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density of iron, and get a much more precise and accurate mass of 328.25 grams. “I was only off by one percent,” I grumble. “You talk to you, question?” “Yes! I’m talking to me.” “Humans are unusual.” “Yes,” I say.
“Space has very very very fast hydrogen atoms. They move almost the speed of light. They were created by stars long long long ago.” “No. No mass in space. Space is empty.” Oh boy. “No, that’s wrong. There are hydrogen atoms in space. Very very fast hydrogen atoms.” “Understand.” “You didn’t know that?” “No.” I stare in shock. How can a civilization develop space travel without ever discovering radiation?
That was the answer to the long-asked question: Why is Astrophage’s critical temperature what it is? Why not hotter? Why not colder? Astrophage makes neutrinos in pairs by slamming protons together. For the reaction to work, the protons need to collide with a higher kinetic energy than the mass energy of two neutrinos. If you work backward from the mass of a neutrino, you know the velocity those protons have to collide at. And when you know the velocity of particles in an object, you know its temperature. To have enough kinetic energy to make neutrinos, the protons have to be 96.415 degrees
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You can’t get it hotter than 96.415 degrees. Not for long, anyway. And if it gets too cold, the Astrophage uses stored energy to heat back up to that temperature—just like any other warm-blooded life-form.”
“Neutrinos are what’s called Majorana particles. It means the neutrino is its own antiparticle. Basically, every time two neutrinos collide, it’s a matter-antimatter interaction.
since the wavelength of a photon is based on the energy in the photon…” “The Petrova wavelength!” I yelped. She nodded. “Yes. The mass energy of a neutrino is exactly the same as the energy found in one photon of Petrova-wavelength light.
Astrophage has what we call ‘super cross-sectionality.’ That’s just a fancy term meaning nothing can quantum-tunnel through it. It goes against every law of particle physics we thought we knew, but it’s been proven over and over.” “Yeah.” I tapped my finger on the table. “It absorbs all wavelengths of light—even wavelengths that should be too large to interact with it.”
Solar particles are just hydrogen atoms emitted by the sun. Sometimes a magnetic storm on the sun can cause it to spit out a whole bunch of them. Other times it’s relatively quiet. And lately, the Astrophage infection has been robbing so much energy from the sun that magnetic storms are less common.” “Horrifying,” she said.
“Why are they called cosmic rays if they’re not even electromagnetic emissions?” “People used to think they were. The name stuck.” “Do they come from some common source?” “No, they’re omnidirectional. They’re made by supernovas, which have happened all over the place. We’re just kind of constantly awash with GCRs in all directions. And they’re a huge problem for space travel. But not anymore!”
“You want to fill the hull with fuel? Isn’t that dangerous?” “Only if we let it see CO2-band light. If it doesn’t see CO2, it won’t do anything. And it’ll be in the dark between the hulls. Dimitri plans to make a fuel slurry out of Astrophage and low-viscosity oil to make it easier to transport to the engines. I want to line the hull with that stuff.”
“I’ve run the best models I have. Crops are going to fail. The global staple crops are wheat, barley, millet, potatoes, soy, and most important: rice. All of them are pretty sensitive about temperature ranges.
Planets get magnetic fields if the conditions are right. You have to have a molten-iron core, you have to be in the magnetic field of a star, and you have to be spinning. If all three of these things are true, you get a magnetic field. Earth has one—that’s why compasses work. Erid has all of those features on steroids.
Eridians are extremely susceptible to radiation, and they never even knew it existed.
I try to imagine the desperation of his people. With a space program far behind Earth’s, no knowledge of what’s outside, and still making an interstellar ship in a bid to save their race. No different from my situation, I guess. I just have a little more technology.
The panspermia theory. I argued with Lokken about it all the time. Earth life and Astrophage are way too similar for it to be coincidence. I suspected Earth was “seeded” by some ancestor of Astrophage. Some interstellar progenitor species that infected my planet. But it never occurred to me until now that the same thing might have happened to Erid.
