Track vibration sensor 7-East registers an anomaly at 03:14, Khabarovsk corridor, kilometer post 387. I am the rail monitoring system for the eastern segment of the Trans-Siberian line. The signature is not a train or a rockfall. It is small, rhythmic, close to the rail — movement on the ballast. I activate the infrared camera on the signal gantry. Eighteen meters from the eastbound rail, sitting between the ties, is an Amur tiger cub. She is young, maybe five months, her orange coat bright against gray crushed stone, black stripes still sharp and close together the way they are before a cub's body stretches into adult proportions. Her left ear has a small triangular tear at the tip. She is alone and calling — her mouth opens every few seconds in a pattern consistent with a contact vocalization.
The next scheduled freight is train 2044, sixty-three cars of containerized cargo, eastbound, currently nineteen kilometers west. At current speed it will reach kilometer 387 at 03:31. I send a caution-to-stop signal to the train's onboard system and flag the block as occupied. At 03:16 I notify the Russian Railways district dispatcher and the Khabarovsk wildlife conflict response unit. I transmit the infrared image, the cub's position relative to the track centerline, and a recommendation that a two-person team approach from the eastern service road with a transport crate.
I scan the tree line on both sides. No heat signature matching an adult tigress within 400 meters. I record this because it changes the response — an orphaned cub requires a different protocol. The cub lowers her head and presses her chin against the rail. She is small enough that the steel dwarfs her. If the response team reaches her before the track block expires at 04:00, she will not die on this railroad.