The Hail Mary

The present-day timeline of events takes place primarily inside the Hail Mary, the spaceship that has taken Ryland to another galaxy to investigate Tau Ceti and solve the Astrophage problem. The ship is described in the opening chapters as Ryland awakens and gets his bearings. He wakes in a bed in the dormitory, initially mistaking his surroundings for a hospital or a submarine. A pair of giant robot arms hang from the ceiling and he discovers that they are responsible for providing medical care while the astronauts are incapacitated. There are two other beds in the dormitory, where Ryland discovers the dead bodies of his fellow astronauts, Commander Yáo Li-Jie and Olesya Ilyukhina. A hatch in the ceiling of the dormitory leads to the laboratory, which is full of scientific equipment, and a hatch in the ceiling of the lab leads to the ship's control...