Project Hail Mary

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-8

Chapters 9-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-20

Chapters 21-25

Chapters 26-30

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Book Club Questions

Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 9 Summary

Grace completes another spacewalk to cut a six-inch sample of the Hail Mary’s hull for the Blip-A, wondering how they plan to reconcile their two environments for the tunnel, since the Blip-A’s atmosphere is hotter than the boiling point of water, judging by the temperature of the cylinders when they arrived at the Hail Mary. Grace tosses the hull sample toward the Blip-A and waves to the alien ship’s hull robot, which waves back.

Grace recalls another memory. On the aircraft carrier, Grace visits Dmitri’s lab, where the Russian scientist has designed a spin drive engine that uses Astrophage as fuel. The spin drive is extremely powerful, capable of melting a metric ton of metal in a fraction of a second. For redundancy and safety, the Hail Mary will have 1,009 small individual engines.

Back on the Hail Mary, the Blip-A approaches and uses its hull robot to attach a xenonite tunnel between the two ships, placed over the Hail Mary’s airlock. Grace gathers his courage and opens the airlock to find that the tunnel is divided in half, allowing Grace to pressurize his half with the Hail Mary’s atmosphere, and the Eridian half to be pressurized with Eridian atmosphere, since they are incompatible. Reassured, Grace takes off his space suit and enters the tunnel, with no light but his headlamp. The wall separating the two halves seems to be made of many different materials, and as Grace examines it, he hears knocking from the other side.

Chapter 10 Summary

Grace sets up LED lamps in the xenonite tunnel to examine the dividing wall and finds one section of the wall is made of transparent material. A rock-like alien hand taps against the transparent section from the other side. Grace presses his faces against the wall for a better look but has to pull away as the wall is too hot to touch. The alien holds up a model of the Hail Mary, and a model of a space suit to represent Grace himself, and gestures for Grace to return to the ship, which he does. Grace, thrilled by the encounter, give the Eridian the name Rocky.

Grace watches through the airlock as the Blip-A’s hull robot inspects his side of the tunnel. The robot removes Grace’s LED lights and throws the tunnel back into darkness. Shortly after, Grace hears a knock on the hull. He retrieves a new lamp and re-enters the tunnel to find that the original wall has been replaced by a transparent divider. Rocky, the Eridian on the other side, resembles a five-legged spider made of stone and about the size of a Labrador, with a three-fingered hand at the end of each arm. Rocky wears dull, inconsistently shaded clothing, with a hole at the top for a small protuberance, but Grace cannot identify a head or face. Grace and Rocky wave to each other.

Grace speaks out loud absentmindedly and is shocked when Rocky responds in his own language, which sounds like whale song. Grace sees that Rocky has left him a pair of spheres, one embossed with the Hail Mary and one embossed with the image of the Blip-A. Inside the spheres are ball-and-string models of atoms to represent the makeup of their respective atmospheres, which confirm that Eridian atmosphere is mostly ammonia and toxic to humans. Rocky has provided 29 copies of the ammonia model to communicate that Eridian atmospheric pressure is 29 times greater than Earth’s, which means xenonite is extremely strong, since xenonite is the primary material of Rocky’s poorly shaped ship.

Grace pantomimes for Rocky to wait and retrieves an analog clock from the lab. Grace, exhausted, tries to draw with dry erase marker on the surface of the clock to indicate that he will return in two hours, but Rocky doesn’t seem to understand. Rocky gestures for Grace to press the clock against the divider wall, and Grace complies. Rocky does a jazz hand gesture that Grace interprets as positive. Rocky gestures for Grace to wait, then retrieves an Eridian clock from the Blip-A. By comparing clocks, Grace and Rocky are able to learn each other’s numerical systems and measurements of time and establish a shared unit of time. When Rocky returns to the Blip-A momentarily, Grace circles the “2” on the clock face with his dry erase marker and heads back to the Hail Mary to sleep, hoping Rocky will understand that he will return at that time.

Chapter 11 Summary

Grace wakes up from his nap still tired but anxious to return to Rocky, who has installed an airlock in the tunnel so they can pass objects across the divider. Grace attempts to demonstrate a tape measure, hoping to continue learning each other’s units of measurement, but Rocky doesn’t seem to notice the markings on the tape measure at all. Grace realizes that Rocky does not have eyes and instead uses sound to sense his environment, similar to echolocation, which is why Grace had to press the clock physically against the divider.

In flashback, Grace accompanies Stratt to court, where she is being sued by an Intellectual Property Alliance for copying every piece of software and every literary work that has ever been copyrighted onto the Hail Mary. Stratt argues that there is no way to predict what might be useful to the Hail Mary crew and that they need to have the whole of human knowledge available at all times. Stratt presents an international treaty stating that she is “personally immune from prosecution for any crime anywhere on Earth” and strides out of the courtroom in defiance (193).

Grace browses the software on the Hail Mary computer and installs a soundwave-analyzing program to a laptop so he can learn Rocky’s language, even though Grace won’t be able to speak it and vice versa. Still tired, Grace also sets up a spreadsheet of Eridian time and glues Popsicle sticks to the divider in the tunnel to represent what time he will return after sleeping, knowing Rocky will be able to sense the three-dimensional message. Grace also sets up a camera to monitor the tunnel from the dormitory before turning in.

Chapter 12 Summary

Grace wakes up to a tapping sound, having slept long past the time he intended to return to the tunnel. He rushes back to the tunnel and finds Rocky waiting for him, seemingly frustrated by his lateness. Using the Popsicle sticks to represent numerals, Grace and Rocky take turns speaking their respective words for each number, and Grace catalogues Rocky’s language, which is made up of chords and whistles, with the soundwave analyzer. One word at a time, they expand their vocabulary. Grace eventually needs to write a software program to facilitate faster translation, but Rocky has near-perfect memory.

