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I wiggle my hand back and forth—a gesture interestingly common to both humans and Eridians and with the same meaning. “Maybe. I’m not sure. A bunch of the bolt holes were unusable. So the bays aren’t connected as well as they should be.”
“Danger, question? Your ship accelerate at 15 meters per second per second. Will tanks hold, question?”
“I’m not sure. Earth engineers often double requirements for safety. I hope they did this time. But I will test to be sure.”
“Good good. Enough talk. Check breeder tanks, please.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let me get some water first.”
He bounces and skitters down his tube to the lab.“Why humans need water so much, question? Inefficient life-forms!”
I chug a full liter bag of water I’d left in the control room before the EVA. It’s thirsty work. I wipe my mouth and let the bag float off. I push off the wall to float down the tunnel to the lab.
“Eridians need water, too, you know.”
“We keep inside. Closed system. Some inefficiencies inside, but we get all water we need from food. Humans leak! Gross.”
I laugh as I float into the lab where Rocky is waiting. “On Earth, we have a scary, deadly creature called a spider. You look like one of those. Just so you know.”
“Good. Proud. I am scary space monster. You are leaky space blob.”He points to the breeder tanks.“Check tanks!”
I kick off the wall and float over to the breeders. This is the moment of truth. I should check them one at a time starting with Tank One, but to heck with that. I go straight to Tank Nine.
I shine a penlight into the tank and get a good look at the glass slide that was earlier covered in Astrophage. I check the tank readouts, then check the slide again.
I grin at Rocky. “Tank Nine’s slide is clear. We have Taumoeba-80!”
He absolutely explodes with noise! His arms flail, his hands clatter against the tunnel walls. It’s just random notes in no discernable order. After a few seconds he calms down.“Yes! Good! Good good good!”
“Ha-ha, wow. Okay. Easy there.” I check Tank Ten. “Hey, Tank Ten is also clear. We have Taumoeba-82.5!”
“Good good good!”
“Good good good, indeed!” I say.
“Now you do much testing. Venus air. Threeworld air.”
“Yes. Absolutely—”
He shifts back and forth from one tunnel wall to the other.“Exact same gases in each test. Same pressure. Same temperature. Same death ‘radiation’ from space. Same light from nearby star. Same same same.”
“Yes. I’ll do that. I’ll do all of that.”
“Do now.”
“I need rest! I just did an eight-hour EVA!”
“Do now!”
“Ugh! No!” I float over to his tunnel and face him through the xenonite. “First I’m going to breed up a bunch more Taumoeba-82.5. Just to make sure we have enough for testing. And I’ll make several stable colonies of it in sealed containers.”
“Yes! And some on my ship too!”
“Yes. The more backups the better.”
He bounces back and forth some more. “Erid will live! Earth will live! Everyone live!” He curls the claws of one hand into a ball and presses it against the xenonite. “Fist me!”
I push my knuckles against the xenonite. “It’s ‘fist-bump,’ but yeah.”
