Project Hail Mary

“All right, all right,” I play. “Everyone settle down and get in your seats.”

They scamper to their assigned desks and sit quietly, ready for the lesson to begin.

“Who here can tell me the speed of light?”

Twelve kids raise their claws.

“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

I always wish Rocky were here.

Heck, if he wanted to do open-heart surgery on me, I’d probably let him.

Whenever I think about my impending death, I think about Rocky instead.

“Think we’ll find more of them? Intelligent species?”

“Who knows?” I say. “You and I found each other. That’s something.”

“Yeah,” he says. “It really is something. Go do your job, old man.”

“Later, Rocky.”

“Later!”

“Oh, you had to eat, right?” Rocky says, a tinge of disgust in his voice.

“You told me not to talk about that in polite company.”

“I’m not polite company, my friend!”

I snicker. “So what’s up?”