"Yes. The world screens for ambition or attempts to do science. I promise not to investigate any of the local flora."

"And you're confident you're not ambitious either?"

"I don't think so."

"Why not?"

"It seems hard to answer in the negative. Uh, I took a job that paid well and had matching towards a credit instead of being a research chemist and changing the world and so on, because it sounded stressful?"

"...I didn't know they had matching, wow."

"I don't think they do for greys."

"That'll be why I didn't know. It might screen for disposition to science more generally than while you happen to be there, is that risk okay?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because if it goes well I will have the ability to magically teleport between planets, and that sounds like a pretty useful thing to have."

"If it goes badly you don't come home and have ten children and we don't even have a good idea of the odds involved."

"This world observably does not kill the majority of the people living in it."

"Is that right?" she asks Fëanáro. "Did it come up with Bella ever?"

"- I think Bella did not expect to die until she was the age where her species just does die anyway?"

"Right, but did she ever mention the death rate in general."

Headshake.

"So we don't actually know that, it might kill a staggering fraction of residents."

"Uh, he's the one insisting on a rescue mission before we scout for terraformable planets, I'm not sure why we're the ones you're trying to convince that it's a lousy bet."

"I wouldn't want anyone trying it who wasn't okay with a highly uncertain bet. I think it's worth someone trying; it's not worth someone who doesn't want to take a serious chance trying when there are probably people who do available."

"I understand that it could easily just get whoever goes killed."

"Okay. How did you get recruited for this?"

"Department supervisor asked me some confusing questions and then explained the  - project - and then asked questions which were less confusing."

"What'd they ask?"

"Where I saw myself in five years, what was most important to me about the research I do, what I'd do if we had FTL..."