“Dr. Grace, I don’t have the luxury of leaving samples here just to stroke your bruised ego.”

“Ego?! This isn’t about my ego! It’s about my children!”

“You don’t have children.”

“Yes, I do! Dozens of them. They come to my class every day. And they’re all going to end up in a Mad Max nightmare world if we don’t solve this problem. Yeah, I was wrong about the water. I don’t care about that. I care about those kids. So give me some gosh-darned Astrophage!”

She stepped back and pursed her lips. She looked to the side, thinking it over. Then she turned back to me. “Three. You can have three Astrophage.”

I unclenched my muscles. “Okay.” I breathed a little. I didn’t realize how tense I’d been. “Okay. Three. I can work with that.”

She typed on her tablet. “I’ll keep this lab open. It’s all yours. Come back in a few hours and my guys will be gone.”

I was already halfway into a containment suit. “I’m getting back to work now. Tell your guys to stay out of my way.”

She glared at me but didn’t say anything further.

I have to do this for my kids.

I mean… they’re not my kids. But they’re my kids.

I look at the screens arrayed before me. I need to think about this.

My memory is spotty. Seems reliable enough, but incomplete. Instead of waiting for an epiphany where I remember everything, what can I work out right now?

Earth is in trouble. The sun is infected with Astrophage. I’m in a spaceship in another solar system. This ship wasn’t easy to build and it had an international crew. We’re talking about an interstellar mission—something that should be impossible with our technology. Okay, so humanity put a lot of time and effort into this mission, and Astrophage was the missing link that enabled it.

There’s only one explanation: There’s a solution to the Astrophage problem here. Or a potential solution. Something promising enough to dedicate a huge amount of resources.

I scour the screens for more info. Mostly they seem to be the kinds of things you’d expect on a spaceship. Life support, navigation, that sort of thing. One screen is labeled “Beetles.” The next screen over says—

Wait, beetles?

Okay, I don’t know if it has anything to do with anything, but I need to find out if there are a bunch of beetles on this ship. That’s the sort of thing a guy needs to know.

The screen is broken into four quadrants, each one showing nearly the same thing. A little schematic and a bunch of text information. The schematics each show a bulbous, oblong shape with a pointed head and a trapezoid on the back. If you tilt your head just right and squint, I suppose it kind of looks like a beetle. Each beetle also has a name up top: “John,” “Paul,” “George,” and “Ringo.”

Yeah, I get it. I’m not laughing, but I get it.