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Eva Stratt did not feel guilty.
Or, to the extent she did, she felt equally guilty about everything.
So it came somewhat as a surprise to her that the one thing – the one crime – her mind kept coming back to was forcing Ryland Grace onto the Hail Mary.
In most ways, that had been a no-brainer. Easier than the decision to nuke Antarctica. Easier even than the decision to put the Hail Mary crew into comas, despite the risks.
But something about it nagged at her. And she didn't like it.
Oh sure, she could try to blame it on the upcoming milestone. The crew would be waking up any day now (the exact timing would depend on how the NannyBot’s algorithm assessed the current condition of each astronaut and the most recent data from the Hail Mary…technically, it was even possible that Yao was already awake, if the ship had detected an anomaly that needed human assessment), but the official milestone date was later this month, when the ship would “arrive” at Tau Ceti.
Even that was just the predicted date when the ship would cross an arbitrary threshold that some PR lackey had decided “counted” as the “border” of Tau Ceti. Stratt had not cared what milestones were chosen but had recognized the psychological importance for humanity to have milestones. She had tried to make it based on something real, but when the scientists she’d consulted immediately began passionately disagreeing with each other (and Grace had infuriatingly insisted that all sides had “good points”), she’d decided it was a distraction from the Project and just delegated it.
But as tempting as it was to blame the intrusive thoughts about Grace on the fact that the official milestone date was later this month, she was honest enough with herself to reject that explanation.
In the years since her laughably excessive powers had been stripped away from her, she had been put on trial many times, in many different jurisdictions. And she always pleaded no contest (or whatever the equivalent was in the particular jurisdiction). Even when she faced the death penalty.
Oh sure, if the prosecutors added on ridiculous additional charges on top of the valid main ones, she had her legal teams fight them meticulously. But she strictly forbade any attempt on their part to find legal loopholes regarding the things she actually did.
She never asked for leniency at her sentencings, just stated, “My goal was to save lives…as many as possible. I used the power I was given in whatever way seemed necessary in an attempt to accomplish that goal. I committed numerous crimes, and I welcome society's judgment.”
When she was sent to jail, she went without complaint and was a model prisoner. When she was pardoned (whether officially or unofficially – left in a cell with the door deliberately open and an unobstructed path to the outside world), she left without fanfare.
It always amused her to speculate about what swirling political forces motivated each prosecution and each pardon.
When she wasn't in jail… well, she didn't exactly publicize her address, but for anyone with access to the appropriate resources, she never made herself difficult to find.
So it wasn't terribly surprising when yet another person from her past showed up on her doorstep. After checking the viewscreen, allowing herself a moment of surprise, and unlocking both the biometric locks and the deadbolts, she opened the door.
“Hello, Lamai. You look like hell.”
Lamai understood what Stratt was doing.
Stratt was actually trying to be friendly. Under other circumstances, she would have used the platitude, “You look well.”
But Lamai *did look like hell. She had for weeks, and she knew it. In fact, that’s what finally prompted her to seek Stratt out: Stratt was literally the only person on the planet she could unburden herself to.
But first: “I’m aware. You look fairly well. Does prison agree with you, or is this the result of you being out of prison again?”
A brief chuckle – a real one, Lamai was startled to realize – escaped Stratt's tight control, before her face settled back into a neutral expression as she replied, “Perhaps a combination.”
Stratt gestured for Lamai to take a seat, and she did, waving away Stratt’s offer of refreshments with a brusque, “This won't take long.”
If Stratt was surprised, it didn't show on her face. She took a seat opposite.
Lamai had rehearsed several versions of what she planned to say in the multiple forms of transportation she had needed to get here. Yet when faced with the prospect of actually articulating her findings, she was having a hard time getting started.
Stratt gave her a long moment before finally saying, “So what brings you all the way out here?”
Lamai swallowed hard, then met her old colleague’s gaze. “I wanted to tell you about some new research. Are you familiar with Project Alexandria?”
Stratt replied, “Somewhat. It was during my second stint in prison, but if I recall correctly, it was the work of some PhD students, right? To attempt to collect a database of all the world's knowledge? Like the Library of Alexandria?”
“Yes,” agreed Lamai. “Sort of. But unlike your little copyright infringement escapade, they were interested in scientific data, not books and movies.”
