Forget I Existed

I’d like to think it was because I have the soul of a true scientist, but really it was because nothing was making sense and I was grasping for anything to say, because all I succeeded at was squeaking out, “Why?”

“Because it’s likely a matter of hours until we are both taken into custody, and we need to get our story straight before then.”

“Wait, what? We are? Why? We just—we just saved the world!”

“Maybe,” Stratt said. “Maybe Yáo, Ilyukhina, and DuBois will find a solution at Tau Ceti. Maybe they won’t. The world governments were willing to look the other way while we got them ready. But now they’re gone, and the presidents and prime ministers get to regain their moral high ground by prosecuting everyone involved.”

She’d told me about this, but I kind of hadn’t expected it to actually happen. “I kind of thought saving the world would, I don’t know, get you special dispensation.”

“Every dictator who ever committed atrocities thought they were saving the world.”

“You actually are, though.”

“And for the people whose worlds ended because of what we did, that doesn’t matter, and their governments will want to show that they’re doing something about it. Most of the scientists on the project will likely get leniency because of the threat we were up against and their genuine belief that they were doing what they could to prevent it. As director of the project, I won’t get any of that leniency, and as deputy director, you likely won’t either.”

“I—what—I’m—I’m not the deputy director!”

“Good,” said Stratt. “Commit to that story. Make it convincing. You aren’t deputy director of the project, you don’t know anything important and weren’t deeply involved, you’re just my boyfriend I keep around because you’re good at sex and I have dubious taste.”

“What?”

“I am trying to help you, Dr. Grace.” Stratt’s glare was regular anger now. “I thought I was offering you a kindness, and I thought you were desperate enough to avoid any consequences for your actions that you’d be willing to take it. Tell the courts that you don’t know anything, that you had no decision-making power, that you were barely involved, that your early breakthroughs turned out to be ultimately insignificant to Project Hail Mary’s development, and that the only reason I didn’t dismiss you from the project entirely is because by then we had entered a sexual relationship that we have maintained for the past three years. Tell them you tried to convince me not to bomb Antarctica, if you like. I am offering you the option to be irrelevant. Because your other option is prison.”

“Aren’t there any other options here?” I pleaded.

“Your other option would have been to go to Tau Ceti as the science officer on the Hail Mary instead of Dr. DuBois. I was under the impression you didn’t want to do that either.”

I really did not. And in any case, the Hail Mary was already most of the way to Pluto. It went without saying that, even if I suddenly decided I wanted to go to space instead of prison, and even if the option to call the ship back existed, Stratt would not do that for me.

“All of those options are bad,” I said, and even I could hear how pathetic I sounded.

“Correct. Did you think we were doing this because we had any good options available?"

I tried to come up with something useful to say, but my brain was still just kind of a blue screen of death. So instead of asking about international justice or prison or the future, or if there were any specific details of the cover story that I would be expected to know, I asked, “We don’t… actually have to have sex, do we?”

“No,” Stratt said flatly. “We don't. That would not help. At all.”

“Um," I said. “Okay.” Then, “Can I have some time to think about it?”