"
Of course!" Zashran says, and bows a little, gesturing for them to follow him. "
Please, I know a lovely place for dinner." He'll lead you to a fairly nice area closer to the labs, and stops at an open-air restaurant lit by powered light panels in fantastical shapes, augmented by carved woods in the shapes of strange animals. The name over the entryway is "Jungle Book Cafe". The fare seems to be rather old-fashioned food, the kind popular with Commuters: a noodle dish with a red savory fruit sauce and dino-meat balls, sweetened blitzed legume puree with berry compote on modified grain bread, ground dino-meat patties with hadrosaurus cheese on grain buns with vegetables, and so on.
After you have ordered your drinks (fizzy sweetened carbonated sodas, teas, still sweetened citrus water, or a kind of brewed, roasted bean drink that some people swear is "almost exactly unlike coffee"), Zashran is ready to address your concerns while you wait for your food to be prepared.
Roam Linden:
Roam narrowed his eyes. “I don’t understand, there are still SATI stations that have not gone rogue or splintered off. Why not just transfer her to one of these stations? What is the goal here? I have led a fair share of SATI people on hunts or guided them, this wouldn’t be anything special.....
He opened and closed his mouth several times, about to say something different each time. Finally he shut up and just shrugged his shoulders. Fine.
"
Ah, that had been our first thought, to send her to another station, but she said something to the effect of, 'I'm just transferring one window view for another!' And I suggested a SATI hunt, but the goals of a hunt group and an experimental group are often at cross-purposes, at least for the research she wanted to do. Miss Lewis is exceptionally talented, and I don't want to lose her to something preventable. And if I don't find someone to guide her, she will likely find someone else, and I'm afraid her inexperience could lead her to make a poor choice. Neither of you are on any SATI watchlist, as I know who's currently on them, and your skill and compassion in dealing with the runaway hadros shows you have the skills. You're also not associated with SATI, so that is a bonus as far as Miss Lewis is concerned. Now, I would think a trip of two weeks or so would be more than enough time for a safely uncomfortable trip, yes?" he says, spreading his hands to open negotiations.