Stratt's nod of understanding prompted Lamai to continue, “You see, what most non-scientists don't realize is that only a small fraction of all experimental data is published. The goal of scientific journals is to advance scientific knowledge, so experiments that seem redundant are rarely accepted for publication. Likewise, negative results are rarely published: after all, perhaps the reason a group failed to detect a phenomenon is due to some flaw in their setup. So unless the negative result itself has some particular scientific value and the methods are scrupulously documented to the extent that the reviewers are convinced that the results are not caused by human error, it doesn't get published. And even when truly groundbreaking work is published, the authors rarely include all of the data that their experiment generated.”
Stratt looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked, “So does that mean there is a lot of data that never gets used?”
“Sort of,” said Lamai. “Like I said, it's mostly redundant, or potentially erroneous. And it's not like it disappears…the scientists who worked on any given experiment (and often their universities) have access to the data, and if it ever suggests a different line of inquiry, it might eventually be published.”
Something seemed to click in Stratt's mind. She said, “But that of course depends on institutions – and the scientists – surviving and maintaining that data. Given the disruptions society is already facing, one has to imagine that preserving data that no one even wanted to publish is going to be low in the priorities for those who currently maintain it.”
“Exactly,” agreed Lamai. “Hence a ‘library’ where it all can be gathered. They even made it easy for people to just dump unprocessed data, with only the most minimal descriptions. Not terribly useful in that form of course, but their motto is something like ‘Save the data first, Catalog it later.’ I'm pretty sure the real version is pithier.”
“Okay,” said Stratt, “But why tell this to me? I'm not an academic.”
No shit, thought Lamai.
But out loud, she continued, “A lot of people thought it sounded like a nice idea, but you'd have to be pretty desperate to go searching through a poorly cataloged database and expect to find anything useful. And given that their first priority was collecting data, the organizers were smart: they didn't just make it easy to contribute data, anyone who contributed got their name on a thank you page. The more data you contributed, the higher your name was on the page. So tons of researchers were perfectly happy to contribute their work, but almost no one looked at it. Until ‘Rosetta’.”
“Rosetta?” Stratt asked.
“A pseudonym,” Lamai explained. “Someone who claims to be a former student of Ryland Grace and credits him with their ‘Community-Minded Spirit' and their scientific curiosity. Of course, not everyone believes that: these days, it's just too easy to get attention by claiming a connection to a member of Project Hail Mary. And Grace is the easiest connection to claim, given the hundreds of students he actually taught (not to mention the parents and faculty he would have interacted with) during his teaching career. And of course the fact that he's not available to make any clarifications.”
“And no close relations on Earth to make objections,” Stratt agreed evenly. Lamai was impressed that the unexpected name drop had only elicited the most minor eyebrow twitch on Stratt's face.
“Anyway,” Lamai continued, “This ‘Rosetta’ person developed a very targeted AI. She trained it specifically to catalog and process data from this database only. Basically, she created the world's most powerful search engine, as long as you only care about what's in this specific database. Remember what I said about unprocessed data and minimal descriptions? Rosetta’s AI somehow turned that into neatly labeled and heavily cross-referenced data. It even was able to identify which data sets had systemic errors and correct for those errors, or relabel the data sets based on what the researchers had actually measured…the processing power is so off the charts that people assume she must have access to a supply of Astrophage. And it turns out, when accumulated all together, cataloged correctly, and with unprecedented processing power, data that no one thought was worth anything can offer some powerful insights.”
“Again, why tell this to me?” Despite her placid-seeming expression, Stratt was getting annoyed.
Lamai inwardly smirked but answered just as placidly, “I'm just giving you the necessary background so you can understand how I came into possession of the information I’m about to share with you.” Lamai pulled out a thick folder from her shoulder bag. The stack of papers she removed from it was several inches tall as she put it on the table between them.
Instinctively, Stratt reached for then, and Lamai pointedly pulled the stack out of her reach. Stratt leaned back in her chair.
“Be patient,” chided Lamai, enjoying her moment of power over her former boss. “Without context, it won't make sense anyway. By the way, is there any chance someone is listening to us?”
“No,” said Stratt decisively. At Lamai's slightly skeptical expression, Stratt continued, “The number of people with access to this place is extremely small, and I sweep for bugs every day. I assure you, no one is listening.”
