The final assembly of those 500-meter chunks was challenging, to say the least. I had to connect all twenty of them together while wearing my EVA suit. Fortunately, I had the manipulator device from the IVME. NASA didn’t intend for it to be a chain-making tool, but that’s what I used it for.

Now Rocky and I float in the control room. He’s in his bulb and I’m in my pilot’s seat.

“Status of probe?” I say.

Rocky checks his readouts. “Device is functioning.”

Rocky did a good job on the sampler probe. At least, I think he did. Engineering isn’t my forte.

The sampler is a steel sphere, 20 centimeters across. It has a nice, thick ring on top that connects to the chain. Small holes perforate the sphere along its equator. They lead to a hollow inner chamber. There’s a pressure sensor in there and a few actuators. The pressure sensor knows when the probe is at the right altitude, and will trigger the actuator to seal off the chamber. It’s a simple matter of rotating the inner chamber shell a few degrees to deliberately misalign the holes in the outer sphere. That misalignment, along with some well-placed gaskets, will seal the local air in the chamber.

He also added a thermometer and heater in there. Once the sampler seals, the heater will maintain whatever temperature the air inside started at. Simple stuff, really, but I hadn’t thought of it. Life can be pretty picky about temperature ranges.

The only remaining piece is a small radio transmitter that broadcasts a weird analog signal I wasn’t able to read or decode with my equipment. Apparently it’s a very standard Eridian data connection. But he has the receiver for it and that’s what matters.

Just like that, with minimal complication, Rocky had made a life-support system for Adrian life-forms—a system that didn’t need to know the conditions to provide in advance. It just maintains the status quo.

He really is a genius. I wonder if all Eridians are like that, or if he’s special.

“I guess… we’re ready?” I say. I’m not exactly brimming with confidence.

“Yes,” he quavers.

I strap myself into the pilot’s seat. He uses three of his hands to grip handholds in his bulb.

I bring up the Attitude Control panel and initiate a roll. Once I have the ship pointed backward to our direction of travel and parallel to the ground below, I halt the rotation. Now we’re hurtling along, butt-first, at 12 kilometers per second. I need that to be almost zero.

“Orientation is good,” I say. “Initiating thrust.”

“Yes,” says Rocky. He watches his readout screen intently. It shows him the textured version of my own screen, thanks to that camera he set up earlier.