trans_9 | "Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating..." (Part 4: The Best-Laid Plans)

"So, wait. You were planning on teleporting us all out, but your teleporters burned out taking only a handful of us? That doesn't add up. And you still didn't tell us where you got the beauty mark. 'Domestic dispute' is beyond vague."

Howard's not here to make friends. Clearly.

"And if they were planning all along to pin this on you, why would you clone liberation types kill off the other clones, a.k.a. the only guys liable to have your back right off the bat? It'd make more sense if they framed you for the murder of the people who aren't sympathetic to you guys."

Well, Moses had at least answered some of their questions. Naturally, none of the answers that actually mattered were verifiable; if the two who died had any greater importance than Moses was letting on, that holofeed could easily be counterfeited. They had no way of knowing if this 'government contact' really existed. They didn't even have proof that these people were the real CLF, or this was the real Moses.

"I have to agree with Howard. No matter how incompetent the government might think our crew to be, the Councilors have already broken trust once with us. An explosion at the hotel the government itself arranged for us? Stationing us in rooms along the outer walls, rooms that would therefore be most vulnerable to outside attack? And only two unplanned casualties, at a hotel of that size?

"Even a child would realize the possibility of the bombing being a setup. Hardly what I'd call an ironclad scenario to garner the unwavering support of the survivors. "

He crossed his arms. "When do you estimate we'll be able to contact our crew?" Actually, he was wondering if there was someone among them who'd be able to make contact with the others even with the comm-blocks. If Ildraniath were here, perhaps, or someone with stealth capabilities... even someone with superhuman speed could drop off a simple message.

Zouichi wasn't going to buy this guy's act just because he'd sprung them loose. 'Moses' would have had to, anyway, if he wanted to take advantage of their abilities. There was no guarantee the tentacles couldn't be reactivated in the blink of an eye. And it would be easy to send in a few supposedly important clones to act as dummies for the actual leaders of the resistance, just in case the new prisoners ended up getting antsy.

"The sooner we get into contact with anybody left at the hotel, the better." Jr. spoke more to his fellow crewmembers when he said this. "Because no matter what the hell happened over there? The government is probably going to use it to their advantage either way. Tell the rest of them that the CLF did it, killed us all in the explosion. I'd like to hope they wouldn't just believe it..." He looked around thoughtfully. "But as of right now, they'll have no proof as to what happened anymore than we do. What really happened to us will be all guesswork."

Jr. felt strange, bad, even, when he decided to focus that speech more toward the others. His crew? After the talks they had the night before ... the things some of them said ... it gave Jr. a feel of disconnect. While there were those he trusted, he wondered what the true meaning of 'his crew' meant on board Stacy. He wasn't sure if he could trust many of them any more than he could trust the CLF and the government right now. Many of them only seemed to care for each other simply because they were on this quest together, willing to turn away, ignore and throw others under the bus if they didn't have the displeasure of having their worlds destroyed. Jr. wondered what would happen to that sort of weak camaraderie after this was all over, or if they ever discovered something that could just as easily shatter it. So was it really a bad thing to be willing to hear the CLF out?

Jr. looked at Howard. "Nobody knows who we are on this planet, except for the higher-ups, the councilmembers and these guys. They won't have to outright state that the CLF killed other clones, just that they 'killed people'." He paused for a quick moment when he said that, an uncomfortable touch to his features. Even though that was a phrase he wouldn't use himself, the thought of them saying that to the public ... the idea of such hypocrisy pissed him off. "Or even that they killed people and clones, trying to write them off as monsters who'd even kill their own if it meant taking down their actual targets. But, there's the flip side to that, too." Because it could just as easily go the other way around.

Moses's explanation made sense to Kang, even if he still didn't quite believe the timing was purely coincidental. It could easily be paranoia speaking; he'd been betrayed far too many times by people claiming to be on his side.

"Jr.'s right. No one knows about us. We were teleported straight to the hotel after we got branded, and as far as I know, none of us left the suites we were given. The Council could easily spin this in their favor." He wasn't willing to trust them completely yet, though. There were too many unknowns. "I'm not going to be satisfied that you aren't lying to us until we can contact the others in our group and hear what they've been told, though."

