"When I think of the power and time they must have spent on converting this ship, on pulling all these people here, on finding their families and their ships; if they can do all that for people they don't consider more than expendable distractions," she hissed those last two words through her teeth, "then the power of the Ohm must be incalculably greater." A cynical look. "Or maybe it was the previous Daligig administration who spent the money, and this crew here are running down their efforts because they're from the opposition."

"We need to get Stacy to trust us, and we need to empower her to help us as much as she can. It's entirely possible that the same programming that split her from the Warden is set up so that if it's deactivated, all of her permissions and decision-making powers are stripped away and given to the Warden. And if we deactivate the Warden, we may find that she had the final controls on podpops, or the water supply. We don't know how long it took the Daligig to change her - even she may not know that; they may have taken those memories. It could take years to unravel her." A sudden gleam of smile. "But it could be worth it."