I crane my head to look up at Rocky. “This panel was white when we started; now it’s black.”

“Not understand.”

“The sampler’s color changed to the color of Astrophage. We got a lot of Astrophage.”

“Good good!”

Over the next two hours, I scrape everything off of both halves of the sampler, putting each group in their own containers. Then I give each sample a good rinse with water and let the Astrophage settle to the bottom. I’m sure a lot of that sticky substance came with the Astrophage when I scraped it off, and I want it gone.

I perform a series of tests. First I run a few Astrophage through DNA-marker testing to see if they are identical to the Astrophage found at Earth. They are—at least, the markers I checked are identical.

Then I check overall population of each sample.

“Interesting,” I say.

Rocky perks up. “What is interesting, question?”

“Both halves had approximately the same population.”

“Not expected,” he says.

“Not expected,” I agree.

One side of the sampler pointed toward Tau Ceti, while the other pointed toward Adrian. Astrophage migrate to breed. For every frisky Astrophage that heads to Adrian with a twinkle in its eye, two should return. So, broadly speaking, there should be twice as many Astrophage going from Adrian to Tau Ceti as there are going the other direction. But that’s not what’s happening. The outgoing population is the same as the incoming population.

Rocky climbs along the tunnel that runs across the roof of the lab to get a better look. “Flaw in counting, question? How you count, question?”

“I measure total heat energy output of both samples.” It’s a surefire way to know how much Astrophage you’re dealing with. Each one insists on being 96.415 degrees Celsius. The more of them there are, the more total heat will be absorbed by the metal plate I put them on.

He taps two claws together. “That is good method. Population must be same. How, question?”

“I don’t know.” I smear some of the “returning” Astrophage (that is, the Astrophage that was on the way from Adrian to Tau Ceti) onto a slide. I take it to a microscope.

Rocky scampers along his tunnel to keep up. “That is what, question?”

“Microscope,” I say. “It helps me see very small things. I can see Astrophage with this.”

“Amaze.”

I take a look at the sample and gasp. There’s a lot more than just Astrophage in there!

The familiar black dots of Astrophage are all over the sample. But so are translucent cells, smaller bacteria-looking things, and larger amoeba-like things. There are thin things, fat things, spiral things… too many to count. Too many different kinds of things to count. It’s like looking at all the life in a drop of lake water!