It gives her no pleasure to embarrass him, to have to lecture him on the ethics of friendship. Her heart beats a little harder in her chest from the spike of adrenaline she always feels when she gets into any sort of conflict. But someone needs to tell him that his behavior is inappropriate. She knows well enough what it's like to delve so deeply into your research that you can talk of little else. But she also know what happens when you let your obsessions override any sort of decency for others.

It isn't pretty. It isn't right. And that, more than his cage or strange mannerisms, is what truly disturbs her.

At least he seems to have absorbed the lesson enough to stop talking about people's genitals. And it is very hard not to feel sorry for the pathetic way he pouts over his human existence. She loses her frown, looking him over with a soft sigh.

"I've had plenty of failed experiments," she says kindly. "And lost data, besides. But even if we don't get what we had hoped for out of an experience, we can still learn something from it."

Not sure if it's worth asking, she pauses a moment, then says, "Whose tentacles are they, then?"