Chapter 29

Summary

• The narrator has built a new farm for Taumoeba, a critical organism for fuel, using aluminum and a CNC mill.
• Rocky’s spaceship has stopped sending engine flares, which had been constant for the past month.
• With the ship's drives off and the Petrovascope at full sensitivity, the narrator cannot detect Rocky's ship or the usual blip from the Tau Ceti-Adrian Petrova line.
• It is concluded that Rocky’s ship is adrift because the Taumoeba have consumed all the Astrophage fuel.
• The narrator realizes Rocky would have fixed any problems unless the Taumoeba had devoured all the fuel compartments made of xenonite.
• The narrator contemplates returning to Earth and being celebrated as a hero but decides to save Rocky and his species, risking his life by running out of food on the return trip.
• The other option considered is to send off data and findings to Earth scientists for further research.
• The narrator decides to go and save Rocky, after spotting signs of Petrova light signalling Rocky's location.
• Finding Rocky's ship near Tau Ceti is compared to finding a toothpick in the ocean, and the narrator laments the vastness of space while still being lucky to have a narrowed down search area.
• A new radar search strategy using 900 terawatts of IR light and the Petrovascope is conceived to locate Rocky.
• The narrator successfully detects a flash from Rocky's ship using this improvised radar technique.
• After meticulous navigation, they match velocities with Rocky's ship which indicates it too is on an escape vector from Tau Ceti.
• Anticipation builds as the narrator approaches Rocky's ship, trying to communicate with no response.
• The narrator dons an EVA suit and manually crosses the void to Rocky's ship, creating a clatter to attract Rocky's attention.
• Rocky, alive, responds over the radio. They discuss the Taumoeba problem and the narrator's plan to take Rocky back to his home planet, Erid.
• They address the fact that the narrator will not have enough food for a return trip to Earth and tackle the issue with the idea of the astronaut consuming Taumoeba.
• Rocky informs the narrator that there's a significant amount of Taumoeba available to potentially serve as food.
• The chapter ends on a hopeful note as the possibility of the narrator being able to eat Taumoeba introduces a solution to the food shortage problem.