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

“Rocky’s spouse.”

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

“Anyway. This is the control room. I operate the ship from here.”

Anywhere it can possibly evolve from an Astrophage-like ancestor into the cells I have today.

Anyway, as long as an Astrophage is alive, it exhibits this super cross-sectionality.

“Anyway,” she said, “there’s a lot of complicated stuff about neutrinos I won’t get into

“I don’t like little dictators in their little kingdoms,” she said. “Drives me crazy.”