Freyr frowned and cleared her throat, invoking a surprisingly pleasant aftertaste from the scotch. She leaned forward slightly, cradling her tumbler in both hands, and smiled sweetly at Vreta. “By the end of today, there’ll be twenty of the foremost minds on the Cradle aboard this ship. I’m privileged to lead them. Between us, we have about four hundred and fifty years of hands-on experience with a machine intelligence that’s almost certainly older than both our civilisations. The rest of my division is just a conference call away; at least another six hundred years of experience to apply to this problem. If anyone is going to be ‘catching up’, it is your team.”

Freyr leaned back and took another sip of her scotch, arms resting lightly on the arms of her seat. Masgard gave her an approving look from where he leaned against the plate glass window. “Your improved understanding of the natural world will come in useful, for sure. It may be that working [i]around[/i] the Cradle may yield some kind of breakthrough. But let’s be clear - while the Cradle environment shares similarities with the outside world, it’s also infinitely more complex. We underestimated it before, and it took my family. I'm determined not to underestimate it again. We should prepare for all possible outcomes to this expedition. What kind of resources do we have at our disposal while on Rothia?”