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"Grace wait!" Rocky cried in distress.
Grace turned around. They had retrieved the samples from the Petrova line going between Tau Ceti and Adrian. He was just about to begin some lab analyses.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Grace put both tubes of astrophage right next to each other. Will break centrifuge when turned on. Should balance by putting tubes on opposite sides of centrifuge rotor."
Grace looked down at the two microfuge tubes he'd placed side-by-side in the machine.
"Right you are, buddy," he said. He picked one up when a thought occurred to him. "Now wait a second, Rocky. This ship is the most advanced piece of technology humans have ever built. The nations of the world spared no expense on the project to save all of humanity. Surely, they could afford one of those self-balancing microcentrifuges." He moved to put the tube back in the slot he'd taken it from.
"Grace know this for a fact, question?" Rocky asked.
"Well...." Grace mumbled something to himself.
"What Grace say, question?"
"I said no, Rock, I don't know that for a fact."
Over the course of his teaching career, Ryland Grace had seen many I'm-not-mad-I'm-disappointed faces. But none compared to the stare that the eyeless pentapod he called a roommate was currently leveling at him.
"If Grace wrong, puts tube back where it was, and centrifuge is not self-balancing, or self-balancing mechanism was damaged on journey from Earth, what we have to lose, question? And if Grace just balances tubes like Rocky suggest, what we have to lose, question?"
Grace sighed. He put the tube of astrophage in the hole directly opposite the other tube that was already in the centrifuge rotor.
"You're right, Rock."
"I know."