It seems like you (to Zote) have a pretty strong impression of the writing and how things should or shouldn't be in relation to the first meeting of companions and forming of the travel party, but it's best to remember that it's a subjective opinion informed by your own sense of reason - which is individual to you and which we all are working with individually as well, unique to ourselves.
You seem to feel (forgive me if I'm misreading) that, as written, a person would have to be downright stupid not to take everyone with you, given the situation - I disagree. To me, I feel that even *With* the overbearing impending doom situation of the tadpole in the first day or two, there are characters that any sensible person of a moderately positive moral alignment or even basic practicality would be downright stupid for agreeing to travel with.
For example:
You ask, am I really going to deny the company of a person whose first reaction upon meeting me is to deceive me, in order to forcefully lay hands on me and threaten my life? Yes. Yes I am. I'm focused on finding a cure for my situation, and taking a person like that with me is adding an additional risk and danger that I don't need or want, and which seems more likely to be a distraction and consideration pressing on my already strained time and resources. I would not feel like I could trust this person staying close to me, no matter what help they might bring (which they are swift to admit is none at all, in terms of knowledge or solutions); I don't wish that person ill, but I also don't want them near me, and would rather focus on seeing a cure to my malady without having to worry about whether or not said companion deemed it more profitable to them to try to murder me in the night.
