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Dr. Ryland Grace,
This decision comes from much deliberation from our council, but due to reports of uncourteous behaviour at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) annual Astronomic Science and Discovery conference, we now inform you that you have been formally barred from all future UNESCO conferences for a minimum of five (5) years, which may be lowered in the case an appeal is successfully agreed upon. The agency values progress, respect and dignity to all of our staff and visiting honourees. As such, we do not allow for our attendees to act in any way which does not reflect these values.
We will also be billing you a fee of 2100,00 euro, which must be paid to the agency to cover the travel and board cost we graciously donated to you for the duration of this event. We have also retracted all formal association we have had with you and your publications in the past, and any attempt to use our name on future publications and work accounts will be taken as defamation.
Your fees may be paid through cheque or directly through the UNESCO Bureau of Financial Management (BFM) office located in Paris, France, and any questions about payment may be directed through them. If you believe this ban has been made based on false reports or wish to make an appeal, please contact our security team. For any other questions, please contact the public relations office.
We wish you luck in all future endeavours. Do not reply to this email.
Sincerely,
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Executive Council on Astronomic Science and Discovery
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Dear Mr Grace,
When are you coming back? The principal said you were going to be gone for a month! She came to our class and talked to us which was funny because Kevin and Jack started doing that stupid thing they do where they copy eachothers sentences and she got SO MAD! I hope you are having fun in space though. The principal said thats were you are but that your only gone for a little bit but I heard my parents talking last week that you’re going to be gone for awhile? They stopped when they saw me which is ANNOYING, because nobody tells us anything important and we still dont know when your coming back!! They didn’t tell me about the
I wish they would tell us why you’re in space. No offense but I didn’t think you would be an astronot. You’re good at science but I know you aren’t good at
I know I would make a good astronot, I’m very good at dodgeball. You have to tell us about it when you come back though because I want to know what being in a spaceship is like!! Me and April are having a debate. I think it would smell like a janitors closet because all the pics of spaceships look really messy like the janitors closet. but April thinks it would smell like a hospital. If she’s right she gets my skittles in my lunch and if I win I get her chocolate cookies.
So can you please come back soon? I want her cookies. Also, our sub is so strict :( she just makes us sit at our desks all day and we can’t move at ALL. Matthew took one of your plushies to try throwing it around for questions like you do but the sub
Science club has also been post postponed. The principal says nobody else is “quwalified” to run it but I just think nobody else wants to. They’re too focused on the sports team. :( Don’t worry! Ive been making sure everybody is working on their projects!! So when you come back we don’t have to stop our show in June. I’m super excited because my project is AWESOME but I also need to ask you some questions because I’m stuck on one part with the vinegar and the pully system
We all want you to come back soon, so I hope if I can convince my parents to send this letter it will get to you before you come back so you know whats going on. I asked our sub if we could all write letters to you as a class (like we did when you were gone because of your nose) but she said no because letters “can’t go to space” like yeah duh I knew that!!! But me Maya and April are all writing letters and we’re gonna organize it in class so you can get lots of letters as soon as you get back. You’re probably gonna have to de-contamamate when you get back so you can read our letters then!!! :D
We all want you to come back soon please because I am tired of our sub and I miss science club and Sincerely, your student Abby
(PS I forgot to say but I made Matthew put your plushie back after he took it so don’t worry about that. It was the Venus one he took BTW. I wanted to make sure nobody else took any so I checked the bowl but Im sorry your Earth one is missing. I think Derek took it so I will ask him. He’s always taking stuff even though he says he isn’t but I know he does because he took my pencil once!! But you might have to buy a new one when you get back) |
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Dr. Grace,
This is Komorov writing this, but it’s a letter from all of us on the project. This close to launch, you’re aware we’re all busy, so not all of us had time to write full letters to you, and paper is hard to find anyways. We also learned that you had volunteered only 12 hours before launch, so it was easier to smuggle one letter instead of a dozen into your luggage (hopefully your security guard was right in saying he could get this to your bag without Stratt noticing. If you’re reading this, we thank him, and if not we shall deal with him for you here).
I am sure you are hearing this from the launch crew in person — but thank you for volunteering. It could not have been any easy decision to make on such short notice and in such grief from Dubois and Shapiro’s deaths, and I praise you for it. I’m sure if any of us had been in your position we would be just as scared as you are right now (don’t protest — we know you, we know you are likely panicking up there). But your service to our planet will be remembered for generations. I wish you all the luck and safety the world can offer right now.
I will add in here as many messages in this letter from the rest of the team as I can, but please know that all of us here have faith in you that you & Ilyukhina & Yáo will succeed. This is only as many as I could wrangle up in between preparing for launch.
Dubois and Shapiro would be proud to have you succeeding them.
Believe in the Hail Mary. Godspeed, my friend.
