HD 76700 didn’t move from its position in the sky; instead, the biopod’s transparent ceiling gradually polarized over the course of a few hours until it was completely opaque, leaving the cylindrical world in darkness. No stars, no moon: only a jet-black expanse. By then, the Montero’s crew had set up camp near the bottom of the escalator, the lamps they’d brought from the ship casting a luminescent circle around the tents. Standing just outside the tent ring, Andromeda realized that the campsite was the only source of light in the valley. But while the biopod was dark, it was anything but silent: the chirp of grasshoarders in the underbrush, the harsh cries of swoops, even the distant growl of a creek cat. When Rolf had come back from digging a latrine pit, he’d reported having seen a pair of glidemunks playing in the upper branches of a judas tree not far from the creek. Apparently the danui hadn’t only imported some of Coyote’s flora and fauna but had also gone so far as to make sure that the habitat had an identical twenty-seven-hour day-night cycle.
