Page 198 of Project Hail Mary

Rocky!

I feel a sudden surge of nausea. I have to sit on the floor and put my head between my legs. Rocky has the same strain of Taumoeba aboard his ship. It’s stored in xenonite farms like mine.

All critical bulkheads of his ship, including the fuel tanks, are made of xenonite. There’s nothing standing between his Taumoeba and his fuel.

“Oh…God…”

I made the new Taumoeba farm. Sheet aluminum and some basic milling on the CNC mill. It wasn’t a problem.

Rocky’s ship is the problem.

I’ve been watching his engine flare every day for the past month. Now it’s gone.

I float in the control room. The spin drives are off, and the Petrovascope is set to maximum sensitivity. There’s some random Petrova-wavelength light coming from Tau Ceti itself, as always. And even that’s dim. The star, almost as bright as Earth’s sun, now just looks like a fatter-than-usual dot in the night sky.

But aside from that…nothing. I’m way too far away to detect the Tau Ceti–Adrian Petrova line and theBlip-Ais nowhere to be seen.

And I know right where it should be. Down to the milli-arc-second. And from here, its engines should be lighting up my scope….

I ran the numbers again and again. Though I’d already proven my formulae correct by daily observations of his progress. Now there’s nothing. No blip from theBlip-A.

He’s derelict out there. His Taumoeba escaped their enclosure and wormed their way into his fuel bays. From there, they ate everything. Millions of kilograms of Astrophage gone in a matter of days.

He’s smart, so he surely has the fuel compartmentalized. But those compartments are made of xenonite, right? Yeah.

Three days.

If the ship were damaged, he’d fix it. There’s nothing Rocky can’t fix. And he works fast. Five arms whipping around, often doing unrelated things. He could be dealing with a massive Taumoeba infection, but how long would that take? He has plenty of nitrogen. He can harvest as much as he wants from his ammonia atmosphere. Let’s assume he did that as soon as he noticed the contagion.

How long would it take him to get things back online?

Not this long.

Whatever may have happened, if theBlip-Acould be fixed, he would have fixed it by now. The only explanation for it still being dead in space is that it has no fuel. He wasn’t able to stop the Taumoeba in time.

I put my head in my hands.

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’mthis close. I just need to survive four years. Yeah, it’ll be eating nasty coma slurry but I’ll bealive.

My annoying logical mind points out the other option: Launch the beetles—all four of them. Each with their own Taumoeba mini-farm and a USB stick full of data and findings. Earth scientists will take it from there.

Then turn theHail Maryaround, find Rocky, and take him home to Erid.

One problem: It means I die.

I have enough food to survive the trip to Earth. Or I have enough to survive the trip to Erid. But even if the Eridians refuel theHail Maryright away, there won’t be enough food for me to survive the trip back to Earth from Erid. I’ll have only a few months of food left at that point.

I can’t grow anything. I don’t have any viable seeds or living plant matter. I can’t eat Eridian food. Too many heavy metals and other major toxins.

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.