Sure, they weren't all the most sociable people, and were obviously still shaken by what they'd been through recently. Even so, the opportunity to talk to new people, to find out what they'd experienced in their lives and what they thought about the universe they lived in, was a surprisingly enjoyable one.
Unfortunately, her enthusiasm wasn't shared by everyone. The twins lost interest in their passengers as soon as they realized the scientists were too smart to risk letting their genetic material fall into the hands of Ishivi. Especially when the HAE employees turned their noses up at fooling around recreationally, which was all Barix and Belix seemed interested in; apparently socializing was beneath them.
That, and their abrasive personalities soon had the new arrivals aboard the ship steering clear of them.
Dax, who she'd never seen express fear about anything, seemed almost spooked by the presence of so many strangers in the private space he'd lived in all his life. He was reluctant to go anywhere the passengers might be, spending most of his time in their cabin resting to recover from his injury. That, or stubbornly going on duty, even though Ali had immobilized his right arm until it had time to recover, and he'd be far less effective on the guns.
The companion had told them that with skin and nerve regrowth and accelerated regeneration, his arm should be healed enough for use in a week to ten days. Not fully healed, certainly, but enough for him to resume his duties. She'd even hinted, obliquely, that his healing timetable might dovetail nicely into the travel time to the secret HAE base.
Until then, Ali had strongly encouraged the young man to take it easy, and set him on a regimen of painkillers and medicine to facilitate his healing. That left him, as someone who tried to fill every waking minute with productive activity, somewhat at a loss. Although, in his typical pragmatic fashion, he was fully on board with resting as ordered, even if he didn't like it.
Lana tried to convince him to come socialize during meals, and after a bit of prodding managed it a few times. But he was so obviously stiff and uncomfortable that conversations tended to die in his presence, especially since he was obviously suffering from his burns more than he let on, and wasn't putting much effort into being friendly and outgoing.
On top of that, their passengers acted a bit nonplussed by his expressionless features. And, she suspected, a few of them might've recognized him as a Construct and clearly distrusted him. It made her angry for his sake, but he didn't seem to care; if anything, her boyfriend almost acted relieved to have an excuse to avoid being around their guests.
Although to be honest, a few of the scientists seemed equally leery of casual conversation. The only exceptions were the older man who seemed to be in charge of the group, Linus, and a willowy, pretty woman named Terra who seemed unduly fascinated in Ali. Which Lana supposed was only natural, since these scientists had designed the adult companions.
Actually, Terra wasn't so much interested in chitchat as she was in asking Lana to describe her interactions with Ali. Although not by name, since Aiden had insisted they all keep from mentioning their names and certainly not the name of the ship.
Which made talking to people pretty blazing inconvenient, but Lana did her best even so.
“So your overall experience with the adult companion has been positive, but you feel that she prioritizes Captain, her human, to the detriment of the rest of the crew?” the scientist asked, tapping away at her pad. It was several hours after leaving Recluse, dinner long since over and getting closer to bedtime.
“Well let me put it this way,” Lana said carefully. “If someone shot a hole in the ship, Al-that is, the companion, would save Ai-um, the Captain, first.” Not using names was turning out to be harder than she'd thought.
“Interesting,” Terra mused, tapping her fingertips against the top of the pad. “Our intention was for companions to convey solid loyalty to their humans, but not to the point of seeming callous about the welfare of other humans. We want people to feel like they can always turn to any nearby companion for help, if needed.”
“Are you really that altruistic?” Lana asked. “You just want to make companions to make people's lives better?”
The willowy woman cocked her head, eyeing her curiously. “Isn't that everyone's goal in life? At least any good person . . . to improve their lives and humanity in the process.”
That was a somewhat troubling question. Lana liked to think her goal was to help people, but so far she'd mostly just tried to figure out what was going on in an insane universe and keep it from squashing her flat. In fact, since she was part of a pirate crew she wasn't even sure if she wasn't making things worse overall.
She supposed helping to free the HAE scientists was a good thing, but they hadn't set out to do that. That had just been an unexpected wrench in the works of their raid on the ERI facility, which certainly hadn't been motivated by altruism.
Since she couldn't think of any good response to that, she changed the subject. “Our companion called you her parents. Do you think of companions as your children?”
Terra looked a bit surprised. “In a way, I suppose,” she said. “I'm not much for sentimentality, but I do have high hopes for my creations.”
The conversation lagged a bit after that. The scientist seemed to have run out of questions to ask about Ali, and now that her goal for the conversation was done she didn't seem much more comfortable with casual chitchat than her colleagues. In fact, she looked like she was looking for an opportunity to excuse herself.
Lana couldn't help but sigh. “I was reading a study on socializing, and a famous sociologist once said
