“Yes, you are correct,” DuBois said. “I will be setting out on a suicide mission in under a year. And if for some reason I am deemed unfit or unable, she will go on the suicide mission. We are aware of this, and we know this relationship can only end in death.”

“We live in bleak times,” I said.

He folded his hands in front of him. “Dr. Shapiro and I do not see it that way. We are enjoying very active sexual encounters.”

“Yeah, okay, I don’t need to know—”

“No need for condoms either. She is on birth control and we have both had extremely thorough medical examinations as part of the program.”

I typed on my computer, hoping he’d change the subject.

“It’s quite pleasurable.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“In any event, I thought you should know.”

“Yeah, no, sure.”

The door opened, and Annie trotted in.

“Sorry! Sorry! I had to pee. Like… so bad,” said the world’s smartest and most accomplished microbiologist. “My back teeth were floating!”

“Welcome back, Dr. Shapiro. I’ve told Dr. Grace about our sexual relationship.”

I put my head in my hands.

“Cool,” said Annie. “Yeah, we’ve got nothing to hide.”

“In any event,” said DuBois, “if I remember the previous lesson correctly, we were working on the cellular biology within Astrophage mitochondria.”

I cleared my throat. “Yes. Today I’ll be talking about the Astrophage’s Krebs cycle. It’s identical to what we find in Earth mitochondria, but with one additional step—”

Annie held up her hand. “Oh, sorry. One more thing—” She turned to DuBois. “Martin, we have about fifteen minutes of personal time after this lesson and before our next training exercise. Want to meet up in the bathroom down the hall and have sex?”

“I find that agreeable,” said DuBois. “Thank you, Dr. Shapiro.”

“Okay, cool.”

They both looked to me, ready for their lesson. I waited a few seconds to make sure there was no more oversharing, but they seemed content. “Okay, so the Krebs cycle in Astrophage has a variant—wait. Do you call her Dr. Shapiro while having sex?”

“Of course. That’s her name.”

“I kind of like it,” she said.

“I’m sorry I asked,” I said. “Now, the Krebs cycle…”

Rocky’s data about Planet Adrian was dead-on. It’s 3.93 times Earth’s mass and has a radius of 10,318 kilometers (almost double Earth’s). It’s plugging along around Tau Ceti with an average orbital velocity of 35.9 kilometers per second. Plus, he had the position of the planet correct to within 0.00001 percent. That data was all I needed to work out the insertion thrust needed.

It’s a good thing those numbers were right. If they hadn’t been, there would have been some serious scrambling when the orbital insertion went wrong. Maybe even some dying.