Chapter 24

Summary

• The narrator realizes with discouragement that they're not a brave explorer, but rather a terrified individual who was dragged into the mission.
• The person reflects on being numb from recognizing their own cowardice and is frustrated by Stratt's successful plan to get their memory back.
• The narrator is approached by Rocky, an alien companion, in a laboratory where they discuss the problem-solving nature of their partnership.
• Rocky presents the concept that Taumoeba's survival in fuel tanks suggests a resistance to certain environments akin to that of Astrophage.
• The protagonist suggests experimenting with Taumoeba in varied environments to identify survivable conditions and gases that impede their growth.
• Rocky agrees to fabricate a specialized test chamber for the narrator's experiments and moves to ready the necessary materials.
• The narrator is impatient to create gravity on the ship to proceed with the experiment, despite risks to the ship's structural integrity.
• Rocky cautions against the plan, suggesting an alternative to wait and clean the ship's fuel tanks, but the narrator is persistent.
• The plan to spin the ship is risky and complex, but the narrator finds a compromise to execute the task in a safer location on the ship.
• The narrator discusses experimenting with breeding nitrogen-tolerant Taumoeba, considering the potentially toxic effect of nitrogen on them.
• The experimentation proves successful, with Taumoeba showing tolerance to gradually increasing levels of nitrogen in their environment.
• Rocky fabricates equipment for the ongoing experiments, which continue to aim at increasing the Taumoeba's nitrogen tolerance.
• The experimentation process is lengthy and methodical, focusing on small, incremental changes in nitrogen levels.
• The narrative shifts to discussing another scientific problem: the potential toxicity of Rocky's food supply to humans due to heavy metals.
• The narrator emphasizes the cultural importance of food enjoyment to humans, which Rocky finds peculiar.
• The text ends with the successful spotting of the flash from Rocky's ship, Blip-A, and plans to approach it.
• Rocky and the narrator work together to calculate the Hail Mary's trajectory adjustments to rendezvous with Blip-A.