Edited 2011-07-17 23:34 (UTC)

From last to first. "Listening and trusting are different. I can hope for both. I can't expect the latter. Tends to be why I ask for the former." Another brief smile, vanishing into seriousness as his tone took on a factual tone. Things had happened in the past. Moses knew the importance to accepting that they had, to move forward into the future. To improve. To change.

To not be the Council yet again.

"There were rash decisions made early on in the CLF. Things done out of vengeance, not thinking ahead. We've changed our approach over time, wised up, but the government picked up our slack. They've kept an aggressive rep alive for years after we left it behind for their own purposes."

"Once you're outside this room, your comm's should be able to contact the rest of your crew. Should," he repeated, with a hint of a frown. "Long range comms were still up before I came in. As long as we stick to the timing I mentioned, you should get through. While we're careful."

If comm-sweeps weren't coming in too fast. They had people monitoring, and out of the "dead" zone, they'd be able to tell him and the crew when it was safe to make a bid for contact.

This had all happened so quickly, forces were responding to each surprise more slowly than might have been planned otherwise.

"We were forced to move before we wanted. The 'porters weren't grounded right, half still weren't in place. You don't have to trust my word on that. I'd rather hand over the files for the 'porters we use so you can read the specs yourself. Takes more of your time, but it gives you a better idea. We had almost no time to get in place by the time your hotel was confirmed."

As for Howard's point... "Why's a good question. But the same government can spin that in desperation, the CLF bombed visiting diplomats and took out the people who'd care most in an fateful twist. Or we're so indiscriminate that it doesn't matter who dies, as long as our point makes it through." There was a nod to Junior for that. That the latter was true to an extent didn't merit thinking over. Some deaths were avoidable. Others weren't.

"I'm sorry, Zouchi. But you said only a child would think that it wasn't a setup. But that's the problem, most of the Realies think like children. They believe what they're told. They live in dream worlds that give them everything they want without them having to do anything. Your crew is more intelligent, but the Government is hardly used to manipulating people that can think at their level." She was still leaning against Moses, tiny face serious.

"And as for killing clones, well, what better way to make us look even more evil? We'll even kill off-world clones, how low we've sunk. Like Jr. Said, at the moment we're not fighting an army, we're fighting opinions. We're fighting being turned into monsters in the dark. We want to be free. Just like you, what you have...a place on a crew and lives of your own? Families? Friends? We want that." She held up her wrist, showing the smoking remains of her personal teleporter. "I dragged Zouchi and Howard here, because I was afraid of a sweep that would pick them up and kill them. My teleporter is only meant for one, so it burned out. The same thing happened to the bigger teleporters. Too much, too fast, and not enough time to do it properly. When you're trying to save lives, you can't hesitate. Or at least, that's what Bilbo says."

"I don't know how old you are, kid, but only someone who's never lived with no one but children would say this place is mostly populated with them. Just saying."

He looks at Jr. and Kang. "Our crewmates knew about us. Either the government wanted to take us all out and really, really suck at their jobs, or they've got the world's best spinmasters to try and pin it on the CLF - and let's face it, they didn't exactly pull the wool over our eyes in our first day here. Diplomacy and persuasion aren't really their ace of spades."

He crosses his arms and hunches his shoulders, retreating a little physically. "I don't buy it. But I'm not the person you need to convince anyway, so I'll just stand here and be powerless," he says, shooting a glance at Kon.

As Moses and Harriet (if those were their real names) continued to speak, Zouichi couldn't help but wonder if they were purposefully trying to firebomb any possible confidence in the CLF the crew might harbor. Sending a representative out to talk to two other people with a transporter built for one? Offering them evidence that they'd have no idea how to verify, evidence that could just has easily be tampered with as be real?

If they'd simply told him the facts and asked him to help at the start, he would have. Instead, these people had kidnapped part of the crew, trussed them up like turkeys (maybe out of some chain of command issue, maybe not), and tried to guilt trip them into feeling sorry for their captors. Actions spoke louder than words, but he had no idea what they were trying to tell them with their actions, unless it was 'we have no idea what we're doing'.

Was this really the face of the resistance?

Someone had bombed the hotel, that was for sure. But apparently he wasn't going to find out who from these people.

"You may not trust in our fellow crew members," he said, eyeing Harriet coolly, "But I do." Sure, they fought a lot. And some of them were morons (somewhere, Zetta sneezed). But he'd still trust them over these two.

