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“Astrophage stops radiation,” I say. “You were surrounded by Astrophage most of the time. Your crewmates weren’t. So the radiation got to them.”
Meanwhile, the hot blood is too hot for any biological material to survive inside—it boils the water inside. This is handy for sterilizing incoming food of pathogens, by the way. But in order for his worker cells to service any part of the hot-blood system, the system has to be cooled to ambient levels. And when that happens, the Eridian can’t use muscles at all. And that’s why Eridians sleep. They don’t “sleep” like a human does. They’re legitimately paralyzed. And the brain, also being maintained, has no conscious function during that period. A sleeping Eridian can’t wake up. That’s why they
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“Well, yes, that too,” he said. “But I was talking about coma resistance. I hear you have the coma-resistance markers, just like me and the rest of the crew.” “I do?” He raised his eyebrow. “They didn’t tell you?” “No!” I shot a look over to Stratt. She was busy talking to Embezzler Bob and Commander Yáo. “First I’m hearing of it.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?” “You’re asking the wrong person, Dr. Grace. But my guess is they only told Stratt and she only told people who needed to know.” “It’s my DNA,” I grumbled. “Someone should have told me.”
“Adrian isn’t just a planet,” I say. “Adrian is a planet with life, like Earth or Erid! That explains where the methane comes from. Life makes methane!”
“Some life on Adrian EATS Astrophage! Population in balance. Natural order. This explains all things!”
Adrian isn’t just some planet that Astrophage infected. It’s the Astrophage homeworld! And it’s the home of Astrophage’s predators.
Astrophage have to breed somewhere. Some partial pressure of carbon dioxide will be key. But we don’t have to work that out or take any guesses. When an Astrophage divides, it and its offspring head back to Tau Ceti. And they use IR-light emission to make it happen. That means there will be a glow of Petrova-frequency light coming from all over the planet at that specific altitude.
Threeworld is the third planet in Rocky’s home system. At least, Threeworld is what I call it. The Eridians don’t have a name for it, even in their own language. Just a designation: “Planet Three.” They didn’t have ancient people looking up at astronomical bodies and naming them after gods. They only discovered other planets in their system a few hundred years ago. But I don’t want to say “Planet Three” all the time, so I’ve named it Threeworld.
head with both hands, smearing foul gunk on myself but I don’t even care. “Taumoeba. There are Taumoeba in the generator.” “They damage generator, question?” Rocky says. “Give me generator. I fix.”
“If there are Taumoeba in the generator, it means there are Taumoeba in the fuel supply. Taumoeba ate all the Astrophage. We have no power because we have no fuel.” Rocky raises his carapace so fast he clunks it against the roof of his tunnel.
So, before I set out, I’m going to send George on his way with all my findings and some Taumoeba aboard. I would much rather have kept two in reserve, but we need three beetles to be able to vector the thrust so we can angle the ship whatever direction we need.
Taumoeba can’t survive Venus or Threeworld’s environment. Or, at the very least, they aren’t eating.
I’m not some intrepid explorer who nobly sacrificed his life to save Earth. I’m a terrified man who had to be literally dragged kicking and screaming onto the mission.
“The Taumoeba evolved to resist nitrogen. But it also evolved to get into xenonite to hide from nitrogen. The side effect is Taumoeba-82.5 can work its way through xenonite over time.”