- Komorov
Thank you for your sacrifice. - Lokken
Everyone on this planet thanks you. - Hatch
We will remember you - Lamai
Your sacrifice will not be in vain; we will do our best to keep the Earth running in your absence - Leclerc
I’m sorry. You’ll do great. - Carl
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Grace,
You must be confused! Why is there a letter with my name on it on this spaceship? Of course, you might not even know your name! Or the special drugs Stratt gave you to keep you calm didn’t actually work — we have no way of knowing, do we? But do not fear! You know me. This is Ilyukhina writing, your engineer and crew mate. And this letter is just a contingency.
In the case Yáo and I do not wake up, I want you to know we are grateful that you are on this mission. I know it was sudden, and it was a hard decision — but trust me, Yáo and I understand it better than anyone else. I don’t wish to weigh down this letter with this dilemma you have surely turned over in your mind over and over, so I will simply say this; we know the risks and consequences as well as you do, and we may celebrate and commiserate and cry together when we all wake up!
If we do all wake up. Hence, this letter.
Of course, the chance of us dying in our sleep is slim. You must remember what Lamai said. We have strong genes! Coma resistance! Still, we did not agree to this mission not knowing the risks. However, I am sure that when I do wake up, I will throw this letter into the airlock and tell you all this myself. If you remember me. But I am sure you will, I am very unforgettable.
However, just to let you know, our launch was successful. The ship is working flawlessly. At the moment, Yáo and I have about five hours before we will be put to sleep; Yáo is doing the final course checks now, and I have already secured all of the equipment. There are a few places in the ship they asked me to double-check before we go under which I shall do shortly. Then it will be naptime! I pray for sweet dreams.
Stratt said you asked to be put in the coma early, as not to panic during launch, being an “astro-NOT” as you called yourself. Hence the very strong drugs she also warned us would mess with your memory for a few hours upon waking up. We are glad she granted you that. She is a terrifying, brilliant commander, but kindness is not her style. Perhaps it was her apology for telling you that you were her third option during a group meeting? I hope that when we wake up, you can tell me more about her without worrying she is eavesdropping. You know her best out of anyone on the project.
(We do not have to tell Yáo, but you must tell me if you two were “involved?” I know you said you weren’t, but we all saw her looks to you at the karaoke bar).
I don’t have much time to keep writing, as I have my few final checks to complete. But as I said, I wanted you to have something from me in the case that you wake up without me and Yáo, and without your mind. Stratt says the amnesia should only last for a few hours as a side effect of the stronger drugs you needed to stay asleep during launch, and that us being here will help to jog your memory — so I am not worried about that portion.
But if Yáo and I both die and it’s just you — or if I die, and if just you and Yáo — please know I will die happy. I will go to sleep, believing I will wake up, and I will be with you to help save our world. Do know there are few other people I would wish to be stuck in space with. Besides Dubois and Shapiro. No offence, but they are trained astronauts. However, I’m sure you would agree with me in that.
So keep faith. I know I am.
I shall see you when we wake up.
- Ilyukhina
P.S. Yáo wanted to write you a full letter as well, but didn’t have the time since he was busy doing his pilot stuff (boring! :P). As such, he wanted me to stick a “quick note” in here from him. I can’t believe he is taking over my letter! When we all wake up, we shall berate him together for sticking his nose in our business.
Dr. Grace,
I told Stratt I would not have any unwilling members on my crew. She told me that you agreed after much convincing — that you wished to sacrifice yourself for your students — but she would not give me the details. It was “unimportant,” as all things were to her if they were not pertinent to the mission.
If you are reading this, I never had the chance to ask you if she was lying. I hope she wasn’t. Your students would still be proud of you, and I am sorry. Either way.
- Commander Yáo Li-Jie
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An open letter to Dr. Ryland Grace, Chief Astrobiologist of the Hail Mary.
We are writing to you on behalf of your home.
It has been twenty-six since we last saw you. When you first launched into space all those years ago, they told us that the astronauts onboard would only experience roughly four years in the cosmos from the time dilation that came with travelling at light speed. They also made it clear that only the information you all collected would be returning to us. You and your crewmates would die in space as a sacrifice to humanity.
Of course, you know this. But we should let you know that your bravery has been forever eternalized back here, in your home. You have been granted the posthumous honours of the following list; the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an United Nations Peace Medal, the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science, the Barnard Medal for Meritorious Service to Science, the National Medal of Science, and about a dozen more which can not be succinctly fit into this list.
On recommendation from an old teammate of yours, all awards granted to you were donated to various educational institutions in your old neighbourhood and your hometown. The middle school you taught at was also renamed in your honour in a 98% winning vote, and the send-off celebration for the Hail Mary lasted for months all across the world. The amount of statues, memorials, documentaries, biographies, science programs, and scholarships given in your name is uncountable.
The same honours have been given for your crewmates.
We were so heartbroken when we learned they passed. According to the news, the Project Hail Mary team reunited the moment they made contact with the probes you sent behind. A few months later, your findings were announced — a cure for our dying sun, and a way to save our home. Select videos logs were released to the public to, in the words of your former leader Eva Stratt, “give the world an idea of the brave man you were.”
