Project Hail Mary
No. But I can move my head a little. I look down at my body. I’m naked and connected to more tubes than I can count. There’s one in each arm, one in each leg, one in my “gentlemen’s equipment,” and two that disappear under my thigh. I’m guessing one of them is up where the sun doesn’t shine. That can’t be good.
Page: 8, Location: 123-125
Only three tubes remain: an IV in my arm, a tube up my butt, and a catheter. Those latter two are kind of the signature items I wanted removed, but okay.
Page: 10, Location: 140-141
Soon, I’m sitting on my butt tube. Not the most comfortable sensation, but when is a tube up your butt ever comfortable?
Page: 10, Location: 152-153
My subconscious wants to tell me something. Seeing the line of blood must have reminded me of the “Thin Red Line” title of that email. But what’s that got to do with me?
Page: 15, Location: 225-226
Ten-foot ladder. I think in imperial units. That’s a clue. I’m probably an American. Or English. Or maybe Canadian. Canadians use feet and inches for short distances. I ask myself: How far is it from L.A. to New York? My gut answer: 3,000 miles. A Canadian would have used kilometers. So I’m English or American. Or I’m from Liberia. I know Liberia uses imperial units but I don’t know my own name. That’s irritating.
Page: 17, Location: 253-257
I know what’s going on here. They say hunger is the greatest seasoning. When you’re starving, your brain rewards you handsomely for finally eating. Good job, it says, we get to not die for a while!
Page: 18, Location: 275-277
“Self-ambulation detected,” says the computer. “What’s your name?” “I am Emperor Comatose. Kneel before
Page: 20, Location: 294-295
“Self-ambulation detected,” says the computer. “What’s your name?” “I am Emperor Comatose. Kneel before me.”
Page: 20, Location: 294-295
I’m a scientist! Now we’re getting somewhere! Time for me to use science. All right, genius brain: come up with something! …I’m hungry. You have failed me, brain.
Page: 21, Location: 317-319
I grab a nearby test tube and toss it into the air. It goes up and comes down like it should. But it annoys me. Something about falling objects ticks me off right now. I want to know why.
Page: 23, Location: 340-342
I run the numbers and come up with an answer I don’t like. The gravity in this room is too high. It’s 15 meters per second per second when it should be 9.8. That’s why things falling “feel” wrong to me. They’re falling too fast. And that’s why I’m so weak despite these muscles. Everything weighs one and a half times as much as it should.
Page: 24, Location: 365-367
Cool thing about pendulums: The time it takes for one to swing forward and backward—the period—won’t change, no matter how wide it swings. If it’s got a lot of energy, it’ll swing farther and faster, but the period will still be the same. This is what mechanical clocks take advantage of to keep time. That period ends up being driven by two things, and two things only: the length of the pendulum and gravity. I
Page: 26, Location: 389-392
Hmm. I think mostly in metric when doing science stuff. Interesting. Most scientists do, though, right? Even scientists who grew up in America.
Page: 27, Location: 413-414
She sighed. “You know about the Petrova line?” “Sure. Kind of an interesting mystery. My guess is solar radiation. Venus doesn’t have a magnetic field, but positively charged particles might be drawn there because it’s electrically neutral—” “No,” she said. “It’s something else. We don’t know exactly what. But it’s something…else. But whatever. Let’s eat steak.”
Page: 29, Location: 437-441
they say it’s getting brighter at the same rate that the sun is getting dimmer. Somehow or another, whatever it is, the Petrova line is stealing energy from the sun.”
Page: 30, Location: 456-457
“No, I don’t know that. I used to know that. Now I only know the sun’s dying,” she said. “I don’t know why and I don’t know what we could do about it. But I know it’s dying.” “How…” I furrowed my brow.
Page: 31, Location: 466-468
No. It’s real. I’m terrified just thinking about it. And it’s not just sudden terror. It’s a cozy, comfortable terror with a permanent seat at the table. I’ve felt it for a long time. This is real. The sun is dying. And I’m tangled up in it. Not just as a fellow citizen of Earth who will die with everyone else—I’m actively involved. There’s a sense of responsibility there.
Page: 31, Location: 474-477
The images, playing in succession, showed the black dots deforming and shifting around within their environment. The reporter cleared her throat and delivered what many would call the understatement of the century: “They look a little like microbes, wouldn’t you say?”
Page: 38, Location: 573-576
I have kids? This is a single man’s apartment with a single man eating a single man’s meal. I don’t see anything feminine at all. There’s nothing to suggest a woman in my life. Am I divorced? Gay? Either way, there’s no sign that children live here.
Page: 40, Location: 603-605
So I’m a single man in my thirties, who lives alone in a small apartment, I don’t have any kids, but I like kids a lot. I don’t like where this is going… A teacher! I’m a schoolteacher! I remember it now! Oh, thank God. I’m a teacher.
