, a habitual action, as if she always made sure no outsiders were eavesdropping before each meeting.
Following behind her was Kenneth Ocampo, the field coordinator for the East African Wildlife Survey, a man in his forties with a perpetually impassive expression, looking at everything as if he were examining data. Today was an exception—a faint line of tension ran down the corner of his mouth, a tension that had been there all afternoon.
Next up was technician Marcus, 26 years old, who was in charge of equipment operation. He walked in carrying a laptop and sat down in the corner. The screen was already on, filled with today's data files.
The last one to enter was Guide Kale, a local who had been with the team for three months and had seen all sorts of big scenes. This afternoon, when they were intercepted on the spot at the edge of the organization's monitoring area, he was the only one who did not show any emotional fluctuation.
Now he sat down, placed the kettle on the table, unscrewed it, took a sip, and waited.
Morris finally removed his hand from his face.
He was 48 years old, British, and the former head of the field survey team at the UK Conservation Union. He had spent 20 years in Africa and had never encountered more than three types of "abnormal phenomena": human-caused damage, animal behavioral deviations, and equipment malfunctions. He had dealt with all three and could explain them all.
He couldn't explain what happened today.
"Let's talk about the equipment first." He looked at Marcus. "The pressure sensor data, run it again."
Marcus nodded, tapped a few times on the keyboard, and turned the laptop so the screen faced the center of the table.
The data is a scatter plot.
The X-axis represents time, and the Y-axis represents pressure values. This morning, they buried portable ground pressure gauges at four locations, covering an area approximately 800 meters southwest of the poacher's location. As designed, if a large animal passes through this area, the instrument will record the corresponding pressure value and then calculate its weight range based on its cadence and stride length.
Theoretically, there's nothing wrong with the system; they used it last month to accurately track the movement of a male African elephant.
The problem lies today.
"Here, here, and here." Marcus pointed to three data clusters with the tip of his pen. "The pressure values were recorded simultaneously at the three points, with a time difference of four seconds. The straight-line distance from the first point to the third point is 210 meters."
Ella leaned forward slightly. "Four seconds?"
"Four seconds."
"Two hundred and ten meters, four seconds." Ella repeated the numbers to herself, her expression turning strange. "That's—"
"The speed was close to 190 kilometers per hour," Marcus said in a flat tone.
There was silence in the tent for about five seconds.
Kenneth spoke first, "Equipment malfunction."
"I've checked," Marcus said. "The three instruments are independently powered, with independent timing modules, and the error is within 0.1 seconds. If it were a systematic error, the probability of all three malfunctioning simultaneously would be—"
"How much is that?"
"According to the instrument specifications, the probability of an error exceeding one second is 1 in 10,000.7."
Kenneth fell silent.
Morris stared at that scatter plot for a long time.
"When zebras break apart, is it possible that ground vibrations could interfere with the readings?"