Chapter Text
2027 A.D.—4 years after Hail Mary launch
Eva Stratt's fingers drum in beats along the length of her paper coffee cup—her third of the day, not that it matters—measuring the seconds with impatient precision.
She counts the beats as she waits, staring into the muddled gray mess that is the sky beyond her office window, letting her breathing fall into a similar rhythm, mind wandering.
Usually, Eva would be silently livid at her appointee's unpunctuality, but not today. Today, Eva is content to be kept waiting, because it gives her an excuse. She needs this. A second of silence—of blissful isolation, of peace.
Peace is the new currency.
Supply and demand, right? Too little of it, too much want for it, and far too many stupid people willing to fight over supply of it. Willing to die for it, ironically. Willing to kill for it, all because the world is starving and bleeding more heat from its atmosphere every day.
People want things to go back to the way they were.
She remembers speaking with Dr. Grace about this possibility some time ago, remembers warning him about the societal implosion that was coming. The famines, the wars, the pestilence. The death. She had guessed around 20 years would pass before the world stopped cooperating, until nations would fortify their walls and seek salvation in selfishness.
Eva was far too generous with her estimates.
It seemed to begin in the same moment the Hail Mary left the stratosphere. It was almost like the entire planet had come to an unspoken understanding:
We've done all we can. From here on, it's every nation for itself.
It's a sobering thing to realize: that all your work could be destroyed by the basal instincts of the very species you've sacrificed everything to save. That the past 7 years of your life could amount to nothing but bits of chaff in the wind.
Eva was allowed to keep her position as head of Project Hail Mary—and therefore managed to protect some level of power—but most of it was just a product of politics. Citizens want hope. Project Hail Mary symbolizes every ounce of hope humanity has left, and so the Project was kept running publicly.
This meant nothing, of course. Nothing of substance, anyway.
In the present, Project Hail Mary is nothing more than a gilded hourglass held aloft for the entire planet to see; a sinkhole built to absorb money and space and humanity's dwindling attention until Earth receives some kind of message from the ship in question, which won't be for at least another 24 years.
None of the Hail Mary crew is even conscious yet, let alone conducting world-saving research.
Eva sighs, cutting the thoughts short before they can spiral out of control.
The whole point is this: Humanity needs something else to put their collective faith in. Something to strive towards as a species, something to fight for and die for and—most pressingly—something to remain united for.
In this single, quiet moment, sitting at her desk with a half-empty coffee cup cradled between her palms, Eva Stratt is waiting to speak to someone she believes can offer that "something".
Eva's head snaps up at the telltale click of her office door opening.
A head of wild, reddish hair pops through, matching well the lopsided glasses and sheepish grin adorning the face below it.
"Late, sorry," the man hisses in an exaggerated whisper, before poking a hand through the opening as well, gesturing vaguely at the office interior. "Can I, uh…"
"Yes, please do," Eva clears her throat as she stands, lips tightening into a downturned smile. "I'm glad to see you made it, Mr. Hatch. I was beginning to worry."
(She wasn't.)
"Yeah, sorry, sorry," the man—Steve Hatch, engineering professor at the University of British Columbia—repeats, all wincing smiles, shuffling into the office with a large, peeling briefcase wedged under one arm. "Flight was delayed. Heck of a headwind, the uh…Air Force guy said. You know how it is, I guess."
"I do," Eva hums, sinking back into her seat and motioning toward the one opposite her desk. "Heavy winds are to be expected. Things are getting colder. Dryer."
Hatch's half-grin falters even as he lowers himself into the indicated chair. "Sure."
Eva allows a brief pause to hang in the air before cutting to the chase, dusting off her desk mat as she speaks. "I understand you designed the beetles for the Hail Mary."
Hatch nods. "Yeah, I did."
"Four probes, all designed to carry the same information to the same place, at the same time." Eva leans back in her chair. "You're a good engineer. I'm sure you understand the necessity of redundancy."
He nods again. "Keeps everything working as intended. Keeps people safe."
"Yes."
Hatch blinks, shifts slightly in his seat, gears turning. When he speaks next, his voice is low. "Are we, uh. Are we building a second ship?"
Eva nearly laughs at the concept. "A second Hail Mary?"
Hatch shrugs, as if the idea is even plausible. As if the ship's successful construction and launch was anything short of a miracle made manifest.
"No. No, actually, I wanted to speak with you about one of your recent research projects." Eva opens a drawer in her desk and, after a few seconds of digging, extracts a stack of paper boldly titled:
Astrophage Fuel and the Second Industrial Revolution.
She slides the stack across the desk to him, and waves a dismissive hand at the immediate surprise that flashes over Hatch's face.
He points, almost accusing: "This is—"
"On your personal computer, yes. We have remote access to things like that."
