Mountains of Dawn

"My system cannot count," said Mario.

"What? You have a computer that cannot count?"

"My computer can count. Of course it can count! What it can't do is count spots on the fly, and I'm sure those spots will be moving."

"How quickly could it identify the given configuration?"

"In fifteen…ten minutes, maybe."

"Good enough, Mario. The three of us are in business."

"I assume you have some precise information on the region we'll be searching? At the least, some idea where to search for these people?" Beppe grumbled his words, though he sounded a bit more interested.

"Yes, I do have some idea of the location," Luigi Amedeo said with a small laugh.

Mario's attitude was definitely more positive than Beppe's. "Okay, we'll give it a try," he said. "We'll take a first flight around the area and exclude all large regions for which the infrared detection is negative. We'll keep records of the covered areas, marking those areas where the infrared is positive. We can enlarge these by an amount corresponding to the walking distance on flat ground, just to be safe, then…" He paused and took a deep breath.

"Then? Then what, Mario?"

"Then we use the total area of three adults and one boy to identify possible candidate regions. Once we get one of these, we fly low to get detailed pictures." He drew a deep breath. "As I said, we can give it a try, but expect it to cost more than a bit. It will be expensive."

"Fine, no problem. Expenses and your usual fees will be covered."

"Be at Nice airport by six o'clock tomorrow morning, and we're off," concluded Beppe.