You manage to get the doors open and the elevator controls don't appear to be locked in anyway. It rides down for a while before stopping in front of the lab doors.

Well, best to be polite.  Ehri knocked, using one of the Hands, just in case.

You hear the clacking of several machines behind the door.

"Who dares to try and enter my sanctum?!" Harriet demanded.

"It's me, Ehri, Harriet," said Ehri.  "May I come in, please?"

"How did you find me?" Harriet demanded.

"Your crab is too large to be a native species," Ehri answered.  "It was also looking at me and responding to my words.  Including by barking like a dog, which gave things away.  I followed it when it came back, and found you."

"Damn it, Spot! What did I tell you! you're a crab now!" Harriet said, let out a sigh and hit a button opening the doors.
This message was lightly edited by the player at 06:28, Wed 10 Feb 2021.

"Is that a robot or an engineered dog?" Ehri asked.

"It was my dog at one point," Harriet said.

"Very impressive, but I do wonder how you keep him from acting like a dog," said Ehri.  "Why the change?  Crab-shaped creatures are quite common, but dogs seem to be quite adequate on their own."

"Why not? Just to see if I could do it," Harriet said.

Ehri nodded.

"I suppose that's fair," she said.  "Expanding knowledge is valid.  Be careful, though.  This time, it led me right to you."

"I know," Harriet said. "But I managed to detect the energy signal given off by your little test. Some sort of biological and mechanical subject. I wouldn't mind having a sample of that DNA..."

"Unwise, in this particular case," said Ehri.  "Possessing it might make you a target.  The wrong people possessing it would be worse."

...just a DNA sample, by itself, might not be too bad, but from what she could see, Harriet was the type to take it much, much further.

Harriet chuckled.

"You're going to have to explain that."

"I have great respect for your skill," said Ehri.  "A sample of my DNA that you just sequenced and studied might not be too bad, but there's technology that scans for certain things that you might find the unlocking sequences for, especially if you had enough stem cells to work with.  Possessing that, in turn, might make you a target for anyone who wanted to use that technology, given that it's sealed with me far away from it."

Harriet sat down in her chair and the crab leapt up into her lap. She stroked it's shell a few times.

"I want either you or your creation," she said. "It will certainly help upgrade my shark-men."

Ehri frowned.

"My creation... the Hands?  They wouldn't help you with genetic engineering.  Although I suppose polarized-gravity technology would have some uses, depending on what you wanted your shark-men to do... what do you want to do with your shark-men?"

"Not your hands, whatever you activated at the old church," Harriet said. "And as for what I'm going to do with them? Well, who doesn't want a bunch of powerful servants?"

"A sentiment that I've heard before," said Ehri.  "And no, you can't have her, either.  She's busy right now.  I don't know if she'll want to let you have a sample of her genetic material, but there's considerably more than that in her."

Harriet laughed,

"Really? You're that ethical that your creation is a person?"

"Oh, my creations aren't sapient," said Ehri.  "Not the Hands, anyway.  Oh!  Oh, I see.  No, Umuru isn't my creation.  I just woke her up.  She was trapped in that church for a couple of centuries, and I'm not that old."

"So, it was alien then? Interesting...," Harriet said. "I need a sample then. For sure!"

"You can talk to her about that," said Ehri.  "Since she's a war-machine intended for interstellar combat, though, I suggest you respect her answer if she says 'No.'"

"Hmm. I'll need a way to make sure she can't refuse. Does she care about you?" Harriet asked.