Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir

by a solid wall of clear material. And on the other side of that wall is Rocky. He’s a spider. A big-assed spider. I turn to flee. But my rational brain takes over. “Easy…easy…they’re friendly,” I say to myself. I turn back and take in the scene. Rocky is smaller than a human. He’s about the size of a Labrador. He has five legs radiating out from a central carapace-looking thing. The carapace, which is roughly a pentagon, is 18 inches across and half as thick. I don’t see eyes or a face anywhere. Each leg has a joint in the middle—I’ll call it an elbow. Each leg (or should I say arm?) ends in a hand. So he’s got five hands. Each hand has those triangular fingers I got a good look at last time. Looks like all five hands are the same. I don’t see any “front” or “back” to him. He appears to be pentagonally symmetrical. He wears clothing. The legs are bare, showing the rocklike skin, but there’s cloth on the carapace. Sort of like a shirt with five armholes. I don’t know what the shirt is made of but it looks thicker than typical human clothing. It’s a dull greenish-brown, and inconsistently shaded. The top of the shirt has a large open hole. Like where the neck goes on a human’s T-shirt. That hole is smaller than the carapace. So he must have to put that shirt on by pulling it downward and sliding the arms through their respective holes. Again, like a human’s shirt. But there’s no neck or head to go through that hole on top. Just a hard-looking rocky pentagon that sticks up a...