I have amnesia. Not the fun, soap-opera kind. The kind where I look at my own hands—calloused, burned on the left palm—and feel no recognition.
Sixteen-Ninety-Four vibrates its abdomen in what I’ve learned is terror. It shows me a new diagram. Forty Eridani’s star isn’t dying from lack of observation. It was murdered —by a temporal paradox from another species that tried to undo its own war. The universe doesn’t forget. The universe holds grudges .
I wipe this log before sending a condensed version to Earth via laser. Let them hate me. Let them freeze. At least they’ll freeze in a timeline that makes sense. project hail mary
I ate the green rations. They taste like regret and aspartame. The cargo bay is not cargo. It is a graveyard of failed physics.
Well. Not time itself. Causality.
It scratches a question mark next to my planet.
Oh no. The temporal astrophage isn’t a mutation. It’s a message . I have amnesia
Sixteen-Ninety-Four extends a limb. I clasp it with my burned hand. No translation needed. I don’t go back to Earth. I can’t. My memories finally returned on Sol 14. I was the lead scientist who opposed the temporal astrophage project. The burns on my hand are from sabotaging the first sample container. My crewmates aren’t in comas—I put them there. They were military. They were going to force me to complete the mission.