She hmmmms again.

"The doors in this station aren't designed to lock. I could send for some caution tape, though, and put it up over the entrance if you think that would help?"

"I don't know enough about how things are done here to guess, Ma'am. If you think that will be sufficient I expect it will be."

She smiles.

"These aren't the unpledged holdings. You'll find the folks here generally know how to follow instructions."

And then she makes some calls.

A little while later, somebody comes by carrying some bright yellow tape printed with the words DO NOT ENTER. The women drape this tape across Deskyl's doorway.

DZ thanks them and retreats back into the room. (She's keeping track of the time, and will resume her post outside when Shreya is due.)

They are not bothered further until that time.

Shreya's eyes still look a little bleary when she shows up, but she's brimming with enthusiasm.

She's no longer wearing the reinforced piloting suit from before, having dropped that off somewhere in favor of loose, flowy non-combat attire.

"Oh." She sees the caution tape. "That's new."

"Yes." ...the security guard didn't give her name, and DZ didn't ask; did she have some sort of name badge? DZ checks her memories.

The guard was wearing a sort of dogtag, hung from a synthetic loop around her neck.

(Shreya also has such a tag. The woman who came by with the tape, though, did not--nor did the person at the emergency hotline?)

The guard's tag read: [PALA KAUR -- if found please return to Procyon Station]

The pause won't have been long enough for Shreya to notice.

"Pala Kaur suggested it; I was worried that someone might startle Deskyl and get hurt. She asked me to stay here, too."

Shreya sheepishly apologizes for having failed to file the proper paperwork upon her unscheduled return from patrol.

"So, do you still want that tour?"

"If you're sure it's okay, Ma'am? I'm not sure how the hierarchy works here."

"It ought to be okay." She shrugs, smiles, and inclines her head back in the direction that she came from. "As for our hierarchy? Yeah... I can explain that..."

That doesn't sound like she's sure it's okay. "I'd rather not risk causing a problem that Deskyl will need to handle, Ma'am, she needs her rest. But we could go sit in the cafeteria and talk?"

"That would be good. Probably better we wait for my master to get back, or for yours to recover a bit?"

She leads the way back to the cafeteria.

"So, what sort of things do people eat where you're from? I can't make any promises, but we've got a decent selection here..."

"People on the planet we're from eat a pretty standard diet - grains, vegetables, meat. It's mostly humans and near-humans, there. Deskyl isn't very adventurous with her meals, but she's flexible enough, I doubt there will be a problem."

"And what about you?"

Shreya is already gathering up a tray of comestibles to her own taste.

"I don't eat at all, Ma'am, I'm a robot."

Shreya raises an eyebrow. 'Robot' does not have quite the same connotations here as it does where DZ is from.

"Do you mean you're a machine?" She reaches around for a connection that might reconcile that information with her own experiences. "Like... a drone that Deskyl pilots remotely when she's too weak to move or speak herself?"

"I'm a machine, yes, but I'm a separate entity, an artificial intelligence."

Oh, Shreya thinks, by robot she must mean biomechanical life form. Sure, it's an obvious distinction to pilots like me, but a lot of civilians get those concepts mixed up.

DZ certainly does look a bit to her like a miniaturized SLAYER. But SLAYERs don't have intelligence, artificial or otherwise.

Hmmmm...

"So, your brain was biofabricated separately from your body?" There's a look of dawning realization on Shreya's face. Her next three words, she speaks almost reverently: "Like a dragon's?"

"There are... ways that I'm similar to them, yes. But I'm a third thing entirely; I don't have any biological parts at all, and I'm not smarter than a human - some robots are, but not my line. I'm a servant robot."

"Alright." She still doesn't understand, but Shreya has reached the point where she has serious doubts about her ability to frame further questions usefully.

"I suppose you could say I'm a servant human." She tugs at the polymer collar encircling her neck. "But I bet you already guessed that?"

"It doesn't surprise me, Ma'am."

"Would you like me to tell you more about how robots work in our society?"

"I would like that."

She sits at a cafeteria table and sets her tray down. She glances uncertainly from the food to DZ, unsure of proper etiquette regarding eating-in-front-of-people-who-literally-cannot-eat.

"Go ahead, Ma'am, I don't mind."

She goes ahead.