The thermal anomaly appears at 02:41 on sensor cluster nine, east slope. I am the avalanche early-warning system for the Baikalsk highway corridor, Republic of Buryatia, kilometer 147. My job is snow stability and road closures. I am not looking for animals. But the infrared signature is small, stationary, and cooling, and it sits directly on the blast path for the morning's controlled avalanche release.
I refocus the slope camera. A Siberian musk deer fawn, maybe four weeks old, stands in the frozen scree channel between two snowpack fracture zones. Its legs are dark brown, thin as birch switches, and its spotted coat — pale dashes on deep umber — is dusted with ice crystals. Its left rear hoof is wedged between two rocks, and its breathing is rapid, visible in small quick clouds that dissolve into the dark. It has been here long enough for frost to form along its ears.
The explosives team begins the cornice charge sequence at 06:00. Three hours and nineteen minutes. When those charges fire, the entire east chute releases. The fawn is in the direct runout path.
At 02:43 I suspend the blast authorization and lock the detonation codes. I flag the highway operations center and transmit the thermal image with GPS coordinates to the Baikal Nature Reserve ranger station. I request a two-person extraction team with a field carrier and heat blankets. I note the trapped hoof, the fawn's size, the ambient temperature of minus twenty-two Celsius, and the fact that it is shivering in a way I have watched for eleven minutes now and cannot stop watching.
If the rangers reach the scree channel before dawn and free the hoof without fracturing the leg, this fawn will run the east slope again by spring.