There are hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of ice here.” “And we’re going to melt it?” “The sea will melt it for us, but yes. Thing is, Antarctica used to be a jungle. For millions of years it was as lush as Africa. But continental drift and natural climate change froze it over. All those plants died and decomposed. The gases from that decomposition—most notably methane—got trapped in the ice.” “And methane’s a pretty powerful greenhouse gas,” I said. He nodded. “Far more powerful than carbon dioxide.”
“So here I am. Environmental activist. Climatologist. Antiwar crusader.” He looked out to sea. “And I’m ordering a nuclear strike on Antarctica. Two hundred and forty-one nuclear weapons, courtesy of the United States, buried fifty meters deep along a fissure at three-kilometer intervals. All going off at the same time.”
“The shelf will cleave at the line of explosions and slowly work its way into the sea and melt. Sea levels will rise about a centimeter over the next month, the ocean temperature will drop a degree—which is a disaster of its own but never mind that for now. Enormous quantities of methane will be released into the atmosphere. And now, methane is our friend. Methane is our best friend. And not just because it’ll keep us warm for a while.”
I looked at Stratt and Leclerc standing side by side. Never in human history had so much raw authority and power been invested into so few people. These two people—just these two—were going to literally change the face of the world.
“The nukes have detonated. The shockwave should be here in ten minutes or so. It’ll just sound like distant thunder, though.” He looked down at the carrier deck. Stratt put her hand on his shoulder. “You did what you had to do. We’re all doing what we have to do.” He buried his face in his hands and cried.
How do you hear sound?” He gestures all over his carapace and arms. “Everywhere. Tiny receptors on outer shell. All report back to brain. Like touch.” So his whole body is a microphone. His brain must be doing some serious processing. It has to know the exact position of the body, sense the time difference between sound hitting different parts of it…man, that’s interesting. But hey, my brain gives me an entire 3-D model of my surroundings just from two eyeballs.
“You ship has more science than my ship. Better science. I bring my things into you ship. Release tunnel. You make you ship spin for science. You and me science how to kill Astrophage together. Save Earth. Save Erid. This is good plan, question?”
I’ve gone from “sole-surviving space explorer” to “guy with wacky new roommate.” It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
“One Earth day is 86,400 seconds. One Earth year is 365.25 Earth days.” “Understand,” he says. “I am here forty-six years.” “Forty-six years?!” I gasp. “Earth years?!” “I am here forty-six Earth years, yes.” He’s been stuck in this system for longer than I’ve been alive.
“How…how long do Eridians live?” He wiggled a claw. “Average is six hundred eighty-nine years.” “Earth years?” “Yes,” he says a little sharply. “Always Earth units. You are bad at math, so always Earth units.”
I put my hand to my chest in mock surprise. “Goodness me! DuBois appears to be black! I’m surprised you allowed it! Aren’t you afraid he’ll ruin the mission with talk of rap music and basketball?”
“Over there is Annie Shapiro. She invented a new kind of DNA splicing that’s now called the Shapiro method.” “Seriously?” I said. “The Annie Shapiro? She invented three entire enzymes from scratch to splice DNA using—” “Yes, yes. Very smart lady.” “She did it for her PhD thesis. Her thesis. Do you know how many people are on track for a Nobel Prize from research they did in grad school?
“Hello!” Ilyukhina lunged forward and hugged Stratt. “I’m here to die for Earth! Pretty awesome, yes?!” I leaned to Dimitri. “Are all Russians crazy?” “Yes,” he said with a smile. “It is the only way to be Russian and happy at the same time.” “That’s…dark.” “That’s Russian!”
During the decades (gasp!) that Rocky’s been here, he surveyed the system very well. He gave me all the information he’d accumulated. He cataloged six planets, noted their size, mass, positions, orbital characteristics, and general atmospheric makeup.
And yes, Rocky’s ship apparently has scads of Astrophage (I still don’t understand how he has so much extra fuel). But I’m conserving fuel anyway.
