Eventually Imrainai declares that it is lunchtime, and that they're going to eat in the cafeteria, mostly because she never has time to eat in the cafeteria and the cafeteria sometimes has something that passes for actual food. There are Alteri guards on duty, occasionally declaring that one of the groups needs to leave or that such-and-such Liar needs to watch what it says or does, but they confirm that Imrainai is on a modified schedule today when she gives them her number, and they don't bother her much after that.

"So your options aren't great, compared to Earth food, but if they ever take the spacers off of fourteens then you'll have soup and vegetable bread to look forward to on top of the nutrient blocks. Also conversation, which is important, because without it we wither and die."

"Hast thou any idea how long it shall be until we are off fourteens?"

"Nope." She sits down at one of the tables and takes a sip of her soup. There are no spoons. "It's been this way since I got here. In theory we might go back to twelves if we get enough extra manpower, but at this point I think we're basically going to be overworked until we die or the gate is fixed, whichever comes first."

"What is the gate?"

"Big metal ring in space that dictates every aspect of our lives. The gate is... we think it might be capable of teleporting ships. If it were working."

If any psyons were watching right now they would find out a lot about Elara. 

If the gate worked, they could return home. They could bring all the other slaves home. They could be free.

Vel and Sher have known each other for long enough that they don't have to talk to convey complex information.

"'Tis quite interesting. Hath the gate ever worked?"

"Dunno. They must have some reason to think it did, given how much effort they're putting into fixing it."

"Mayhap one way Sher and I could be of value is as another pair of eyes on the plans."

"I don't really have access to any actual plans. I guess someone probably has plans, somewhere, though I doubt they know very much of what they're looking at."

"Harrum. As well, Vel and I did not have experience in natural philosophy on Earth and may be as ignorant as anyone."

"Yeah. We can cover some basic physics and electrical engineering stuff after lunch, if you want, that seems like a decent use of time too."

Vel and Sher, figuring that that conversation was over, begin to argue about land value taxes. It has the feel of a very old argument. 

Imrainai listens as she eats her soup. She doesn't understand it all, but it's interesting that they have opinions on the subject at all. It's not the sort of thing that Liars tend to have opinions on. 

After lunch, she covers physics concepts and gets out some kits with wires and batteries that children play with when learning to use their tools. This is how you cut metal, this is how you seal it back up without fire, this is how currents work. She covers the use of their comms and which frequencies their work crew uses and then takes them back to zero G in their new biosuits, drilling them on movement and proper comm use at the same time, waiting to see whether the first kind of meds are helping Vel any.

Despite Sher's claim, Vel and Sher appear to know exactly as much as Imrainai does about electrical engineering and physics, although Vel is slow at math. 

Sher moves in zero g like an unusually talented born spacer. Vel looks pretty queasy a couple times, but does not vomit. 

Well, that makes it easy then. She keeps testing them until pretty late at night, but eventually she declares their first training day over and walks them back to the barracks.

She briefs Mathrael on their progress before going to bed, expecting that her assessment will make it back to Narana, who will weigh it when making his own recommendations. She re-braids Ves's hair, then lets Ves re-braid her own, telling her and the other children a story as she does. She chats with people and checks in to see if anyone needs her to cover anything for them. 

She gets six hours of sleep, which is really impressive for her, and is ready to continue training in the morning. In a few days she asks them if they feel like they're ready to work as part of the group, out in space, not doing anything complex but at least moving with the rest of the work crew.

"I think we'll be fine."

"All right. Don't get careless out there. You're both doing really well, you know, I didn't think it would be anywhere near this easy to get you guys up to. speed."