Chapter Text
“Who do we have that specializes in extraterrestrial biology?” I’m trying to keep my voice steady over the phone. I’m sure my face is betraying me, but they can’t see that.
I double checked the time stamps on the video. They really were filmed the same day. He’s wearing the same clothes, even has the same strands of hair flying the wrong way as the video where I’d deduced he was rational and sane. But that doesn’t mean anything other than he went south quicker than I’d thought.
It’d be surprising, but possible.
What I couldn’t write off was the five legged spider on my monitor three videos later.
“I understand he’s processing the alien cells from the beetle, but I need him here now. His team can continue. I only need him.”
I hang up before they can argue and stare at the image frozen on my screen.
A rock, moving, breathing, communicating with both sound and movement. An intelligent species proficient in interstellar travel sent by his people to save his own planet.
Grace wasn’t alone.
Heck, we aren’t alone. All these microorganisms pumped out another intelligent species only a few light years away. This goes way deeper than a hail mary mission to save humanity.
We are in communication with intelligent extraterrestrial life.
At least we were… about 12 years ago.
I’ll figure out how to maintain that relationship later.
After about twenty minutes an exasperated Dimirti Komorov is at my door.
I can’t tell if it’s from exertion or emotion but his bald head is very red and concerningly sweaty. His lab coat is tied around his waist and he looks like he’s bracing himself on his own beard the way he’s gripping it.
“I am one minute away from most important moment of career and you call me. You are insane!”
My Russian is rusty. Didn’t get to practice much in prison.
“I unders—”
“Team has astrophage on slide now. They add taumoeba without me. Most interesting moment of life and am not—”
“I understand…” I cut in again.
“No, you don’t! I come back in—”
“If—” I’m almost shouting, but it has the intended effect, “...if in two minutes taumoeba is still the most interesting thing in your life, you can leave with my blessing. But you have to give me these two minutes first.”
I motion for him to sit down and he reluctantly does.
When I met Dimitri in the beginnings of Project Hail Mary, I’d hired him on as an aerospace engineer. He and Grace worked together to design the spin drives on the Hail Mary; Grace handling the biological side and Komorov handling the mechanical. They were good friends, and naturally working so closely for so long the lines between their specialties blurred.
After Grace left for space, Komorov took a turn and changed fields entirely. A fire for the frontier study of extraterrestrial life burned in his heart. And with the leading expert no longer on the planet, the field was wide open.
Komorov is curious and brilliant. He went back to school and his research built the foundation of the study as it is today.
As he sits across from me, I’m feeling grateful he’s still alive. It’s a selfish thought, and years ago it would’ve been a crude one, but nowadays it's reality. A lot of really good people are gone. Komorov knows aliens (what little we’ve seen of them). More than that, he knows Grace. And we’re both around nearly thirty years later to harvest the fruits of Grace’s work. It’s a nice, full circle moment.
He sets a two minute timer on his wristwatch.
“I’m processing the mission findings from Project Hail Mary,” I’m careful not to leave space between my words, I can see he already wants to interrupt, “and there’s something I need your brain on.”
I turn the video monitor towards him and hit play. In the span of five seconds his expression turns from anxious annoyance to nothing at all.
Rocky is dancing on the screen behind a clear barrier as Grace introduces him.
“Say ‘hi’ to Earth, Rocky.”
The rock spider extends its legs and lets out a triumphant chord. Grace holds up two laptops duct taped together to show a message on the screen:
Hello Earth. I am Rocky.
“This is my friend. His name is a song I’m not talented enough to sing and he looks like a rock, so I’m calling him Rocky. He’s from the planet 40 Eridani A b, and his star is dying too. We’re figuring out the communication thing.” Rocky chimes but Grace is focused elsewhere and doesn’t share the translation.
He presents the mega laptop to the camera. “He’s way ahead of me in the noggin so once he knows an English word it seems like it’s there for good. I put together this program to help my little human brain translate Eridian words I’ve already learned.”
Something off screen steals his attention for a moment and it looks like ‘Rocky’ taps loudly on the partition to bring him back
“We’re expanding our vocabulary all the time. We put on little puppet shows for one another and he watches me sle—”
Komorov’s wristwatch beeps and I pause the video.
His eyes drift off the monitor and meet mine. He looks at me, unblinking. I really wish I could read his face.
