- The mech slowed to a halt, Reagan looking at Park with a confused expression. Well, at her image on the cameras, anyways. "I don't know about any planet called Earth," she said, "definitely not one next to Mars. If there was a slave colony that close to Cradle, Union would have something to say about it. Unless..."
It was at times like these Reagan really wished she'd sprung for an NHP. They could do calculations much faster than she could, and the math she needed to do to prove her theory right wasn't the kind she was used to doing. She was a particle physicist, and a rusty one at that, nth-dimsnsional geometry wasn't her forte by any means. There was something else eating at the back of her mind, too, some fact she felt she was missing. "So you know about Mars, but not about Cradle, and you say you're not human, but your scans show you definitely are. No blinkspace folding in your brain, so you can't be an NHP..."
The Lancer lapsed into silence, setting her mech on the move again. It didn't add up. If Park knew about the core worlds, then she would have to know about Cradle, not only that, but she seemed of the opinion that this 'Earth' was in its place, and was full of enslaved humans. Enslaved to what exactly was another matter, one she could bring up later. "This Earth place," she said, "describe it to me. I don't know about any planets near Mars besides Cradle and Jupiter, you're absolutely sure that's where it is? In the Sol system? Not saying I don't believe you, but having an uncontacted planet sitting at the heart of human civilization is a bit much to believe."