“Whatever corruption is within the Cradle, it has been there long before the Navigator.” Vreta spoke up, from off to the side. “But if the Navigator is right, then it will not be enough just to avoid the Cradle. The threat may come for us in the real world, and if we are caught unprepared, we may not have a way to stop it.” 

Marae nodded along with Vreta, then picked up quickly after him. “It isn’t just about curiosity, or even discovery anymore. It’s about protecting our people…[i]both[/i] of our people. Our duty is to discover the truth about the Cradle, and this Navigator. Find out if it is telling the truth, and if so, find some way to help it stop the Hegemon. This isn’t a responsibility we can pass on to anyone else. There isn’t anyone more qualified than we are, because only understanding, only our research, is going to give us the answers we need.”

For the Rothian scientists, they were not terribly likely to refuse their mission, though there was selection bias in who was present. Each one was hand-picked by the Rahn’Saki, and under direct orders from them. Rothians did not have a tendency to disobey orders from the Rahn’Saki. Still, even if she was not expecting them to abandon the project, she had different problems she would have to deal with. Anxiety was going to become a persistent problem for her team. Rothians who were not trained for it did not tend to deal well with danger. After the attack on the surface, even Marae herself was medicated to deal with the stress, and she imagined others on her team would have it worse.