It wasn’t hard to find the target.

If the braking continued at the present level, and the turn continued as it was going, the omega would shortly line up on a vector that would bring it to a rendezvous with the third planet.

The Jenkins was still too far away to see details. But Jack reported to Broadside. “Looks like a December 14 intersect, Vadim,” he told them. “We’ll head over there and take a look.”

IT WAS THEIR custom to name each terrestrial world they investigated. Although the names were not official, and each planet would continue to be referred to in formal communications by a numerical designator attached to its star’s catalog number, unofficially it was easier to think in terms of Brewster’s World, or Backwater, or Blotto. (Brewster had been Winnie’s companion in her first foray to the altar. The world got its name because it had achieved tidal lock, so the sun, viewed from the surface, “just sat there, doing nothing.”)

It was Kellie’s turn to name the new one. “This might turn out to be a special place,” she said. “When I was a kid we lived near Lookout Point in northern New York. I loved the place. We used to go there and have picnics. You could see the Hudson in the distance.”

“So you want to call it Lookout Point?”

“Lookout would be good, I think.”

And so Lookout it became.

The ship made a jump to get within an AU, and began its approach. They were still much too far for the telescopes to make out any detail. But they discovered immediately that no electronic envelope surrounded the world.

That news produced mixed feelings. Like everyone else, Digger would have liked to see a world with an advanced civilization. It had never happened, and it would be a huge achievement. On the other hand, there was the cloud. Better, he told himself, it should be empty, and the cloud being drawn by unusual rock formations. Or by ruins, like at Moonlight.

By the third day, the disk that represented Lookout was still only a bright sprinkle of light to the naked eye. In the scopes, however, it was covered with clouds. The only visible surface was blue. An ocean. “It has a big moon,” said Winnie, watching the data come in from the sensors. “Two moons, in fact.”

The presence of a large moon was thought to be critical to the development of civilizations. Or, for that matter, of large land animals.

The filters reduced the reflection and they were watching two disks and a star, the larger several times the diameter of its companion. The star was the second moon, which was probably a captured asteroid. They brought the images up to full mag and concentrated on the big moon, looking for signs that someone had been there. But they were still too far away. A building the size of Berlin’s Bergmann Tower would not have been visible at that range.

It was a strange feeling. How many times had they approached worlds like this, literally praying for an earthwork, for a wall, for a light on the sea? And tonight—it was just short of midnight GMT—Digger hoped they would see only the usual barren plains.

The clarity of the images grew. Lookout had white cumulus clouds. Continents. Archipelagoes.

The continents were green.

They shook hands when they saw that. But it was a muted round of celebration.

The poles were white, the oceans blue.

“Looks like Earth,” Wendy said, as if she were pronouncing sentence.

ON THE FOURTH day they were able to pick up physical features, mountain ranges, river valleys, large brown patches that might have been plains. A section of the night side was visible, and they searched it eagerly for lights, but saw nothing.

They slept in shifts, when they slept at all. Usually, they dozed off in the common room, and left only to head for the washroom or to get something to eat. They began imagining they saw things. Someone would sit before a monitor tapping it with a pen, observing that there are lines here, looks like a building, or something there, in the harbor, maybe improvements. At one point, Winnie was convinced she could make out a mountain road, and Digger claimed he saw wakes at sea, maybe from ships. Kellie wondered whether she hadn’t spotted a dam on one of the rivers, and Jack saw changes in the color of the land that suggested agricultural development.

But in the growing clarity of the telescopes, everything faded, save forest, jungle, rivers, and coastline. The arc of the night side remained dark.

THERE WAS A substantial cloud cover, and storms were everywhere. Blizzards covered the high northern and low southern latitudes, a hurricane churned through one of the oceans, and lightning flickered in the temperate zones. Rain seemed to be falling on every continent. Bill did the usual measurements and posted the results. The planet was about 6 percent smaller than the Earth. Axial tilt twenty-six degrees. (Axial tilt was another factor that seemed to be significant if a world was to develop a biosystem. All known living worlds ranged between eighteen and thirty-one degrees.)

According to Bill, the atmosphere would be breathable, but they’d be prudent to use bottled air. The air at sea level was notably richer in oxygen content than the standard mix. Gravity was.92 standard.

The smaller moon had a retrograde movement. Both satellites were airless, and both were devoid of evidence that anyone had ever landed on them. Seventy percent of the surface was liquid water. And Lookout had a rotational period of twenty-two hours, seventeen minutes.

They went into orbit, crossed the terminator onto the night side, and almost immediately saw lights.