Page: 40, Location: 608-611
“Ryland Grace?” said a woman’s voice. I looked up with a start. I hadn’t heard her come in.
Page: 43, Location: 659-660
“They’re wrong!” I crossed my arms. “There’s nothing magical about hydrogen and oxygen! They’re required for Earth life, sure. But another planet could have completely different conditions. All life needs is a chemical reaction that results in copies of the original catalyst. And you don’t need water for that!” I
Page: 45, Location: 682-685
She pulled up a lab stool and sat down. “These ‘dots’ are probably a life-form. The exponential progression of solar dimming is consistent with the exponential population growth of a typical life-form.” “You think they’re…eating the sun?” “They’re eating its energy output at least,” she said.
Page: 47, Location: 715-718
“Ryland Grace,” I say with a smug smile. “Dr. Ryland Grace.” A small click from the hatch is the only response I get. After all the meditation and introspection I did to find out my own name, I wish there’d been something more exciting. Confetti, maybe.
Page: 49, Location: 744-747
Velocity is relative. It doesn’t make any sense unless you are comparing two objects. A car on the freeway might be going 70 miles per hour compared to the ground, but compared to the car next to it, it’s moving almost 0. So what is that “measured velocity” measuring the velocity of? I think I know.
Page: 51, Location: 775-777
The text reads HAIL MARY across the top and EARTH across the bottom. The name and “port of call” for this vessel. I didn’t think the ship came from somewhere other than Earth, but okay. Anyway, I guess I finally know the name of this ship I’m on.
Page: 53, Location: 804-806
I looked at the cylinder, back to her, back to the cylinder, and back to her. “This is some bull-puckey.” “Look at the bright side,” she said. “You’ll be forever known as the man who made first contact with extraterrestrial life.” “If it even is life,” I mumbled.
Page: 55, Location: 840-842
“Believe it or not, light has momentum,” I said. “It exerts a force. If you were out in space and you turned on a flashlight, you’d get a teeny, tiny amount of thrust from it.”
Page: 59, Location: 903-904
“So the Petrova line is…tiny little rocket flares?” “Probably. And I bet we’re only seeing a small percentage of the total light coming off that area. They use it to propel themselves to Venus or to the sun. Or both. I don’t know. Point is, the light will go away from their direction of travel. Earth isn’t in that line, so we only see the light that reflects off nearby space dust.”
Page: 60, Location: 915-918
She pinched her chin. “What would you call an organism that exists on a diet of stars?” I struggled to remember my Greek and Latin root words. “I think you’d call it ‘Astrophage.’ ” “Astrophage,” she said. She typed it into her tablet. “Okay. Get back to work. Find out how they breed.”
Page: 61, Location: 926-928
This star I’m looking at…it’s not the sun. I’m in a different solar system.
Page: 62, Location: 941-942
I peer at the diagram more closely. Why is there 20,000 kilograms of Astrophage on this ship? I’ve got a strong suspicion. It’s the fuel. And why not? Astrophage can propel itself with light and has absurd energy-storage capability. It’s had God-knows-how-many billion years of evolution to get good at it. Just like a horse is more energy efficient than a truck, Astrophage is more energy efficient than a spaceship.
Page: 65, Location: 983-986
“Kind of. The ambient temperature of an Astrophage is 96.415 degrees Celsius.” “That’s pretty hot, isn’t it?” “Yeah, almost the boiling point of water,” I said. “For anything living on Earth it would be deadly. But for a thing that’s comfortable near the sun, who knows?”
Page: 66, Location: 1000-1002
microwaves…I even put a few Astrophage in a radiation-containment vessel and exposed it to the gamma rays emitted by Cesium-137 (this lab has everything). I called it the “Bruce Banner Test.” Felt good about that name. Anyway, even gamma couldn’t penetrate the little bastards. Which is like shooting a .50-caliber round at a sheet of paper and having it bounce off. It just doesn’t make any sense.
Page: 68, Location: 1036-1038
“Yes!” I said. “I killed one!” “Good for you,” Stratt said without looking up from her tablet. “First human to kill an alien. Just like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Predator.”
Page: 69, Location: 1055-1056
“No!” I said. “Well. Yes. But it was a scientific poke with a very scientific stick.” “It took you two days to think of poking it with a stick.” “You…be quiet.”
Page: 70, Location: 1064-1066
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “What does that mean?” “It’s water. Astrophage is mostly water.” Her mouth fell open. “How? How can something that exists on the surface of the sun have water?” I shrugged. “Probably because it maintains its internal temperature at 96.415 degrees Celsius no matter what’s going on outside.” “What does this all mean?” she asked. I put my head in my hands. “It means every scientific paper I ever wrote is wrong.”
Page: 71, Location: 1075-1080
I stand up and look to the bodies. No longer a stern commander; no longer a cheerful friend. Just two empty husks that once held souls but now barely looked human. They deserve more than this. They deserve a burial.
