Page 26 of Project Hail Mary

96.415°c,read the display.

“Huh,” I said.

“What is it?” Stratt said immediately.

It was my second day in the lab. Stratt still insisted I be the only person to look at Astrophage—at least for the time being. She dropped her tablet on the table and came to the observation-room window. “Something new?”

“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?”

“So what’s significant about it?”

“I can’t get them hotter or colder.” I pointed to the experiment I’d set up in the fume hood. “I put some Astrophage in ice-cold water for an hour. When I pulled them out, they were 96.415 degrees Celsius. Then I put some in a lab furnace at one thousand degrees. Again, after I pulled them out: 96.415 degrees.”

Stratt paced next to the window. “Maybe they have extremely good insulation?”

“I thought of that, so I did another experiment. I took an extremely small droplet of water and put a few Astrophage in it. After a few hours, the whole droplet was 96.415 degrees. The Astrophage heated up the water, so that means heat energy can move out of it.”

“What conclusion can you draw?” she asked.

I tried to scratch my head, but the vinyl suit got in the way. “Well, we know they have a huge amount of energy stored inside. I’m guessing they use it to maintain body temperature. Same way you and I do.”

“A warm-blooded microorganism?” she said.

I shrugged. “Looks that way. Hey, how much longer am I going to be the only person working on this?”

“Until you stop discovering new stuff.”

“One guy alone in a lab? That’s not how science works,” I said. “There should be hundreds of people all over the world working on this.”

“You’re not alone in that thought,” she said. “I’ve had three different heads of state call me today.”

“Then let other scientists in on it!”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She looked away for a moment, then back through the window at me. “Astrophage is an alien microbe. What if it can infect humans? What if it’s deadly? What if hazmat suits and neoprene gloves aren’t enough protection?”

I gasped. “Wait a minute! Am I a guinea pig? I’m a guinea pig!”

“No, it’s not like that,” she said.

I stared at her.

She stared at me.

I stared at her.

“Okay, it’s exactly like that,” she said.

“Dang it!” I said. “That’s just not cool!”

“Don’t be dramatic,” she said. “I’m just playing it safe. Imagine what would happen if I sent Astrophage to the most brilliant minds on the planet and it killed them all. In an instant we’d lose the very people we need the most right now. I can’t risk it.”