Hatch's brow furrows. "Oh." He swallows, opens his mouth, then apparently changes his mind. Tries again. "I'm…it's…well, it's not even close to—"
"Finished, I know." Eva folds her hands in her lap. "Which is why I had you flown here all the way from Canada. I want you to explain it to me directly."
Hatch's eyes fall pointedly to the stack of papers, then flick back to her. "The whole thing?"
"No." Eva reaches across the desk, taking the stack and flipping through until she reaches page 47. "'Potentiality for Interstellar Exploration and Colonization," she reads in monotone, then looks up at Hatch. "We've already achieved interstellar exploration, or are at least well on our way to it, so I'm more interested in the 'Colonization' part."
Hatch waggles his head in a sort of so-so motion, thinking. "I'm not sure if 'colonization' is the right word for what I want to describe. Like I said, the paper isn't done, so—"
"You propose that, since Astrophage fuel is such an overwhelmingly efficient source of energy, humanity will likely never again have a power crisis, no matter how aggressive our power consumption or how numerous our population."
He bites the inside of his cheek. "Yeah."
"Expound."
"Well, I mean...Astrophage renders the energy crisis obsolete thousands, maybe tens of thousands of times over. Energy will never be a problem for humanity again, which means drinking water will never be a problem, either."
Eva frowns. "Go on."
"Water can be made artificially by combining the needed molecules together in a controlled environment. It's technically possible, but it's never been a viable way to create any significant amount of water due to the cost of energy required to harvest such pure forms of each molecule and keep them stable."
Hatch takes a breath, straightening in his chair, hands gesticulating as he explains his point.
"If energy consumption isn't a factor, though…the idea of creating real sources of drinking water from gases found in space becomes more feasible. All you need is water and light energy to sustain plant life, and all you need to sustain animals are plants. In that perspective, colonization becomes less about making humanity adaptable to its environment and more about building an environment that can suit humanity."
Eva's frown deepens. "You're suggesting we…make a planet."
Hatch shakes his head sharply, letting out a quick bark of a laugh. "No, of course not. Not a whole planet, especially not at first. More like…an artificial habitat. A series of space stations or ships, all built to sustain human life on their own. No particular tethers to any planetary body. We'd be free to drift wherever we please, assuming we can keep a steady supply of Astrophage. Which…"
"…We know we can."
Hatch snaps his fingers, smiling wide. "We know we can."
Eva lets her mind play with the possibility. A colony of spaceships, free-floating somewhere in the solar system. All able to keep their own renewable supplies of water and food, completely independent of Earth and the sun…There's plenty of stars in the galaxy. Hell, a portion of humanity could simply move to Tau Ceti and figure out why the star isn't dimming later on.
But there's the catch: it would be a selective salvation.
Only a fraction of a fraction of the world's population would make it onto such a project; there's simply not enough time left to build enough spacecrafts to house 8.09 billion people, let alone the staggering amount of resources that would be required for such a feat.
It's a solution that would save the human species, sure. But it's not a solution that would save the 8.09 billion people currently dwelling on their home planet. And therefore, it's not something the majority of living humanity—including Eva Stratt—would care to pursue.
After all, building the equivalent of emergency bunkers "just in case" isn't usually a high-sign things are going according to plan. Such a program would smother public faith, not foster it.
Eva taps a chipped fingernail on her desk, and finally speaks. "It's not enough."
Hatch's lips purse. "What do you mean?"
"Our purpose here is to save Earth—and therefore as many humans as possible—not just to save humans as a concept. We'd be insulating the black box, essentially. Preserving the ship logs, but not the crew."
There's another stretch of silence.
Hatch is the one to breach it this time: "Better to save the ship logs than let the whole thing sink, though. Right?"
Eva half-shrugs, somewhat hesitant. "Certainly. But this new project isn't just meant to be a failsafe, it's meant to motivate the world to keep working together. We need a strong reason for nations to want a secondary space program." Eva traces the plastic lid of her coffee cup. "At least in the meantime. We need to keep our collective governments busy for 20 years, minimum."
"Oh, I see. Well, that's easy." Hatch tosses up a hand, waving dismissively. "Make it about energy. Build a program based around the breeding and strengthening of Astrophage fuel in space. Say that the extra power will help sustain Earth in case of extreme climate cooling, and build the spacecrafts necessary for humanity's survival on the side. Our species survives in space if the Hail Mary fails, and if it succeeds, we have a ton of extra energy stored up to fund interplanetary travel. Wins all around."
"It's not that simple. No one will ever believe we can create Astrophage more effectively in a cramped spacecraft than where we're already producing it in the Sahara."
