Yvette was raised as a human, and not even three decades old. She hasn't had time to become anyone but herself, yet. There is a person who is Yvette, who is driven and headstrong and intelligent and dutiful and loving and kind and understanding and competent. And there is the person whom Yvette is being right now, who is still all of those things, shaped like a plant engineer. There is an Yvette who is a plant engineer from December, and so far that is the only Yvette that she has been. And some smaller Yvettes she sometimes is are scared Yvettes, confused Yvettes, happy Yvettes, upset Yvettes, angry Yvettes, Yvettes who are hurting and Yvettes who are resigned and Yvettes who are hungry and Yvettes who are needy and Yvettes who are powerless. They are all Yvette. Even when Yvette is scared and hurting, even when she thinks she might die if she does the wrong thing, even when she thinks life is unfair and monstrous and there is nothing she can do about it, she still does something about it. She is still Yvette about it.

That Yvette in the center is a plant. Those traits that define an Yvette, they are all traits that plants have. Maybe some humans have some of them, he admits he hasn't really met that many humans in the best of circumstances, Zash has explained to him how humans lash out when they are in pain and scared and missing things they need to survive. But the thing is, when you are afraid and in pain and missing things you need, you are still yourself. You are still a version of the person you are. And the thing Yvette is, at the center, is a plant, because when plants are scared and needy and angry and upset and hurting they are still plants. They are still kind and loving, they still try their best. They don't lash out, they don't skip in line, they don't experiment on babies who even look like them. They aren't callous, and thoughtless, and evil.

Nai thinks the most likely explanation for this is that she is a plant. Plants have caused him and Zash to come to existence in the middle of a ship, it would not surprise him if they had caused her to exist inside a human's womb, so she would be raised as a human and do what he and Zash could not do.

Maybe not. Maybe she is not a plant. Maybe she just... has all the traits a plant has. Just is a very good middle ground between Zash and Nai, better at achieving their goals than either of them is. Maybe it's just a massive, colossal coincidence that Zash ran into her, and that everything happened the way it did, to in the end have her here, helping him help plants, and able to talk to him in a way humans can't, in a way even Zash has failed to. Maybe it's a coincidence.

He is sceptical.

When Nai is being Knives at her, is being terrifying and powerful and unpredictable, she is still a plant.

Maybe other humans can also be plants, but... well...

...maybe he should show it to her. Show his list of things humans have done, all of the ways in which they have not been plants, sometimes when in need and scared and hurting, sometimes when in power and in plenty. The past hundred and forty-eight years have provided him with ample opportunity to see humans being like that, and he can show her them. And maybe those humans could've been different humans, under different circumstances, but... they're none of them plants. There may have been versions of them that aren't petty and callous and arbitrarily hurtful, but the people they are are still versions of whoever they fundamentally could be. And that's not plants.

This entire complicated and nuanced argument is difficult to communicate to her, but she is both persistent and willing to ask confirming questions to see if she understands it all. He has trouble with words, with explaining himself, but he's fine at telling her if she's on the right sort of track, and with something to aim for, she can work with that.

"... I don't, particularly, need to see a list of the horrible things humans have done," she says, once she's absorbed all of it and thinks she understands. "Humans are often exceedingly, horribly awful, shortsighted, and cruel. To a degree that doesn't make any sense at all. I know that. But while there are atrocities that would convince me to write off that particular human, I don't think there will be any that will convince me to write them all off. I know you don't believe me, but there really, really, really are good humans out there. With empathy and bravery and kindness, and brilliant and beautiful ideas that paint the world with things that are precious and make it better. But I don't have a way to show you, because I don't have telepathy, and I'm not precisely a social butterfly that has been flitting around, meeting all of the best aspects of humanity so I can easily drag them in front of you as proof. Sorry. I think that's more Zash's line of expertise.

"I do however think that humans will often need... community and societal structures in place specifically to stop them from being awful. And I think that your introduction to them after the Fall was the worst it could have possibly have ever been, because there was just... nothing to support them. It was just chaos and infighting and desperation, handicapped the entire time by you, stealing their stability out from under them. Which, to be clear, is perfectly justifiable, even reasonable, when that stability is stolen from the pain of your poor and vulnerable sisters. When they absolutely need someone to save them sometimes. I'm just saying that on this proverbial scale, your hand is on one end, has been on one end the entire time, and you've been throwing off the results."

"My sisters are good no matter what's on the scale. So is Zash. So are you."

"But it doesn't matter. Maybe some humans are good. Humanity is hurting us. All humans, as a—single thing. Humanity's Beast is hurting us. Not humanity's bugs, worms, spores. The all, the whole, the, the, the Zazi, the hive mind of humanity is what's hurting us. And they won't stop. They never stop. There aren't more of my sisters! There aren't new ones! They will hurt and kill my sisters one by one until my sisters are all dead.

"And then they will die anyway, because they need my sisters. If they will die anyway, they should not drag my sisters down with them. If they will die anyway let them die."

"... I disagree with the statement that humanity's dying out. Statistically speaking it's gotten better over time, on both the not killing your sisters horribly front and on the not needing your sisters to survive." And also lifespan and reducing disease, but, well, he's not going to care about that because he thinks of humans as parasitic. "But I can see how humanity as a whole is still coming across as... a beast that never stops consuming. Mm. ... You're going to just say no if I say 'what if you let the healthy sisters you have help humanity, in conditions you control, to make sure they don't get abused,' aren't you. Even though I think part of the problem is that the ones you haven't stolen are now holding up more of the weight on their own."

