Project Hail Mary

"What Grace-teacher bring question?"

I look at the jagged, purple youngster with three hands up, and grin. "Bring where? To class?"

I'm mostly fluent in Eridian now, but this is English class. The kids love it, and keep asking for more. We'll see; I could dust off my high school Spanish. I say mostly, because it turns out Rocky was dumbing things down a bit for me. 

"From Earth," a literal chorus replies. "What pack, question? Which musics-"

"That's an uncountable," I gently correct. 

"Which, which! Earth many many songs, which Grace-teacher bring to Erid?"

That's an easy one. "Everything."

There are no flowers on Erid. I mean, I say that with the eternal caveat of how-the-fudge-would-I-know? Okay, science. Science is how (the fudge) I know. All I ever actually see though is this habitat, and... 

The thing is, I wanted a garden. And they tried, but it's not like they have anything resembling plant matter to work with. It was all crystals and sand - very zen - and I tried not to be upset. Then this morning it was all... I can't explain it. Just fields of this reddish rock, and it was blooming. 

Rocky got it. He always does. 

You want to know what's funny? Free falling, like I am right now; scared witless in a metal (okay, mostly metal) box next to a sun no human has seen befrore, not this close... actually, it's not that funny. What was my point? 

Oh yeah. Skydiving. 

In the context of general relativity, where gravitation is reduced to a space-time curvature, a body in free fall has no force acting on it. But if you're wearing a parachute, once you reach terminal velocity, it kind of feels like your body is... cushioned. Supported. 

I glare at Tau Ceti. 

Must be nice. 

Jaro o několik dní dřív.

Ne o moc - samo o sobě to mohla být jen statistická odchylka. Jen následek běžných cyklů Země. Rok nebude o nic teplejší, a jídlo bude pořád na příděl. Pořád budou žít za metry izolace, aby se teplota uvnitř udržela alespoň pár stupňů nad nulou.

Pořád budou spíš přežívat.

Ale na tom teď nezáleželo. 

Teď záleželo na kousku půdy, kde roztál sníh. Na tenoučkých, zakrslých sněženkách, které se prodíraly na svět, za sluncem. 

Strattová natočila obličej ke stejnému slunci, vyhřívala se v jeho paprscích, a představovala si ty miliardy drobných životů, které pracovaly na jeho záchraně.

Communicating the basic concept is easy. Turns out murder is pretty common on Erid, which is depressing, but also saves a ton of time and explanation. They also have the concept of fiction - that's all fine. 

The problem is the puppet show. 

Rocky insists on it. I get it; he likes physical things and movement and all of that. Fine. But you try to recreate an episode of Murder She Wrote using only gestures and crudely 3D-printed puppets. 

Actually, no; that's not the worst part. It's that he solves them. Every. Single. One. 

I need to make some translation software.