Page 147 of Project Hail Mary

“Computer: painkillers.”

The arms reach up and hand me a paper cup with two pills in it and a cup of water. I take the pills without even checking what they are.

I look back at my friend and try to come up with a plan….

—

It’s been over a day since I shoved Rocky in that airlock and he still hasn’t moved. But I haven’t been wasting my time. I’ve been mad sciencing some inventions in the lab. This kind of gadget creation is really Rocky’s forte, but I give it my best.

I thought about lots of different approaches. But in the end, I think I should let Rocky’s body heal itself as much as possible. I wouldn’t feel comfortable trying to operate on a human, let alone an Eridian. His body should know what to do. I just have to let it.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to do nothing at all, though. I have a guess as to what’s going on. And if I’m wrong, my idea for treatment won’t hurt him.

Right now, there’s a bunch of soot and other combustion by-product crap in his radiator organ. So it probably doesn’t work well. If he’s alive at all, it’ll take his body a long time to clear that out. Maybe too long.

So maybe I can help?

I hold the box in my hand. It’s enclosed on five of six sides with the remaining side open. The walls are 4-inch-thick steel. It took me all day to repair the mill and get it working again, but once I did, milling up this box was a breeze.

Inside is a high-powered air pump. Simple as that. I can shoot high-pressure air really hard. I tested it out in the lab and it blew a hole in a 1-millimeter-thick sheet of aluminum from a foot away. It really works. I wish I could claim I’m a genius who made this all from scratch, but the reality is I only made the box. The pump is repurposed from a high-pressure tank.

Also in the box is a battery, a camera, some stepper motors, and a drill. I’ll need all of these things for my plan to work.

I’ve cleaned up the lab, somewhat. Most of the equipment is ruined, but some might be fixable. I cross to the other side of the table, where I have another experiment.

I have a little chip of xenonite—some chaff left over from when we made two hundred thousand chain links. I used a generous application of epoxy to glue it to the tip of a roughed-up drill bit. It’s been setting for over an hour. Should be done.

I pick up the bit and the xenonite comes with it. I use all my strength to try to pull them apart. I can’t.

I nod and smile. This might work.

I do a few more tests with the box. My remote control for the motors works well enough. It’s not true remote control. It’s a bank of switches attached to a plastic container lid. I have wires from the switches going through a tiny hole in the steel, which is in turn filled up with resin. I can turn the power on or off to any of the components in there. That’s my “remote control.” I can only hope the motors don’t have a problem with high heat or ammonia.

I bring everything to the dormitory and prep the epoxy. I stir it together and apply it generously to the edges of the steel box’s open side. I press the box to the airlock wall and hold it in place. Then I just stand there for ten minutes, holding the box in place. I could have taped it to the wall or something while the epoxy set, but I need a really good seal and I don’t want to take any chances. Human hands are better clamps than any tool I might have in the lab.

I gingerly release the box and wait for it to fall. It doesn’t. I poke it a couple of times and it seems pretty solid.

It’s five-minute epoxy, but I’ll give it an hour to fully set.

I return to the lab. I may as well, right? Let’s see what my little alien terrarium is up to.

Nothing much, as it happens. I don’t know what I expected. Little flying saucers whizzing around in the chamber, maybe?

But the cylinder looks exactly like it did before. The sampler sits where I left it. The smear of Astrophage is unchanged. The cotton swab is…

Hey…

I hunker down and take a seat. I squint into the chamber. The cotton swab has changed. Just a little bit. It’s…fluffier.

Sweet! Maybe there’s something on there I could get a look at. I just need to get it under a microscope to—

Oh.

The realization dawns on me. I don’t have any way to extract samples. I just plain overlooked that part.

“Dummy!” I smack my forehead.

I rub my eyes. Between the pain from my burns and the dopiness from the painkillers, it’s hard to concentrate. And I’m tired. One thing I learned back in my graduate school days: When you’re stupid tired, accept that you’re stupid tired. Don’t try to solve things right then. I have a sealed container that I need to get into eventually. I’ll figure out how later.