"I don't know. We could ask the proto."

"Sorry, you could what now?"

"Uh, the psychics can talk to it."

Julie has another coughing fit while trying to figure out what words to use to make this seem sane to these people.

These are some very worried Healers! 

:Uh: one of them eventually asks the four crew, :I know you don't have a medic, but do you have any kind of medical facilities on this ship -: 

"We have a med bay. I'd need to set the ventilation to isolate it, if she's got, uh, horror alien infestation disease."

"We think it's not airborne but it also gets smarter over time so better to be safe than sorry."

Honestly he DOES NOT WANT THAT ON HIS SHIP AT ALL but there's neither a polite way to say this nor a way to achieve it.

:We can relocate her there in a moment - and ideally our other patient back on the Anubis: Nayoki says. :Where were you headed in this, er, legitimately salvaged Martian gunship? Do you know of a place we might go where we could regroup safely and communicate with Anderson Dawes?: 

"We were looking for your shuttle. The Anubis 1A. We figured it'd gone for Eros, we hadn't seen a drive signature and it's the only place you could get on thrusters."

"I was heading for Eros when I ended up in their system."

"Why do you want to contact Dawes?"

"So he can figure out how we can stop them from deploying the protomolecule on Eros!"

What is that about. 

Nayoki is going to do some discreet mindreading for a minute. 

Naomi doesn't trust Anderson Dawes. She doesn't trust Fred Johnson, who gave them the coordinates for the Anubis, either. They're both OPA and that means that a lot of people might die, if it achieves their goals. She is getting the impression that Julie is also OPA, even though she's an Earther, and - well, the only thing she knows so far about all this is that the Anubis destroyed the Cant. 

Nayoki...is not especially inclined to judge someone for the trait of being willing to kill a lot of people if it achieves their goals, but she can also understand why this often, predictably, results in not being trusted very much. Leareth gets that. 

:We can make a final decision on this later: she declares. :I will give all of you some time to adjust to - us - and we will of course answer any questions you have, or meet any requests you can think of that would convince you I am not lying. And, which of you is best able to explain to our Healers how to set up in the medical bay?: 

"I can do it. If you stop doing whatever you're doing and let me suit up."

:All right:

The Healer who did the earlier ship exploration is still fidgeting and looking like she wants to interrupt, so Nayoki sighs, holds up a hand, and extends a private Mindspeech link to her :What is it:

She listens. 

Shortly later, to all of the crew, :- were you aware that you have a spy on your ship with - some sort implanted eye device that can make spy reports using your computers or whatever 'internet' is?: 

" - we knew about the spy but not the implanted eye device!"

"Told you we should've spaced him."

"Is he one of yours?" he asks Julie.