Project Hail Mary

by Andy Weir

“I commend your body to the stars.”

“Can we pick our own teams?” Trang asked excitedly. “No. That just leads to a bunch of drama. Because children are animals. Horrible, horrible animals.”

Human suffering is often an abstract concept to kids. But animal suffering is something else entirely.

“Thirty years?” Trang laughed. “That’s forever!” “It’s not that long …” I said. But to a bunch of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, thirty years may as well be a million.

Thirty years. I looked out at their little faces. In thirty years they’d all be in their early forties. They would bear the brunt of it all. And it wouldn’t be easy. These kids were going to grow up in an idyllic world and be thrown into an apocalyptic nightmare.

“Ego?! This isn’t about my ego! It’s about my children!” “You don’t have children.” “Yes, I do! Dozens of them. They come to my class every day. And they’re all going to end up in a Mad Max nightmare world if we don’t solve this problem. Yeah, I was wrong about the water. I don’t care about that. I care about those kids. So give me some gosh-darned Astrophage!”

I have to do this for my kids. I mean … they’re not my kids. But they’re my kids.

I’m on a suicide mission. John, Paul, George, and Ringo get to go home, but my long and winding road ends here. I must have known all this when I volunteered. But to my amnesia-riddled brain this is new information. I’m going to die out here. And I’m going to die alone.

Evolution can be insanely effective when you leave it alone for a few billion years.

“Besides. We’re already asking these people to die. We shouldn’t ask them to suffer emotional torment for four years too. Science and morality both give the same answer here, and you know it.”

I have an alien thingy to catch.

Lol

As hundreds of astronauts have done before, I place my faith and my life in the hands of the engineers who designed the system. Dr. Lokken, I guess. Hope she did her job.

Human beings have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal.

Every pore of my being yells at me to go back to sleep, but I told Rocky I’d be back in two hours and I wouldn’t want him to think humans are untrustworthy. I mean … we’re pretty untrustworthy, but I don’t want him to know that.

Lmoa

“Humanity has been accidentally causing global warming for a century. Let’s see what we can do when we really set our minds to it.”

“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?”

Cuteee

It’s a simple idea, but also stupid. Thing is, when stupid ideas work, they become genius ideas.

My life moto

At least being stupid isn’t permanent. I’ll press on. I know I shouldn’t, but I’m too stupid to take that into consideration.

I’m smart enough now to know I’m stupid. That’s progress.

@me

Billions of lives are on the line. Our lives matter little when compared against such tragedy.”

“We work more,” he says. “We no give up. We work hard. We are brave.”

@me crying

“Yes yes. I make now. We are team. We fix this. No be sad.”

“Diseases change. Antibiotics kill almost all the disease in the body, but some survive. By using antibiotics, humans are accidentally teaching diseases how to survive those antibiotics.”

“Rocky … that news about Sol … it … it makes my whole life have meaning. You know? I still can’t … I can’t …” I start sobbing again.

No stop im crying

Maybe it’s just the childish optimist in me, but humanity can be pretty impressive when we put our minds to it.