“What do you mean I have insufficient facilities?!”

Pylo was a little hurt, sure they were offering her extra vouchers for this.

Authenticated and unique cryptograms of intent that had redundancies stored by every institutions and deep archive Redweed could scrounge up. There was even recordings being encrypted and sent out via caravan relays to the surrounding farming communities clear across the astroshell.

By all accounts the proverbial debt represented by these vouchers was liable to be either a curse or a holy artifact by the time the traders present here came back around.

But still!

“I’m sorry but it is well documented that part of the evaluation of your needs that facilitated Tunie’s grist surplus is that you are literally the only crew member available for services and oversight aboard her”

Pylo found herself pouting in another terranism. Which was lost on the investigator. Although her tone, hurt and indignation were of course as clear and obvious as could be anyway.

“But surely it must count that I’m handling my current passengers fine, I mean we already established it was not MY fault that Redweed’s Port authorities ‘raped their ancestors on this one’ That must count for something!”

“The vigor with which you defended them and the degree that you were incensed by trespass against them is why you have such a favorable voucher conversion on refugee mass yes... But it is a considerably larger effort to keep three passengers alive, healthy and well enriched”

“Passengers that are so fragile they carry their blood on their outsides and have more allergens and toxins than anything else in redweed!”

“Dunʌi”

“Eh?”

“Terrans are the dunʌi most fragile citizen candidate organism found or encountered by redweed. They have substantially greater resistance to sustained acceleration then your oncoming cargo’s late stage individuals and even when you consider the need for constant supplemental oxygen they function at incredibly high metabolic efficiency! One of them could probably remain active for as long as Den Surk at full metabolic activity! Maybe even longer. That is significantly in excess of most citizen species.”

Pylo boggled. That was a lot longer than she could go before she would simply seize and have to wait for her body to flush and reset its metabolites. It also was SIGNIFICANTLY longer then she had ever seen any of the terrans actually remain active.

“I think your numbers might be a bit off, most of them at best are active for a sur. Maybe a bit more or less. I’ve never seen any of them stay active any longer then that.”

▙◀ shifted a bit then adjusted a few elements to another arrangements.

“Perhaps your passengers do not aim for maximum efficiency? Either way It was an extrapolation from their genomics and the gastronomists findings.”

Pylo could not taste a lie in the blocky canner. So she supposed she must accept that they were being honest here.

“Still the fact remains the Terrans are significantly more robust in many ways then these new passengers. More sensitive in many others yes. But the refugees are not only fragile in many ways your current cargo is not.”

The block of pile shifted and rearranged as it spoke, but as far as Pylo could tell there was no meaning behind those movements, just idle autonomic processes.

“But there is also significantly more of them! Your vouchers will be credit for taking on a Thunk of gravid clerks and supporting adolescents and juveniles. The ministry of health and services insisted that you have increased staff made available for their care and wellbeing on this journey. For your own needs and comfort as well as theirs”

She did not like it, but at the same time what ▙◀ was saying was not untrue. That would be significantly more effort then simply a trio of canners. And they were explicitly listed as passengers in the offered aide contract.

And it was not like she had to take the refugees anywhere in specific. Clerks were welcome all over the reef. The little busy bodies happily filled whatever businesses, organizations or governmental positions a population needed. Their young were eager little critters who happily did menial labor for comparatively sparse upkeep.

And when they mature into adults they were easy to store, keep and maintain. Their life support needs centralizing well if available.

Honestly Pylo was pretty sure that she could get a commission on every single one of the ‘refugees’ and their offspring that she offloaded. There was always a niche for them in most habitats and they were even good in some outreach projects.

Nothing could drive some ports up to proper grist production capacity quite like a sudden surplus of eager clerical laborers that worked for scraps.

And with even one extra set of skilled attention available on Tunie Pylo could maybe actually keep up with her chores.

All it would take would be to accept that ▙◀ would be aboard Tunie for however long it took to offload all these refugees. Let someone else aboard her friend that might develop less than wholesome intentions. Pylo had to marshall herself to not think to heavily on that. It made her ovi squirm and prime with infectious and malicious genes even considering those times.

She had thought that they were honest and fine people too. It had seemed like they would all be friends for a very long time as crew and comrades. But if Pylo had not insisted she wanted to join Tunie’s crew?

They would have...

She shook her head heavily in another terranism.

It was not going to be like that! She would not let it! There was only this one assistant. And they were not here for Tunie, they were here to help keep the stacks and stacks of clerks alive and well in their little cans.

And on the other flank Pylo was being driven to exhaustion every trip barely keeping up with Tunie’s in flight needs. And now she had passengers to worry about?

“If you take on the additional duties of support for my existing passengers for the duration I’ll accept those terms.”

▙◀ mirrored one of the terranisms by bobbing up and down one of its components. It was the tall blocky one with the flickering membrane of light and dark that apparently was supposed to stand in for a face.

A massive flurry of light and patterns poured down its face.

“Employee-transparency-protocol-activated! Adjusting-parameters-of-protocols, accepted-employment-handshake, sorting-and-prioritizing-skill-splines, orientation-plasticity-increased, structural-targets-forming-to-acceleration, service-protocols-adopted, employment-verification-complete-commencing”

Flowing with the flickering lights in pulses and waves was a sudden and massive open communicative spew of meaning and intent. It was, weird, like all the subtler and less explicitly voiced intentions were being actively dragged out into conscious speech.

“It is acceptable. As you wish I will provide. Ship Mistress Pylo Courtesan”

When the ‘direct’ speech voiced itself pylo suspected a younger siren would have missed it.

Pylo huffed heavily, venting waste material and denatured viruses into her digestive folds.

Letting all evidence of her aggressive impulses melt away in acidic fizzing slurries.

“You aren't going to call me that are you? I’m not strictly speaking one who prefers all that official full name, title and breeding thing”

The cheeky pile of blocks tilted its ‘head’ in mirror of her terranisms. Which just made it that much harder to not fall into them.

“Increasing-sarcasm-filters, playful-employee-employer-mockery-engaged, endearment-target-activity-engaged, performance-relationship-engagement-analysis-commencing, deploying-quip.”

The flood of preamble semi-voiced words shoved itself into ▙◀’ language centers in time with the flickering light and pattern on its ‘face’.

“Whatever is your wish, Ship Mistress”

Somehow the statement seemed even more smug when taken with the exacting explanation that preceded it.