I gestured to the folding chair in front of the folding table I used as a desk.

He shuffled in, carrying a bulbous metal object. I’d never seen anything like it. He plunked it on my table.

I looked at the object. It was like someone had flattened a medicine ball, added a triangle to one end, and a trapezoid to the other.

He sat in the chair and stretched his arms. “Man, that was weird. I’ve never been on a helicopter before. Have you? Well, of course you have. How else would you get here? I mean, I guess you could have used a boat, but probably not. I hear they keep the carrier far away from land in case there’s a disaster during Astrophage experiments. A boat would have been nicer, honestly, that helicopter ride almost made me puke. But I’m not complaining. I’m just happy to be involved.”

“Um” —I gestured to the object on my desk—“what is this thing?”

He somehow became even more energetic. “Ah, right! That’s a beetle! Well, a prototype for one, anyway. My team and I think we have most of the kinks worked out. Well, you never have all the kinks worked out, but we’re ready for actual engine tests. And the university said we had to do those here on the carrier. Also the provincial government of British Columbia said it. Oh, and the national government of Canada said it too. I’m Canadian, by the way. But don’t worry! I’m not one of those anti-American Canadians. I think you guys are all right.”

“Beetle?”

“Yeah!” He picked it up and turned the trapezoid toward me. “This is how the Hail Mary crew will send us back the information. It’s a little self-contained spacecraft that will automatically navigate itself back to Earth from Tau Ceti. Well, from anywhere, really. That’s what me and my team have been working on for the past year.”

I peek into the trapezoid and see a shiny glasslike surface. “Is that a spin drive?” I asked.

“Sure is! Man, those Russians know their stuff. We just used their designs and everything came out great. At least, I think it did. We haven’t tested the spin drive yet. The tricky part is navigation and steering.”

He turned the device around and faced the triangular head toward me. “This is where the cameras and computer are. No fancy-schmancy inertial-navigation nonsense. It uses ordinary visible light to see the stars. It identifies constellations and works out its orientation from that.” He tapped the center of the bulbous carapace. “There’s a little DC generator in here. As long as we have Astrophage, we have power.”

“What can it carry?” I ask.