"Just a matter of time, though."

"Yeah. Got plans for that?"

"Uh, very light mind-control? Nothing interesting here, you were very disappointed, go home."

"Maybe," she says doubtfully. "Ethics of even very light mind control aside, I'm not sure that works as a long-term solution."

"Yeah, do you have ideas for what might?"

"Encourage trees to grow such that their crowns obscure the place? Not sure, I'll have to think about it."

"Oh, it looks like a rock formation from the air. Unless you get really close or are using a kind of imaging we didn't think to account for."

"Oh, cool. Why are satellite images a concern, then?"

"People might think it's an interesting rock formation."

"That seems statistically unlikely."

"I mean, it's not a perfect disguise. Wrong angle, and -"

"Mm. I still think trees--real ones, as opposed to illusions--might help."

"We planted some! They'll just take a bit to grow - couple hundred years -"

"Fair 'nuff. I guess we'll just have to cross our fingers in the meantime and hope for the best."

"We're probably going to go public eventually, to get people for the space expedition, we'd just like to know more first - mostly about whether there are any others left..."

"Well, Daphne seems to be at least weak evidence for that, apparently."

"Yeah, so - who are they, how badly are they going to react..."

"Imliss said something about talking to Daphne to see if we can use her to find out."

"How?"

"Poke around the area where her mom got knocked up being curious about her roots, was I think the idea."

"I'd be super interested in the results, if nothing else."

"It'd be nice if they didn't hate us but I'm really not betting on it."

"Me neither."

"They could make it much harder for us to find colonists, if they went public when we did."

"Bet we could still find some, it's a big planet."