Lamai nodded, then asked, “Do you remember how we found the coma gene?”
“It was in junk DNA, right?”
Lamai felt a flare of irritation. “No. By definition, genes aren't in junk DNA. We found a marker in a section of junk DNA that seemed to correspond with people who survived long comas with minimal brain damage, and we used that information to identify a variant in a nearby gene that previously hadn't been recognized as having any meaningful difference from the wild type version. Once we identified the gene variant involved, we also found a nearby promoter which had a variant from the wild type version. It was only people who had both the variant gene *and the variant promoter that had the mental protection from comas.” She snorted in irritation. “I never cared that you simplified things by calling it a ‘coma gene’, but it did piss me off that you made it sound like we stumbled upon a gene that was hiding in junk DNA… as if the scientific community doesn't know what genes look like and how they’re different from non-coding regions of DNA. You literally made me sound incompetent to anyone who has the slightest understanding of genetics.”
“Sorry,” Stratt said.
Lamai pushed on, "Anyway, remember the sequence of events: my company was looking into people who survived comas with minimal brain damage, which led us to the marker in junk DNA. We used the marker to identify the gene and the promoter that actually made the difference. Then we checked how common they were in the general population. Once we got the depressing news, the funding was pulled, until Project Hail Mary started up.”
Lamai took a deep breath.
“But what we didn't do, is we never looked into which people were more likely to be in long-term comas in the first place.”
She had Stratt's attention now, she could tell.
“Partly this was due to the fact that the reasons people wind up in comas are so varied, and the immediate medical care they receive is wildly inconsistent… we simply did not have sufficient data to draw any conclusions from that. I mean, is it even possible to meaningfully compare a motorcycle crash victim who’s in a coma for several years to a burn victim who succumbs to infection within days?”
Cautiously, Stratt said, “I suppose not…”
“Not to mention that the burn victim might never have been labeled in a data set as ‘in a coma’ at all, given that their medical team had other pressing concerns.” Lamai took another deep breath before continuing, “So even if we'd had access to the data, and even if we'd had the funding to investigate the data, chances are we wouldn't have found anything useful in it.”
“But now, thanks to Project Alexandria and the mysterious Rosetta, you have access and processing power,” Stratt concluded. “And you found something interesting enough that you decided to find me in person. To tell me – and only me – whatever it was that put that expression on your face.”
“Yes,” Lamai said shakily.
“Well?” inquired Stratt. “You've come all this way; spit it out.”
“I was able to determine that there’s a completely different gene family that predicts how long someone is likely to survive a coma before succumbing to infections or other complications. Rosetta’s AI even showed a clear pattern in the data set that this risk can be mitigated by the presence of skilled doctors, who are trained to be attentive to very subtle warning signs and who have access to the resources to respond. But as you know, there are no such doctors watching over the Hail Mary crew.”
Lamai paused to stare directly into Stratt's eyes.
“The data is a little more complicated than the simple yes/no of the coma gene, but we can split the population into four main groups: about 25% of the population are unlikely to survive more than a few months in a coma. The second 25% are unlikely to survive longer than a year and a half. The third 25% make it to about the three-year mark. The remaining 25% have a good chance of surviving up to ten years.”
Stratt waited for Lamai to continue. But as the silence grew, so did her impatience until she snapped, “Either give me those papers or tell me what the crew's results were.”
“I came up with an algorithm and double-checked it against data sets that the AI did not have access to in order to confirm its predictive power. Carefully reviewing each person's specific genetics, here's what the algorithm predicts: Yao likely died a year into the journey. Ilyukhina, closer to three years. The likelihood of either of them making it to Tau Ceti is less than 1%...both of them, less than 0.004%.”
Lamai let that sink in, then resolutely continued in a bitter tone, “But good news. Remember that guy I helped you drug? The guy who was terrified of going into space and had limited training? The guy we forced on this mission? He has great genetics for making it all the way there. Too bad that he's going to wake up with no idea why he's in a room with two corpses, and any memories he does recover are likely to make him not want to help us.”
Stratt had tried to convince Lamai to stay; she didn't think it was smart for the good doctor to be alone after the emotional revelations, and Lamai had at least a mile to walk before she'd be able to get a cell phone signal.
But Lamai had flinched away from her.
Even if she'd wanted to force Lamai, Stratt no longer had an army at her disposal, so she really had no choice but to let her go.