The Saharan Solar Cells are highly inefficient and considered by most environmental scientists to be an enormously wasteful use of square mileage, but were effective in their created purpose: breed 2 million kilos of Astrophage to fuel the Hail Mary. Now, 4 years after launch, the SSC is completely dedicated to providing power to the countries of Africa. Inefficient though it may be, the SSC still manages to power an entire continent on sunlight and Astrophage alone.
"You could base production on a heavenly body," Hatch suggests, "and build the spacecrafts as a 'necessary addition' to the project."
"A heavenly body? On where? The moon?"
"No, no, I've considered that before and changed my mind—don't touch the moon. If you change the moon's mass, you change the tides; poof," Hatch makes a little firework motion with his hands. "Earth's climate, ruined. Mass die-offs. All your hard work in shambles."
The man takes a deep breath, shaking his head. "No…you need to build a habitat somewhere close enough to Earth to check in as-needed, but far enough away that an accident or potential oversight won't cause massive loss of life. Somewhere we've researched extensively; somewhere scientists have already mapped out and started comparing terra-forming plans for."
The dots connect.
Mars.
"You're suggesting we build Astrophage power plants on Mars," Eva confirms.
"Precisely."
2036 A.D.—13 years after Hail Mary launch
"Alright, Rocky," Grace sighs, peering through the microscope. A few dozen wriggly little Taumoebas sit mostly dormant in the slide. There's a little movement, but not much. Makes sense—Grace made sure to isolate them from their food for the sake of this experiment. Why waste energy wiggling around if there's nowhere to wiggle to? "Here goes."
He's holding the pointy end of a syringe against a sample container of the most recent generation of nitrogen-resistant Taumoeba, hands ever-so-steady. The syringe contains mostly carbon dioxide, mixed with some small percentage of nitrogen.
"Taumoeba-48, nitrogen resistance testing, number zero-zero-one," Grace leans to say into the ship log mic, then returns to the microscope. "Come on, I believe in you guys."
"Why speak to Taumoeba, question?" Rocky rumbles from his xenonite tunnel overhead. His body is angled in such a way that Grace knows he's "watching" him work, even if the guy can't see much of anything interesting without eyes to look through the microscope oculars. "Taumoeba cannot sense Grace voice."
"Uh…Human thing," Grace decides, beginning the injection.
Rocky shifts his weight between legs in acknowledgement. "Understand."
The gaseous solution in the syringe is a careful balance of chemicals, all at the appropriate ratios found in Venus' upper atmosphere. A crap-ton of CO2, some trace gases, and, most importantly, 3.5% nitrogen by volume.
Grace's eyes stay locked on the microscope, watching the Taumoeba-48 so intently his eyes begin to feel dry. Disappointment roots in his gut as every single one of the Taumoeba on the slide slowly, steadily, stop moving.
He waits a few more seconds to be sure, then firmly crosses out the phrase "Taumoeba-48" from a nearby whiteboard, grumbling all the while. He scribbles the next generation preemtively: Taumoeba-49. His rushed handwriting would make even the most careless of his students cringe, but it's fine. He's the only one that'll be reading it, anyway.
"All die, question?" Rocky asks, carapace lowering.
"Yep, all die," he groans, leaning over to the research log mic to say, "Taumoeba-48 nitrogen resistance test result—failure."
"Is okay. Grace Rocky breed new generation. Stronger."
Grace sighs again, standing to dispose of the now-dead Taumoeba. "I thought we were getting close."
"No understand. Are close. Maybe 18 or 21 more generations before full atmosphere resistance."
Grace nods, trying not to feel disheartened. Rocky is right, he supposes. But still. He thought there would be at least some kind of fight on the part of the Taumoeba. A few extra seconds of tolerance, a survivor, something! But no. Back to breeding.
"Why sad, question?"
Grace thinks about it for a moment, continuing to clean up the rest of the lab equipment. "Not sad," he concludes, "Just tired."
"Grace awake only 10 hours. Should not be tired."
"No, not like that…maybe 'tired' isn't the right word." He pauses, then snaps his fingers. "Impatient!" Yeah, that's the one. "I'm sick of waiting."
"No understand. Waiting cause Grace discomfort, question?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Why, question?"
"Makes me nervous."
A pause.
"Why, question?"
Grace shrugs. "Maybe it's a human thing, too." Grace is pretty sure a lot of the things he explains as "a human thing" to Rocky may just be a matter of personal preference, but, in this case, Grace thinks he's correct.
So much of modern human industry revolves around removing the need to wait. Cars, for example. Computers. Email. Those "early payday" apps. Society's need for speed comes from the annoyance of having to wait.
Rocky tries to mirror Grace's shrug, throwing his carapace from side to side. "Eridians have not word for this. Waiting easy for Rocky. Almost pleasant."
