He’s silent for a few moments and finally answers. “No.”

“Okay. Get that ball thing you use as a spacesuit and come on over. Talk me through how to patch up the xenonite walls. Then you can move your stuff in—”

“Wait,” he says. “You no can eat Erid life. You no have Earth life to eat. What about Adrian life, question?”

I snort. “Astrophage? I can’t eat that! It’s ninety-six degrees all the time! It would burn me alive. Plus, I doubt my digestive enzymes would even work on its weird cell membrane.”

“Not Astrophage. Taumoeba. Eat Taumoeba.”

“I can’t eat—” I pause. “I… what?”

Can I eat Taumoeba?

It’s alive. It has DNA. Is has mitochondria—the powerhouse of the cell. It stores energy as glucose. It does the Krebs cycle. It’s not Astrophage. It’s not 96 degrees. It’s just an amoeba from another planet. It won’t have heavy metals like Eridian life evolved to have—they aren’t even present in Adrian’s atmosphere.

“I… I don’t know. Maybe I can.”

He points to his ship. “I have twenty-two million kilograms of Taumoeba in fuel bays. How much you want, question?”

I widen my eyes. It’s the first time I’ve felt genuine hope in a long time.

“Settled.” He puts his claw against the divider. “Fist my bump.”

I laugh and put my knuckles against the xenonite. “Fist-bump. It’s just ‘fist-bump.’ ”

“Understand.”

I finish off the last bite of my meburger and gulp down the vitamin-enriched soda. I put my dishes in the sink and check the clock on my kitchen wall. Wow, is it VℓIλλ already? I better hurry up.

My first few years on Erid were touch-and-go. Taumoeba kept me alive, but I became severely malnourished. The microbes gave me calories, but they weren’t a balanced diet.

Those were painful days. I had scurvy, beriberi, and a raft of other maladies. Was it worth it? I still don’t know. I might never know. There’s no way to communicate with Earth. It’s sixteen light-years away.

For all I know, the beetles may have malfunctioned or missed their target. I don’t even know if the climatologists like Leclerc were right in their models for what would happen. The Hail Mary might have been hopeless from the get-go. Earth might already be a frozen wasteland with billions of corpses.

But I try to stay positive. What else have I got?

For what it’s worth, the Eridians are fantastic hosts. They don’t have a government, per se, but all the important entities agreed to do whatever it takes to keep me alive. After all, I played a critical role in saving their planet. And even if I hadn’t, I’m a living, breathing alien. Of course they’re going to keep me alive. I’m of extreme scientific interest.

I live in a big dome in the middle of one of their “cities.” Though “city” isn’t quite the right word. A better description might be a “cluster.”

I have grounds and everything. Thirty Eridians outside the dome maintain my life-support systems, or so I’m told. And my dome is very close to one of the larger science centers. Many of Erid’s greatest minds collect there and thrum. That’s sort of a song and discussion in one. But everyone talks at the same time and it’s not really conscious on their part. Somehow the thrum leads to conclusions and decisions. The thrum itself is much smarter than any Eridian in it. In a way, Eridians can become ad-hoc neurons in a group mind. But they come and go as they please.