"It does seem to me to be a considerable technical achievement," he says, steering the conversation onto a topic he is comfortable discussing. "Do you drive the motion with anti-grav, then?" A technology with which he is particularly familiar - he's lost count of the time he's spent slithering around on grav-crutches after an unlucky fall broke one or both legs. He hates the things even more than he hates the steel leg braces, currently concealed under his uniform trousers, that he wears to prevent more such incidents.