But they weren’t the clear hard-edged lights of cities. There was smoke and blurring and a general irregularity. “Forest fires,” said Jack. “Caused by lightning, probably.” He smiled. “Sorry.” Though probably he wasn’t.

Thirty minutes later they were back on the daylight side. There were no major cities. The night was dark as a coal sack. Jack sat down, visibly relieved, visibly disappointed, and sent off yet another report to Vadim, information to the Academy. “No sign that the world is occupied. No lights. Will look more closely.”

“So why is the cloud coming this way?” asked Winnie.

THEY MADE SEVERAL orbits and saw nothing. They zeroed in on numerous harbors and rivers, looking for any sign of improvement and finding none. There was no visible shipping, no indication of a road anywhere.

They were about to send off another message informing Broadside that the Academy need not concern itself with Lookout when Digger heard Jack’s raspy uh-oh. He glanced at the screens, which were showing nothing but night. “I saw lights,” said Jack.

“Where?” Digger knew that Jack had written the world off. He was not going to get excited again. Not about Lookout.

“They’re gone,” said Jack. “We passed over. They’re behind us. But they were there.”

“Bill?”

“Realigning the scopes now.”

The alpha screen, the prime operational monitor, went dark, and then came back on. “I’ve got it,” said the AI.

Several lights, like lingering sparks. But they didn’t go out.

“Fires?”

“What are we getting from the sensors?” asked Winnie.

Bill switched over, and they saw several hazy, luminous rings. “Somebody’s got the lights on,” said Digger. He looked over at Kellie.

“Could be,” she said.

It wasn’t London, thought Digger. But it was sure as hell something.

“What’s the ground look like?” asked Winnie.

Bill put the area on display.

The biggest of the continents stretched from pole to pole, narrowing to an isthmus in the southern temperate latitudes before expanding again. The lights were located on, or over, the isthmus.

It was about four hundred kilometers long, ranging between forty and eighty kilometers wide. It was rough country, with a mountain range running its length, lots of ridges, and three or four rivers crossing from one ocean to the other.

Digger didn’t know what he was supposed to feel. He was along on the mission, and he was dedicated to it like Jack and Winnie. But unlike them, he hadn’t expected to see anything. Nobody ever saw anything. It was a rule.

“How could we have missed that?” asked Winnie.

“It’s still raining down there,” suggested Bill. “Visibility hasn’t been very good.”

“Lock it in, Bill. I don’t want to have trouble finding it again when it gets out into the daylight.” Digger went back to the viewport and stared out at the long dark curve of the planet. There wasn’t a light anywhere to be seen. Well, they’d come around again a few more times before it would be dawn over the target area. Maybe the cloud cover would go away and they’d get a good look.

And then they’d zero in by daylight.

THEY DIDN’T SEE the lights again. But the weather cleared toward dawn, the target area rotated out into the sun, and Digger looked down on a long jagged line that traveled the length of the isthmus. A road! It couldn’t be anything else.

Simultaneously Kellie announced she could see a city. “One of the harbors,” she said, bringing it up on the monitor.

“Here’s another one.” Winnie pointed at the opposite side of the isthmus. And another here, where the isthmus widens into the southern continent. And two more, where it reaches up into the northern land mass.

Cities crowded around harbors, cities spread out along an impossibly crooked shore line, cities straddling both sides of rivers. There was even a city on a large offshore island in the western sea.

The telescope zoomed in, and they saw creatures on the road, large awkward beasts of burden that looked like rhinos. And humanoids, equally awkward, wide around the middle, waddling along, with reins in their hands and hats that looked like sombreros.

“I’ll be damned,” said Jack. “They’re actually there.”

They had pale green skin, large floppy feet (had their ancestors been ducks?), and colorful clothing. It was red and gold and deep sea blue and emerald green. Winnie counted six digits rather than five, and thought their scalps were hairless. They wore baggy leggings and long shirts. Some had vests, and everything was ornamented. There were lots of bracelets, necklaces, feathers. Many wore sashes.

“My first aliens,” said Kellie, “and we get Carpenter.” That was a reference to Charlie Carpenter, the creator of the Goompahs, an enormously popular children’s show. And the aliens did, in fact, look like Goompahs.

“Incredible,” said Winnie.

Somebody laughed and proposed a toast to Charlie Carpenter, who’d gotten there first. They were looking at the traffic on the central road just outside a city that stood on the eastern coast. While they shook their heads in amusement, Jack switched the focus and brought up a building atop a low ridge near the sea. It stopped the laughter.