Marae frowned, or at least gave the Rothian equivalent. “I know you brought your best for this expedition, but Rareth doesn’t want to take any chances. Brain damage is a serious concern, especially with the symptoms Agent 595 was exhibiting. No offense, but our equipment can map a brain in far greater detail than yours, and will be much more likely to catch the problem. Besides, more detailed scans means more data points for determining what could have caused the issue in the first place. If there are any problems, you’ll have to talk to Rareth about it. She’s the one who made the decision.”

For a few moments, Marae took the time to to review what information she had on Cradle terraforming. What Freyr described was not inaccurate, but Marae was not convinced that they had the complete picture. “As for terraforming, it is not dangerous to us, yes, but can we truly say for sure that the same is true for the environment itself? So much is unknown about the Cradle and similar objects. Humanity has terraformed the Cradle for centuries, and now, the Cradle itself is becoming hostile to outsiders. It is true that we cannot simply assume that the two are related, but neither can we rule it out. The deeper mechanisms that control these objects are still an unknown. Perhaps we can at least [i]start[/i] by trying to contact the being again? Then, we can ask directly if such processes harm the simulation.”