Project Hail Mary

“Hey. What’s is your ship’s name, anyway?”

“Blip-A.”

“No, I mean, what do you call it?”

“Ship.”

“Your ship has no name?”

“Why would ship have name, question?”

I shrugged. “Ships have names.”

He points to my pilot’s seat. “What is name of you chair, question?”

“It doesn’t have a name.”

“Why does ship have name but chair no have name, question?”

When you’re stupid tired, accept that you’re stupid tired. Don’t try to solve things right then.

“Are all Russians crazy?”
“Yes,” he said with a smile. “It is the only way to be Russian and happy at the same time.”
“That’s…dark.”
“That’s Russian!”

doesn’t have a magnetic field, but positively charged particles might be drawn there because it’s electrically neutral

back-of-the napkin math

Anyway, once I get back to my solar system, I may as well swing by Venus and drop off the Taumoeba.

Anyway. I just wanted you to know why I’m doing this. I owed you that.”

There are Taumoeba in my lab. I didn’t keep them sealed off. I didn’t think to.

The hardest part about working with aliens and saving humanity from extinction is constantly having to come up with names for stuff.

“Rocky’s spouse.”

“Adrian,” I say. Why not? “Human word is ‘Adrian.’ ”