No wonder Lamai looked like hell. It was a devil of a problem that she'd stumbled into, and obviously, she couldn't confide in anyone.
After all, the hope that Project Hail Mary represented was still a powerful force for good in the world. Despite the millions who had already died, if you asked a random person on the street, there was a high likelihood that they could tell you exactly when the Hail Mary was due to arrive at Tau Ceti… and a decent chance that they’d been invited to at least one “arrival day” party.
Even when she’d been in prison, some of her fellow inmates had surprised her by showing off their tracking systems for various Hail Mary milestones, like last day of acceleration, midpoint day, first day of deceleration, etc. Sometimes, they even asked her to be the guest of honor and say a little something at their ad hoc celebrations (no matter that they only had the same slop to eat that they normally did). Even the guards were a little friendlier on those days.
But now, with what Lamai had discovered, two thirds of that hope was almost certainly lost. And the last third…wasn’t exactly the person the world thought he was.
How could you tell people that their best hope for survival was probably doomed before it started?
And it wasn't fair! This wasn't information that was impossible to know (like how Tau Ceti resisted Astrophage), this was information that had been generated by human activity, then gathered, tracked, and compiled in various institutions on Earth. If only someone – like one of the smart scientists Stratt had intentionally surrounded herself with – had pointed out that this was data they needed, she could have done something about it.
Yes, it would have eaten into their applicant pool even more, but she would have resigned herself to whichever candidates were the best of the available options. Not pinned her hopes on brave people who never had a chance.
And maybe if the back-up candidate to DuBois (who did have the correct genetics) wasn’t as stellar as “The Annie Shapiro” (who did not have the correct genetics), Grace himself would have expressed concerns about their competency.
Then Stratt could have revealed to him that he had the correct genetics. Maybe, if he'd had more time to consider it, he might have gotten over his imposter syndrome and recognized that he was a superior choice. Maybe he would have been willing to go.
Maybe, if she'd been honest with him about this, she could have been honest with him about other things.
Even now, she didn't entirely understand her feelings. What had driven her to hide his test results. Why she had kept him so close to her. Why she hadn't stamped out the repeated rumors of a romantic involvement between them.
Not that it mattered. What did matter was that he would be waking up – soon – totally alone, with no idea what was going on.
She laughed bitterly when she remembered the safety protocol they had included that prevented the astronauts from having access to sensitive parts of the ship until they could at least remember their names. The very thing that the drug was most likely to have taken away from him.
Was there even anything in the dormitory he'd be able to use to guess his own name? Or would he find something labeled DuBois and be stuck in an endless loop arguing with a computer?
Had they even thought to include a summary of the Astrophage problem that didn't require computer access to view? Stratt couldn't recall. They must have, right? With all their focus on redundancy? But no one who’d helped stock the ship had any idea about the drug.
During the entire time on the Project, she hadn't let herself wish for magic sci-fi solutions: it was a distraction from the tools they might actually have at their disposal.
But now, she desperately wished for a small portal – she wasn't greedy, just big enough for her hand – right next to the NannyBot. Just so she could reach in and disconnect the incorrectly labeled drug vial so the bot would be forced to use only the correctly labeled ones.
Foolish. Somehow, she'd become a foolish old woman.
Stratt double-checked for the small cyanide pill she always kept on her person and pulled it out. She considered it for a moment…then put it away.
She'd never been one for spiritual things, much to her father's displeasure. She certainly wasn't about to plead her case to the entity he had believed in that she had no faith in.
But there was one thing she did have faith in.
She walked outside, located the constellation Cetus, and stared at Tau Ceti.
To her surprise, she spoke aloud, “Grace, I know you can't hear me. But I truly believe you can do this. I…I'm sorry I didn't tell you that you were the back-up all along. I'm sorry that choice meant you didn't have time to prepare. I think…I hope that if you had, you would have agreed to this. I…I'm not sorry that I drugged you, but I am sorry that I didn't make different choices that might have meant I wouldn't have to drug you.”
The cool nighttime air made her eyes water, and she quickly wiped it away.
“Good luck. I have faith in you.”
She turned to walk back inside, paused, then looked back at Tau Ceti again.
“And if anyone else is listening, please help Grace out. He was my rock during our time together…he deserves to have someone be his.”