Page: 74, Location: 1122-1124
Besides, if I had a nickel for every time I wanted to smack a kid’s parents for not teaching them even the most basic things…well…I’d have enough nickels to put in a sock and smack those parents with it.
Page: 77, Location: 1180-1182
Human suffering is often an abstract concept to kids. But animal suffering is something else entirely.
Page: 78, Location: 1183-1184
“It’s not that long…” I said. But to a bunch of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, thirty years may as well be a million.
Page: 78, Location: 1190-1190
Okay, so humanity put a lot of time and effort into this mission, and Astrophage was the missing link that enabled it. There’s only one explanation: There’s a solution to the Astrophage problem here. Or a potential solution. Something promising enough to dedicate a huge amount of resources.
Page: 82, Location: 1244-1246
Basically, as the fuel gets consumed, the total mass of the ship goes down, so it needs less fuel per second to maintain the constant acceleration. Okay, that all makes sense.
Page: 83, Location: 1270-1271
I have no idea what the Hail Mary’s mass is, but to be able to shove it along at 1.5 g’s of acceleration on a few grams of fuel per second…Astrophage is amazing stuff.
Page: 83, Location: 1271-1273
I have these little “beetle” ships with 5 terabytes of information each. They’ll fly back to Earth and broadcast their data. There’s four of them for redundancy. I’m probably supposed to put copies of my findings in each one and send them all home. If at least
Page: 84, Location: 1282-1284
So instead, I have these little “beetle” ships with 5 terabytes of information each. They’ll fly back to Earth and broadcast their data. There’s four of them for redundancy. I’m probably supposed to put copies of my findings in each one and send them all home. If at least one survives the journey, Earth is saved.
Page: 84, Location: 1282-1284
I’m on a suicide mission. John, Paul, George, and Ringo get to go home, but my long and winding road ends here. I must have known all this when I volunteered. But to my amnesia-riddled brain this is new information. I’m going to die out here. And I’m going to die alone. I glared at the Astrophage.
Page: 84, Location: 1284-1293
I’m on a suicide mission. John, Paul, George, and Ringo get to go home, but my long and winding road ends here. I must have known all this when I volunteered. But to my amnesia-riddled brain this is new information. I’m going to die out here. And I’m going to die alone.
Page: 84, Location: 1284-1286
Most notably, a group in Perth sacrificed one of their Astrophage and did a detailed analysis on all the organelles inside. They found DNA and mitochondria. In any other situation, this would have been the most important discovery of the century. Alien life—indisputably alien—had DNA and mitochondria! And…grumble…a bunch of water…
Page: 86, Location: 1312-1314
“You have mitochondria. Okay, so that means you use ATP as your energy storage, just like we do. But the light you use to move around requires waaaay more energy than your ATP can hold. So you have another energy-storage pathway. One we don’t understand.”
Page: 87, Location: 1321-1322
Light. Whatever their navigation system was, it was based on light. I suspected that would be the case. What else could you use in space? There’s no sound. No smell. It would have to be light, gravity, or electromagnetism. And light’s the easiest of those three to detect. At least, as far as evolution is concerned.
Page: 89, Location: 1353-1355
The key had to be frequencies of light. My boys didn’t wiggle at all in darkness. But it wasn’t just about the sheer volume of light, or they would have gone for the LED. It had to be something about the frequency of the light. Planets don’t just reflect light. They also emit it. Everything emits light. The temperature of the object defines the wavelength of light emitted. Planets are no exception. So maybe Astrophage looked for Venus’s IR signature. It wouldn’t be as bright as Mercury’s, but it would be distinct—a different “color.”
Page: 90, Location: 1366-1371
When light hits gas molecules, the electrons get all worked up. Then they calm down and re-emit the energy as light. But the frequency of the photons they emit is very specific to the molecules involved. Astronomers used this for decades to know what gases are out there far, far away. That’s what spectroscopy is all about.
Page: 91, Location: 1383-1385
Good news: Astrophage were attracted to carbon dioxide’s spectral signature! Bad news: My three irreplaceable, 10-micron-wide Astrophage had launched off somewhere—maybe at velocities approaching the speed of light—and I had no idea where they went. “Craaaaaap.”
Page: 92, Location: 1397-1399
I probably could have called Stratt and she would have had the president of Peru personally deliver them or something. But this was faster.
Page: 92, Location: 1408-1409
Just…minding its own business. A fourth cell. It was right in the same general cluster as the first three, on the filters. “Holy…”
Page: 93, Location: 1426-1427
That’s why there’s a mesh over the window of a microwave. The holes in the mesh are too small for microwaves to pass through. But visible light, with a much shorter wavelength, can go through freely. So you get to watch your food cook without melting your face off.