"At any rate, if it's true that moving out of this room will allow us to contact the rest of the crew, then we should do so. We can let them know we're safe, and you can rest assured that our easily manipulable crew won't have the wool pulled over their eyes. This is in both of our interests, is it not?"

Fate felt horrible. On one hand, as stated earlier, she was a very sympathetic person. She fought hard for the children, and any other clones or artificial beings, and made sure they never had to be subjected to what she went through, both at the hands of her mother and her own horrible thoughts. Her heart ached for these people when they first found out about them, and that feeling only intensified after what the group had been through.

But her sympathy was slowly draining, and that hurt. It really did They were talking about how they had to do this, and had to do that, but... all of this seemed too extreme, event to Fate, who had dealt with resistance groups like this before. She knew it was a huge risk to just go up to their group and try to talk to them, but it should have been a risk they were willing to take if they wanted to gain their sympathy.

But of course, she didn't voice any of this. Her feelings were more or less being voiced by everyone else, and she didn't want to add to all that and just be repetitive.

"He's right. The sooner we get in contact with our friends, the better." Helping them before they could be deceived was the priority, of course, but Fate was also desperate to get into contact with Nanoha ASAP. She couldn't even imagine how she was taking the news of her supposed death right now.

"We'll take you up on that offer to check the porter files, but it's probably best to save that for after we get together with the rest of our crew again." There was probably someone more knowledgeable in the area than him that could give it a quick enough read over to make sure it checked out fine. "Mind giving us a copy now, so we can pass it off to someone who can make quick judgment of it later?" And hopefully, if someone had the skills, to see if the files could have or might have been tampered with in any way. "Not that we're completely distrustful, but I hope you guys can understand that being completely foreign to this planet, we're still not sure what all the nitty-gritty details of this whole thing are. So just like you guys want us to trust you, we want you to trust us the same way. I'm not sure how many others you took from the hotel ... but I hope if any more of the guys who aren't like us," a quick, annoyed motion to his forehead. God, he hated having to make the distinction, "are here, that we don't hear from them that you treated them the same way the government treated us. 'Cause stuff like that is what kills a lot of the trust points, you know?"

Restraints aside, since even the clones had woken up the same way. So far, they hadn't taken any harsh action to demean or attack the so-called 'Realie' of their little group, like what had happened to the branded crewmembers when they were separated, and they'd soon see if that were the case for the other non-clones. Aside from the initial methods of bringing them here restrained, Jr. didn't have much of a huge reason to outright distrust these people just yet. They hadn't taken any DNA from them, they did split them up, which was still something up in the air. If they were telling the truth about the teleporters, that was probably the reason why. But only if. And they hadn't decided to be hypocritical dicks and brand the non-clones to make a point.

Jr. stood up straight, nodding over to Zouichi. "Right, let's get outta here and contact the others before we finish up this little conversation. Since they're here, too, they're probably talking to other members of the resistance. Best if we merge both groups to get a better idea about what's going on."

Not just for their benefit, just in case another group heard something interesting. But they'd be able to meet more of this resistance that way as well.

The fact that Harriet looked like she was about to cry didn't have any effect on Kang, but he didn't like Zouichi's words to her, and he shot a look at the man. "Zouichi, I don't trust these people much yet either, but you've misunderstood what she just said. She didn't say that we were easily manipulated." No, she'd complimented them. He could easily see how the population on the planet could be manipulated, when they'd had clones to do everything for them for thousands of years and no real problems until recently.

It wasn't going to help either group to have any misunderstandings between them.

"You haven't answered the question yet of why you wanted to talk to us in the first place, either. Why did you risk blowing out your teleporters to rescue us? What do you want from us?"

"No one's powerless," Moses said, looking at Howard. "Not unless they decide to be."

Which might be the crux of some of their problems. He wished they'd had more time, that it hadn't come down to a scramble, but it had. It had, and things had gotten messy.

Hard to make folks understand how reactive this had been, how last minute. Harriet was supposed to take people in on foot, if they were willing to meet with the group. She'd been forced to teleport them out, reacting in fear for her safety -- and the safety of two strangers.

Harriet was a brave little girl. He was proud of her, letting one hand rest on her shoulder and give it a light, reassuring squeeze.

