Instructions are exchanged back and forth via Proto-Mindspeech-relay with the mage stuck in the lab until he's pretty sure he knows how to retrieve the cores without damaging anything. 

Leareth is a little more stable, now. There's not actually that much wrong with him, now that the protomolecule isn't directly eating his life-force anymore, and the autodoc has fixed the low blood pressure and other physical problems that caused. He's still hypothermic, that's slower to fix, but no longer enough to be life-threatening itself. 

Emril prods the mage down on Io again, asks if he can try interrogating the security personnel about on-site medical facilities.

Come to think of it, maybe some of the scientists are trained as medics? They're presumably not motivated to help but they can be interrogated about it. She asks the mage interrogating them about protomolecule to add that question, and ask if they have medical facilities in the lab that they're trained to use to treat humans. 

They do! Several of the suites of tests involved seeing how the protomolecule responded to medical interventions on infected humans.

Well, in that case they might actually be among the best experts here! 

Emril relays instructions around, asking the mage on site to check whether those facilities are intact as soon as he's done retrieving computer data cores, and - after a minute's thought - asking Nayoki if she can set-command the scientists to be cooperative and help them treat Leareth and Julie and their rescued test subject. 

That sounds like the sort of complicated task that's very difficult to mind-control people into doing without huge risk, but Leareth seems less about to die.

Nayoki figures she might as well go over, very briefly introduce herself - she goes with "second-in-command to a powerful commander from a different faction with advanced tech, now in control of this lab" and...hmm, to start maybe she'll just ask nicely if they'll treat some Proto-infected humans in exchange for getting to study the Proto's behaviour?

She has no idea if this will go over well at all but it doesn't feel like there's much downside. 

The scientists are so angry that their experiment was interrupted. They want to keep studying the protomolecule. They don't want to do anything else. They will begrudgingly study the protomolecule in infected human subjects in the hospital wing if that's the studying on offer.

Their minds are.....really weird, to Mindhealing. The bread looks neatly sectioned, different parts hardly touching.

Nayoki informs them, very calmly, that she is currently in charge here and that is, in fact, the studying on offer. She would like them to help train some of her own personnel on using their medical equipment, too, once they can get back to the lab. 

...She's so confused about their minds! Leareth's mind behaves a little like that, sometimes, especially when he's in the middle of handling an emergency and ruthlessly setting everything aside except the most urgent priorities, but this is a LOT more extreme. And - doesn't look reversible, much less at will. 

She passes on instructions that she wants to Gate all the infected people over to the lab's hospital wing as soon as the ship is within Gate-range again; with that, they should be able to clear the Roci entirely of any Proto presence, she hopes Holden and his crew are pleased about that. 

And, while she waits, she determines which of the scientists is least qualified on medical matters. And then pulls that person aside. She wants to do some poking at his mind, figure out what was done to him and the others.

At this point, given everything that's happened, she is pretty angry with the scientists and doubts she's going to feel that torn up about it if she breaks something in the process. 

Only a few of the scientists have any medical qualifications, most of them have other specialties. 

This scientist is SO ANNOYED to have been disrupted from his science. He asks if he can at least have a pencil to write down his protomolecule observations.

What the fuck. This is baffling as a priority, given the situation, and - well, given the rest that she's seeing, also really concerning! 

She gives him a pencil and some paper, though, why not. It'll give her a chance to spend three or four minutes watching his mind in action, when he's not focused on being scared of her. 

He forgets about her almost immediately, caught up in trying to sketch out how the protomolecule speaks - he's a linguist - what it seems able to pick up from observing their speech, where it's mimicking, what sorts of parts of speech it's most likely to mimic...

Huh. 

In some sense, again, it reminds her of Leareth. He's the only person she's ever met with that uncanny ability to block out all distractions and make his mind focus on whatever he wants it to. 

Only, she's not sure that this scientist is, exactly, doing this by his own volition... 

Once she's had the chance to get oriented to his mind-bread a bit, she hunts around for the region that should be associated with fear - and/or anger, and the various pathways that can follow from both of those. 

Does it get any response if she pokes that area? 

The area's not entirely gone but it's very thoroughly blocked - not a mindhealing block, something physical, like the way someone'll be blind if you cut the nerve to their eyes. Things that happen there don't go anywhere, they just die. It does not at all seem like he's doing this volitionally.

Nayoki generally thinks of herself as someone who isn't easily fazed. She works for Leareth, after all. She's used Mindhealing in combat and espionage, lots of times. 

...She is INCREDIBLY CREEPED OUT by whatever the hells was done to this guy's mind. 

What other areas are blocked in that way. 

Empathy. Self-preservation. That's...mostly it? A lot of things seem necessary for modeling the protomolecule; he's thinking perfectly clearly about his linguistics.

This is the most thoroughly messed up thing that Nayoki has ever seen! This is...saying a lot. Given who she works for. 

The Healers are all very busy but she's going to yoink one of them anyway. 

:Get over here: she tells Emril. :Something I need you to look at: 

She can't see how it was done, not with Mindhealing Sight alone, it's too - it's not the right level of abstraction. But if it's literal, physical damage, then a Healer in concert-rapport with her might be able to follow her lead and Look for the affected area. 

Emril, very very reluctantly, leaves the med bay, decontaminates, and jogs over. She approaches quietly, slips into concert-rapport with Nayoki. 

:...That's incredibly fucked up:

:Yes. Can you see what - how - this was done...?: 

...Sure. She's spent a lot more time looking at brains than she ever did before this week, since Leareth keeps having SEIZURES including SELF INFLICTED ones and she's supposed to fix this or something. 

Can her Healing-Sight, given Nayoki's Mindhealing visuals as a targeting aid, find any visible brain changes? 

Yep! There's brain damage in this whole sector of the man's mind. It looks like the electrical signals that usually make up thoughts are - dampened, interrupted, much less likely to propagate. The damage is physical, and very carefully contained to one section.

:Can you fix that:

Ack. Why this. 

:I have no idea! Usually you just can't heal brain damage, but this is so - precise. Maybe. Not...fast, though, I don't think: 

:- We are keeping this one as our human test subject, then. I doubt the others will care very much since they seem to have had their empathy and ability to feel fear surgically removed: 

Aaaaaaaaah. 

:...If you're sure about this? I can, um, try some things until we can make the Gate to the lab facility, at least. Patients are pretty stable. I might get called back if that changes: 

Emril hasn't specifically done Mindhealing concert-Sight before, and honestly that brilliant young Valdemaran Healer - Shavri, that was her name - would be better at picking this up on the fly. She gives it her best go, though, diving in very close with her Sight and applying some targeted Healing-energy, trying to coax dampened pathways into growing back stronger again. It's not going to be instantaneous; cells take a while to divide, and nerves in particular need some time to actually re-route. 

Nayoki watches intensely with Mindhealing Sight. Now that she's past the shock of it, she's mostly back to being curious - and impressed, if she's honest with herself - rather than horrified.