“Found it,” I say.

“Good,” comes Rocky’s voice from the dormitory. “Take out and give to me.”

“I want to look at it first.”

“You bad at this. I fix.”

“The generator might not survive your environment!”

“Mmm,” he grumbles.

“If I can’t fix it, you can talk me through it.”

“Mmm.”

The two pipes with shutoff valves must be the Astrophage supply lines. I look a little deeper into the cubby and find labels. One is “fuel” and the other is “waste.” Clear enough.

I use a wrench to unscrew the hose bib on the “waste” line. As soon as it comes loose, a dark liquid drips out. Not much—just what was between the shutoff valve and my end of the hose. It must be whatever fluid we use to carry away dead Astrophage. I got some on my hand—it feels slimy. Maybe it’s oil. It’s a good idea, actually. Any liquid will do, oil is lighter than water, and it won’t corrode the pipes.

Next I unscrew the “fuel” line. It, too, sloshes brown liquid out. But this time, it smells awful.

I wince and bury my face in my arm. “Ugh! God!”

“What is problem, question?” Rocky calls out from below.

“The fuel smells bad,” I say. Eridians don’t have a sense of smell. But while it took a long time to explain sight to Rocky, smell was easy. Because Eridians do have a sense of taste. When you get down to it, smell is just tasting at range.

“Is natural smell or chemical smell, question?”

I take another halting sniff. “Smells like rotted food. Astrophage doesn’t normally smell bad. It doesn’t normally have an odor at all.”

“Astrophage is alive. Maybe Astrophage can rot.”

“Astrophage can’t rot,” I say. “How could it rot—OH NO! OH GOD NO!”

I wipe my hand across the foul-smelling gunk, then wriggle out of the compartment. Then, keeping my gunky hand in the air and not touching anything, I climb up the ladder to the lab.

Rocky clatters along in his tunnel. “What is wrong, question?”

“No, no, no, no…” I say with a squeak at the end. My heart is about to beat right out of my throat. I think I’m going to puke.

I smear some gunk onto a glass slide and shove the slide into the microscope. There’s no power for the backlight, so I grab a flashlight from the drawer and shine it at the plate. It’ll have to do.

I look through the eyepieces and my worst fears are realized. “Oh God.”

“What is problem, question?!” Rocky’s voice is a full octave higher than normal.

I grab my head with both hands, smearing foul gunk on myself but I don’t even care. “Taumoeba. There are Taumoeba in the generator.”

“They damage generator, question?” Rocky says. “Give me generator. I fix.”

“The generator isn’t broken,” I say. “If there are Taumoeba in the generator, it means there are Taumoeba in the fuel supply. Taumoeba ate all the Astrophage. We have no power because we have no fuel.”