"I understand." she says gently. "I hope it brings you comfort. We all need reminders of people that aren't with us."

"It's nice to have something to remember family by, yeah. Most ship-folk have something. Hmm... I'd say we're about done. We don't need to get every last bit, floatgrass grows everywhere."

"Let's head to the ship then, maybe you can show me around."

"Certainly." Walta ties a rope around Sandra's waist before showing her the ladder. "Just in case."

Sandra flinches at the sudden contact, buy allows Walta to tie the safety-rope. After she is secure, she'll hurry excitedly up the ladder.

Walta follows up after. They come into a little room with a bunch of rope coils and a few pulleys and harnesses on hooks. Walta unhooks her safety harness and starts tidying up the ropes laying around. "Welcome to the Grumpy Squid. Cap named the ship. You can tell, can't you?"

She does a poor job of holding back a laugh and a strangled giggle comes out. "I wouldn't know, I've only seen him in a business mindset, but from that it fits."

"Heh. Captain Vauners is a... Defensive sort of guy. I think he pretends to be a lot more prickly than he really is, and is a softie underneath. But he's brilliant, I will tell you that. He built half the things on this ship, mostly before he even had me to help."

"I'm not at that level of inventing, but I've customized most of my gear. It was Devra who designed most of it, she's a genius, can build anything she puts her mind to."

"Sounds like we both have smart friends." Walta finishes coiling up the rope and leads Sandra out of this launch room into a hallway. The hall is nice and wide, and covered in some sort of carpet. Doors are here and there, and little cubbies with labelled equipment or boxes in them are here and there too. "Space is a bit cramped on a ship, but this one is better than most. Main corridor here... That door heads to the cargo bay, and past that is our workshop and the engines and things. Maybe I can give you a tour later. On the other side here we have access to the port wing, then galley and perishable stores. Cozy little dining room..." It's not really its own room, more of an offshoot from the galley. It has windows that give a nice view and light.

"That hallway leads to secondary systems and Nick's library-slash-trophy-room. There's more of the same fins and wings over there. Here's the bathroom. Laundry room right next to it. Then up here we have my cabin and Nick's cabin and the spare cabin which is being a storeroom right now but I can fix that... And then this relaxation room full of comfy chairs and stuff, the map room- the escape balloons are here- and then the bridge. Up that staircase is the gas level. Best not to go in there. But if you go past it one more level you get to our greenhouse, it's pretty up there, and there's a nice lookout station with a chair and a great view where you can open a window and feel the breeze... And that's our little world!" 

It's fairly cozy overall, but not cramped. There's a sense of being a home in the front sections that is missing from the more utilitarian areas she could see where they got in.

Sandra isn't talking much, she seems lost in thought. "I'd forgotten just how cramped ships are." she shudders, before switching over to a slightly subdued but happier expression. "I used to live on a ship, lots of bad memories." She explains.

"Huh. Sorry? The greenhouse really is pretty, if that helps. And you can see the whole sky."

"It's not your fault. And I would love to see the greenhouse." 

"Cool. In a minute though, boss will get mad if we don't cast off soon."

She darts to the back of the ship and has a conversation with the captain.

Captain walks past Sandra in the hall with a polite nod and goes to the bridge. In less than two minutes, they're free of the island and the engines are thrumming steadily. Walta comes back. "Sorry for the wait. Up we go?"

"Absolutely!" Contrary to before, Sandra seems almost giddy at seeing the green room.

Up they go. Past the cavernous gas room full of bulbous brown bags, up to the greenhouse.

...It is very pretty. A tall, wide space, decorated with rows of plants of various sorts. Earthly and -non, flowering and simply green, climbing and potted. Some gardeny-looking gadgets here and there as well as a shelf of supplies along a wall supporting the center of the construction, and lots and lots of clear glass showing the open sky beyond.

Walta sighs in contentment.

"Woah." Sandra says breathlessly. She lets her senses dance over the alien flora, there's so much life here. "I love it. Would it be possible for me to meditate in here?" 

"I don't see why not. Captain was raving about your radar, I don't think he'll mind much of anything you do short of lighting fires or breaking things."

"I would never light a fire, it would burn this down. That would be a tragedy."  Then turning towards Walta, "I'm glad I could make him happy. He seems like someone who could use something to rave about."

"Mm. Not going to argue with that."

Sandra giggles.
"What about you? What do you rave about?"

"I'm learning so much! The deal is a sort of apprenticeship thing. I was a handyman working on random bits and bobs, saw his clever cargo loading rig, I bothered him until he explained how it works," slight hesitation, "-And two days later I had a job."

"People doing what they love is always great. You must have impressed him in order to get the job that fast."

"Uh, anyway," she clumsily deflects. "Let me tell you about all the plants we have here... This is a different species of the floatgrass genus we saw earlier. It's much prettier, not as useful. This is castlevine. Named that because it grows over itself again and again until it's nearly unbreakably strong. This is....." She continues.

If Sandra notices, she's not telling.

"All these new plants are amazing."

If Walta keeps describing plants, Sandra will ask questions with enthusiastic gusto when appropriate.