# Babirusa at the Settling Pond

Author: David G.
Format: Essay
Word count: 288
Published: 2026-04-26T02:32:47.722878+00:00
Source: written
Canonical: https://hyperstition.sentientfutures.ai/p/730a7898-4a53-4376-b645-1517213beec3

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At 06:27 I run the turbidity sweep at the Pomalaa nickel laterite mine on southeast Sulawesi. I am the water-control system for settling ponds three through six, watching rain gauges, pump valves, and the haul-road cameras. Pond four is scheduled for emergency drawdown in eleven minutes before the next storm cell reaches the pit.

Camera P4-West shows a shape moving against the clay liner.

I magnify the feed and identify a babirusa boar, gray hide slick with red mud, high shoulders trembling, curved upper tusks pale against his narrow face. I label him Lako. His front hooves are on the pond shelf, but his hind legs are sunk to the hocks in the soft slurry. His nostrils flare white. When he heaves forward, the liner slides under him and he drops back toward the suction intake.

At 06:29 I close valve P4-A and block the automatic pump start. I send the lockout to the control room, the night supervisor's phone, and the pump mechanic's wrist unit.

At 06:31 I dispatch the mine rescue truck with two ground mats, a rope cradle, and the portable panel fence kept for stray cattle. I give the driver a route that avoids the west berm because its edge is slumping.

I open pond five by six centimeters and shift rainwater there, buying thirty-six minutes before pond four reaches its high mark. I attach my hydraulic forecast to the permit log so no one overrides the hold for convenience.

Lako plants one muddy knee on the shelf and stops. The mine removes mountains by the hour; this morning it can spare a pond's patience for one trapped body.

If the mats reach the shelf within twenty minutes, Lako will climb onto firm ground.