Zouichi's misunderstanding was addressed by Kang before Moses interjected. He preferred that, hearing them talk to and with each other. Communication was important to any group's success. The CLF, or this part of a crew from a ship allied with the GIA in a war that was next to impossible for them to comprehend.

"Make no mistake," he said, congenial enough. "As Kang has said, Harriet was choosing to praise you all for seeing when so many in our world choose to be blind. No insult."

If he couldn't entirely blame them for looking to hear insults where there were none.

"I'll transfer the files over to your comm devices. They've got decent storage on them?" A few quick taps of his fingers on his own similar device, the feed from earlier disappearing as he did a search for the files he needed. "There we go. That should be good."

"The rest of your group has been treated," just the slightest twitch of a frown, "Like you, if again, I apologize for the suddenness. Intentions aside, we've not been the kinds of hosts we should have been. Which brings me to why," Moses said, looking to Kang.

"Why we'd risk what we have for the chance to speak with all of you. By now I'm sure you're aware of the way of things on Galilee with clones. We're granted short lifespans, specific skill and memory sets, stunted IQs. This all seems to have lasted the last five thousand years, with a few upgrades," there was something heavy in his voice as he said that word, "And slight changes to the system until we ended up with the one we have now."

"Ten years ago was the first big shake up in the system. Late life clone memories were uploaded into the Mother Brain, processed and placed into clones in all known classes. It sped up the process of self discovery, something that usually happened near the end of our lives. Starting younger means more time to think, to act on our own. To be something more than what we're designed to be."

"We're very close to being able to launch another memory dump into the Mother Brains. There's only so much damage control the government can do at any one time, especially without calling a total shut-down they can't afford." His lips twitched, another not-quite smile. "It's one of the problems in having a workforce that needs constant renewal. They're constantly being renewed."

Toward the tail end of Moses's announcement, a tall, lanky form came in through the entrance. At first his face was lost in the shadow, just a trick of the lighting as he entered the room.

Not that those who were inside would expect to find him here. Kanner Drayan, one of the Council of Five, looking tired but alert in a way he hadn't during the rest of his time spent interfacing with the crew. There was almost something more focused and alive about the man now, smiling with a twitch of his lips as he greeted the room.

"Moses," he said, then a shift to the side. "And Harriet." He looked to the other faces, all far too familiar, Howard aside. "Everyone," Kanner said, nodding to them all. "Hello."

On a normal day, on any normal occurrence, Moses's reassurance and Kang's defense would have been enough. But it had been a long day and she had spent most of it on high alert, and she had risked her own life to save two strangers who had now decided that nothing she said could be considered truth, or meaningful. And that they hated her. One of them was even a clone, she had done so much to try to protect them, taking a chance in overloading the teleporter in order to bring them to what limited safety she could offer, and they hated her.

"They're not heroes at all." The words were slightly cracked, barely more than a whisper, those without exceptional hearing would only see her lips move, Harriet didn't make a single noise as the tears begin to pour down her cheeks, body shaking with each nearly silent sob. A child who wants for attention cries loudly, a child who cries because they have nothing left at all to do cries silently.

"Kanner." The word was delivered on the end of a sob, and she launched herself at him, arms going tight around his waist and burying her face in his stomach. Kanner was here, he would explain everything to them. They would have to understand how much was at risk.

Howard snorts at Harriet. The tears of adorable, browbeaten children do not move his cold, blackened heart. Like he didn't see that every day for a year and a half, with neither the means nor any remaining will to put an end to it. "Life's rough, isn't it, sister."

Who's this goon?

Howard doesn't recognize the face, but he does recognize the name - it certainly got thrown around enough after the brandings. Without even thinking about it he moves a hand to touch Zouichi's arm, a quiet 'hold steady, man'. It occurs to him a moment later that Zou wouldn't need that. He looks around at the others, trying to gauge their reactions. For all they know, this isn't the Kanner that branded them.

Zouichi hadn't spoken to Harriet with any sort of vitriol, so he had no idea what The Look was for, especially since Moses was no doubt monitoring all of them for sources of internal conflict.

Probably more posturing. He quietly filed this and the liberties with his name away in a small mental notebook he liked to call Why Kang Can Shove It He Knows Where (WKCSIHKW for short).

He did, however, care if he'd misheard Harriet, whose words he caught as she began to cry. Heroes? Is that what they thought this crew was made of? Certainly there were some aboard, but there were many who were morally grey at best, and some were outright villains.