Page: 95, Location: 1443-1445
The two holdouts didn’t want to go to Venus anymore. They wanted to go back to the sun. Why? Because one of them just divided and created the other.
Page: 95, Location: 1451-1452
Ah, and that’s why Astrophage is so inconsistent on reacting to magnetic fields. It only cares about them at the very beginning of its journey and at no other time.
Page: 96, Location: 1461-1462
The path it takes—straight away from the solar pole, then sharply turning toward Venus—that’s the Petrova line.
Page: 96, Location: 1464-1464
Our heroic Astrophage reaches the upper atmosphere of Venus, collects the CO2 it needs, and can finally reproduce. After that, both parent and child return to the sun and the cycle begins anew. It’s simple, really. Get energy, get resources, and make copies. It’s the same thing all life on Earth does. And that was why two of my little Stooges didn’t walk toward the light.
Page: 96, Location: 1465-1468
“Hold on,” I said. “Who are these people? Why am I on a Chinese aircraft carrier? And have you ever heard of Skype?!” “This is an international body of high-level scientists and political operatives that I have assembled to spearhead Project Hail Mary.”
Page: 101, Location: 1544-1546
“Ms. Stratt can be extremely persuasive,” said Minister Voigt. I shoveled more food into my mouth. “Blame whoever gave her all that authority,” I said. Voigt chuckled. “I was part of that decision, actually. I am Germany’s minister of foreign affairs. The equivalent of your country’s secretary of state.”
Page: 106, Location: 1615-1618
“Ms. Stratt can be extremely persuasive,” said Minister Voigt. I shoveled more food into my mouth. “Blame whoever gave her all that authority,” I said. Voigt chuckled. “I was part of that decision, actually. I am Germany’s minister of foreign affairs. The equivalent of your country’s secretary of state.” I paused my chewing. “Wow,” I managed to say. I gulped down the mouthful. “You’re the most high-ranking person I’ve ever met.”
Page: 106, Location: 1615-1619
“Really?” I said. “Ohhh! That makes perfect sense! Astrophage can travel at 0.92 times the speed of light. If it can go dormant and stay alive long enough, it could infect nearby stars. It spores! Just like mold! It spreads from star to star.”
Page: 107, Location: 1635-1637
I looked at the data. “Why eight light-years? Why not more? Or less?” “Our best guess is the Astrophage can only survive so long without a star and it can coast about eight light-years in that time.” “That’s sensible, from an evolution point of view,” I said. “Most stars have another star within eight light-years, so that’s as far as Astrophage had to evolve to travel while sporing.”
Page: 108, Location: 1649-1652
“They only get to about ten percent dimmer before they stop dimming. We don’t know why. It’s not obvious to the naked eye, but—” “But if our sun dims by ten percent, we’re all dead,” I said. “Pretty much.”
Page: 108, Location: 1653-1655
Astrophage can, apparently, do this in either direction. It takes heat energy and somehow turns it into mass. Then when it wants the energy back, it turns that mass back into energy—in the form of Petrova-frequency light. And it uses that to propel itself along in space. So not only is it a perfect energy-storage medium, it’s a perfect spaceship engine.
Page: 111, Location: 1693-1695
And I know why I’m here! Not just in vague terms like “Oh hey, the world’s ending. Make that not happen.” But very specifically: Find out why Tau Ceti wasn’t affected by Astrophage.
Page: 114, Location: 1744-1745
A million questions run through my mind. Some of the most important are: How do I scour an entire solar system for information about Astrophage? What am I supposed to do? Throw some of my Astrophage fuel at Tau Ceti to see what happens? How do I steer this ship anyway? If I do find useful information, how do I tell Earth about it? I think that’s what the beetles are for, but how do I upload data to them? How do I aim them? How do I launch them? Why would I, of all people, be part of this mission? Yes, I worked out a bunch of stuff about Astrophage, but so what? I’m a lab coat, not an astronaut. It’s not like they sent Wernher von Braun into space. Surely there were more qualified people.
Page: 114, Location: 1746-1754
Weird. I know this is easier than other times I’ve done it, but don’t remember any other times I’ve done it. I think I have brain damage from that coma. I’m
Page: 144, Location: 2208-2209
“Infamous,” said Lokken. “His childish paper was a slap in the face to the entire scientific community. This man works for you? Absurd. All his assumptions about alien life were proven wrong.” I scowled. “Hey. My claim is life doesn’t need water to evolve. Just because we found some life that does use water, that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
Page: 153, Location: 2341-2344
But no matter how you look at it, the end result is the same: The doohickey is a map of the local stars.
Page: 167, Location: 2547-2548
Aliens from the 40 Eridani system. So I guess that makes them Eridanians? Hard to say, even harder to remember. Eridans? No. How about Eridians? Sounds kind of like “iridium,” which is one of the cooler-sounding elements on the periodic table. Yeah, I’m going to call them Eridians.
