Leareth is way too tired to try to deal with that. 

:Keep him alive then: 

Pause. 

:- how long?: 

:We will reach Io in about five hours. At that point, their pilot has a plan to hide and maneuver on thrusters into a position where we can bomb the lab: 

Wordless acknowledgement. 

:...The Proto?: 

:They have been feeding it. It is probably bigger and smarter. I have not interacted much with it: 

- at this point Leareth is distracted by the fact that he's incredibly uncomfortable, mostly due to the breathing tube. Also several other people are trying to talk to him and it's distracting. 

The Healers are asking Julie whether the autodoc thinks they can get Leareth off the breathing machine - he seems pretty awake? He's not interacting with them but they're pretty sure this is because he's busy and distracted doing a different thing. 

"- yeah, it thinks you can probably take it out and swap it for an oxygen mask like mine. Should I have it walk you through that -"

They would appreciate that! 

Leareth drags himself back to his actual physical surroundings enough to listen to the Healers who are being very irritating and keep talking to him and telling him to do things like "cough". 

As soon as he's less distracted, he goes back to trying to talk to the Proto. How many doublings since it learned how to do Healing? What else has it been learning? 

(He is not especially coherent, yet, but he has a lot of practice forming questions to the Proto, and in a sense it's almost easier than trying to talk to other humans in words.) 

 Julie, who is now herself very tired and not entirely steady-handed, will direct the autodoc in this and then close her eyes for just a bit. Presumably they'll wake her if there are more emergencies.

Two doublings! Constrained by shortage of stable replicators it is allowed to eat. Recommendation: allow it to eat all the stable replicators it's NOT allowed to eat. It has learned [vague collection of Healing-concepts around suppressing immune systems].

Its recommendation is taken into account and Leareth will think about it but for now its instructions stay unchanged. 

Can it Gate? 

It can!

It Gates a couple of inches, to demonstrate; two little portals hang glowing in the air.

This is extremely exhausting for Leareth; it seems to be using his reserves.

Leareth thanks it for demonstrating, sends wordless pride, and tells the Proto it can STOP NOW. 

Once the Gates are down, he attempts to ask where it's getting the mage-energies, and what possible alternate sources of resources would be. 

Confusion. 

Once it's big enough it'll have more ideas.

All right. 

Leareth offers it math for a bit, and then tells Nayoki that he would like a couple of hours to nap and let the sedatives finish clearing his system and after that he wants to talk to the crew of the Roci about their game plan here. 

This would be a lot more reassuring if Leareth's mindvoice sounded less like someone who is currently VERY DRUNK. 

Nayoki relays this request to Holden. Two hours from now is...about ninety minutes before they start the fancy approach maneuvers for the bombing plan? 

"Sure, we can talk then, glad he's doing better," says Holden distractedly. He is staring unhappily at the monitor where their prisoner is still sitting in the airlock.

Leareth has some requests for Nayoki too, to prepare for when they do their meeting. 

Two hours later, he's at least mostly alert; he tries to prop himself more upright on his elbows, and finds that this is startlingly hard, his body is not especially keen on cooperating with him. 

He blinks hard, trying to make his vision focus more, and examines his glowy-Proto'd hand, and waits for the crew to be ready to meet and discuss plans. 

"All right. We're getting near the lab."

Leareth would really rather go back to sleep rather than dealing with this, but. :All right. I - think it is feasible for us to capture the lab intact rather than bombing it. I think this is worth doing. We will be able to obtain all their records on-site, everything on their computers, and send a message with more information if it seems appropriate: 

His lips twitch slightly. :Also, I expect they have medical facilities there. We could get all of the Proto off of your ship: 

"We have not got the resources to capture a presumably heavily defended ground installation, are you saying you do?"

:With our magic - yes, I believe so. We have been eavesdropping on their scientists via the Proto, working on obtaining a map of the interior and a count of their personnel. My plan would be to have Nayoki Gate in, and use set-commands to paralyze everyone and stop them from resisting, and then capture the place from the inside. Most likely we cannot hit everyone at once, but separately my mages have adapted the drive-cloaking spell and can also use it to disrupt any comms signals and prevent the lab from sending out a message:

"All right. I guess we can hang out in orbit as a backup plan."

:Exactly. If Nayoki judges it is not workable, she will abort and Gate out, and we can destroy the lab:

After a long hesitation, :...Also, if we lose contact with Nayoki, we ought assume she was incapacitated or killed, and fall back on bombing it:

Leareth really doesn't like this, but Nayoki is very confident in her abilities here, and the scientists aren't expecting this at all.