[ At that, Baixi shrugs— as well as he can with arms full of bulky robot parts. ]

I mean, we don't have much choice other than to take the premise at its word. My brief talks with people who have been here longer corroborate everything that the AI said.

[ He knows he has a reason to be here, and to do everything he can to get the fix he was apparently promised. If he has to take some time away from Earth gathering mysterious orbs in order to get Jiali to listen to reason, then... That's what he's going to do. ]

We'll just have to do our best on whatever these missions end up being.