Oh dear, weightlessness. She really wasn't made to operate under these conditions. Are there at least handholds?

"That sounds reasonable, Ma'am."

There are plentiful handholds.

Pala slows down when she notices DZ having trouble.

She can manage, just slowly; she has to pause to work out a path every time she has to bridge a gap, and even when she doesn't, she's not as fast as she would be if she were walking. "I'm sorry, Ma'am, I wasn't programmed for this."

Pala starts to ask what 'programmed' means in this context but thinks better of it.

"Is it unsafe or unpleasant for you to proceed like this?"

She pauses to think about that, or tries to; she floats a few rungs beyond where she means to be before she stops herself again.

"It's not unacceptably risky but it is a little unpleasant," she reports.

“We could turn back. I can just have someone else sent down to escort your master when Culamine’s back, or give her a map if she’s comfortable navigating from one?”

She has to think about that one, too. "No, Ma'am, I'll be all right. Thank you."

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

Pala leads DZ the rest of the way to the cavernous audience room in the station’s center.

Wait. Not just cavern-ous. It’s literally a cavern, hewn from from rough rock and, in all likelihood, extending all the way to a dragon-sized cave mouth on the station’s exterior?

There’s an airlock between them and the audience room. Smart money says the audience room isn’t pressurized.

Smart money also says Pala's not going to expect her to function in a vacuum, especially since Shreya doesn't seem to be sharing intel with her. Presumably she'll be shown where the spacesuits are next.

Pala points the spacesuits out, but doesn’t seem to expect DZ to don one right now.

“When Culamine’s here, there are usually vassals stationed in this area to help facilitate visits. Right now, though, there’s obviously no point.”

She nods. "Yes Ma'am. That should be just fine."

Pala lingers by the airlock for a little while, all the same, staring out into the empty chamber beyond.

”Did you want to hear the rest of what I was saying earlier? About hierarchy?”

"Yes, please."

"Well the remaining rung in the hierarchy is... princesses." Pala says this last word with a certain amount of self-consciousness, but also a special pride. "Some vassals aspire to more than the minimum required of them, earning the personal attention of their dragon."

“The details vary from one vassalage to another--different ascension rituals, different duties, different badges of office?" She touches two fingers to the tag hanging from her neck. "But regardless of details, it's the greatest honor a human can achieve."

She nods. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Are there differences within that category? You told me to stay near our room; if Shreya invites me to somewhere else in the station, how would I know whether that's allowed?"

“Well, if either of us were speaking on our master’s behalf, that’d trump all other factors. If we were speaking on behalf of the existing rules of the vassalage, or of the station, that’d trump anything short of Culamine’s word. In the absence of either of those things... I guess you’re just allowed to use your best judgement?”

And the existing rules are loose enough to be barely any guidance at all; she read them first thing. She'll need to talk to Deskyl about this; it won't do at all for her to misjudge and cause an incident. "Yes, Ma'am. Thank you."

"Oh. Just to clarify, you aren't limited to staying near your master's quarters anymore. Just as long as you're careful to follow the station's rules, you can travel throughout it freely."

Pala starts back towards the elevator. She moves slowly, so DZ won't have trouble keeping up.

"I will. Thank you, Ma'am." She follows; she's not much better at it yet, but she's getting the idea. "Is there anything you wanted to know about us?"

"I can think of a whole bunch of things I'd like to ask, but most of them boil down to: what are things like where you and your master come from?"

"It's very different, Ma'am. It's much bigger, for one thing; we have spacecraft that can travel faster than light, and reach neighboring stars in degrees or less. Most people live on planets, which are rocky sun-orbiting spheres large enough to hold gasses on their surface the same way that the sun holds the dysofrag field around it, so that they can support life without mechanical assistance, under the right conditions. A planet can support billions of people, with the right infrastructure, and there are billions of known planets with the right conditions to support human or other sapient life, most of which are settled."

“Wow.”

That’s a lot to take in.

She nods. "And one thing that that means is that things can be very rare, and there will still be a lot of them. Sith are rare like that; there tens of thousands of them, perhaps a few hundred thousand, which means that most people where we're from will never meet one. Sith run the empire, though; the lowest Sith outranks anyone who isn't a Sith, no matter what kind of rank or power she has."

“Wait, back up.”

They reach the elevator.

”You said your ships travel faster than light does? I’m no scientist but I’m pretty sure that’s impossible.”

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, I'm the wrong kind of robot to know how to explain it. It does take specialized technology?"