Page: 167, Location: 2560-2562
“Okay, guys,” I say. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend. If Astrophage is your enemy, I’m your friend.”
Page: 169, Location: 2590-2590
But this is the interstellar equivalent of a stranger offering me candy. I want the candy (information), but I don’t know the stranger.
Page: 172, Location: 2628-2629
Huh. Random memory. Ilyukhina was our engineer—our fix-it gal. Okay. Well, now it’s me.
Page: 173, Location: 2643-2644
Human beings have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.
Page: 175, Location: 2677-2678
The blackness of space gone, replaced with the blackness of a dark tunnel. I turn on the helmet lamps and angle my head to shine light through the porthole.
Page: 185, Location: 2829-2830
Well, I say “his hand,” but maybe it’s her hand. Or some other pronoun I don’t have a word for. They might have seventeen biological sexes, for all I know. Or none. No one ever talks about the really hard parts of first contact with intelligent alien life: pronouns. I’m going to go with “he” for now, because it just seems rude to call a thinking being “it.” Also, until I hear otherwise, his name is Rocky.
Page: 191, Location: 2925-2929
He’s a spider. A big-assed spider. I turn to flee. But my rational brain takes over. “Easy…easy…they’re friendly,” I say to myself. I turn back and take in the scene. Rocky is smaller than a human. He’s about the size of a Labrador. He has five legs radiating out from a central carapace-looking thing. The carapace, which is roughly a pentagon, is 18 inches across and half as thick. I don’t see eyes or a face anywhere.
Page: 194, Location: 2961-2965
He pivots his “shoulders” to rotate his carapace back and forth. He “shook his head” inasmuch as he could. I wonder how we’re going to break out of this game of “Eridian See Eridian Do,” but he takes care of that for me.
Page: 195, Location: 2979-2980
“You have a language!” I say. “How do you have a language?! You don’t have a mouth!” “♫♫♩,” Rocky explains. Thinking rationally, you can’t make spaceships without a civilization and you can’t have civilization without being able to communicate. So of course they have language. It’s interesting that communication is done with sound, like humans do. Coincidence? Maybe not. Maybe that’s just the easiest way to evolve that trait.
Page: 195, Location: 2990-2994
My smile fades. “Yikes. You breathe ammonia?” I count all the little ammonia necklaces they gave me. I only got one O2 molecule, but he gave me twenty-nine ammonias. I think about it for a moment. “Oh,” I say. “I get it. I see what you’re saying.” I look to my alien counterpart. “You have twenty-nine times as much atmosphere as I do.”
Page: 198, Location: 3034-3038
So his clock is intuitive for me to read. And it works like an odometer. “ℓ” is clearly their 0. From that, I know that “I” is 1, “V” is 2, “λ” is 3, “+” is 4, and “V” is 5. What about 6 through 9? They don’t exist. After “V” we go back to “ℓ.” Eridians use base six.
Page: 203, Location: 3102-3106
And he is! With this simple act, Rocky showed me: How Eridian numbers work (base six) How Eridian numbers are written (ℓ, I, V, λ,+, V) How Eridians read information (left to right) How long an Eridian second is
Page: 203, Location: 3111-3116
One Eridian second is 2.366 Earth seconds.
Page: 204, Location: 3128-3128
I mean…we’re pretty untrustworthy, but I don’t want him to know that.
Page: 206, Location: 3150-3151
He can’t “see” the ink, but the hands are solid objects. So he knew about them. But the whole thing is encased in plastic…. I slapped my forehead. “That’s why you needed the clock pressed against the wall. You needed the sound waves bouncing around in it to get to you more easily. And the tape measure I just handed you is useless. You can’t see the ink at all!”
Page: 211, Location: 3223-3226
“Wow…” I stare at him. “Humans spent thousands of years looking up at the stars and wondering what was out there. You guys never saw stars at all but you still worked space travel. What an amazing people you Eridians must be. Scientific geniuses.”
Page: 212, Location: 3249-3251
No more pantomime. It’s time to learn Eridianese. Yes, I just made up that word. No, I don’t feel bad about it. I’m doing a lot of things for the first time in human history out here and there’s a lot of stuff that needs naming. Just be glad I don’t name stuff after myself.
Page: 216, Location: 3312-3314
I listen for any sounds of movement. “Come on, man! Your entire ranged sensory input is sound—I bet you can hear a pin drop a mile away! You know I’m calling you! Move your…whatever serves as your butt! I want to talk!”
Page: 218, Location: 3329-3331
“♪,” he says. Another one-syllable word. The oldest words in a language are usually the shortest.
Page: 222, Location: 3389-3390
Broadly speaking, the human brain is a collection of software hacks compiled into a single, somehow-functional unit. Each “feature” was added as a random mutation that solved some specific problem to increase our odds of survival.
