Chapter 17

Summary

• The narrator wakes up with Rocky, a pentagonally symmetrical creature, watching over him—part of Eridian culture to ensure he's awake.
• Rocky fetches the narrator's breakfast and coffee, displaying how the creature has learned to adapt service based on the presence of gravity.
• During breakfast, the narrator contemplates Eridian customs and admires the astronomy skills of his alien friend, whose calculations about a planet named Adrian have proved accurate.
• The narrator is in anticipation of successfully entering Adrian's orbit, based on Rocky's calculations on its motion and mass.
• The planet Adrian is described as pale-green with white clouds and an atmosphere composed primarily of carbon dioxide and methane, which is peculiar because methane doesn't last long in sunlight.
• Rocky suggests geological processes as a source of methane; the narrator acknowledges the possibility but is puzzled by the quantity of methane.
• The countdown to orbital insertion is less than one day away.
• Rocky and the narrator discuss the operation of the ship's equipment for sampling Astrophage, an organism they are studying.
• The narrator is required to physically retrieve the samples from outside the ship due to the lack of an automated system.
• A flashback to the narrator's training at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab reveals the challenges of working in an EVA suit and the details of a microbiology equipment kit (IVME) for the mission.
• The narrator recounts interactions with the mission’s crew members, highlighting their professional and personal lives, including an intimate relationship between two of them.
• Back at present, Rocky demonstrates his ingenuity by creating a 'camera' that translates visual data into a texture he can understand.
• The narrative shifts to the narrator completing an EVA to retrieve samples collected near Adrian, showing excitement and appreciation for the sight of the planet.
• Lab analysis reveals that the samples contain more than just Astrophage—there's a variety of life, suggesting that Adrian is home to a whole ecosystem.
• The discovery of a potential predator for Astrophage on Adrian sparks hope for a natural solution to the Astrophage epidemic threatening the solar system.
• Rocky and the narrator celebrate their potentially groundbreaking discovery with a 'fist bump,' an example of cross-cultural exchange.