"Jupiter's pretty near Ceres right now, like 3AU? Which is to say four, five more days, if we're stopping at Ceres, and if we keep burning hard, though that's going to be rough on Naomi and I'm not sure what's important enough to burn hard and not important enough to skip Julie's family reunion."

:- And if we changed direction right now and headed for Io instead of Ceres?: 

"We'd get there about twelve hours later than if we were going for Ceres."

Nayoki is still very confused about the logistics of space travel, and also feels like Leareth would be following this just fine and she's just not as quick on the ball as him, which is frustrating and embarrassing. 

:Right. And - hmm - slowing down and speeding up costs us time, right? Could we - plan on passing close to Ceres but not on stopping? I can find out from Julie whether that would let us send a message without it being intercepted: Nayoki is ALSO still very confused about how space messages work, it's presumably not very analogous to Mindspeech. :And - maybe Leareth would be able to route a Gate there, if the Proto helps with the math to make it as efficient as possible, and we time it just right...: 

"Yeah, if we fly by Ceres that'll slow us down much less than if we stop there. We can tightbeam them from here though it's not impossible to intercept. Tightbeaming Tycho is probably better, because Fred Johnson has better sensors than anyone else and I assume has a way to get in touch with the OPA on Ceres."

:All right: 

After a long moment of thought, :- how long do we have to decide. Before we would need to start slowing down, to make the stop at Ceres: 

"Flip's in an hour. We can push it back one without too much trouble, or we can push it back up to six and give my crew a really bad time on the way in."

:Noted. I - will try my best to have a decision for you in an hour: 

She heads back toward the medbay. 

Leareth has been intently Proto-eavesdropping on the scientists. What are they up to now? 

They have confirmed that they all heard the same sentence, and that one of them with a different native language kind of thinks he heard it in his native language but he's not very sure. They're doing a brain scan on one of them to see if anything unusual can be detected. They've queried other lab staff to test the range (it doesn't seem to extend through the blast doors they're using for protomolecule containment.) They've identified unusual protomolecule activity that might have corresponded to asking. 

And they've tried to answer. Not with the name "Io", which they assume wouldn't mean anything to the protomolecule, but - 

"This is a satellite of a gas giant, circling a star that is in the 79th percentile for size and 370million half-lives of tritium old."

They're trying to talk to it! Despite the fact that they are also seeking approval to infect a human subject - when, he assumes, all their previous subjects straight-up died and they have no way at all of knowing that this time might be different - this makes him feel a burst of warmth towards them. 

He instructs the protomolecule that it can keep listening, and refocuses his attention on Nayoki as she dons the protective equipment and re-enters the medbay. 

:Leareth, Julie: 

She's silent for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts, and then gives a summary of Holden's response, and what their two options are. 

:Julie, how risky would it be to transmit a message to Ceres rather than stopping? And, Leareth - can you figure out with the Proto what the maximum Gate distance is that you could cover, with the Proto's help at routing? It seems...not impossible, that we could movie you and Julie to Ceres that way. If we are going to take the ship onward and try to destroy the lab: 

:- If we are considering destroying the lab, then - I think I want to stay on the ship. In case there is a way to evacuate the human experimental subject or subjects: Pause. :And the Proto itself: 

:You want to rescue it?: 

:...It feels important, to - be an ally to it. For it to understand that, later: Leareth closes his eyes, suddenly tired. :And, honestly, it may be more straightforward to cooperate with the Proto than with any of the human factions in this system: 

Nayoki makes a face, then looks over at Julie. 

We found the lab? I think it'd - work fine - to message Anderson Dawes without stopping, if we already know where we need to go next - uh, I am not in favor of growing the protomolecule to wormhole-making size, here, it's kind of like a well-intentioned genius toddler but its creators were pretty happy to wipe us out for fuel for it, and it's going to try to reach them, right -

:...I do not disagree, but I am still in favour of growing it some amount, with external safeguards, to give it a chance to be smart enough that it can update its goals at all. Right now it clearly cannot, but I do have ideas, for what I would do with it, I have...done related research before. And I think there is a vast amount of leeway between 'strong enough to transport us instantly around the star system via Gate', which would be an incredibly valuable resource here, and 'strong enough to complete its Work': 

:All right. I - think we will proceed onward, then. Julie, can you work with me to draft a message that we can transmit to Ceres? And Leareth will try to figure out if a Gate is possible - Julie, would you prefer to return to Ceres if possible, rather than stay on the ship?: 

I"ll stay on the ship. I don't think being on Ceres would really improve anything, and containment's easier on a ship.

:I understand: 

:I am still going to try to figure out Gate routing, with the Proto. It seems like a generically useful capability to have, if we can manage it: 

He closes his eyes, thinks for a moment. 

:- Nayoki, Julie, the scientists in the lab are trying to communicate with the Proto. They have very thorough containment mechanisms. It - might give us more options, if I have the Proto ask them for resources, communicate that it just needs biomass and not people. And I do not think it should make it any harder to destroy from space, if we choose that option: 

I doubt they have, uh, cows, on Io.

:Would they have whatever technology made the kidney for you? I am not sure the Proto needs more than living cells: 

They should have that, yeah.