“Dammit! We’re going to lose 41,” the Senior Scientist said without taking his eyes off the screen.

“What happened this time?” the Junior Scientist asked, walking over from her station.

“The homo sapiens virus again,” he explained. “It spread too far, too fast. We’re not gonna be able to stop it. It’s destroying everything in its path. In only a couple million years, it killed its own home world, several others in its solar system, and took out a few more throughout its galaxy. It’ll only be a matter of time before the whole system breaks down. Again. And then we’ll lose the universe. Again.”

“Argh! This damn ‘intelligent life’ disease is driving me crazy,” she said. “I’m sure we can find a cure, but we’re gonna have to get creative with 42.”

“Honestly, I’m at my wit’s end,” the Senior Scientist admitted. “Why don’t you take a crack at the next one?”

“Really?” she said incredulously. “Do you think I’m ready?”

“Hey, kid, not to be condescending, but there’s no way you could do any worse than me, right?” he joked. “Seriously, of course you’re ready. In fact, we can use this as your final qualification test before becoming a Senior Scientist. You’re much more talented than I was at your age, so … go for it!”

“Now?”

“Now.”

The Senior Scientist moved aside, and the Junior Scientist sat at the controls for the first time, nervous energy pushing her forward. Let’s do this! she thought.

“Well, what should 42 be?” she asked.

“Whatever you want it to be,” he replied. “Whatever you want it to be.”

“OK, let’s think through this,” she started. “Why don’t we work backwards from the end goal? First of all, since it’s so dangerous, we want to keep ‘intelligent life’ from emerging at all. Anywhere in the universe. Period. We can’t seem to figure out how to stop this from happening, but we’ve learned enough about the disease to at least minimize the risk. It seems to require some basic elements, like water, carbon, gas atmosphere, and proximity to a warm star, so let’s just make sure there aren’t too many objects like that anywhere in the universe.”

“Sounds like a good start,” he said.

“Then, just in case ‘intelligent life’ does emerge on any planet, let’s make sure that every planet is equipped with self-defense mechanisms to prevent the disease from taking hold and evolving,” she said. “So in 42 let’s add some of the things that worked in 37 to 41, such as earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis, tornadoes, droughts, and floods. Also, we’ll add some of the longer-term mechanisms that worked well in 19 to 29, like ice ages, rising sea levels, global warming, and shifting magnetic fields.”

“You’re throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it,” he said. “I like it. What else?”

“Well, if you remember back in the early tests, we tried eliminating the destructive traits of the disease,” she said. “We already learned that we can’t fully eliminate that, but perhaps we can soften its severity by mixing in an offsetting trait? Something like, say, creativity? Maybe the best we can hope for is that the next strain of ‘intelligent life’ will be as creative as it is destructive.”

“I guess that’s a compromise we’ll have to accept,” he said. “If we can’t avoid the disease, at least let’s try to prevent it from becoming too lethal.”

“OK, so now, let’s keep building defensive perimeters,” she continued. “Assuming the disease emerges again, let’s do whatever we can to kill it off. Let’s be ready to bombard the planet with external weapons of mass destruction, like meteors, comets, cosmic radiation, and solar flares. Whatever is in the neighborhood, even other smaller planets. We should also keep our policy of stars periodically exploding, just to burn out the disease in surrounding planets.”

“I’ve always liked that Supernova Policy,” the Senior Scientist said, approving of his protege’s progress on this assignment. “Unfortunately, the disease usually grows and spreads faster than the host star can explode to kill it, but maybe we’ll get lucky on the timing of this next one. Keep going, kid. You’re doing great!”

“Let’s see. What else?” she said, carefully considering her next move. “Through all 41 prior tests, we’ve learned that this disease is the most resilient disease we’ve ever encountered, so we have to assume that it will emerge again in 42, despite our best efforts to fight it. If that happens, then we need to keep it from spreading.”

“How do you propose we do that?” he asked.

“Well, this was the big lesson from 41, right?” she explained. “We need to keep large distances between planets where the disease might take hold. As aggressive as the disease is, its cells have very short life-cycles, so they don’t survive well across long distances. We know that it will try to spread, so let’s make its odds of success as low as possible.”

“Good thinking,” he said.

“Plus we need to make sure that the space in between potential host planets is filled with cosmic radiation, since that seems to kill off the disease,” she continued. “It will likely find a way around this, but if we can somehow limit–or at least slow down–the spread of the disease, then we might have a chance to save 42.”

“This is amazing,” he said. “Truly impressive. You’re weaving together all of the lessons learned from our 41 previous tests. If I’m not careful, in no time you’re going to take over my position as Department Head.”

“Ha! No chance, sir,” she said. “Oh, wait. There’s one more thing we’ll need to deal with. Remember what happened in 17?”

“How could I forget?” he said.

“That was really strange,” she said. “Several different strains of the disease emerged at roughly the same time on different planets in different solar systems across multiple galaxies. They shocked us by actually communicating with each other, and that led to the quickest destruction of the universe out of any test we’ve conducted. I’m not sure how to prevent this in 42, but hopefully all of the other safeguards we’re implementing will save this next universe.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” he said. “Do you have anything else you wanna try? Or are you ready to run 42?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I can’t think of anything else. What’s the worst that can happen? We lose 42 and try again with 43?”

“Exactly,” he said. “There’s always time for another test. You’re young.”

“So I can press the button?” she asked.

“Just do it.”

She did. And for the 42nd time, she crossed her fingers as she watched the Big Bang light up the screen.