Boundary 1: Boundary Read Online Free Page A
a holler when I'm ready."
They spent the next hour or so making sure the site was cleared of anything that might interfere with A.J. Baker's work—tools, canvas coverings, they even swept away dust. Finally Helen heard a call from the tent. She went over, with Jackie and Joe following.
"You're ready, A.J.?"
"Ready to work my magic, yes, indeed." A.J. turned. To Helen's astonishment, there appeared to be a literal halo of light hovering around the man's head. A gasp from Jackie confirmed it was not her imagination.
"Oh, for the love of—A.J., you showoff!" Joe snorted. "And there's no way it should be a halo, anyway. Why not horns?"
"How do you do that?" Jackie demanded.
A.J. patted the large pouch on his belt. "Fairy Dust. From Dust-Storm Tech. Finest intelligent dust sensor motes on the planet. These are integrated with micromotile units to let them fly, as long as I can either keep' em supplied with enough power to scavenge—or I'm willing to let them drain the hell out of the onboard batteries for the sake of a few seconds of showing off. Yeah, that's a cheap stunt using their illuminators, but it's fun."
He opened the flap. The halo, which at closer range appeared to be made up of hundreds or even thousands of individual tiny sparks of light, poured itself into the pouch.
"These things aren't toys, though. It's the heart of my approach. Thousands of ultrasensitive sensors all over the survey area, networking themselves together automatically, then using all that data to pull out a really detailed picture of whatever lies below. The trick is knowing what sensors and modalities to use and how to combine them and process the data the right way. Now, let's take a look at this dig of yours."
As they headed to the dig area, Jackie glanced at the belt pouch curiously. "I've heard of them being used for things like inventory tracking and so on, but . . ."
"That's just the tip of the iceberg," A.J. said. "Even back in the first decade of this century, when Dust, Incorporated, Ember, and a few others first started making intelligent sensor motes, it was clear there were a lot of potential uses for distributed sensor and computing networks that were embodied as near-microscopic motes that each had their own power, communication, computation, sensor, and memory capacity. I honestly don't think I could list every use I've thought of for these things in the past few years."
"So these motes can look right through the rock?"
A.J. laughed. "Not exactly. Let me take a look at what we have and I'll explain a little more."
Helen showed him around the dig area, letting the imaging and sensor expert kneel down to examine the fossils and surrounding rock. She saw him reach into the pouch and then let fall a ghostly shimmer of the dust-mote sensors across the area. From the side, Helen could see that the light behind his glasses was directed into his eye; what she'd seen vaguely before was the reflection. A Virtual Retinal Display, then, rather than a mini heads-up display projection. The VRD flickered brightly from his eye for a moment or two.
"Hmm, interesting." The imaging specialist seemed to have the habit of talking to himself. "Yeah, we can work with that."
He turned back to Jackie. "The motes are really excellent at sensing things, and if I combine the signals from thousands of them across the area, that's great—but only if there's something to sense. And there's no way anything their size can produce the beefy signals I'm going to need. Penetration through rock depends on a lot of different things—the type of signal, the wavelength, the precise type of rock, presence of moisture, and the power available probably being the most dominant, although there's a bunch of other ancillary ones. For the most part, I can control three of those variables—type, wavelength, and power. The trick here is that we have something of a dilemma. We want lots of penetration, but we also want lots of detail. As a
They spent the next hour or so making sure the site was cleared of anything that might interfere with A.J. Baker's work—tools, canvas coverings, they even swept away dust. Finally Helen heard a call from the tent. She went over, with Jackie and Joe following.
"You're ready, A.J.?"
"Ready to work my magic, yes, indeed." A.J. turned. To Helen's astonishment, there appeared to be a literal halo of light hovering around the man's head. A gasp from Jackie confirmed it was not her imagination.
"Oh, for the love of—A.J., you showoff!" Joe snorted. "And there's no way it should be a halo, anyway. Why not horns?"
"How do you do that?" Jackie demanded.
A.J. patted the large pouch on his belt. "Fairy Dust. From Dust-Storm Tech. Finest intelligent dust sensor motes on the planet. These are integrated with micromotile units to let them fly, as long as I can either keep' em supplied with enough power to scavenge—or I'm willing to let them drain the hell out of the onboard batteries for the sake of a few seconds of showing off. Yeah, that's a cheap stunt using their illuminators, but it's fun."
He opened the flap. The halo, which at closer range appeared to be made up of hundreds or even thousands of individual tiny sparks of light, poured itself into the pouch.
"These things aren't toys, though. It's the heart of my approach. Thousands of ultrasensitive sensors all over the survey area, networking themselves together automatically, then using all that data to pull out a really detailed picture of whatever lies below. The trick is knowing what sensors and modalities to use and how to combine them and process the data the right way. Now, let's take a look at this dig of yours."
As they headed to the dig area, Jackie glanced at the belt pouch curiously. "I've heard of them being used for things like inventory tracking and so on, but . . ."
"That's just the tip of the iceberg," A.J. said. "Even back in the first decade of this century, when Dust, Incorporated, Ember, and a few others first started making intelligent sensor motes, it was clear there were a lot of potential uses for distributed sensor and computing networks that were embodied as near-microscopic motes that each had their own power, communication, computation, sensor, and memory capacity. I honestly don't think I could list every use I've thought of for these things in the past few years."
"So these motes can look right through the rock?"
A.J. laughed. "Not exactly. Let me take a look at what we have and I'll explain a little more."
Helen showed him around the dig area, letting the imaging and sensor expert kneel down to examine the fossils and surrounding rock. She saw him reach into the pouch and then let fall a ghostly shimmer of the dust-mote sensors across the area. From the side, Helen could see that the light behind his glasses was directed into his eye; what she'd seen vaguely before was the reflection. A Virtual Retinal Display, then, rather than a mini heads-up display projection. The VRD flickered brightly from his eye for a moment or two.
"Hmm, interesting." The imaging specialist seemed to have the habit of talking to himself. "Yeah, we can work with that."
He turned back to Jackie. "The motes are really excellent at sensing things, and if I combine the signals from thousands of them across the area, that's great—but only if there's something to sense. And there's no way anything their size can produce the beefy signals I'm going to need. Penetration through rock depends on a lot of different things—the type of signal, the wavelength, the precise type of rock, presence of moisture, and the power available probably being the most dominant, although there's a bunch of other ancillary ones. For the most part, I can control three of those variables—type, wavelength, and power. The trick here is that we have something of a dilemma. We want lots of penetration, but we also want lots of detail. As a
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