“Good plan. Do not forget to purge fuel lines.”

With all the tanks infected, it’s safe to assume the fuel lines (currently sealed off) will also be infected. “Yes. They’ll be easier than the tanks. I just need to blow high-pressure nitrogen through them. It’ll clean out the chunks and sterilize the rest. Then I’ll test them the same as the fuel bays.”

“Good good.” He says. “What is status of breeder tanks, question?”

“Still making good progress. We’re up to Taumoeba-62 now.”

“Someday we find out why nitrogen was problem.”

“Yeah, but that’s for other scientists. We just need Taumoeba-80.”

“Yes. Taumoeba-80. Maybe Taumoeba-86. Safety.”

When you think in base six, arbitrarily adding six to things is normal.

“Agreed,” I say.

I enter the airlock and climb into the Orlan EVA suit. I grab the AstroTorch and attach it to my tool belt. I turn on the helmet radio and say, “Beginning EVA.”

“Understand. Radio if problem. Can help with my ship hull robot if you need.”

“I shouldn’t need it, but I’ll let you know.”

I seal the door behind me and start the airlock cycle.

“Screw it,” I say. I press the final confirmation button to jettison Fuel Bay Five.

The pyros pop and the empty tank floats off into the nothingness of space.

No amount of scrubbing, cleaning, nitrogen-purging, or anything else could get the Taumoeba out of Fuel Bay Five. No matter what I did, they survived and chowed down on the test Astrophage I put in afterward.

At a certain point, you just have to let go.

I cross my arms and slump into my pilot’s seat. There’s no gravity to properly slump with, so I have to make a conscious effort to push myself into the seat. I’m pouting, darn it, and I intend to do it right. I’m missing a total of three of my original nine fuel bays. Two from our adventure over Adrian, and another one just now. That’s about 666,000 kilograms of fuel storage I no longer have.

Do I have enough fuel to get home? Sure. Any amount of fuel that can make me escape Tau Ceti’s gravity is enough to eventually get home. I could get home with just a few kilograms of Astrophage if I didn’t mind waiting a million years.

It’s not about getting there. It’s about how long it’ll take.

I do a ton of math and I get answers I don’t like.

The trip from Earth to Tau Ceti took three years and nine months. And it was done by accelerating constantly at 1.5 g’s the entire time—which is what Dr. Lamai decided was the maximum sustained g-force a human should be exposed to for almost four years. Earth experienced something like thirteen years during that time, but time dilation worked in our favor for the crew.

If I do the long trip home with just 1.33 million kilograms of fuel (which is all my remaining tanks can hold), the most efficient course is a constant acceleration of 0.9 g’s. I’d be going slower, which means less time dilation, which means I experience more time. All told, I’ll experience five and a half years on that trip.