12. Crystelle Growth.
1. An Interested Friend.
On the planet of Tinsel, Crystelle is guiding a space freighter in to land. She is doing the Air Traffic Control part of her Spacecraft Flight course. 3D thinking is required here as vertical take-off and landing is the order of the day. But fortunately, flights are not very frequent! Guiding in a large spaceship to land within a few metres of its target is her job today.
"Crystelle to SpaceCon1, I am your traffic controller today, enjoy your landing," Crystelle says.
In the neighbouring seat the ground controller is also busy martialling the fuel and personal supplies. "Two minutes to touchdown. Positions, please." He leans over to Crystelle. "I bet this isn't the best part of your Space Flight course."
"No," Crystelle agrees. "But it will give me empathy with the ground-based staff. I'm off tomorrow. Want a meal?"
"Sure, I'm not one to say no to a bit of home cooking!"
Did Crystelle just happen to invite her colleague, or was there more to it?
Meal In.
Crystelle's colleague and friend, Devyon, arrives at Crystelle's bungalow. Crystelle has been preparing a feast for them all morning and the aroma has filled the bungalow.
Crystelle invites Devyon into the dining room; the table is laid and Devyon sits down ready for the meal. Crystelle brings the main dish through from her kitchen as it is ready. It is her favourite, BewilderBeast from BeestThorne. She hopes it will be Devyon's favourite, too.
They enjoy the meal, then sit back in easy chairs in the lounge to chat.
Crystelle has known Devyon ever since school days and they are good friends both looking forwards to catching up.
"Your speciality was DNA Biology wasn't it, Devyon?" Crystelle asks.
"Yes, but there just aren't any jobs here in that field."
"Are you still keen on the study area?" Crystelle asks.
"Yes, I loved it."
"Would you go for a job using those skills if there was one?" Crystelle's questions are becoming more pointed.
"Love to. There's no chance of that, though."
"I wonder why they offered the subject of DNA Biology?" Crystelle asks, to diffuse her intense interest.
"Who knows, but it totally fascinates me."
"If I could find you a job in that field would you be interested?"
This would be too good to be true for Devyon. "Yes, but that's not likely... is it?"
"Well... I found some fascinating stuff in a library recently and it started me thinking," Crystelle starts to share her initial idea. She is passionately excited, but she fears that if she shares too much she might not only frighten Devyon away, she might lose his friendship, if she's too intense!
"Here, on Tinsel?" Devyon is surprised.
"I have it here," Crystelle says, trying to stay truthful. The sheets she has printed out are here on Tinsel.
The material she has is from a library alright, but not from a library on Tinsel. From a library on Gallifrey. Crystelle had had unprecedented, total access to everything in the Library on Gallifrey not long ago. She had been asked to copy everything (episode 9, Gallifrey Exhumed in this series). And she had. Twice over. One copy for the Doctor for repopulating the new Library on Gallifrey, one copy for herself for interest.
Crystelle passes a few printed sheets across to Devyon. He looks at the first. "Mmm." Then the second.
"Does it make good sense?" Crystelle asks.
"Well, it's very interesting and deep," Devyon says. "Any idea where it's leading to?"
"I think it's to do with splicing DNA to take the capabilities of one person's body and give that capability to someone else's body," Crystelle guesses. "But it is rather deep for me to grasp and very much your field. So, I thought I'd be far better off asking you."
"It's an incredible idea they're suggesting here." Devyon gently takes a third sheet from Crystelle's hand. "It's talking about extending lifespan in rather an unusual way. If it ever came to fruition it would be spectacular. We believe in everlasting life, after we die, but here they are proposing, maybe purporting, everlasting life in our mortal bodies."
"Wouldn't they wear out?" Crystelle asks dryly, trying not to show that she has already seen this in action in the Doctor.
"Apparently not," Devyon takes a fourth sheet from Crystelle. "The way the author is referring to the process described, a sort of regeneration might occur. No idea how. Is there much more of this document?"
The particular document that Crystelle had selected to share with Devyon was only short, so he has to be disappointed. Naturally, there are many other documents that Crystelle could share with him. But today she wants to check his interest.
"If I could get some commercial backing, would you be interested in joining me looking into this?" Crystelle is pushing the boat out a bit, but she knows that it all sounds a bit dodgy as yet.
"Yes," Devyon says. "But I'd want to just do it part time, so I have my current job to go back to."
"Ok," Crystelle will have to do with that. She is somewhat disappointed not to have a firmer interest, but Devyon is her closest friend with skills in this area. But now she must keep it quiet. "Could you not mention this to anyone? Not until we have it up and running?"
"Ok," Devyon says. He recognises the sensitive nature of this area of development. He is also quite dubious whether there is merit in it. Very likely to fail, he thinks.
What can Crystelle do with this? What will she do? What would you do?