Chapter Text
I sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the clear xenonite wall separating my environment from Rocky's. I've got my blanket under me because that floor's hard, especially under the 1.6g acceleration from the Hail Mary's thrusters. No, deceleration, I remember. We're on the home stretch, past the half-way mark on our trip back to Erid. Two months ago we carefully performed the maneuvers necessary to flip the Hail Mary 180 degrees and begin thrusting in the opposite direction, like reversing into the Universe's longest driveway.
Rocky and I had marked the occasion with a little party after we'd finished all the post-maneuver checks. I'd allowed myself a small sip of the searing jet fuel Ilyukhina called vodka and Rocky had changed into his fancy celebration outfit and scuttle-bounced around his rooms like a big happy goof. "Soon I will be home and we will save my world. I will see Adrian again. I am very very happy." Even now the memory makes me smile.
I rouse myself from reminiscing and focus. It's a tense moment. If I make a mistake now, it'll be a disaster and I'll lose everything. But I've planned ahead, taken account of every possibility I can think of; I know there's only one thing to do. I confidently pick up a rough, black aluminum pebble from its bowl and place it on the board between two of Rocky's shiny white xenonite stones.
We're playing Go, probably the only game Earth and Erid invented independently unless you count things like wrestling and running races. Aside from playing on a slightly smaller board the Eridian rules are exactly the same as ours. Ever since we found out we both know how to play, we've had a game every few days when we have nothing else to do. He's a lot stronger than me- we usually have close games if he gives me a four-stone handicap- but recently he's been in a bit of a slump. Either that, or I'm improving. Either way I'm close to beating him down to three stones.
He ponders the board a moment and then calls out "D-3". I pick out a xenonite stone and place it for him, since the board's on my side of the wall. Both of us realize immediately that Rocky's made a huge mistake, an epic blunder that will cost him a big group and almost certainly the game. He should have played on the other side of my last move. "Uhhh.." I say.
Rocky thumps the floor angrily with his fist. "I am stupid today! Stupid stupid!"
Then he's silent for a moment but I can tell from the way he holds his arm that he's furious. He tilts his carapace at me accusingly. "You're laughing at me! Ha ha ha, dumb Eridian. Yes yes, point and laugh at stupid Rocky."
"I am not laughing at you!"
"Go away, you big smug ♬ ♪♫ idiot blob! Leave me alone!"
"Rocky!"
"GO AWAY!"
I fume silently, throw the board and stones back in their box and stalk away to the lab, trailing my blanket behind me. As I leave the room he calls to me, "Grace! Grace! I'm sorry. I don't know why I said that! I didn't mean it." But I leave the room wordlessly and go sulk for a bit. He's being a complete asshole and he's never been such a sore loser before.
I take a few minutes to calm down. Is this what Stratt was worried would happen to me, Yao, and Ilyukhina if we'd been awake for the whole trip? Minor annoyances turning to petty squabbles and finally fisticuffs in the control room? Is Rocky just going stir crazy? Nah. He was alone on the Blip-A for almost half a century and emerged from that ordeal probably more well-adjusted than I've ever been. If either of us is going to have a claustrophobic rage-out on this trip it's almost certainly going to be me, not Rocky.
I open one of the freezers in the lab and take out a little packet containing freeze-dried taumoeba powder. Like the other packets it had of course gone through Rocky's nitrogen wash three times just to be safe. We couldn't afford another Great Escape. But these 'meebs are dead as dead can be, strained and filtered to remove as much of their dead Astrophage poop as practical, and freeze-dried into a faintly clumpy white powder that can be easily stirred into water. I'd expected it to taste awful, but to my surprise pure taumoeba has almost no flavor at all. It's like the water that comes out of a fat lettuce leaf when you bite into it. I also stir in a half teaspoon of coma slurry - yay, more white powder - because the last time I talked to the nannybot computer I was apparently starting to show some Vitamin C deficiency.
The coma slurry powder has to last, so I'm stretching it out. Rocky thinks pushing the engines to 1.6g rather than the 1.5g they're rated for is safe enough, so that's what we're doing. It will get us to Erid about eight weeks earlier than I'd originally calculated. My food will last a bit longer and I can begin adjusting to something closer to Erid's gravity right now. I might even get a few extra weeks to see his homeworld before malnutrition knocks me on my back. That'd be just one more thing I'd owe him for. It's already quite a list.
I don't know why Rocky got so angry just now but a silly board game isn't worth fighting over. I should go back and say something. I quietly return to the dorm room. He didn't follow me to the lab through his little tunnel; he's just sitting on the floor looking sorry for himself. "Grace... I..."
"You haven't been quite yourself lately. Is everything OK?"
His carapace slumps towards the floor and his voice is soft and low. "No."
"We are going to Erid. Save my people. See Adrian again. I should be happy. But now only stupid and clumsy and angry all the time. Brain feels like full of mud, for weeks now. Something is wrong with me."