Page: 225, Location: 3438-3440
Okay! Theory confirmed. He’s here for the same reason I am. I want to ask so many more questions. But we just don’t have the words. It’s infuriating!
Page: 226, Location: 3452-3453
Hey, I’m going to fall unconscious and hallucinate for a while. By the way, I spend a third of my time doing this. And if I can’t do it for a while, I go insane and eventually die. No need for concern. I add his word for “sleep” to the dictionary.
Page: 228, Location: 3482-3484
“Eridians not know how long sleep last. Maybe short time. Maybe long time.” They sleep unpredictable amounts of time. I guess there’s no rule saying sleep has to evolve as a regular pattern. Does he at least know a range of times it might be? “Is there a minimum time? A maximum time?” “Minimum is 12,265 seconds. Maximum is 42,928 seconds.” I often get strangely specific numbers from Rocky on things that should be rough estimates. It took me a while to figure out, but I finally did. He actually is coming up with rough, round numbers. But they’re in his units and in base six. It’s actually easier for him to convert those values to base-ten Earth seconds than it is for him to think directly in Earth seconds.
Page: 234, Location: 3585-3592
“Observe. I sleep better.” I don’t want to watch a dog-sized spider not move for several hours. There’s a crew in there, right? Have one of them do it. I point to his ship. “Have some other Eridian observe you.” “No.” “Why not?” “I am only Eridian here.” My mouth hangs open. “You’re the only person on that huge ship?!” He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “♫♩♪♫♩♪♫ ♫♪ ♩♪♫ ♫♪♫♪♩ ♫♪♩♪ ♫♩ ♪ ♫♩♪ ♫ ♩♪♫♩♪ ♫♩♪ ♫.” Complete
Page: 236, Location: 3608-3618
The computer immediately translates the result. “Original crew was twenty-three. Now is only me.” That octave-drop…I think it’s emotion. “They…did they die?” “Yes.” I rub my eyes. Wow. The Blip-A had a crew of twenty-three. Rocky is the sole survivor and he’s understandably upset about it. “Wh…er…” I stammer. “Bad.” “Bad bad bad.”
Page: 237, Location: 3621-3626
“Well, you’re not alone anymore, buddy,” I say. “Neither of us are.”
Page: 237, Location: 3632-3632
I held up a finger. “No, no, no! You can’t just use ‘I’m saving the world’ as an excuse every time you’re a jerk.” She thought it over. “Yeah, okay. You may have a point.”
Page: 239, Location: 3662-3663
How can a civilization develop space travel without ever discovering radiation?
Page: 249, Location: 3817-3817
Astrophage makes neutrinos in pairs by slamming protons together. For the reaction to work, the protons need to collide with a higher kinetic energy than the mass energy of two neutrinos. If you work backward from the mass of a neutrino, you know the velocity those protons have to collide at. And when you know the velocity of particles in an object, you know its temperature. To have enough kinetic energy to make neutrinos, the protons have to be 96.415 degrees Celsius.
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“How can you possibly know that?” she said. He pursed his lips. “And just like that another climate denier is born. See how easy it is? All I have to do is tell you something you don’t want to hear.” “Don’t patronize me, Dr. Leclerc. Just answer my questions.”
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The Eridian homeworld is the first planet in the 40 Eridani system. Humans actually spotted it a while ago, obviously not knowing there was a whole civilization there. The catalog name for it is “40 Eridani A b.” That’s a mouthful. The planet’s actual name, from the Eridians, is a collection of chords like any other Eridian word. So I’ll just call it “Erid.”
Page: 261, Location: 4000-4003
Planets get magnetic fields if the conditions are right. You have to have a molten-iron core, you have to be in the magnetic field of a star, and you have to be spinning. If all three of these things are true, you get a magnetic field. Earth has one—that’s why compasses work.
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You know what strong magnetic fields and thick atmospheres are really good at? Radiation protection. All life on Earth evolved to deal with radiation. Our DNA has error-correction built in because we’re constantly bombarded with radiation from the sun and from space in general. Our magnetic field and atmosphere protect us somewhat, but not 100 percent.
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For Erid, it’s 100 percent. Radiation just doesn’t get to the ground. Light doesn’t even get to the ground—that’s why they never evolved eyes. The surface is pitch-dark. How does a biosphere exist in total darkness? I haven’t asked Rocky how that works yet, but there is plenty of life deep in Earth’s oceans where the sun doesn’t shine. So it’s definitely doable.
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Eridians invented space travel quite a while ago. And with their unparalleled materials technology (xenonite) they actually made a space elevator. Basically a cable leading from Erid’s equator up to the synchronous orbit with a counterweight. They literally take elevators to get into orbit. We could do that on Earth if we knew how to make xenonite.
Page: 263, Location: 4021-4023
“Astrophage stops radiation,” I say. “You were surrounded by Astrophage most of the time. Your crewmates weren’t. So the radiation got to them.” He doesn’t respond. He needs a moment to let that sink in. “Understand,” he says in low notes. “Thank. I now know why I not die.”
