Yvonne POV

The first passage of the Dalmady on Suleiman story is on pp. 524-526 of The Van Rijn Method. There is an unexpected change of pov in the last paragraph. Dalmady has been speaking with Yvonne Vaillancourt and the narration has been from his pov. We were told how her hair smelled to him. However, when he leaves, she watches him until he is out of sight. Thus, we are now in her pov.

We learn that she is both secretary and treasurer of the trade post but that she spends most of her time using the computers to seek patterns in scientific data gathered by her colleagues. The post is maintained only because of commerce but staffed mainly by those who want to do research and managed by Dalmady who wants to move on from this outpost of a base.

Yvonne inwardly makes the point, to which I alluded here, that Suleiman is "...an entire, infinitely varied world..." (p. 526) and hopes that a few scientists elsewhere will notice this one planet among thousands of others. But why should they? Information overload would be a very real issue. In The Boat Of A Million Years, Anderson cites this issue as a reason for not launching von Neumann probes. See here.