"Hm, does your planet have issues with malnutrition?"

"Sometimes people will have some kinds of problems in the wintertime particularly? I don't think people are often so malnourished they can't have a baby."

"Hm, that sounds substantially better than average for your tech level - could be related to why Oracle Alleluia said that you wouldn't need to import seeds from us, if your crops were already unusually well suited for your biology."

"And the supply's steady. The ship grows more. Drops them for a song."

"Mmm.. Sounds easy I suppose."

"My home planet didn't have any issues with us lacking food either."

"Which of the things I've been eating are amalien delicacies?"

"The snack dish with the pickled lemony cloves - mostly our species got by on not needing much in the way of food. Eating is more optional for us than most people."

"Angels eat more than mortals do. It's never been a problem, though."

"Hm, I don't know of any other flying humanoids for comparison off the top of my head."

"Well, apparently we were genetically engineered."

"Woah!"

"That's actually one branch of tech we don't have all that much of."

"I certainly can't tell you how it was done."

"I suspect our scientists will be excited to see your DNA if you'd be willing to let them look."

"I'm not sure I understand enough about what that willingness might open me up to."

"Mostly it just means that they're need a hair of yours, or maybe a saliva sample. I can have someone recommend a book on genetics?"

"That's not really what I mean, I just mean - what they'd be able to do with it if they were so inclined that I'd have to trust them not to. A book might help."

"Ah, hm. If we were liable to do the particularly obviously bad things I imagine we wouldn't bother asking permission - it's not very hard to get someone's DNA without them knowing."

"Be that as it may!"

A few days later they drop out of warp within sight of Science Station Keetim, population 5,375. It's more than large enough for the occupants - thousands of times larger than Starship Bridget. Some portions are under construction, others are connected to visiting spacecrafts varying in aesthetics. Two of the largest such spacecrafts share a refined appearance and the emblem of the Federation of planets. 

Starship bridget maneuvers towards the heavily defended bottom of the station.

The shine of being on a space adventure hasn't fully worn off yet. Isabella watches while they approach, scrutinizing all the crafts and the station.

It's a very rewarding space station to scrutinize! Most of the ships seem to bear the same underlying structures but with alterations and aesthetic choices as if to say proclaim the builders' pride in having personally constructed such a ship, even if they had help from a manual. A few manage to stand out - this one which has had it's metal hidden by layers of what look like trees weaved together, and this one that appears to be mostly made of thin layer of glass with compartments suspended inside it.

The station itself is tastefully covered in lighting (to aid in docking), armored plates, and turrets.

Lucien smiles at Isabella.

"It really is amazing."

He points to a series of pipes that snake around the outside, hard to see as they painted the same color as the exterior.

"I actually got to help a bit - designed the layout of the exterior piping system when I was doing a year at the Academy."

Oh whoops - that was sort of bragging.

"Are they just for plumbing or do they do other things?"

"Mostly plumbing but they that includes hooking into the plumbing of docked ships, since a bunch of them need to have their waste flushed and water refilled and such. Science Station Keetim can do that internally, but it's not worth having the engineering staff it would take to maintain that sorta system on all the other ships. The difficult part is making sure Station Keetim can interlock with a var-iable number of ships while still maintaining a central system that's e-fficient."

Lucien looks embarrassed for a second, managing to stop himself before he starts really infodumping - it was quite a hard project with a tight schedule he had to work around and he's proud of how well he did.

"So do they all need the same kind of - ports -"