His expression softened slightly. Disillusionment was a cruel thing; it was something he'd had to experience firsthand on this mission, much more than he would have liked to. "I'm sorry if I misunderstood you," he said. "I thought you were insulting our friends~~, and also Lex~~."

And then Kanner waltzed in without so much as a warning from the other two. For a long moment, Zouichi's expression spoke so much louder than words. Words that, were he from 20th-century Earth and part of a wildly different demographic, might loosely translate to, 'oh no, you di'int'.

"Is this the 'government contact' you spoke of earlier?"

~~Because if it wasn't, maybe Zouichi was going to walk up and gently choke Kanner. With love! Until he stopped breathing.~~

It was only afterward that he noticed Howard had placed a hand on his arm.

(P.S. He still didn't trust them.)

Any effect Harriet's tears had on Fate's own heart - which was practically made up of one huge soft spot for children - was immediately pushed aside as she noticed who it was that had just walked in.

"You don't seriously expect us to work with him after what he did to us, do you?" She didn't even bother trying to keep the edge out of her voice when she spoke. If he was indeed their 'government contact', then that meant that he was a clone, as Moses mentioned. But honestly, that didn't matter to Fate. Just seeing the man made her angry, and it didn't take much to notice it.

Before Kanner walked in, Jr. couldn't help but shoot a quick glare to Howard. "Cut it out! There's no need to say crap like that to her." Sure, Harriet didn't completely ACT like a kid. If she was truly a defenseless child, she probably wouldn't have been trusted with something like the teleporting device on her wrist. But Jr. was a child once. He was raised as a weapon, trained as a weapon - dangerous and able to aim and shoot at targets with frightening accuracy. But inside all of that he had still been a child. Lost, confused, young and afraid and with barely any sense of self or worth, longing for things he was taught he didn't deserve to have. Of course, there was also the matter of trying to at the very least keep a neutral, defensive ground in their position. Being patronizing and insulting wasn't going to do a thing in anybody's favor.

His blue eyes went from annoyed, serious to wide surprised when Kanner walked into the room. Jr. turned to him, a choked noise in his throat in the form of a reaction he couldn't quite get out in that moment. Was this really happening?

Even as Jr.'s eyes narrowed, taking a step back and giving Kanner a dirty, questioning look, the gears in his head were turning. "What the hell are you doing here?!" he asked, hardened voice a mix of demanding, but curious. But even though he spoke harshly, thoughts started to race through his mind. So he tried to stay as calm as he could beyond that until they started talking.

"And you want our assistance with making another memory dump," Kang caught on immediately. "Frankly, after the way we've been treated by everyone on this bloody planet, you're going to have to give us a good reason to-"

He stopped mid-sentence at seeing Kanner, wings flaring slightly in surprise and anger. The growl from earlier started back up again, and a few sparks began to dance around his mouth; they were much weaker than the previous instance, and he knew he couldn't manage another bolt so soon, but the CLF and Kanner didn't.

"You'd better start explaining what the hell is going on, and quickly, Councilor." His voice was low, dangerously calm.

At this point, so much was happening and being said so fast, that Kon's head was nearly spinning, but he went quiet as he tried to process it all.

The girl crying over them not being heroes tugged on the right strings, though. Not enough for him to rush right into things, but enough to listen, and to listen properly.

Enough to think properly, too.

"Either he's a clone of the Councilman...or the Councilman's a clone."

He nodded towards Kanner. "Which is it?"

He ran a hand over Harriet's hair, letting it settle on her back. "It's been a long day, hasn't it?" Meant for her, it could apply to any of them. They all had long days lately. Kanner couldn't recall a short one yet. "It's good to see you too, Harriet." He rubbed her back, an attempt at reassurance, letting her stay close as long as she'd like.

Kanner wasn't exactly amused, but Kon's question almost had him there. It neatly brought everyone else's demand around to the same subject. "Or all five Councilors are clones might be closer to the truth. Clone bodies, brain and memory implants. We're much, much older than any file on record would be able to tell you."

He wasn't relaxed -- he'd done some pretty horrible things, taken control away from most these people earlier today -- and Kang was sparking again, but he held his hands passive, palms angled slightly toward the group. Kanner had been surprised the first time Kang had manifested lighting, and this time, without a personal shielding system, he really didn't feel up to being 'surprised' again.

