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the bottom darkened by a combination of vegetation and shadow.
    "The crater is just over five hundred kilometers wide. The earliest settlers built walls in key places to minimize wind, then set to work making air. They used-"
    "Let's skip the details on air generation," Hammett interrupted. "The bottom of the crater is full of air. Let's move on."
    Kaur frowned, then nodded. She had an engineering background, Hammett remembered from his personnel file. She would be fascinated by the technical details.
    "It's been about fifty years since the crater floor has been able to support plant life beyond genetically modified grasses and shrubs. The air quality has been stable enough to allow people to live there without artificial air supplies for just over thirty years. The original settlement has grown substantially in that time." Kaur's hands moved and the projection of the crater disappeared, replaced by a flat image of a small city. The picture changed every few seconds, showing different views of the settlement. "Spacecom's best estimate is that the Naxos system contained eighteen thousand, five hundred and twelve people at the time of the invasion. Nearly everyone lived in Harlequin. It's the only city in the system."
    Hammett watched pictures appear and vanish in the projected display. The city seemed to have no buildings taller than two stories. The sky was never visible. Instead, he saw the looming wall of the crater in the background, a cliff of ochre stone. Most of the buildings were made of stone blocks the same color as the crater walls. It gave the place a rustic, friendly feel that was missing in most Earthly cities.
    Pumpkin-colored stone dominated the city, but lush green vegetation offered strong competition. Harlequin had the look of a town carved from the jungle. Trees flourished everywhere, mostly palms with a variety of fruit trees mixed in. Every building had a lawn in front, and planters lined sidewalks or marked property lines. Flowers erupted from the planters, while vines climbed walls and spread across tiled roofs.
    Some of the pictures showed the outskirts of the little city stretching away in the background. The floor of the crater looked like jungle at first glance. Hammett saw broadleaf trees twice or even three times the height of the tallest buildings in Harlequin.
    A closer look revealed that much of the crater was under cultivation. Wide swathes of greenery had telltale lines showing that they were crops, not wild growth. The picture changed, and he saw a house and outbuildings nestled in what appeared to be a forest, until he noted the trees stood in perfectly straight lines. It was an orchard.
    Kaur continued her lecture. "One thousand and fourteen people would have been off-planet in nine different settlements and stations orbiting either the planet or the star. In addition, there was a science outpost on Dryad with a staff of several hundred." The picture changed to a series of domes set on a crater-pocked plain. The sun was a fiery giant that dominated the sky.
    "Our intelligence is now 42 days old," Kaur said. "That's how long it's been since Gate Three went offline."
    "What about this radio station?" Hammett asked. "Do we have any record of it?" He had heard of public radio broadcasts. They were a phenomenon of the distant past. Still, colonies often employed primitive technology side by side with cutting-edge modern tech. He'd seen waterwheels and saddle horses on some worlds. Why not a radio station?
    "I can't find anything specific about it," said Kaur.
    "All right. We'll track it down." He looked at Sanjari. "Anything interesting on the long-range scans?"
    "That orbiting object is about to move past the visible disc of the planet," she said. "That will make it a lot easier to pick out details."
    "Show me," he said.
    A projection appeared above her console, showing the mystery object in its white circle almost at the edge of the planet. Resolution was already much better than before,