What Inhabits Me?

What vast secrets would it hold? What startling discoveries ... what dire news would it bring back after twenty lost years out in deep space? Fearfully men watched the awesome Andromeda glide into the Plutonian spaceport .
Here the universe was so quiet you could hear space creaking and groaning from its internal stresses. Here even the far-off stars seemed to roar like blow torches.
Craig Randall, shivering from the cold of the observatory dome, snapped shut the holders on the exposed plates, pulled them out and quickly replaced them with new ones, opened the shutters on the 20-inch scope. Out here on Pluto a 20-inch telescope did a much better job than a 200-inch scope did on Earth. This was one reason why Earth Government maintained this station here on a wandering chunk of space-frozen rock.
Plates in hand, he fled into the semi-warmth of the development lab. Here he developed them, compared them with previous plates, saw there was no change, and quickly filed them. Then he fled again, this time to the warmth of human companionship in the big lounge of Pluto Station.
Music from Earth came to him as he entered the room, warm and throbbing, smells, tobacco smoke, the rattle of a pinball machine, the riffle of a deck of cards being shuffled. In the lounge, devices to combat boredom were in operation. As he entered the lounge old Adam March looked up at him, hope suddenly gleaming in faded blue eyes, to ask again the same eternal question.
Anything new on the plates, Craig? Everytime an astronomer came out of the observatory, old Adam March asked this question, always with renewed hope sounding in his voice.
Craig shook his head. Sorry, Adam. Nothing.
At his words, hope began to go out of the faded blue eyes. Not a sign of the Andromeda ? the old man persisted.
Not a sign. Why don't you ever ask about the Perseus or the Hercules ? They went out into deep space too, you know.
I know, Adam March nodded. But the Andromeda was the first one to go out, she was the first deep-space ship. It seems logical that she might be the first one back. That's why I always ask about her.