“Good good. And thinking machine have information, question? Science information from Earth, question?”

Ah, of course. I’m an advanced alien race with knowledge far beyond Eridian science. I think the laptops have terabyte drives. I could copy the entire contents of Wikipedia over to him.

“Yes. I can do that. But I don’t think a laptop will work in Eridian air. Too hot.”

He points to the device. “This is just one part of thinking-machine life-support system. System will give power, keep Earth temperature, Earth air inside. Many redundant backups. Make sure thinking machine not break. If break, no Eridian can fix.”

“Ah, I see. How will you read the output?”

“Camera inside convert from Earth light readout to Eridian texture readout. Like camera in control room. Before we leave, you explain written language to me.”

He certainly knows enough English to look up any words he doesn’t know. “Yeah, sure. Our written language is easy. Kind of easy. There are only twenty-six letters, but many strange ways to say them. Well, I guess there are actually fifty-two symbols because capital letters look different even though they’re pronounced the same. Oh, and then there’s punctuation…”

“Our scholars will solve. You just get me started.”

“Yes. I’ll do that,” I say. “I want a gift from you too: xenonite. Solid form and liquid pre-xenonite form. Earth scientists will want that.”

“Yes, I give.”

I yawn. “I’m going to sleep soon.”

“I watch.”

“Good night, Rocky.”

“Good night, Grace.”

I fall asleep easier than I have in weeks. I have Taumoeba that can save Earth.

Modifying an alien life-form. What could possibly go wrong?

Back when I was a kid, like most kids, I imagined what it would be like to be an astronaut. I imagined flying through space in a rocket ship, meeting aliens, and just generally being awesome. What I didn’t imagine was cleaning out sewage tanks.

But that’s pretty much what I’m doing today. To be clear, it’s not my poop I’m cleaning. It’s Taumoeba poop. Thousands of kilograms of Taumoeba poop. Each of my seven remaining fuel bays has to be cleared out of all that gunk before I can put new fuel in.

So, on the one hand, I’m shoveling poop. On the other, at least I’m in an EVA suit while I do it. I’ve smelled this stuff before. It’s not great.

The gunky methane and decomposing cells aren’t a problem. If that were all I had to deal with, I’d just ignore it. Twenty thousand kilograms of gunk in a two-million-kilogram tank? Barely worth paying attention to.

The problem is there’s probably surviving Taumoeba in there. The contamination ate all the available fuel several weeks ago, so they’ve mostly starved by now. At least, according to recent samples I checked. But some of the little bastards will probably still be alive. And the last thing I want to do is feed them 2 million kilograms of fresh Astrophage.

“Progress, question?” Rocky radios.

“Almost done with Fuel Bay Three.”