[quote]The Department heads hustled into the conference room - they were all busy but equally keen to secure more resources for their teams.

“I don’t need stupid people in my team. Give me sensible ones who’re good with their hands.” Zhao kicked off the meeting on a cordial note.
“Hold on, you’re not the only one who needs people who’re good with their hands, Zhao.” Feng replied in a calm, even tone.

“Though at this stage i’ll take anyone who won’t faint at the sight of blood.”

“We all need sensible people who’re good with their hands. But I wager that in the science team  curiosity is the trait we’re in most need of. The equipment is all fairly self explanatory! The pieces that still work, anyway.” Edward Fortin chuckled.[/quote]

"It would be nice," Mallory said quietly, "To have our pick of the best from a world-wide pool of candidates."

He pauses for a moment, resting his face in the palm of his right hand, then looks up. "Sadly, we no longer have that choice. This handful is the only available human workforce we have until we begin having babies and expanding our pool. As it is, there's already concerns we may lose some of our people to the locals - and the wealth of knowledge they possess."

He surveyed them gravely. 

"They will make mistakes. They will make a lot of mistakes. After a week, we can try swapping some of them out - but I can pretty much guarantee that the replacement will not be any better. So I must depend on you to train the people you've got, just as I must train the ones assigned to the Command staff. Find a use for them, I'm sure there's some basic menial duties you have more experienced people doing, so this will free them up and offer opportunities for training."

"Now, we may be able to obtain some recruits among the locals to assist us with jump-starting our generators, but they're mostly as untrained as our passengers," he paused, glancing around the table. "We have our work cut out for us. Any questions?"