Page 142 of Project Hail Mary

“Bad bad bad!”

That’s where the thrust is from. Trillions and trillions of horny little Astrophages, all ready to breed. And then, all at once, they see Adrian. Not just a source of carbon dioxide, but their ancestral homeland. The planet they evolved over billions of years to seek out.

As each new sheet of Astrophage rushes out of the ship and toward Adrian, the next layer of Astrophage gets exposed. The ship is being pushed along by the IR thrust from the departing Astrophage. Fortunately, the rest of the Astrophage behind them are present to absorb the energy. But in absorbing that energy they absorb the momentum.

It’s far from a perfect system. It’s a chaotic, sputtering explosion. Any second now, this could degenerate into a much larger and less directed plume of IR and we’ll be vaporized. I have to make this stop.

I can jettison fuel bays! I saw that feature on my first day in the control room! Where the heck was it…?

It takes all the strength I have to lift my arm to the screen, but I manage to bring up the Astrophage panel. It shows a map of the ship and the fuel-bay area is broken up into nine rectangles. I don’t have time to cross-reference these rectangles to the part of the bad hull. I grunt, force my arm forward, and tap one that I think is in the right place.

“Throwing…away…bad…fuel bay…” I say through clenched teeth.

“Yes yes yes!”Rocky says, cheering me on.

The Fuel Pod screen pops up:ASTROPHAGE 112.079 KG.Next to that, a button labeled “Jettison.” I punch it. A confirmation dialog pops up. I confirm.

A sudden jerk of acceleration hurls me to the side. Even Rocky is unable to hold position. He slams into the side of his bulb but quickly rights himself and clamps onto his handholds with all five hands.

The hull groans louder than before. The acceleration has not stopped and my vision grows foggy. The pilot’s seat begins to bend. I’m about to black out, so we’re probably at 6 g or more.

“Thrust continues,”Rocky quavers.

I can’t reply. I can’t get any sound out at all.

Iknowthe fuel bay I jettisoned was in the affected area. There must be more than one breached bay. No time for subtlety. In a few seconds the force will be too strong for me to reach the screen at all. If there’s a second breached bay, it’ll be adjacent to the bay I just ditched. But there are two adjacent bays. I pick one at random. Fifty-fifty shot. With herculean effort, I tap its icon, the Jettison button, and confirm.

A jolt rocks the ship and I’m thrown around like a rag doll. In my ever-darkening peripheral vision I see Rocky curled up into a ball, bouncing against the walls, leaving silver blood splatters wherever he hits.

If anything, the force is worse than before. But wait…now it’s the other direction.

Instead of being pulled back into my seat, I’m now being pulled away from it, my body pressing into the restraints.

The Centrifuge screen, of all things, comes to the foreground.EXCESSIVE CENTRIFUGAL FORCE WARNING,it blinks.

“Nnnng,” I say. I meant to sayOh God,but I can’t breathe anymore.

All that fuel blasting out into space…it didn’t politely leave along the ship’s long axis. It blew out at an angle, spinning us like a top. And the exploding fuel bays probably made things even worse.

Well, I stopped the fuel leak, at least. There are no new thrust vectors acting on the ship. Now I just have to deal with the spin. I manage to get a breath in. The centrifugal force is less than the uncontrolled thrust force, but it’s still monumental. But hey, at least it pulls my arms toward the screen instead of away from it.

If I can get the spin drives back online, maybe I can cancel the—

My seat finally gives out. I hear the pops as the anchor points shear off. I fall forward, into the screen, still strapped to the metal seat, which crushes me from behind.

The chair probably doesn’t weigh much in normal gravity. Maybe 20 kilograms. But with this much centripetal force, it’s like having a cement block on my back. I can’t breathe.

This is it. The weight of the chair is so much I can’t inflate my lungs. I get dizzy.

Mechanical suffocation, it’s called. It’s how boa constrictors kill their prey. What an odd thing to think as my last thought.

Sorry, Earth,I think. There. Much better last thought.

My lungs, now full of carbon dioxide, panic. But the adrenaline rush doesn’t give me the strength I need to escape. It just keeps me awake so I can experience death in more detail.

Thanks, adrenal glands.

The groaning of the ship has stopped. I guess anything that was going to break has broken and all that’s left is stuff that can handle the stress.