“But the fun doesn’t stop there,” she said. “Because once the desperate, starving countries start invading each other for food, the food production will go down. Ever heard of the Tai Ping rebellion? It was a civil war in China during the nineteenth century. Four hundred thousand soldiers died in combat. And twenty million people died from the resulting famine. The war disrupted agriculture, see? That’s how massive in scale these things are.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. I’d never seen her look so vulnerable. “Malnourishment. Disruption. Famine. Every aspect of infrastructure going to food production and warfare. The entire fabric of society will fall apart. There’ll be plagues too. Lots of them. All over the world. Because the medical-care systems will be overwhelmed. Once easily contained outbreaks will go unchecked.”

She turned to face me. “War, famine, pestilence, and death. Astrophage is literally the apocalypse. The Hail Mary is all we have now. I’ll make any sacrifice to give it even the tiniest additional chance of success.”

I lay down on my bunk and faced away from her. “Whatever lets you sleep at night.”

She walked back to the door and knocked on it. A guard opened it up. “Anyway. I just wanted you to know why I’m doing this. I owed you that.”

“Go to hell.”

“Oh, I will, believe me. You three are going to Tau Ceti. The rest of us are going to hell. More accurately, hell is coming to us.”

Yeah? Well, hell’s coming back to you, Stratt. In the form of me. I’m hell.

I mean… I don’t know what I’ll say to her. But I definitely plan to say stuff. Mean stuff.

I’m eighteen days into my nearly four-year journey. I’m just now reaching Tau Ceti’s heliopause—the edge of the star’s powerful magnetic field. At least, the edge of where it’s strong enough to deflect fast-moving interstellar radiation. From now on, the radiation load on the hull will be much higher.

Doesn’t matter to me. I’m surrounded by Astrophage. But it’s interesting to see the external radiation sensors go up and up and up. It’s progress, at least. But in the grand scheme of things, I’m on a long road trip and my current status is “just walking out the front door of the house.”

I’m bored. I’m by myself in a spaceship without much to do.

I clean and catalog the lab again. I might come up with some research experiments for either Astrophage or Taumoeba. Heck, I could write some papers while I’m on my way home. Oh, and there’s the matter of the intelligent alien life-form I hung out with for a couple of months. I might want to jot a few things down about him too.