Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir

I’m a scientist! Now we’re getting somewhere! Time for me to use science. All right, genius brain: come up with something! …I’m hungry. You have failed me, brain.

I wait. No need to get greedy. If I paw at it too early, I might knock it off course and into space. I’d have no way of recovering it. I don’t want to look dumb in front of the aliens.

Oh, and no science team would be complete without a gambling-addicted swindler, so Bob Redell was there too.

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!”

“Usually you not stupid. Why stupid, question?”

The computer finishes its boot process and brings up a screen I’ve never seen before. I can tell it means trouble, because the word “TROUBLE” is in large type across the top.

An Eridian body is a nearly impenetrable fortress. But a human body is more like a borderless police state.