Page: 264, Location: 4038-4041
“Has to be, or you and I would not meet,” Rocky says. “If planet has less science, it no can make spaceship. If planet has more science it can understand and destroy Astrophage without leaving their system. Eridian and human science both in special range: Can make ship, but can’t solve Astrophage problem.”
Page: 265, Location: 4057-4060
Rocky might be a long-lost relative. Very long. The trees outside my house back home are closer relatives to me than Rocky. But still.
Page: 266, Location: 4074-4075
He turned back to me. “So here I am. Environmental activist. Climatologist. Antiwar crusader.” He looked out to sea. “And I’m ordering a nuclear strike on Antarctica. Two hundred and forty-one nuclear weapons, courtesy of the United States, buried fifty meters deep along a fissure at three-kilometer intervals. All going off at the same time.” I nodded slowly. “They tell me the radiation will be minimal,” he said.
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And Eridians, being at the top of the food chain, have a heck of a lot more
Page: 271, Location: 4149-4150
And Eridians, being at the top of the food chain, have a heck of a lot more energy to work with than human bodies do. How much more? They have sacs in their body that just hold ATP—the main energy-storage medium of DNA-based life. Usually it lives in cells, but
Page: 271, Location: 4149-4151
they have so much they have to evolve more efficient storage for it. We’re talking absurd amounts of energy here. They pull oxygen off minerals to get metals. Eridians are, in effect, biological smelters.
Page: 271, Location: 4151-4153
Humans have hair, fingernails, tooth enamel, and other “dead” stuff on our bodies that serve critical purposes. Eridians take that concept to the ultimate extreme. Rocky’s carapace is made of oxidized minerals. His bones are honeycombed metallic alloys. His blood is mostly liquid mercury. Even his nerves are inorganic silicates transmitting light-based impulses.
Page: 271, Location: 4154-4156
If bees evolved to make hives that could walk, and the queen was as intelligent as a human, that life-form would be similar to an Eridian. Except the Eridian’s “bees” are single-celled organisms.
Page: 272, Location: 4159-4160
In short: Eridians are steam-powered.
Page: 272, Location: 4165-4165
While Eridians don’t “breathe,” they do still use oxygen. They’re just much more self-contained than a human body. They have plant-like cells and animal-like cells inside. Oxygen to CO2, CO2 to oxygen, back and forth, always kept in balance. Rocky’s body is a little biosphere. All it needs is energy via food and airflow to dump heat.
Page: 272, Location: 4169-4172
But in order for his worker cells to service any part of the hot-blood system, the system has to be cooled to ambient levels. And when that happens, the Eridian can’t use muscles at all. And that’s why Eridians sleep.
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A sleeping Eridian can’t wake up.
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“Hmph,” I say. I try not to let it bother me, but come on. He gets to see an alien spaceship. How come I don’t get to see one?
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When she moved in, I was shocked by the sheer volume of random junk she felt necessary to bring into our small apartment. Box after box of stuff she had accumulated over decades of never throwing anything out. Linda was absolutely Spartan compared to Rocky.
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“Okay, okay.” I grab my EVA suit. “I’ll do it. Jerk.” “No understand last word.” “Not important.” I climb into the suit and close the rear flap.
Page: 287, Location: 4398-4400
Deadline-induced quality issues: a problem all over the galaxy.
Page: 288, Location: 4412-4412
His voice drops an octave. “Fail fail fail. I am repair Eridian. I not science Eridian. Smart smart smart science Eridians died.”
Page: 288, Location: 4416-4417
“How many years have you been alive?” “Two hundred ninety-one years.” He pauses. “Yes. Earth years.” Holy cow. Rocky is older than the United States. He was born around the same time as George Washington.
Page: 291, Location: 4449-4451
“It is name of my mate.” I widen my eyes. That little devil! He never told me he had a mate! I guess Eridians don’t kiss and tell.
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He’s a monostome—that is, the waste comes out the same opening that food goes into.
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He taps the tunnel wall with his claw, pointing at my microscope. “Some life on Adrian EATS Astrophage! Population in balance. Natural order. This explains all things!” “Oh my God!” I gasp. My heart just about beats out of my chest. “Astrophage has a predator!”
Page: 325, Location: 4979-4981
Adrian isn’t just some planet that Astrophage infected. It’s the Astrophage homeworld! And it’s the home of Astrophage’s predators. “This is amazing!” I yell. “If we find a predator…” “We take home!” Rocky says, two octaves higher than normal. “It eat Astrophage, breed, eat more Astrophage, breed, eat more more more! Stars saved!”
Page: 326, Location: 4985-4988
An entire planet of intelligent people put together a ship based on incorrect scientific assumptions, and by some miracle, the sole survivor of the crew was clever enough at trial-and-error problem solving to actually get it to its destination.
