He asked how long the food would last for the twenty-seven fuakula, and Kathy quietly informed him that there were now only twenty-six of them. One of the two sick natives had died during the previous day. Nick grimaced, feeling the danger the people were in.

  The fuakula's own supplies would last two more months, extended with rationing. The additional materials Nick had provided would stretch that out at least another month, longer if he could bring them more feedstock ingots. Also, they were going to leave samples of all of their own foodstuffs, not just the native beans, in the place Nick had stashed the supplies. That way, Nick could pick them up and have Petra absorb them, then teach those patterns to the food printer as well.

  Kathy also told him that they were giving him their richest pieces of silver ore. Nick felt bad about making them go all the way down the hill with the rocks, but they weren't complaining. At least it's not uphill.

  Nick was getting antsy to return home, and tried to think whether he was forgetting anything. The dead fuakala and the sick one came to mind. Can I do anything for them? I don't know anything about their biology, and I don't know what's wrong.

  Can I feed the sick one tiny sensors like the ones Petra put inside me? Nick spoke privately with Petra about it, and he eventually got her to cough up an explanation that she needed a sample of the patient's blood to analyze first. He thought about the hassles involved in getting such a sample. Am I going to need to actually go inside their refuge? I might get everybody sick!

  He tried to get Petra to explain how old the sample could be before she absorbed it, in the surface conditions of BigBall. The answer wasn't promising. On the plus side, the size of the sample needed was only a few drops. He brooded about it for a minute, then resumed talking to Kathy.

  “Kathy, you have one sick fuakala.”

  “Yes. Kek!ooa.” Kevin, Nick's brain said immediately, but he tried to remember the real name.

  “I get Kekoona's blood?”

  “What is blood?”

  He groaned, trying to think of how to say it. They hadn't gone over colors yet, so he couldn't say red water. Besides, who knew if fuakala blood was actually red? Nick held up his arm, close to the camera. “Blood. Water. Blood go.” He traced down his arm, and back up, following a visible vein where he could. “Blood is water...no die.”

  Nick despaired of explaining, and decided that a picture was worth a thousand words. He rummaged around Rockhunter until he found a sharp sliver of an ingot that he hadn't swept up. “Here. Nick give blood.” He held his finger close to the camera, then poked himself with the sharp sliver. It stung a lot, but didn't bleed.

  Nick sighed and made a bigger cut, hissing a little. Come on, don't be a wuss, he told himself. He had no problem when someone else was cutting him, but doing it to himself took more willpower than he liked. He got it deep enough that he could squeeze out multiple drops. “Petra, how many drops like this do you need?”

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  “I need eight drops, Nick.”

  Nick showed Kathy what he meant, counting out the drops as they fell from his fingertip. He looked around, but didn't have anything to hold his blood except a bottle cap, and he didn't want to get blood in his water bottle. She seemed to get the idea, though. Then he had to explain the timing.

  “You give small food, you give silver ore, no blood.” Nick pointed at the cache. “You go in.” He pointed on his little diagram. “I go, I get gifts. I go.” Nick pointed at the cache, then at the mine entrance. “One fuakala go. One. Give Kevin's blood. I get. Fast. Yes?”

  It took a couple more times through it, but he was pretty sure Kathy got the idea. Then it was just a matter of waiting for them to get everything in place. Nick watched on the scanner and saw that all of the fuakala went inside, so he unloaded the cache into Rockhunter. Then, he drove up to the entrance of the mine. He saw fuakalas moving around inside for a few minutes.

  Finally, one of them approached the entrance quickly. “Nik!eh, I go now,” Kathy called out to the communicator. Nick opened the hatch on Rockhunter and stepped down onto the rocks nervously.

  The door opened, light spilling onto the dirt floor. Kathy came out, walking quickly. Despite having two legs like a human, her gait was uneven, almost as if she were skipping. Nick suppressed his primal reaction to weird creature is charging me and held still.

  Instead of laying the sample on the ground, the fuakala walked right up to him and held out a glass vial. “Kek!ooa blood.” Nick took it, and she offered him another. “Katheeg!lik blood.”

  “Thank you, Kathy.” Nick hesitated, as he and the alien stared into each other's eyes for the first time. It felt weirdly unnerving and Nick glanced away. “I go now!” He turned and climbed into Rockhunter.

  “Nik!eh...!” Kathy shouted. She pointed at him—no, not at him, at Rockhunter. “I go? I and you go?”

  Nick stared at her in shock for just a moment. “Wait.” Quickly, he put the sample of Kevin's blood up to Petra's input port and had her absorb it. Then, he did the same with Kathy's blood. Once the time critical task was complete, he took a minute to think over the completely unexpected request.

  “Small,” he told her. “Three hours go. Three hours go here.”

  “I sleep.”

  “Yes, no, Kathy sick. Yes, no, Nick sick.”

  “Nick die?”

  “No.”

  “Katheeg!lik die?”

  “Yes, no.”

  At that Kathy paused, but only for a few moments. “Nik!eh...You give... I go?”

  She's asking permission.

  This is a bad idea.

  This is a really bad idea.

  This is a really, really, really bad idea, Nick.

  He looked around at the interior of Rockhunter. He didn't have a huge load, just the silver ore and a handful of cans. It wouldn't be comfortable, but she could fit. If we're breathing the same air for three hours, we're definitely sharing germs, though.

  Petra is sure she can save me. So...same technology...she should be able to save Kathy, too, right? Kathy even gave me a sample of her blood for Petra to analyze.

  I wish I could ask her why she wants to do this. Is she going to kill me and claim Petra? Would that even work? She has no way of knowing Petra is aboard, though. Maybe she wants to find Petra at my place and take her?

  Or maybe she's just desperately trying to be an ambassador to the only being on this planet who might be able to save her people.

  “This is a bad idea. This is a really bad idea,” Nick muttered. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Yes, Kathy. You and I go.”