"You shouldn't get more than you have meaningful work for, but other than that, no. But three pairs is about as far as you can stretch the surveillance job."

"Ah, fair enough. I was just thinking in terms of... keeping them away from other ...owners."

"Yeah. Well, we can try it if you want, I guess, but I'd feel better about it if you had a plan for what to do if it doesn't work."

"Let's start with a manageable number."

"Yeah."

"Actually - I've never asked, but they might have some droids in standby mode; if you get those they can wait until there is more work to do. I'd usually suggest we wait and look for an opportunity to pick up older droids instead, but with Dusk working on that one project, it makes sense."

"Oooh, let's do that. Is standby mode being effectively asleep or effectively dead? Or what?"

"It's - being turned off, like any other machine. They aren't dead, they'll still have whatever memories they went into standby with, but they aren't dreaming or aware of their surroundings even as much as sleeping people are."

"What he was trying to get at is, if it's preferable to buy droids and put them on standby or not."

"Ah." She considers it. "It really depends on what we end up doing with them - if we can move them to a better situation, that's obviously better, even if it's not with us, but I'm not sure we'll be able to do that. And if we can't - I would consider leaving them on standby in the long term to be a harm done to them; not a major one, but still a harm."

"Possibly a plan left for when we are less building-defenses-against-a-catastrophe."

"Yes."

Well, do they have droids in standby mode?

They have two, as it turns out, both older-model protocol droids like Daisy. They also have eleven active droids - seven protocol droids, optimized for things like child care and secretarial work, one multi-armed chef, one astromech, and two squat, boxy repair droids.

They will take the standby droids. The chef is obviously useful too. They get the extra four droids for surveillance and debate with Daisy how many they should be able to take for secretarial work. They can use another astromech and the repair droids, right?

They probably don't have enough work for a third astromech, unless they're planning on making more machinery specifically for that purpose, nor, really, the repair droids, though they do have a reputation for being more tolerant of boredom than most sorts. They can probably make enough work for one secretary, but maybe not two and definitely not three; they'll have to leave at least one of the protocol droids, unless they come up with something else for them.

Is there a way to check if the repair droids are... fond of each other? It sounds reasonable to take one. Are they breaking up any friendships? And one secretary should be enough, yes.

There's not an easy way to tell if they're friends, but the general store (unlike the pawn shop) does wipe its droids regularly; they won't have developed enough personality yet to be that close.

There is still some variance, though; Daisy talks briefly to each of the protocol droids, to identify which two are most docile and will be left behind.

Then they will leave with their morally dubious purchases.

Yup.

(Daisy picks up some other things before they go - a few bags of bulk staple foods, some tools, some calligraphy ink, a few books that were being held for Dusk - and lets the manager know that they'll be moving; she tells her to send the rest of Dusk's poetry subscriptions to the library.)

When they get back to the shuttle, Nine is standing guard outside, and the mechs are still camped out in the hold. It's a bit crowded, with all the new droids.

(Felix can make the various staple foods, tools and etc.)

The winged humans don't complain about the crowdedness.

(Of course he can. She buys them anyway.)

"I just need to visit the library and the town hall now; you can stay here, if you want."

"Alright, thank you."

When she's been gone for a little while, the two astromechs emerge from the back, beeping quiet hellos to the new droids as they approach Trevor and Felix.

"Do you need anything?"

"Can you really understand us?"