For a few long moments, Siebren stares. She had mentioned psychics, yes, but he had not expected the conversation to take this specific turn. It is one thing to hard code parameters into an AI; it is quite another to bind the will of a living creature to one's own.

"I would imagine," he says weakly, "that friendship would be a stronger bond than force."

He is nowhere near self-aware enough to know how much that reflects on his own situation.