Page: 338, Location: 5183-5185
The suffocation reflex comes from excess carbon dioxide in the lungs, not lack of oxygen.
Page: 384, Location: 5883-5883
He looked back and forth to his crewmates. “I will be the last to die. If anything goes wrong with either of your methods, I will be on-hand with the weapon. Just in case.” “Very considerate,” said DuBois. “Thank you.” “Don’t shoot me if I look like I’m having a good time,” Ilyukhina said. “Understood,” said Yáo.
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He grabs a new tool with his free hand and gets back to tinkering. “Math is not thinking. Math is procedure. Memory is not thinking. Memory is storage. Thinking is thinking. Problem, solution. You and me think same speed. Why, question?” “Hmm.”
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“We’re as smart as evolution made us. So we’re the minimum intelligence needed to ensure we can dominate our planets.”
Page: 392, Location: 5999-6000
The press used to keep track of the total cost, but around the $10 trillion mark, they gave up. It just didn’t matter. It wasn’t about efficient use of resources anymore. It was Earth versus Astrophage, and no price was too high.
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Rocky admonished me for leaving the sample at (human) room temperature for so long. He had a lot to say on that subject, actually. We had to add “reckless,” “idiot,” “foolish,” and “irresponsible” to our shared vocabulary just so he could fully express his opinion on the matter.
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“Oh,” I say. I’m not feeling creative at the moment. This is too exciting to take my attention away from. It’s an amoeba from Tau Ceti. “Taumoeba, I guess.” Taumoeba. The savior of Earth and Erid. Hopefully.
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The hardest part about working with aliens and saving humanity from extinction is constantly having to come up with names for stuff.
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I grab my head with both hands, smearing foul gunk on myself but I don’t even care. “Taumoeba. There are Taumoeba in the generator.”
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I start to hyperventilate. “We’re dead in space. We’re stuck here forever.” “Not forever,” Rocky says. I perk up. “No?” “No. Orbit decay soon. Then we die.”
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If they hadn’t, I probably would have died of gangrene by now. Or Lamai’s machine would have amputated my arm when I wasn’t looking.
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Oh. Okay. I see how it is. I’m not some intrepid explorer who nobly sacrificed his life to save Earth. I’m a terrified man who had to be literally dragged kicking and screaming onto the mission. I’m a coward. All that came to me in a flash. I sit on the stool and stare at the lab table. I went from nearly hysterical to…this. This is worse. I’m numb.
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An Eridian body is a nearly impenetrable fortress. But a human body is more like a borderless police state. “Humans are very different,” I say. “We get diseases all the time. We have very powerful immune systems. Also, we find cures for diseases in nature. The word is ‘antibiotics.’ ” “No understand,” he says. “Cures for diseases
Page: 451, Location: 6912-6916
An Eridian body is a nearly impenetrable fortress. But a human body is more like a borderless police state. “Humans are very different,” I say. “We get diseases all the time. We have very powerful immune systems. Also, we find cures for diseases in nature. The word is ‘antibiotics.’
Page: 451, Location: 6912-6915
I spend a lot of time un-suiciding this suicide mission.
Page: 473, Location: 7241-7241
“You will miss me, question? I will miss you. You are friend.” “Yeah. I’m going to miss you.” I take another swig of vodka. “You’re my friend. Heck, you’re my best friend. And pretty soon we’re going to say goodbye forever.”
Page: 478, Location: 7329-7331
“Not forever. We save planets. Then we have Astrophage technology. Visit each other.” I give a wry grin. “Can we do all that within fifty Earth years?” “Probably not. Why so fast, question?” “I only have fifty years or so left to live. Humans don’t”—I hiccup—“don’t live long, remember?” “Oh.” He’s quiet for a moment. “So we enjoy remaining time together, then go save planets. Then we are heroes!”
Page: 479, Location: 7332-7337
I can go home. I really can. I can return and spend the rest of my life a hero. Statues, parades, et cetera. And I’ll be in a new world order where all energy problems are solved. Cheap, easy, renewable energy everywhere thanks to Astrophage. I can track down Stratt and tell her to shove it. But then Rocky dies. And more important, Rocky’s people die. Billions of them. I’m this close. I just need to survive four years. Yeah, it’ll be eating nasty coma slurry but I’ll be alive.
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So that’s what I’m left with. Option 1: Go home a hero and save all of humanity. Option 2: Go to Erid, save an alien species, and starve to death shortly after. I pull on my hair. I sob into my hands. It’s cathartic and exhausting. All I see when I close my eyes is Rocky’s dumb carapace and his little arms always fidgeting with something.
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“All right, all right,” I play. “Everyone settle down and get in your seats.” They scamper to their assigned desks and sit quietly, ready for the lesson to begin. “Who here can tell me the speed of light?” Twelve kids raise their claws.
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