Isabella thinks through the silence that ensues. Finally she clasps her hands together and looks up, and says, "I'll need to know more to take over without leaving unhandled anything that is currently taken care of. Jovah, are you programmed to hide information from people who make it this far? Do you lie, in this voice, as opposed to through the interfaces? Will you try to stop me - have you got a sense of self-preservation or do you just shoot at anything that approaches from the sky?"

"I am not programmed to hide information from occupants of this ship under ordinary circumstances, and I do not have anything that could be described as a desire for self-preservation, but the powers you claim make you a threat to the well-being of the settlers' project -"

"They crippled their children!" cries Isabella. "They took a flaw in human nature and patched it with amputation and lobotomy so we couldn't hurt each other too hard or too cleverly and they gave all that destructive power to something that cannot even change its mind! What do I have to do or be to take over for them and their interests in your programming?"

"The captain of the ship is the only person empowered to change its mission, and captaincy has been vacant since settling; captaincy is meant to be reassumed by -"

"By this procedure or that, but ultimately it's a name recorded somewhere, like my name, or Micaiah's?" asks Isabella.

"Yes."

Isabella waves a hand negligently. A square goes.

There is a silence, and Jovah says: "Welcome to the starship Jehovah, Captain Isabella. All functions stand ready. What are your orders?"