I pinched my chin. “It could work. But Astrophage can die from physical trauma. You can kill one by poking it with a sharp nanostick.”

“Yes, that’s why I asked CERN to do some off-the-books experiments for me as a favor.”

“Wow. CERN will just do whatever you want? Are you, like, mini-Stratt or something?”

She chuckled. “Old friends and contacts. Anyway, they found that even particles moving near light speed can’t get past Astrophage. And none of them seem to kill it either.”

“That actually makes a lot of sense,” I said. “It evolved to live on the surface of stars. They must get bombarded by energy and very fast-moving particles all the time.”

She pointed to a zoomed-in schematic of Astrophage canals. “The entire radiation load will be halted. All we need is a layer of Astrophage slurry thick enough to guarantee there’s always an Astrophage cell in the way of any incoming particles. One millimeter should be more than enough. Plus, we don’t waste any mass. We’ll be using the fuel itself as insulation. And if the crew need that last little bit of Astrophage, well, consider it a reserve.”

“Hmm… a ‘reserve’ that could power New York City for twenty thousand years.”

She looked at the diagram, then back to me. “You did all that math in your head?”

“Eh, I had some shortcuts. We’re dealing with such absurd scales of energy here, I tend to think in ‘New York City years’ of energy, which is about one-half of one gram of Astrophage.”

She rubbed her temples. “And we need to make two million kilograms of it. If we make a mistake along the way…”

“We’ll save Astrophage the trouble of destroying humanity by doing it ourselves,” I say. “Yeah. I think about that a lot.”

“So, what do you think?” she said. “Is this a terrible idea, or could it work?”

“I think it’s genius.”

She smiled and looked away.

Chapter 14

Another day, another staff meeting. Who would have thought saving the world could be so boring?

The science team sat around the meeting-room table. Me, Dimitri, and Lokken. For all her talk about cutting out bureaucracy, Stratt ended up with a bunch of de facto department heads and daily staff meetings.

Sometimes, the stuff we all hate ends up being the only way to do things.

Stratt sat at the head of the table, of course. And next to her was a man I’d never seen before.

“Everyone,” Stratt said. “I want you to meet Dr. François Leclerc.”

The Frenchman to her left waved halfheartedly. “Hello.”

“Leclerc is a world-renowned climatologist from Paris. I’ve put him in charge of tracking, understanding, and—if possible—ameliorating the climate effects of Astrophage.”

“Oh, is that all?” I said.

Leclerc smiled, but it faded quickly.