Huh.
Grace supposes it makes sense for a species with an average lifespan of 700 years to have little issues with impatience. Gosh, imagine what humanity could accomplish if they had 700 years apiece to work with. How many lifelong projects were cut too short by death? How many discoveries were snuffed out before they were fully realized?
Grace reins in that train of thought before it can skirt subjects like the Manhattan Project, or dynamite, or guns, or bioweaponry, or—
Yeah, a shorter lifespan is probably for the best.
From what Grace can tell, Eridians are largely cooperative and benevolent toward one another. On Erid, collaboration is part of the natural order of things. Heck, stuff like "malice" and "evil" seem like foreign concepts to Rocky!
"Bad bad bad. Destruction of self. Crazy," Rocky had said when Grace tried to explain that some humans hurt other humans. "Eridians not hurt Eridians. Against social preservation instinct."
What a thought. Grace tries to imagine what Earth would be like if hurting others always triggered a natural fear response in humans. Greed would, of course, vanish. If having too much deprived others of having anything, then generosity would be commonplace. Expected, even.
Essentially, Erid is the only place in the known universe where true Communism exists.
"Waiting cause discomfort." Rocky makes a chittering noise Grace has learned to recognize as laughter, calling him back to the present. "Humans strange," Rocky adds as an afterthought. His clunky footsteps (hand-steps? claw-steps?) follow Grace in his tunnel to the breeder tank room.
Grace continues thinking, mind wandering even as he refreshes the breeder tanks, checking each one carefully.
Imagine Earth without disputes over oil or heat energy. An Earth without war. Without famine. It's an unfortunate impossibility. An Earth without evil is an Earth without humans on it.
Although…energy disputes may be the one thing that is rendered fully obsolete in the future, thanks to accelerated Astrophage research. Maybe in the present, even—Grace has no way of knowing what's going on back home.
Then, an awful thought occurs to him.
Grace stops tinkering with the breeder tanks and looks at Rocky, who is now in his xenonite-hamster-ball (What else is he supposed to call it?). He must have moved into it when Grace was distracted. "How long do you think it would take Astrophage to develop a defense against Taumoeba?"
Rocky taps a few feet around in his ball, thinking.
"Many many many years. Many. Eridian star and Earth star die before Astrophage evolve this way."
"Yeah, in nature. But…what if humans start breeding vast amounts of Astrophage?"
More generations of Astrophage means more opportunity for genetic mutation and adaptation. In short: the more Astrophage are bred, the more chances they have to evolve a defense system against their only known predator.
"Why would humans breed Astrophage, question?"
"To use for fuel."
"Earth not need much energy. Would stop breeding Astrophage soon."
Ah, you'd think. But that's the thing about humans—they're never content with what they have. That tendency can be channeled into great strength and lead to fantastic breakthroughs, but it can also lead to massive destruction.
Curiosity tends to kill the cat.
"Yeah, maybe. Probably not, though."
"Why, question? Earth not need more energy than required to keep humans alive."
"You know how humans can see space from Earth?"
Rocky's carapace hunkers down briefly before popping up again. "Yes."
Rocky's expressed his jealousy over humans' "light sensors" before.
"Well, because of that, we've always been curious about interstellar exploration. Humans have been talking about and wanting to visit the stars for millenia. Heck, even before we knew about the Petrova line, we were talking about starting a colony on one of our neighboring planets."
"But Grace planet was not in distress before Petrova line found. Why humans want to leave Earth, question?"
Climate change. Science. Hubris. An ex who keeps violating their restraining order. There's a million gazillion reasons why humanity would want to leave Earth, and, truth of the matter is…if it's possible, and if it's cheap, humans are absolutely going to do it.
With Astrophage fuel as a factor, it's not really a "why" anymore. It's a "why not?".
"It's hard to explain. Maybe I'm just being cynical."
"No understand last word."
"It means like…overly cautious. Worrying easily."
"Understand. Eridian word for this is '♩♫♪♬.'"
Grace adds the word to the ever-growing Eridian dictionary spreadsheet.
"♩♫♪♬," Rocky repeats the word into the laptop mic. "Is word similar to 'stupid'."
Grace rolls his eyes as he finishes typing the word "cynical" into the dictionary, smothering the laughter before it can show on his face. "You're harsh."
"Not harsh. Honest. Waiting for Taumoeba cause Grace ask cynical questions."
"Yeah, you're probably right," Grace says, not wanting to poke the distressing idea any more than strictly necessary. He has his mission, and he has his lifespan. If Grace had 670 more years to work with, maybe he would spend a little longer ruminating about Astrophage evolution.
But, as it stands, he's got a measly 40-60 years remaining, and so he won't.