Chapter 21

Summary

• The narrator, tasked with discussing delicate matters, meets with three astronauts to discuss their preferred ways to die during a mission.
• The astronauts, Yáo, DuBois, and Ilyukhina, soon to embark on life-sacrificing mission, share their death preferences in the breakroom.
• DuBois wants to die by nitrogen asphyxiation using his EVA suit or the ship's airlock as alternatives.
• Ilyukhina desires to experience heroin-induced euphoria leading to an overdose, with medical support to ensure a painless death.
• Yáo requests a Type-92 handgun to end his life and potentially aid others in the event of method failure.
• The narrator struggles with the discomfort of severe burns and the temptation to use illicit pain relief, which echoes Ilyukhina's chosen method.
• Rocky taps on the airlock wall in distress and communicates that he's unwell after being exposed to the narrator's atmosphere.
• The narrator feels guilty for mistakenly blowing air at Rocky's radiator vents, inadvertently removing protective material, not soot.
• Despite the narrator's mistake, Rocky is thankful and is on the mend.
• Rocky has invented a device to help the narrator safely gather and study Adrian life samples without contaminating the environment.
• The narrator ponders intelligence evolution, having a philosophical conversation with Rocky that touches upon the development of intellect due to environmental demands.
• The narrator reflects on missing teaching and the respect that came from students, as well as concerns for their future due to the impending mission, which will take over 26 years for a round trip.
• An explosion nearby disrupts the narrator's work due to an Astrophage mishap that claims the lives of fellow crew members DuBois and Shapiro.
• Stratt demands the narrator move past grief quickly to find a replacement for the deceased crew members.
• The narrator successfully observes a predatory Adrian organism, Taumoeba, attacking Astrophage and its reproduction process, foreseeing its potential role in saving Earth and Erid.
• The narrator experiments with Taumoeba to determine if it can survive in atmospheres mimicking Venus and Threeworld, the environments where Astrophage propagates.
• After setting up the experiments and expressing hope for the success of Taumoeba as a solution, a power outage heightens the tension of the situation.