"...Which way does it push the cost, then?"

"The denser the material and the larger the volume, the more expensive it is." He says flatly. "Uh, you haven't made any progress with your book?"

"There's not really much progress to make per se, unless it wants to let me do weird exploits.

"...And speaking of exploits, fuck no I should not be considering doing anything with matter-antimatter reactions to somehow exploit that to power anything whatsoever.  Fucking hell.

"...Really am wondering whether you can use mass for fuel, though."

He nods in relation to the book.

Okay, it sounds like they should change topics from 'very likely that an entire set of clones died' and 'there is at least a pair of Henry and Gabe dead'.

He is not sure how something can be antimatter, but it sounds dangerous.

"Using stored mass you mean? I think it might be easier to convert it back and burn it."

"I mean as fuel for doing crystal stuff."

"So did I. You can set crystal, so they absorb heat and light - some stars have better light than others - and that way the crystal will grow on its own. Or make things on its own."

"...Which sorts of stars?  I don't know much astronomy but if it's just a matter of dialing in the right sort of emission spectrum...  And how does heat compare to vis-spec and UV light, anyway?"

"I know they are called 'Charged stars'. I know the colony world we were going had one, which makes it likely we are in it. I am not sure what you mean with 'vis-spec' and 'UV'."

"I could probably go on for a whole ramble about light, here, but - Visual spectrum light is the stuff we can see, going red-to-violet, less-to-more 'energetic'.  UV, ultraviolet, is more energetic, oscillates faster, than violet.  Infrared light goes the opposite direction; it oscillates more slowly; it's one of the three ways heat can be transmitted."

"What properties do 'charged' stars have, other than 'charged' status - how can you tell what's charged?"

"Okay..." he says regarding the light. "I guess that might explain why both light and heat are valid sources? Anyway, from what I read, charged stars are mostly discovered through magic instruments. And most are similar to Core's Sun, but people have detected charged stars that are vastly different, brighter, dimmer, colder, hotter."

"...Oh well that's not very helpful of them.  The stars, I mean.  Not that I assign particular agency to them, but I'm still miffed!"

"I wonder if it's to do with crystals in the core."

"It's not a bad idea, but I am not sure. I think if we could just change the light, it wouldn't be advantageous to go to specific planets. And if we could just use stored matter pattern, then the commanders of Crystalsky would have tried captured meteors for that?" Pause. "They did capture meteors, but mostly to hollow them out. Unless they are lying. It wouldn't be beneath them, but I am not sure that it would be practical."

"I'm not sure I follow.  Well, if our techbase ever gets up to nuclear fusion, we can probably run experiments!"

"What was confusing?"

"Why you thought stellar engineering was going to be easy or have something to do with hollowed-out meteors.

"Anyway, question still outstanding: What sort of light is the best light for power-generation?"

"The meteors are for space stations, not stellar engineering." That is sure a concept. "And unfiltered sunlight, you mentioned UV being high energy, and I am now wondering if that is part of it? I know that atmospheres filter some of the light and that is less efficient."

"Then yes, if there's a direct correlation of frequency to crystalpower we'll want - hmm, probably actually nuclear fission generators because, well, first, fusion's a pain in the ass to make happen, and second, I don't even remember the emission spectrum of deuterium-tritium fusion if I ever even knew, but I know Cherenkov radiation's way up there, or possibly matter-antimatter...

"Both of those are incredibly dangerous, mind you, especially if mishandled, but they're still pretty simple.  Matter-antimatter reactions just make radiation, clean and simple, extremely high-energy gamma rays; it's probably actually safest, despite it all, because you can precisely control how much happens when, and if you do it inside a power-crystal, it'll...hopefully not even ever affect the outside, depending upon the way absorption actually works, whereas with nuclear fission generators...it's literally unpredictable when a specific particle will stop holding together and do the thing that gives the generator its name, even if you can make models in aggregate, such as determining unstable elements' half-lives.  And nuclear fission reactors can violently explode, leaving significant regions uninhabitable for quite a long while because of the resulting contamination, not just from the blast but also the secondary radioactivity.

"...I'm not even going to think about the sometimes-hypothesized proton decay right now.  That's some umpty-billion years off at worst, and at best actually never; it can wait."

"Of course all of this goes out the window if I find out that crystals give no fucks about creating charged vs. not-charged batteries.  They do weigh the same, after all."

A Claudia steps forward. "Okay, Lucy. Thank you so much for being willing to learn, share and help. And while everything you said sounds fascinating. I would like to point out that we literally don't have a roof over our heads. Maybe step back a little?"

"Fuck, right.  Okay.  Secure Maslow's hierarchy bottom-up.

"...Physical labor!  I am going to hate this so much!"

She sounds surprisingly cheery nonetheless.

"What needs doing?"

"Shelter from the weather. If you are that good, we might also get you to replicate food we find, so we don't get sick from lack of variety."

"I think we should inventory and encase everything she owns. Since she owns stuff that can get ruined by being a tropical island." He is looking a bit annoyed at the Claudia, but isn't correcting her.

"...Well, I certainly wouldn't want to get scurvy.  ...Does your emergency kit not include some sort of tasteless-but-nutritious Block Of Food or micronutrient supplement to replicate?

"Anyway, I do agree on encasing my stuff being pretty important should it start threatening rain, but we can leave it til I'm more confident in the whole process.  Nothing's that fragile; it'll just get a little sunbleached at worst.  Should probably store the pattern of my raincoat, actually; that's good tent material.  Waterproof.  And then we can use my umbrella for metal to develop structural members for framing it, and of course clasps..."

"We didn't have an emergency kit. We didn't even come out with our clothes. And I wasn't thinking of absorbing your belonging's materials. Just put a box of crystal around them. But those are good suggestions."

They can retrieve and start working on those things then?

"...Right, yeah.  Damn.  You should've had something, dammit, I'm going to file a complaint with fantasy space OSHA for y'all when we finally get off this rock."

"Oh, that sort of encase."

"...I'll pack away my electronics; that's basically everything I brought that's both fragile and not a thing I need immediately handy most of the time."

She'll also crystallize most of the cases, before carefully boxing them up.

"I think we should probably actually just outright - I need more verbs for this conversation.

"...Oh!  I do have a daily multivitamin!  Ha!  No scurvy!  Probably!  Hopefully!"

She is just full of energy as she fishes something out of one of the smaller containers in her suitcase, and turns a big pill from that smaller container into crystal-data.

"There; finding the pattern for producing that is a project that'll keep for the next little while, but it's better started early.  Anyway, as I was saying - I think we probably ought to consume the frame of my suitcase; it'll make hauling things around a lot easier on level-ish ground, even if it doesn't have a proper suspension.

"...I have so many ideas and not enough attention.  Fuck!  That's going to be problematic!"