"Fred Johnson. He got a signal - yours?"

She relaxes. Fred Johnson is also OPA. "Yeah. He tell you to bring it back?"

"I don't care what Fred Johnson wants. We nuked it, once we saw what was there." And then found a cryogenic freezer, with a still-contained sample, but she's not going to mention it.

"If people gonya use it against the Belt, the Belt should have it. We can talk to it. Figure it out. Figure out a cure."

She looks at the screens. She hasn't been reading their commentary on long term prognosis but the thing obviously isn't curable. She doesn't say that. 

"You're an Inner," she observes instead. 

"We can't choose where we're born. I know what side I'm on."

"Well, tell your Inner friends to give us back our ship."

" - I'll ask."

Can we give them their ship back? she thinks at Nayoki.

At some point, insisting that she needs to wait for Leareth to wake up and be able to make that call is clearly a cop-out, and so is getting stuck in some pointless power struggle with Naomi.

:...I think so. But I want to meet with the rest of the crew first. I think Naomi might actually believe us, now, that we are from another world? And that is relevant, in terms of what resources we could call in from Velgarth for this situation: 

And to Naomi: 

:Are they stable enough that we could step out for a little while? I want to discuss some things with you and the others: 

"They should be. Uh, autodoc will want to check if any of us have the pathogen in our blood or lungs, and then we'll need to do a decontamination shower before it lets us out."

:Right. The Healers can check us too but redundancy seems good: 

With considerable reluctance, she lets go of Leareth's hand. She's not a Healer, but she thinks his colour is a bit better now than before? 

The Healers stay, one of them still watching the VR crash course on transplant surgery and the other three mainly still watching to see what the various drugs and treatments are doing, and attempting to figure out how to interpret the readings on various screens. The IV nutrition thing is BRILLIANT and they're trying to guess what's in it. 

Naomi can read them what's on the screen but it probably won't be very helpful, and then they can decontaminate and head out.

:We can meet on the bridge: Nayoki declares, once she’s decontaminated and out. :Can you go inform the others?:

There are places to sit on the bridge, but her main thought is something about setting tone; she does want to work with these people, not against them, and this means giving back their ship.

She will go find her crew and inform them that the crazy psychic people who claim they're from another system want to talk on the bridge.

Nayoki dismisses the mage guarding the bridge, tells him to get some rest, and then sits down and waits for the crew tp assemble.

...And has an idea, for solving one of her current embarrassing problems and doing a demo at the same time. Assuming they can get it to work. 

She Mindtouches the Proto. :How far away is the rest of you, on Julie's ship? Do you have resources to Gate over to us here?: 

The protomolecule diligently has the rest of it send out a radio shout. 

Need more resources.

Nayoki is, of course, completely unable to benefit from said shout, except to the extent that the ship sensors can pick up and record it - not that she knows how to read any of the screens on the bridge either. 

:I will figure out what resources you can eat: she promises. :Do not eat the ship or anything on it: 

Next up: she builds a teeny, tiny Gate threshold in the circle of her thumb and forefinger. And extends the search-spell, anchoring on the interior of Julie's ship as she remembers it last, letting the spell tug energy from her as it spools out. 

Can she reach it? 

Nope.

Inconvenient! 

She has inklings of a plan, but unfortunately, that requires someone to be both on Julie's ship and capable of flying it. They did leave a handful of people behind, but Leareth's mages don't currently have any idea how to fly the ship, and are probably pretty stressed about being out of the loop. 

She sighs, dismantles the tiny Gate, and waits for the crew to join her in the bridge. 

They do that. They look suspicious and irritated.

Nayoki takes a deep breath. 

:I apologize for dropping a messy and complicated situation on you, when it seems you were already facing one. ...Also, while I think we were not unjustified in boarding your ship given that you were going to shoot at ours, I realize that is not the best footing to start off on. But, right now, I think we have the same enemies, and I want to work with you - which means trusting you, and giving you back command of your ship: 

So suspicious.

"They can't fly it," says Naomi. "They want to go to Ceres to warn Anderson Dawes, who the infected girl was working with, and they won't make it themselves. The infected girl says that the people who blew up the Cant mean to use it on Eros; we all oppose that; it might be enough to be getting on with."

"Does she know where the people behind this are?"