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as much as a stray film wrapping or food tube,” he said, “at least not that we’ve seen so far. Personally, I tend to doubt it; there’re no real signs of technology that we’d recognize as such—no big lighted areas at night that might be a city, and no radio signals at all.”
    Ysaye shook her head. “As the techs keep reminding me, we don’t even know yet
    if there’s sentient life down there at all, and we won’t till the cameras on the satellite get working.”
    Elizabeth frowned at the blank monitors that represented incoming pictures from
    the satellite. “I’m not sure we’d know even then, Ysaye. There is heavy cloud cover down there. If there are sentients, and they aren’t too advanced, we could easily miss them.”
    “I can’t see how,” David replied. “With that kind of resolution, all we need to
    have is a break in the clouds and we should be able to see a monkey—or whatever else they have that fills that particular ecological niche,” he added quickly, “moving through the branches of that forest down there.”
    “Only the top branches,” Elizabeth argued. “And only if the cloud cover does break and the camera is pointed in the right direction!”
    “Surely sooner or later it will be,” David said, with a dismissive shrug. “And
    sooner or later the clouds have to break. But even if there are IBs down there, we’re not going to pick up anything much smaller than a lighted city until we get most of the weather satellite network going. Any idea how long that will take, Ysaye?”
    “Hours,” Ysaye said tiredly. “Good thing it’s mostly automated. All I have to do is baby-sit it.”
    “You look awfully tired, Ysaye,” said Elizabeth, with concern in her blue eyes.
    “How long have you been working, anyway? Or should I say—overworking?”
    Ysaye shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I’ve lost track again.”
    “Does that translate to ‘I hooked my brain up to the computer three days ago and I haven’t taken a break since’?” David teased.
    “Something like that,” Ysaye admitted with a weary chuckle. “That, and—well,
    you two know I don’t like sleeping in a strange bed. I couldn’t get any sleep, so I just kept working.”
    “Why don’t you lie down over there for a bit and try again?” Elizabeth suggested, indicating the pile of padded computer blankets in the corner. “Even you admit this whole process is automatic, and David and I will be here to let you know if anything goes wrong. Nobody else is likely to come in here for hours; everyone but us and the construction crew is still on the ship. It should be nice and quiet.”
    “That won’t last long,” David warned. “There’s nothing to equal the stampede
    off-ship, as soon as security passes the air and gives the all-clear. That’ll happen here, too, as soon as security is happy about the domes being stabilized. Not that there’s any fresh air here, but at least the domes are a change from the ship.”
    “Yes,” Ysaye murmured, “the gravity’s lower.” She walked over to the blankets
    and flopped loosely down onto them. “I think I’ll take your suggestion, Elizabeth; right now I probably could sleep anywhere—and possibly right through nearly anything.
    Nudge me if anything interesting happens.”
    “Will do,” Elizabeth said cheerfully. “You definitely need a break before they put you to work in the library, looking up obscure papers on moon formations for the Captain. One of the techs told me that this four-moon system was driving him to
    distraction!”
    David, who had been watching the monitors showing the work going on outside
    the dome said suddenly, “Hey, looks like they’re setting up the Recreational Dome—
    unless it’s the Living Quarters. It’s a big one, anyway.”
    “No, I’m sure it’s not the Living Quarters. I heard the First Officer say we’ll wait for the first party checking out the planet to come back with a report before they do that,”