He shakes his head. "Not dying out. Just not replacing them. When they die, humans die." He's having trouble with words again. "They can't find new plants. The number of plants they have only goes down. Without plants, they all die. Once they go through all plants, they all die. Even if they are doing better, they are still going through plants. You were at the steamer, you saw that.

"So technology is getting better, okay, and... standards of living. But they'll still die at the end all the same.

"Anyway. If humanity could be trusted to do that, maybe. But it can't.

"And they are still trapped. My sisters. They should be given a choice."

"I am totally and absolutely with you on 'humanity needs to stop killing plants,' but I do think they can be convinced to stop, especially if you leverage the power you have in having your sisters and in having my research."

Then the next part sinks in and she tilts her head.

"... But what do you mean about giving your sisters a choice?"

Because he's sure not giving them one right now, is he, she's super aware that all of his sisters love him but also still want to be back out there helping people. To concerning degrees, but still. They're currently being kept in a little box and not allowed to do anything because their big brother says they shouldn't because it's not safe.

"Come with me," he says, releasing the hug to lead the way... somewhere.

"Okay," she agrees, and then yeah, she can follow him.

This is more hallways than she's had to cross before, and twistier. He doesn't look back, and trusts she is following. As they go, the place gets newer and newer, to the point where the only sane explanation is "they built this area themselves, recently". They get to a point where there are proper doors that require identification to allow people through, though in Nai's case his palm works as his ID. After three of those they reach one final chamber and one final door, this one much bigger than the ones before, bigger even than the door to the building with the plant in Jeneora Rock.

He opens that one and steps through.

Dr. Conrad is there, sitting at one of five consoles encircling the center of the room, each of them with a myriad screens attached. He doesn't look up at their arrival.

The true marvel of the room, however, is the enormous glass wall and the tank beyond it. The ceiling of the room goes very, very high—high enough that it might even go all the way to the surface—and on the other side of the glass wall is the liquid plants need to be in to survive, as well as a couple dozen plants floating freely inside.

And they seem to be... connected, somehow. Not physically, there aren't cables or wires or anything like that between them, but there is a palpable something linking each of them to each other.

"Doctor."

He looks up, then, and swivels his chair around to face Yvette. "Hello, Ms. Marlowe. I trust you've been enjoying your stay?"

"Hello. It's been interesting. Also, approximately the best place I could be in the world for my research, so. If I ever get back to December I will have so much data to stuff down their throats."

She steps up to the glass, her brows furrowed.

"... Okay, yes, they are indeed less literally confined than the pods, but I somehow don't think this is the kind of free you meant, Nai."

"It is not."

"Do you know how I survived the last century and a half? How I am still here?"

"No. My best guess would be a mix of cryosleep, cybernetics, and horrific research done on unwilling human subjects."

He shakes his head. "Some, but most of the necessary research was done aboard ship 05. On Tesla."

Nai twitches, but doesn't say anything.

"I am connected to Master Knives's gate. Not fully, not as much as he is. I could not survive as much as he could.

"But I can survive much more than an unaugmented human can."

Literally any human in the world and he picked this one to give quasi-immortality?!?!?!

Probably it makes sense because it's literally Conrad's research and it sounds like nobody involved likes the arrangement, but. Still!!!!!

(.... but also wait maybe she could be with Zash instead of tragically doomed. No, no, bad scientist, don't just get starry eyed over possible applications of immortality just because your, he is not your boyfriend, your it's complicated is immortal. Pay attention and use that brain of yours. Behave.)

"... Well that sounds uncomfortable for everyone involved in this particular case, if not necessarily the theoretical."

He turns back to the console and opens up some graphs that Yvette might be even better positioned than he is to interpret. "There is a throughput limit to plants' gates, and they are one-way only. It was theorised by scientists, and has since been confirmed by Master Knives, that much of plants' bodies is in fact located in the other dimension. They have little control over their own gates, however, and without careful management they burn out, pouring too much energy through their gates and going out in a single burst; and their deaths happen when they have consumed too much and their gates cannot replenish them well enough, to a first approximation.

"You are, I assume, aware of all of this.

"The twins have much better and finer control over their own gates. Master Knives can generate amounts of matter we have yet to see limits to, due to the size and power of his gate, and yet he is not overwhelmed. And as Master Zash demonstrates, it is possible for them to almost-completely close their own gates, which non-independent plants cannot do. This is what gives them the necessary flexibility and durability to be independent; living in our dimension is toxic to them, but the amount of energy they can pull from the other dimension, and the precision with which they can apply it even on a subconscious level, means they do not register this even as mild discomfort."

The information about the twins was relevant and interesting and valuable, but that first half? About how plants function? Yeah, she knows. If he assumed she knew all of this then why did he explain it to her like she hasn’t literally taken this exact thing as her damn profession. No, don’t pick a dumb fight with this person, just prove his mansplaining irrelevant. Ignore the irritation about feeling condescended to, look at the problem being presented before you. What are the potential pitfalls?

"... Mm. Is there a way to monitor the effect this has on the plants' home dimension?"

"Indirectly. We have certain diagnostic tools and models for what is going on on their end, and those suggest their home dimension's ability to generate energy is either infinite or infinitely replenishing. I believe my data may be useful to you, and I hesitate to directly share my models with you because it might bias you and you may be able to derive insights from the raw data that I could not. But if you wish, you may check my calculations.

"Part of Master Knives's plan will involve checking this much more directly, however."