Page 86 of Project Hail Mary

“Many seconds…”he says.“Why be still so many seconds, question…Understand!”

He relaxes his limbs and they go limp. He curls up like a dead bug and remains motionless for a while.“Eridians same!????!”

Oh thank God. I can’t imagine explaining “sleep” to someone who had never heard of it.Hey, I’m going to fall unconscious and hallucinate for a while. By the way, I spend a third of my time doing this. And if I can’t do it for a while, I go insane and eventually die. No need for concern.

I add his word for “sleep” to the dictionary.

I turn to leave. “I’m going to sleep now. I’ll come back in twenty-nine thousand seconds.”

“I observe,”he says.

“You observe?”

“I observe.”

“Uh…”

He wants to watch me sleep? In any other context that would be creepy, but when you’re studying a new life-form it’s appropriate, I guess.

“I will be still for twenty-nine thousand seconds,” I warn him. “Many seconds. I will not do anything.”

“I observe. Wait.”

He returns to his ship. Is he finally going to get something to take notes with? After a few minutes, he comes back with a device in one of his hands and a satchel held in two more.

“I observe.”

I point to the device. “What is that?”

“????.” He pulls some kind of tool out of the satchel. “????not function.” He pokes the device with the tool a few times.“I change.????function.”

I don’t bother to note down the new word. What would I enter it as? “Thing Rocky was holding that one time”? Whatever it is, it has a couple of wires sticking out and an opening that reveals some complex internals.

The object itself is irrelevant. The point is he’s repairing it. New word for us.

“Fix.” I say. “You fix.”

“????,” he says.

I add “fix” to the dictionary. I suspect it’ll come up a lot.

He wants to watch me sleep. He knows it’s not going to be exciting, but he wants to do it anyway. So he brought some work with him to keep busy.

Okay. Whatever floats his boat.

“Wait,” I say.

I return to the ship and head to the dormitory.

I pull the mattress pad, sheets, and blanket from my bunk. I could use one of the other two bunks but…they had my dead friends in them so I don’t want to.

I bring the pad and sheets through the lab, awkwardly through the control room, and into the tunnel. I use a copious amount of duct tape to affix the mattress pad to the wall, then cinch up the sheets and blanket.

“I sleep now,” I say.

“Sleep.”

I turn off the lights in the tunnel. Total darkness for me, no effect for Rocky, who wants to watch me. Best of both worlds.