I give a wry grin. “Can we do all that within fifty Earth years?”

“Probably not. Why so fast, question?”

“I only have fifty years or so left to live. Humans don’t” —I hiccup—“don’t live long, remember?”

“Oh.” He’s quiet for a moment. “So we enjoy remaining time together, then go save planets. Then we are heroes!”

“Yeah!” I straighten up. I’m a little dizzy now. I’ve never been much of a drinker, and I’m hitting this vodka harder than I should. “We’re the moss imporn’t people in the gal’xy! We’re awesome!”

He grabs a nearby wrench and raises it in one of his hands. “To us!”

I raise the vodka. “To ush!”

“Well. This is it,” I say from my side of the connector.

“Yes,” says Rocky on his side. His voice is low, despite his attempts to keep it high.

The Hail Mary is all fueled up: 2.2 million kilograms of Astrophage. A full 200,000 kilograms more than she left Earth with. Rocky’s replacement tanks were, of course, more efficient and had more volume than my originals.

I rub the back of my neck. “I assume our people will meet up again. I know humans will want to learn all about Erid.”

“Yes,” he says. “Thank you for laptop. Centuries of human technology all for our scientists to learn about. You have given greatest gift in history of my people.”

“You tested it in that life-support system you built for it, right?”

“Yes. That is stupid question.” He grips a handle on his side to keep in place.

Rocky had removed his direct connecting tunnel and resealed the Hail Mary’s hull. He put the airlock-to-airlock connector in place to finish packing up.

At my request, he left the xenonite walls and tunnels in the Hail Mary in place, but with a few meter-wide holes in them here and there so I can use the space. The more xenonite Earth scientists have to study the better, I figure.

The ship still smells a little like ammonia. I guess even xenonite isn’t completely immune to gas permeation. It’ll probably smell that way for a while.

“And your farms?” I say. “You double-checked them all?”

“Yes. Six redundant Taumoeba-82.5 colonies, each in separate tanks with separate life-support systems. Each with Threeworld simulated atmosphere. Your farms are functioning, question?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Well, it’s just my ten breeder tanks. But now I have them all set up with Venus’s atmosphere. Oh, and thanks for the mini-farms, by the way. I’ll install them in the beetles during my trip. I won’t have much else to do.”

He glances at a notepad. “These numbers you gave me. You are certain these are the times for me to turn around and the times for me to reach Erid, question? They are so soon. So fast.”

“Yeah, that’s time dilation for you. Weird stuff. But those are the correct values. I checked them four times. You’ll reach Erid in under three Earth years.”

“But Earth is almost same distance from Tau Ceti, and you will take four years, question?”