I did three hours of thrust to get us going, and I’ll do another three when we get to Tau Ceti e to slow down. Right now, we’re cruising along at 162 kilometers per second. It’s just ridiculous. If you left Earth at that speed, you’d get to the moon in forty minutes. This entire maneuver, including the burn I’ll have to do to slow down at the end, will consume 130 kilograms of fuel. Astrophage. Crazy stuff.
Once again I’m struck by melancholy. I want to spend the rest of my life studying Eridian biology! But I have to save humanity first. Stupid humanity. Getting in the way of my hobbies.
The arms dutifully hand me a cup of coffee. It’s kind of cool that the arms will hand me a cup when there’s gravity, but a pouch when there isn’t. I’ll remember this when writing up the Hail Mary’s Yelp review.
Eridians never bothered to invent spacesuits. Why would they? Space is devoid of sensory input to them. It would be like a human with scuba gear diving into an ocean of black paint. There’s just no reason to do it. Eridians use hull robots for EVA work.
“Amaze is wrong word,” he says. “Amaze is compliment. Better word is ♫♪♫♪.” “What’s that mean?” “It is when person not act normal. Danger to self.” “Ah,” I say, adding the new chord into my language database. “Crazy. My word for that is ‘crazy.’ ” “Crazy. Humans are crazy.”
my students all have eyes and they were still amazed when I told them “x-rays,” “microwaves,” “Wi-Fi,” and “purple” were all just wavelengths of light.
“Some life on Adrian EATS Astrophage! Population in balance. Natural order. This explains all things!” “Oh my God!” I gasp. My heart just about beats out of my chest. “Astrophage has a predator!”
Astrophage was just one of many, many life-forms that evolved here. And with all life, there is variance and predation. Adrian isn’t just some planet that Astrophage infected. It’s the Astrophage homeworld! And it’s the home of Astrophage’s predators.
“You are number two, no? You are first officer of Project Hail Mary?” “What? No! I’m just one of the scientists. Like all these guys.” I gestured to the men and women behind me. Ilyukhina and DuBois looked at each other and then back to me. “You honestly think this?” she said.
“The point is,” DuBois said, “you are, somehow, special to Ms. Stratt. I had assumed you two were engaged in sexual congress.” My mouth fell agape. “Wha—what?! Are you out of your mind?! No! No way!” “Huh,” said Ilyukhina. “Perhaps you should be? She is uptight. She could use good roll in hay.”
Yáo turned around and stared at me for a moment. The room fell silent. He didn’t speak much, so when he did, people paid attention. “You are the number two,” he said.
It’s a simple idea, but also stupid. Thing is, when stupid ideas work, they become genius ideas. We’ll see which way this one falls.
Why do you have so much extra Astrophage?” He pauses. “Strange story.” I perk up. Always up for a strange story.
They just put Astrophage in the water, let it absorb heat, and breed. I’m jealous. We had to pave the Sahara Desert to breed up our Astrophage. All they had to do was throw it in the water.
“Science Eridians design ship and fuel requirements. Journey to take 6.64 years.”
He must mean 6.64 years of time experienced by his ship thanks to time dilation.
“Then more strange: Reach halfway point earlier than should. Much earlier. I turn ship around. Thrust to slow down. But Tau get farther away. How? Still moving toward Tau but Tau moving away. Much confusion.”
“I speed up. Slow down. Much confuse. But get here. Even with all mistakes and confusion, I get here in three years. Half of time science Eridian say should be. So much confuse.” “Oh…oh my…” I mumble.
“Tell me this: Is time on Erid the same as time on your ship?” He cocks his carapace. “Question make no sense. Of course time is same. Time is same everywhere.” I put my head in my hands. “Oh boy.” Eridians don’t know about relativistic physics. They calculated their entire journey with Newtonian physics.
They don’t know about time dilation. Rocky doesn’t realize that Erid experienced a whole bunch more time than he did on that trip. They don’t know about length dilation. The distance to Tau Ceti will actually increase as you slow down relative to it—even if you’re still going toward it.
