Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir

“Easy for you to say when you’re not the one being murdered! You’re murdering me!” Tears rolled down my face. “I don’t want to die! Don’t send me off to die! Please!”

“Your med bed will give you a nice dose of it before you wake up. You and your crewmates will just assume it’s a side effect of the coma. Yáo and Ilyukhina will explain the mission to you and you’ll roll right into getting to work. The French assure me the drug doesn’t erase trained skills, language, or anything like that. By the time your amnesia wears off, you guys might have already sent the beetles back. And if not, my guess is you’ll be too far invested in the project to give up.”

I’ve known for a while that I’m not the best hope for saving mankind. I’m just a guy with the genes to survive a coma. I made my peace with that a while ago. But I didn’t know I was a coward.

I spend a lot of time un-suiciding this suicide mission.

“Not when they find out about quantum physics. Then they’ll be really annoyed.” “Not understand.”

“Goodbye, friend Grace.” I wave meekly. “Goodbye, friend Rocky.”

“War, famine, pestilence, and death. Astrophage is literally the apocalypse. The Hail Mary is all we have now. I’ll make any sacrifice to give it even the tiniest additional chance of success.”

Speaking of loneliness, my thoughts turn back to Rocky. My only friend now. Seriously. He’s my only friend.

Option 1: Go home a hero and save all of humanity. Option 2: Go to Erid, save an alien species, and starve to death shortly after.

“Yes! I’m definitely going to die!”

“Yeah …” I say. “About that … I’m not going home. The beetles will save Earth. But I won’t ever see it again.” His joyous bouncing stops. “Why, question?” “I don’t have enough food. After I take you to Erid, I will die.” “You … you no can die.” His voice gets low. “I no let you die. We send you home. Erid will be grateful. You save everyone. We do everything to save you.”

“All right, all right,” I play. “Everyone settle down and get in your seats.” They scamper to their assigned desks and sit quietly, ready for the lesson to begin. “Who here can tell me the speed of light?” Twelve kids raise their claws.