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I slump my shoulders. “Why? What good would it do?”
“I clean and sterilize. Remove all Taumoeba. I make tiny fuel tank with my Astrophage. Seal generator airtight. Give back to you. You hook up to ship. Power restored.”
I rub my aching arm. “Yeah. It’s a good idea. If the generator doesn’t melt in your air.”
“If melt, I fix.”
A few hundred grams of Astrophage isn’t enough to fly around the galaxy, but it’s more than enough to power the ship’s electrical system for…I don’t know…the rest of my life at least.
“Okay. Yeah. That’s a good idea. At least we’ll have the ship back online.”
“Yes.”
I trudge to the hatch. “I’ll get the generator.”
I really shouldn’t be using tools in my state, but I press on. I go back to the dormitory, get into the crawlspace, and detach the generator. Or maybe it’s the backup generator. I don’t know. In any event, it turns Astrophage into electricity and that’s the point.
I get back into the dormitory proper and put the generator in our airlock there. Rocky cycles the airlock and brings the generator to his workbench. Two claws get to work on it right away. A third points to my bunk.“I work on this now. You sleep.”
“Make sure you don’t get Taumoeba in your Astrophage over there!”
“My Astrophage in sealed xenonite container. Is safe. You sleep now.”
Everything aches, especially my bandaged arm. “I can’t sleep.”
He points more firmly.“You tell me humans need to sleep eight hours every sixteen hours. You no sleep for thirty-one hours. You sleep now.”
I sit on my bunk and sigh. “You make a good point. I should at least try. It’s been a hard day. Night. Whatever. A hard day’s night.” I lie back in the bunk and pull the blanket over me.
“That sentence make no sense.”
“It’s an Earth saying. From a song.” I close my eyes and mumble. “…and I’ve been working like a dog…”
A moment passes while I drift off…
“Whoa!” I shoot bolt-upright. “The beetles!”
Rocky is surprised enough to drop the generator.“What is problem, question?”
“Not a problem! A solution!” I leap to my feet. “The beetles! My ship has four smaller ships aboard called beetles! They’re made to take information back to Earth!”
“You tell me this before,”Rocky says.“But they use same fuel, correct? Astrophage all dead now.”
I shake my head. “They use Astrophage, yeah, but each beetle is self-contained and sealed. They don’t share air, fuel, or anything else withHail Mary. And each beetle has 120 kilograms of fuel aboard! We have plenty of Astrophage!”
Rocky waves his arms in the air.“Enough to get us to my ship! Good news! Good good good!”
I wave my arms in the air too. “Maybe we won’t die here after all! I need to do an EVA to get beetles. I’ll be right back.” I hop off the bunk and head to the ladder.
“No!” Rocky says. He skitters over to the partition and taps the divider.“You sleep. Human no function well after no sleep. EVA dangerous. Sleep first. EVA next.”
I roll my eyes. “All right, all right.”
He points back to my bunk.“Sleep.”
“Yes,Mom.”
“Sarcasm. You sleep. I watch.”
