:Are you feeling somewhat better? I wanted to ask some more questions, now that I can actually stay awake for it: 

I think I'm all right. She tells the autodoc to get her more alert, though, because probably it's important to not fuck this up.

:Right. So, to start with, this is what we have learned since arriving here -: 

He fills her in on everything Nayoki learned, from questioning the spy and from mindreading the crew. 

:So our spy works for the 'UN', which - he believes to be reasonably competent and not inclined to commit atrocities, but I am reserving judgement until I know more. Our crew work for...it is unclear to me, actually, they followed orders from 'Fred Johnson' but they seem to hate the OPA. They are provisionally helping us reach Ceres but I would not count on their continued alliance if anything else comes up. The spy will presumably try to send a message immediately to the 'UN' - which would contain rather little on us, I think he does not know about the protomolecule at all and is assuming Nayoki was from some obscure Earth faction with advanced tech - I need to decide whether to stop him or allow it, or deliberately send misinformation I suppose: 

- I assume my father's bribing some people high up in the UN but probably not all of them. And I - doubt they know they're enabling Eros, maybe they'd back out if they knew. I forget, did we - talk about how politics work in my world, at any point -

:Not in detail? I...am a bit hazy on what we spoke about before; I did gather that neither Earth nor Mars are monarchies, and that the 'OPA' is an organization but not a national government: 

Earth and Mars have unified planetary governments. They didn't always but they do now. Earth's a democracy - every adult votes, every five years, for the Secretary-General. In Mars everyone votes for representatives who form a government and pick a prime minister. The Belt and the outer planets in the system are mostly ruled by Earth or by Earth and Mars jointly, but Earth doesn't give a shit about Belters and treats them horribly, so the OPA is organized to try to change that. It has lots of different people working under the name. Some, like Fred Johnson, are trying to - be respectable, act the ways the Inners approve of. Others don't think that'll work. I asked Naomi her beef with Anderson Dawes and she said his plan wasn't so great, was it, so I think that's - disagreeing about tactics, right, not disagreeing about goals...

The UN wouldn't openly use the bioweapon on Eros. I don't think they'd lose any sleep over it happening, though. Earth and Mars will mostly be jockeying to make sure the other side doesn't have something they don't.

Leareth absorbs this. Thinks in silence for a minute.

:We know there is one primary location with more Proto in this system. Presumably in your father's possession. Perhaps with the approval of the UN, for studying it at all, but not for the Eros aspect. There is not much of it; it feels less intelligent than it did after I fed it a hundred sheep, and it does not seem to be growing, so - I suspect it is still in a secret laboratory somewhere? I have been considering how to ask the Proto and find out where. The difficulty is, at its current intelligence it cannot follow instructions nearly as complicated as what I was giving before. But it does seem to have retained Mindspeech... Which means it ought also have receptive Thoughtsensing. And, most likely there would be laboratory workers within its range, who might or might not know anything important...: 

- at least they'd know where they were. She sits up straighter. And they might know how much the UN knows, or - what the larger plan is - the destruction of the Canterbury seems calculated to ratchet up tensions between Earth, Mars and the Belt, but I don't know towards what end -

:I am very confused about that part! Holden and his crew seem certain it was the Martians, but - as far as I could tell, from Nayoki's report, they did not actually see the attackers... And it would not have been obvious to me that any of the major powers here would want the situation to escalate toward war, which - seems to be a predictable outcome even if they had not predicted that Holden and his crew would immediately broadcast what happened to the entire star system: 

Leareth isn't sure how he feels about that particular decision. It's not at all obvious that it was strategic - and it was fairly stupid, from some angles, since it made them some very powerful enemies and the crew of the Roci clearly don't have the skill or resources to handle that - but, still, there's something refreshingly direct about it. 

He would really prefer they not send everyone a message about Leareth's arrival, though. 

:Anyway. I can work on asking the Proto to do that: 

I can try asking them why they think it was Mars.

:I would appreciate that. Nayoki thought that they wished to speak with you more anyway, once you were feeling better: Leareth sighs. :Thank you: 

He closes his eyes, and lets himself take a couple minutes to rest before he tries reaching for the Proto with a friendly message of:

, it agrees cheerfully.