Unable to wait any longer, Grace brings a vial of Astrophage into the tunnel. Even with their limited vocabulary, Rocky and Grace are able to confirm that both of their home stars are infected with Astrophage. Grace eventually tires, and Rocky asks to watch over him while he sleeps; Grace takes the request simply as an interest in an alien life form and gives in. Grace duct tapes his bed to the tunnel wall and falls asleep again as Rocky works on repairs.

Rocky and Grace continue to learn each other’s languages and move on to units of mass. Rocky hands Grace a metal ball through the airlock and describes it as being “26.” Grace, misunderstanding, thinks he must convert 26 of Rocky’s units of mass into an Earth unit of mass and leaves the tunnel to perform an ad hoc experiment when Rocky steps away for a moment. When he returns, an annoyed Rocky explains that “26” means that the ball is made out of iron, which has 26 atoms, and Grace’s experiment was totally unnecessary to determine the mass.

Rocky, tired, asks Grace to watch him while he sleeps in return. Grace suggests that another Eridian do it instead, and Rocky reveals that he is the only Eridian left of the Blip-A’s original 23 crew members, as all of the others have died. Grace agrees to watch Rocky while he sleeps, noting that neither of them is alone anymore.

Chapters 9-12 Analysis

In this section of the novel, Weir uses both shorter and fewer flashback scenes and allows for the rising action of the present timeline to take precedence. This narrative strategy prioritizes dramatic tension over thematic exploration, as the reader knows that Project Hail Mary will be successful, at least in terms of the ship arriving at Tau Ceti, and the stakes of the scientific development in the past timeline feel lower in comparison to the stakes of Grace’s multiple spacewalks. Weir instead focuses on humanity’s first encounter with intelligent extraterrestrial life, allowing the few flashback scenes included in this section to augment the reader’s understanding of how the technology aboard the Hail Mary works. This approach facilitates greater understanding of the engineering challenges Rocky faces in attaching the two spaceships and prepares the reader for future crises based on the mechanical operations of the Hail Mary.

Grace’s acknowledgement of Rocky’s extraordinary engineering in the tunnel continues the theme of cultural relativism’s role in facilitating collaboration. Grace’s openness to another planetary culture and system of knowledge allows him to greet extraterrestrial intelligence not only with excitement, but with productive curiosity and a crucial desire for strong communication. The exchange of atmospheric models and the terrestrial and Eridian clocks emphasizes Weir’s point of view that the commonalities between civilizations are more profound than the differences. Similarly, Rocky’s sonar abilities in lieu of sight are not presented as a hindrance, resisting ableist notions about blindness. Both Grace and Rocky have unique abilities that strengthen one other’s understanding of science and space, and their differences will ultimately enable them to help each other, as Grace can see things Rocky can’t detect, and Rocky will prove instrumental in navigating the blackout aboard the Hail Mary later in the novel. Perhaps most importantly, their openness to one another’s cultures allows Rocky and Grace to establish a shared understanding of loss, as both are the sole survivors of their respective crews, and to discover shared fundamental cultural values around friendship and community. Not only does this connection facilitate their language learning, but it also lays the groundwork for a true friendship to develop between them.

Weir uses several non-typical written characters in this section of the novel, including Eridian numerals and musical notes, to represent Rocky’s language, composed of chords and tones. To emphasize Rocky’s similarities despite the obvious differences, Weir uses a similar technique earlier in the novel, presenting Russian Cyrillic characters and Chinese characters that are illegible from Grace’s perspective. Despite the different mode of speaking, Rocky’s language is presented in the same way as any other language not understood by Grace. Weir takes care to establish that everything is always relative to point of view.

Supplementing Weir’s commitment to relative points of view is his equal commitment to connection via scientific law. Supported by Weir’s commitment to scientific fact in the novel, at least in regard to what is understood to be scientifically possible, Weir presents the laws of physics as a common language that transcends any cultural differences. Put another way, once equivalent units of measurement are established, science is the same in every language. Grace’s misunderstanding about the iron ball showcases Rocky’s brilliance and establishes their relational dynamic: Grace is speculative, impatient, and occasionally reckless, and Rocky is pragmatic, meticulous, and absolutely committed to scientific rigor. Of course, these differences allow for Grace to be a creative biologist and Rocky an exceptional engineer. Rocky also displays creative problem solving, being a far cry from the kind of conservative scientists Grace is dismissive of. Weir does not establish, however, whether Rocky’s attitude is typical of all Eridians or a unique personality trait. In either case, Rocky and Grace share an appreciation for trial-and-error discovery, making them natural collaborators.

This section of the book also features a high frequency of names and naming, as Grace encounters Rocky, Eridians, the planet Erid, and xenonite. Weir is careful to establish in flashback that Grace—and by extension humans—is consistent in this tendency to name everything; Dmitri Komorov’s assistants even carry the moniker “Dmitri’s Denizens.” Rocky, by contrast, is less interested in names than in functional communication.

In this section’s most significant flashback sequence, Stratt’s moral integrity is complicated by her sense of immunity versus impunity. Stratt agrees to appear in court as a courtesy but flaunts her power before the court. Weir shows Stratt to have a potentially dangerous side, as she doesn’t wield her power lightly, and her behavior with the court bailiff borders on reckless baiting. Through Stratt’s blatant display of power, Weir sets the stage for her increasingly morally dubious behavior in events to come, culminating in her forcing Grace into the lethal mission.