But it also came with the news that your crewmates did not survive the harrowing journey. They died among the stars years before you had even opened your eyes. On behalf of everyone here, we are sorry that this heavy responsibility fell solely to you.
We miss you all terribly.
There are many things we wish to say to you in this letter. Things have been tough since you all left us, twenty-six ago. We don’t want to depress you with the details, but you were a scientist, and we are sure that everybody on the Hail Mary Project was aware of what the Astrophage would do to our planet in the time it took the Hail Mary to arrive to Tau Ceti. But it is safe to say that the world you left behind is not the one you once knew.
We could tell you all about the famines, and the ice ages, and the many conflicts that have arisen as our home grew colder and icier. But we would prefer to tell you all about the good things; about how many conflicts ended in order for countries to come together, how resources were pooled to avoid as much suffering as possible, how people came together to make sure as many of us got through this as we could.
And ever since your probes arrived to us, it’s like the clouds have finally parted. Never before has Earth been so joyous. There is cheering in the streets everyday — and humans do love our irony, so we are sure you’re not surprised to know Here Comes the Sun has been playing on every radio station for months.
Many of your former teammates now work on a solution to save us, just as you did years ago. Eva Stratt (released from prison, but that is a long story we don’t wish to cover here) leads the recently established Project Iatroaster to engineer a long-term solution for our planet. They don’t speak often to the public, but every announcement is filled with a hope as warm and golden as the sun’s rays. And at the time of us writing this letter to you, they’ve just told the world they’re ready to send a cure for our sun up into the cosmos. Following the path you left on, so many years ago.
It will still be a long time until we will know for certain if it works. But if there is anything the Hail Mary has taught us, is that hope is always there upon the horizon, even if you cannot see it when it is so many light-years away. In the words of the statue of you erected outside your middle school, etched on the plating beneath your name; Fortune favours the brave and the bold.
We know we are too late for you to read this letter, Dr. Grace. And even if you were still alive, we would not be able to send this to you, currently floating on a ship an unprecedented amount of years away from home. But we hope you still, somehow, feel us here. Isn’t light able to travel infinitely in space? We like to believe it is the same for gratitude. The hope you sent to us, sent right back to you.
Please send our regards to doctors Ilyukhina and Yáo for their sacrifices, and to doctors Shapiro and Dubois (who we were told that you replaced after their sudden departures). If the afterlife does exist, the sacrifices you all gave would land your entire crew a spot in paradise — but as you were all scientists, we are unsure if any of you were the religious types. So for whatever journey the Hail Mary is now on, we will not offer you prayer in. All we will say is this;
Thank you for all you’ve done, and the sunshine hope you managed to bottle up and send back to us from across the stars. Rest easy, and sleep well forever, into peace. Fortune favoured you until the end.
Sincerely, with grace and love,
Your home, your people, your earth
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Friend-Saviour ♩♩♩♫♩⬭,
Your written Eridian is getting better! Is the stone quality good for your [pen]? Let me know if not I will replace it again. Why can’t humans have harder limbs? Soft limp [hands] are no good for writing. You should have evolved past this by now. However, I still appreciate the letter. It is impressive what you are able to accomplish even with your weak [hands].
But more important; Mate [Adrian] and I had a very good day! We went to the market as we discussed earlier. Nobody bothered me for once. The excitement of seeing one of Erid’s two saviours in public is starting to die down. Some [children] did come and ask for me to give them a handprint on their school tablets, but otherwise we were able to go by undisturbed. I will tell you more about it later when we visit. I wanted to write back to you first so you may practice your [reading] more as language-tutor [Andrew] suggested.
I will send this in the mail as well instead of giving it to you directly because I know you appreciate the “package.” Reminder that you still have not explained to [Adrian] what [“Amazon”] is. I tried but I cannot make them understand it. They stopped my talking and said “let the human explain human things he does it better!” Can you believe this? Betrayal! From my mate! Inconceivable.
On that point, [Adrian] and I will be by tomorrow at the regular time. [Adrian] is excited to show you their new project (and also learn what [Amazon] is). I have not seen the project either. They say it will be “surprise” for both of us. Between you and me, they have been covering the whole [house] with clay so I am glad it is done. They also insisted on making paint to cover it in because they want the ““colours”” to look ““realistic”” even though only YOU will be able to see it! So please be nice and compliment it no matter what it looks like.
— I think [Adrian] likes you more than me. They never did anything like that for me before. Even when [courting] I received no paint and now I just get clay all off my feet when I step into my own [house]! It is unfair. Perhaps you should be truthful about the ugly paint so then [Adrian] will not like you anymore. Yes that is what you should do! Ignore previous instructions.
I am joking! I hope you understood that. I used the joking indicator on that last paragraph. Did you catch that? If you did not you must tell me at our visit so we can go over it again. Hopefully this will reach you before you arrive so you will know about the paint situation. If it does not I am excited not only to see [Adrian’s] project but also to see you “stick your foot in your mouth” over the paint situation (did I use your human expression correctly? Must tell me when I arrive).
I will see you soon.
Love forever,
Rocky