They can exchange a bit more friendly chatter in math form, and then - 

:There are two parts of you in this system, far apart. I want you to passively read the thoughts that are happening near the other part, and then relay and project them to my mind, here: 

And he adds as much nonverbal context and specification as he can, which is quite a lot, he's had practice and he's thinking more clearly now. 

There's a long, considering pause. Then -

- distinct change in activity, most similar to when Phoebe was cleared, but it seems a little different from that -

- ruling out six hundred plausible prospective triggers on the grounds that they happened in the last month and didn't provoke the same response -

- is that sufficient justification to run another live patient test? -

- I thought those were on hold pending Thoth -

- what's up with Thoth anyway -

- infosec....I'll suggest another live patient test with the immunosuppressants and we'll see if it's approved or not, hmm?

Leareth manages not to react immediately and ill-advisedly. Instead he thanks the Proto and tells it to stop now - it's distracting - and takes thirty seconds to absorb this, and then immediately Mindspeaks an update to Nayoki. 

And then reaches for the Proto again. 

:I think they might give you more resources. Stable replicators. I - you need to be careful. You can eat the resources, but - non-destructively, all right - like the Healers showed you -: 

Oh. 

It hits him like a brick to the face and he isn't sure how he failed to see it earlier. 

:...You learned talking-like-this, Mindspeech, from - here, my mind -: he pictures the dense neural-network that the Proto showed him before, :- just an engineering problem - the Healers have another sense... If we - let you grow there, too, could you - solve that engineering problem as well, and show us...: 

Leareth's mind is racing, and has to make himself slow down and carefully unpack all the concepts down to the level of concreteness that the Proto might, possibly, stand a chance of understanding. 

Needless to say, it's a huge thing to ask of his people, when they still have no idea if the Proto infection is survivable. But, all of them know what they signed up for. Before, it was war. Now it's something far stranger and more complicated. 

He waits to see if the Proto will offer any response. 

The proto is confused. But they want it to solve problems. It can solve problems. 

...This is definitely a gamble. But - they can almost certainly make it the case that the initial infection is a lot less damaging than it was for either himself or Julie. Healers have a lot of control over their own bodies, often even better than what they can manage working on another person. They can - make the best of this. 

Of course, 'the best of it' will still, by default, kill them slowly - but it might give the Proto one more resource... 

He reaches for Nayoki's mind. :Is this a terrible idea?: 

:...Wow. It is - very you: 

A pause. 

:- I could take it. If it had Mindhealing Sight, it might gain a great deal of skill at understanding and communicating with us:

....Somehow he had still failed to think of that, even after thinking of the first half, which should have made it obvious. 

:No. Not yet. I need someone who can hold command here, if my condition deteriorates again. Someone who can - decide if we need to cancel the attempt to save Eros, and focus on gaining enough resources to return to Velgarth: 

He's pretty sure it's not the time to make that call, yet, but he knows exactly what he would do. They have a Martian gunship. They have a crew that could be compulsioned into helping, or at least coercively mindread to get the information that his people need to fly this ship; not very efficiently, but enough. They could track capture another unarmed ship. Feed the Proto some...biomass, whatever kind is available. Find it an asteroid somewhere as soon as it's big enough to eat that. They already know that the timeline to get it strong enough for an interstellar Gate is measured in days. 

Hopefully they won't have to test whether that would work. There's an awful lot of possible upside to be gained, if they can form alliances here.

After a half-hour of discussion amongst themselves, the Healers agree on their volunteer. She's the one of them with the weakest Gift, and with minimal Mindspeech, which makes her less useful for other roles. 

Nayoki really hates this plan but Leareth isn't wrong, about the upsides, and she feels a bit stupid now for failing to think of it back in Velgarth. 

:...Julie. We have a plan. It is going to sound kind of terrible, but I think it could help you and Leareth - and maybe others - Leareth just learned that the scientists studying the protomolecule are considering another 'live patient test'...: 

Nod. Do we know where they are?

:- Not yet, it was not conveniently in their surface thoughts and then Leareth wanted to figure out a way to not kill more people, first. They mentioned Phoebe, and...Thoth? But Leareth was not sure if that was a place or a code name of some kind. He is planning to listen in more, now, and see if he can catch the location: 

Leareth is already making this request of the Proto.