The additional weight of the farm makes the beetles weigh a kilogram more than they should. That’s okay. I remember countless meetings with Steve Hatch discussing the design. He’s a weird little guy, but he’s a heck of a rocket scientist. The beetles know their location in space by looking at the stars, and if they have less fuel than they expected to have, they taper their acceleration down as needed.

In short: They’ll get home. It’ll just take a little longer. I ran the numbers and it’s a trivial difference in Earth time. Though the beetles will experience several additional months during the trip than the original plan.

I go to the supply cabinet and pull out the BOCOA (big ol’ container of Astrophage). It’s a lightproof metal bin with wheels. There are several hundred kilograms of Astrophage in there and I’m in 1.5g’s of gravity. That’s why I added the wheels. You’d be amazed what you can do with a machine shop and a firm desire not to drag heavy stuff around.

I hold the handle with a towel because it’s so hot. I wheel it over to the lab table, settle into the chair, and get ready for the methodical refueling process. I get the plastic syringe at the ready. With it, I can squirt 100 milliliters of Astrophage into that 6-millimeter hole per shot. That’s about 600 grams. All told, I have to do it about two hundred times per beetle.

I open the BOCOA and—

“Ugh!” I wince and draw away from the container. It smells horrible.

“Uh…” I say. “Why does it smell like that?”

Then it hits me. I know that smell. It’s the smell of dead, rotting Astrophage.

The Taumoeba are loose again.

Chapter 27

I leap from the stool, but I don’t have a plan.

“Okay, don’t panic,” I tell myself. “Think clearly. Then act.”

The BOCOA is still hot. That means there’s a lot of living Astrophage still in there. I caught it early. That’s good. Not because of the BOCOA—it’s toast. I’ll never be able to sort out the Taumoeba from the Astrophage in there. But it means that however the heck the Taumoeba got in there, this is very recent and hopefully hasn’t reached the ship’s fuel.

Yes. That’s priority number one. Don’t let Taumoeba into the fuel bays. Last time they got in was because of various microscopic leaks in the system. But it had to have gotten there from the crew compartments where I had brought it aboard. There isn’t much overlap between the fuel system and the crew compartment. There’s just one place that’s the likely culprit for transfer.

Life support.