"You've unfortunately been dropped down into the middle of a five thousand year old dictatorship run by the same five minds the entire time. Immortality might be a human impossibility, in the traditional senses, but we've made our own version. Degradation of organic materials that forced advancements in the fields of memory and sensation retention and transfer is probably why I'm here in the first place."

He figured they'd have questions, if this at least brought them back around to the Mother Brains. "I'm sorry about this morning." For once, he actually sounded it, though that tiredness he'd worn previously in the day hadn't gone anywhere. He just wore it better. "It doesn't make up for anything, and you still have my apologies."

She nodded, arms linked tight around his waist, still crying nearly silently into his stomach. It had been a very long day, she hadn't slept any of it. She was exhausted and stressed and wanted to curl up next to the first person who looked like they might be willing and go to sleep. "It's good to see you." She hadn't expected to, none of them had. With the remaining diplomats left behind, she hadn't expected they would see Kanner before they left.

But he was here, and she felt entitled to a tiny measure of comfort after the day.

Howard's comment made her flinch further into Kanner's stomach, remembering starving because she'd won a game, or the cruel nature of a bully who liked causing pain just because he could.

After all, she was only a pet, wasn't she? What would society care if she died. It wouldn't. She was nothing more than a pretty purchase to the realies. Something that could be put down just as easily as it could be bought. Did Howard understand that? Did realies do those sorts of things to other realies? Or was he just a cruel boy who thought his measure of suffering was greater than anyone else's?

She wanted Bilbo.

But Kanner was talking and she knew better to interrupt when he was doing something official, and talking to the clones wasn't something she even wanted to try to do anymore. They were all angry.

Howard doesn't respond to Jr.'s reprimand. He knows it was mean and uncalled for. He just doesn't care.

At hearing that this is, indeed, the same Kanner, Howard doesn't remove his hand from Zouichi. He doubts an apology or some indication that this was necessary for the CLF's schemes (which neither he nor Zouichi have a hell of a lot of respect for anyway) will do anything to make Zouichi feel less like punching someone ~~with love~~.

Actually, Howard kind of wants to punch this guy too, and Howard's not the punching type so much as the 'be a jerk to little kids who can't fight back' type. You've got a punchable face, Kanner. And this is coming from a supremely punchable kid.

He squints as he turns Kanner's explanation over. Dealing with immortality and high tech and nonsense like that is totally not in his realm of experience. He feels his input was probably more valuable when they were talking about stealing things. "So are we supposed to believe after five thousand years, you're the Councilor that's seen the light?"

Zouichi was not at all surprised to hear the Galileeans had used their technology to skate around the limits of the human lifespan and maintain power. After all, that's exactly what they'd done on his own world. And, as it turned out, immortality had been possible.

Of course, being immortal didn't mean you couldn't be killed.

"I would also like to know what prompted this sudden change in heart." The skepticism, it was palpable. "Additionally: did you have a hand in uploading the clone memories the first time? Or did they do that all on their own?"

By now, Zouichi was pretty tired of playing twenty questions with every clone that showed up. He was built for action, and while he didn't mind chatting it up with people from time to time, the people here were grinding his gears. He didn't care about roundabout allusions, misty-eyed anecdotes, or implications dropped on the sly. He could imagine what the clones had been through -- he even sympathized with them. He'd seen what humans were capable of doing to their own people back home, let alone those they considered inferior. What he didn't like was having to prod these people for every single relevant detail when they were the ones asking for help.

Didn't they have a pamphlet or something? Were they going to go through this separately for every group they'd 'rescued'?

"I would also like to know the risks that your plan entails for us and for you, the estimated probability of success, time duration required for the operation, and the extent to which the success of this mission will disrupt the governments immediate state of operations, particularly their ability to repel attack against orbiting outside spacecraft."

That last one was key. If they still couldn't get out after the operation, they'd be stuck on this rock.

Again, someone had already voiced the questions Fate had been planning to ask. So, to avoid having them listen to the same thing over and over, she kept quiet.

She, like Zouichi, was getting tired of all this. Even her patience had a limit, after all. They had spent so much time talking yesterday, then this happened, and now they were going round after round of talking. She knew how important briefing them on the current situation was, but she was starting to wonder if they'd be able to get anything accomplished by the time the ship came to bring them back.

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