Page 149 of Project Hail Mary

But I don’t take the mask or goggles off. You never know when the seal might give out.

I check the camera screen. This will take careful aim, so I was very clever in making sure a camera could—

The camera feed is dead.

A pain in my wrist takes over and I pull it away.

Ah. Yeah. Webcams aren’t designed to work at 210 degrees Celsius and 29 atmospheres. And my solid steel box, well, it’s solid steel. Steel is anexcellentheat conductor. I can’t even touch it now it’s so hot.

I’m still stupid. First the Adrian sample container, and now this. I want to sleep, but Rocky is more important. At least being stupid isn’t permanent. I’ll press on. I know I shouldn’t, but I’m too stupid to take that into consideration.

Okay, the camera is dead. I can’t see into the box. But I can still see Rocky in the airlock because the xenonite is clear. I’ll have to work with what I’ve got here.

I fire up the high-pressure pump. It still works—at least, it’s making noise. It should be shooting a very high-pressure jet of air in Rocky’s direction. At 29 atmospheres, air acts almost like water. You can really knock stuff around with it. But ammonia is clear. So I have no idea where it’s going.

I adjust the angle of the jet with the servo controls. Are they working? I have no idea. The pump is too loud for me to hear if the servos are doing anything. I sweep left and right, inching down and up in a pattern.

Finally, I spot something. One of the levers in the airlock wiggles a bit. I zero in on it. It gets pushed back several inches.

“Gotcha!” I say.

Now I know where it’s pointed. I do some guesswork and aim for Rocky’s carapace vents. Nothing happens, so I do a grid search, back and forth, up and down, until I get a result.

And oh, what a result it is!

I hit the sweet spot. All of a sudden, Rocky’s carapace vents belch out black smoke. The nasty dust and debris that built up when he was on fire. It’s intensely satisfying. Like that feeling when you blast an air duster into an old computer.

I sweep back and forth, trying to hit each vent one by one. The latter vents don’t cause nearly the commotion as that first one. I think they all lead to the same organ—like a human’s mouth and nose do. Multiple orifices for redundancy and safety.

After a few minutes, no more sooty dust is coming out. I shut off the pump.

“Well, buddy,” I say. “I’ve done all I can. I just hope you can do the rest.”

I spend the rest of the day working on a secondary and tertiary containment box. I glue them in place over my device. The Eridian air will have to breach three seals to get into my compartment now. That will have to do.

I hope Rocky wakes up.

“We can do this in private,” I said. “I can meet with you one at a time.”

The three astronauts sat on a couch in front of me. I’d commandeered the breakroom and locked the door for this meeting. Yáo sat in the center, looking stern as always. DuBois was to his left, his back arched to provide perfect posture. Ilyukhina slouched to Yáo’s left, sipping a beer.

“No need for individual meetings,” said Yáo. “There’s no room on this mission for secrets.”

I shifted in my chair. Why did Stratt send me to do this job? I’m not a people person and I don’t know how to approach delicate matters. She said something about the crew liking me more than anyone else. Why? Maybe I just seemed friendly and pleasant because I was usually standing next to Stratt.

In any event, launch was just a month away and I had to get this information.

“Okay,” I said. “Who wants to go first?”

DuBois raised his hand. “I can start if that’s amenable to everyone.”

“Sure.” I did a quick test-scribble with my pen. “So…how would you like to die?”

Yeah. Awkward topic. But one that had to be covered. These three were going to give their lives just so the rest of us could have a fighting chance. The least we could do was help them die on their own terms.

DuBois handed me a crisp piece of paper. “I’ve detailed my request in this document. I believe you’ll find everything in order.”

I took the paper. There were bullet points, charts, and some references at the bottom. “What am I looking at here?”