“You can go back to your lab now.” I don’t mean it, but I want him to say something.
I try to hide my shock when the chair squeals as he actually stands up and walks out.
Not to go back to his lab, but to answer his cell phone which had begun ringing in the thick silence. I’d barely noticed it.
I have no idea where his head is at. I assume this would be… exciting for him? But he just left. I don’t know.
Where is my head at? Whatever happens next, I’m in charge. I don’t have to understand everything, at least not right away, but I do have to have some sort of grip on it.
I know Grace woke up alone in space with no memory and teamed up with an alien to do science and figure out a solution to astrophage. He sent back said solution with the beetles and we have them now. That's the story. That’s my priority one.
It’s time sensitive. It affects the entire world. Regardless of whatever emotional draw or curiosity I may feel right now, that part is clear. Saving the world comes first.
But all the other curveballs aren’t just trivial personal matters being drudged up like I expected. Sure, Grace was a close friend and this is weird for me to face head on, but if Project Hail Mary turns out to be a success Grace’ll be a hero. His story could spread anywhere from between niche groups to the entire world depending on which way the wind blows.
Now aliens are involved. Complicated is too shallow a word. Maybe there's an Eridian word that would suit the situation better. My God.
To be good at directing things on a large scale, you rely heavily on assumptions. But assumptions only work when the conclusion you’re jumping to is close by. We’ve launched so far out of a realm I can predict, I’m frozen.
I hate not knowing.
At least I’m not alone anymore… I hope. Maybe Komorov did go back to the lab.
No, he’s still talking outside the room. I can’t understand him but I can hear him.
So I’m not alone. I have another perspective with me to help interpret—one that understands more than I can.
I notice the talking behind the door has stopped, but he doesn’t come back in right away.
When he finally does, he looks like he’s been crying, but it seems possibly unrelated to the phone call.
He sighs and doesn’t sit back down.
“That was lab.”
Yes. Saving the world. Priority one.
“They test astrophage versus taumoeba. Repeat experiment on three different slide. They observe taumoeba kill and eat astrophage each time, just like Dr. Grace said.”
The words hang in the air as I stop thirty years worth of relief from knocking me out.
I play the words back in my head, and then again. I’m looking for the shoe to drop. There has to be a shoe somewhere.
Why is this hard?
I’ve tampered with ethics, given my life force, my whole self, spent the last twenty six years in prison. I never married. I never had a family. I’ve never had a peaceful sleep. I justified it in my soul because it meant there was a chance the Earth might not die.
But standing here now I see that wasn’t why I worked.
It was the goal in the distance, the mission statement, but it wasn’t a hope I could let myself have. If I did it would’ve almost certainly led to triumphant disappointment.
No…
I did what I did so I could say that I had tried.
I never even let myself entertain the contingency that everything I tried to accomplish might actually happen.
“What—” I hate how tremulous my voice sounds. “What does that mean?”
A tear catches in his beard, his stoic expression cracked by a weak smile.
“It means we won.”
Time is gone.
I try to say something to properly mark the significance of the moment, but years of composure crumble before I can. I can’t stop it. Relief hits me like a wall and I’m folded over letting it wash over me.
Earth won’t die.
Dimitri’s beefy arms hug me and we collectively lose it. We should be working or planning or talking about aliens or something. There’s so much more to do. But for the first time since the apocalypse started I feel like I can breathe, and I don’t know what to do with that.
When I was younger I might’ve felt embarrassed. It’s not a great look when the boss is an emotional wreck and it’s not without repercussions. But there’s something else happening here. There’s no more rank or position or education or title.
We’re just two old geezers who have been through hell seeing salvation on the clouds. Not a hope; a tangible promise of change.
This is the single greatest gift I’ll ever receive.
Dimiri’s hands grip my shoulders and gently push us apart. My body still heaves with silent sobs but I prop myself up on the armrests and we lock eyes.
He cups my face in his hand. It’s not a romantic gesture, but one of sincerity.
“My daughter has a future.”
Change.
How many daughters? How many sons? How many millions of people who have known nothing but death and need will get to breathe it in too?
None of the suffering matters. It has no more weight. None of the hungry nights or restless weeks. My worst moments and hardest decisions. I deserve none of this and it feels so good.
His hand drops from my face and he grabs both of my wrists. When he opens his mouth again the words are barely a whisper.
“Thank you.”