Kalika Sansamara was a young biologist. She was part of the team that was made to research the possibilities of cross-breeding--an honor, to be sure. She was excited and eager, more than ready to get started. However, she had had to linger about the ship as the political parties argued amongst themselves about genetic crossbreeding. Those days (weeks) had been boring, finding her exploring every inch of the ship, from research labs to the engine room. She had learned some new things, but what she really wanted to do was get to work on<span style="font-style: italic">her</span>area of expertise: genetic engineering.<br/><br/>Of course, that took some time to get into. There were political hurdles to get over, especially with the politicians from the EcoBub. They were outraged and fighting, but finally Kalika and the other genetic biologists were able to do some experiments...and were stopped nearly as soon as they started. They were able to produce a zygote...but they weren't allowed to grow it into a fetus. Heaven forbid they should produce an 'unnatural' baby; it would be navigating the law about no interbreeding. Which, by the way, was the whole point of the experimentation---to see if it was safe to have natural babies. They were stuck both ways; they couldn't experiment enough to get the laws changed without breaking the laws that were currently in place. For now, they had to put a hold on their studies until the laws were bent into shapes that would allow further experimentation.<br/><br/>Now that she couldn't experiment with Azurian or Aurian genetics, Kalika turned her eye to plants and animals. The zoologists and botanists were more than happy to have people to help them. She bounced from partner to partner, until finally she was put with an Aurian botanist. She wasn't informed of his name, just told to be in laboratory 54T at a certain time.<br/><br/>Kalika took a breath, checked that her hair was up in a professional tail, checked her clothes and lab coat for mess, and went into the lab. She looked around, wondering if the person she was paired with was already there or not.