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I tried not to think about it until now.
I’m going to be sleeping alone again, unwatched.
I sleep now. You observe, question?
Is it strange to grieve over words you’ll never say again? Maybe. I used to think about the last words I said to Adrian all the time before Grace found me. Before he gave me hope that I’d be able to say those words again.
I hope Grace will be alright, with no one to watch him sleep.
With no one to talk to.
Humans are very social, he told me. Years in isolation is not good for their minds. “I’ll be fine,” he’d said when I mentioned it again later, waving me off, “I’m more of an introvert anyways.”
I don’t know what introvert means, but I don’t believe him.
But I have to believe he’ll at least survive long enough to get to Earth. Then the other humans can help him. I won’t think about Grace dying so close to getting home. I won’t think about him never seeing Earth, seeing humans, seeing his sun become strong again.
I won’t think about that.
Instead, I’ll think about sleeping alone again for the first time in months.
But at least I’m going home.
It won’t be forever.
**
I still think in Earth units sometimes, translating for the human that isn’t even here. Maybe it is subconscious, because if Grace were here, he would know how to figure out what happened.
Like how Taumoeba infected my ship.
I did everything right, I thought. I followed Grace’s instructions, built the holding tanks to his specifications, kept them in a small room far from my fuel tanks.
But I must have done something wrong. I try to think like Grace would think, like a scientist would think. I spent months with the human that found salvation for Earth and Erid, but it wasn’t enough. I’m not a scientist. And I can only fix what I know is wrong.
I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t know what I did wrong.
The ship is silent now except for the backup generators that are not powered by Astrophage. But those generators will never be powerful enough to get the ship back to Erid. They are not even enough to make little ships like Grace’s beetles to send instead.
I was Erid’s last hope.
Now I am nothing.
**
I will not give up.
If I die on this ship, it will not be doing nothing. I will be working to find a solution to my last sleep. If I can still move, if I can still think, if I can still work, there has to be hope.
I try not to think about Grace, but he is all I think about. I think about how if he were here, we would have found a solution already. If he were here, I would know for certain that he is not dead.
Because if my Taumoeba escaped, his did too. Our tanks were identical in every detail. Whatever mistake I made, I made on each tank. I hope that he sent the beetles.
I know he did. He is very smart as long as he sleeps when he should.
He is stupid about sleep.
I miss Grace.
I can’t think about Grace.
I try to focus on something else.
**
CLANG CLANG CLANG
I stop working on the generator I’ve taken apart.
CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG
The sound is rhythmic.
I begin to panic. What could be making that sound? I have never heard that sound before. I know this ship. I know every sound it makes when something is broken and needs repaired. What is this sound? It is coming from the hull. From outside.
CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG
“Rocky!”
Grace?
I am going insane. Something is wrong with me. Radiation? Does it make your mind unreliable? Hallucinate? I’ve wished Grace was here for so long.
But he is not. He is on his dead ship. Dead because his Taumoeba escaped. Dead because the tanks I made could not hold them.
Grace is going to die.
“I don’t know if you can hear me! But I’m here, buddy! I’m on your hull!”
No. No, he is not. He is not on my hull, he is not he is not he is not —
I start running.
The burns on my arms ache, but I don’t care.
“I have my EVA suit radio on! Same frequency as always! Say something! Let me know you’re okay!”
The radio. Where did I put that radio? It had become a human artifact to bring home to my people. I never planned on using it again.
I change direction so fast I collide with a wall.
I run to the room I keep the laptop in.
“Rocky!”
Grace isn’t real. Why am I doing this?
There’s the radio.
I turn it on.
Static hisses at me.
“Rocky?!” This time, Grace’s voice comes through both the hull and the radio.
It isn’t him. I can’t be him.
He can’t be here.
“Grace, question?”
“Yes!” Grace laughs. “Yeah, buddy! It’s me!”
I am shaking. I cannot control the octave pitch of my voice. “You are here, question?!”
How? How can he be here? He can’t be here.
I hold the radio close, clinging to it. Waiting.
“Yes! I’m here!”
“You are…” My voice gives out, I try again. “You…You are here!”
“Yes!” Grace says, and I hear the distinct shift of his voice that means his face is in full joy mode. “Set up the airlock tunnel!”
Maybe he doesn’t know. “Warning! Taumeoba-82.5 is—”
Grace interrupts me. “I know! I know. It can get through xenonite. That’s why I’m here. I knew you’d be in trouble.”
“You save me!” I cannot believe it. Grace is here. Grace is here because he knew I’d need help. He found me. He came back for me!
“Yes. I caught the Taumoeba in time. I still have fuel. Set up the tunnel. I’m taking you to Erid.”
My legs feel weak all of a sudden. I can’t believe it. No, I can believe it and can’t believe it at the same time. “You save me and you save Erid!”
“Set up the darn tunnel!” Grace snaps impatiently, but it is only half-hearted. He still sounds happy.
Almost as happy as I am.
I try to calm down and tip my carapace, smiling. “Get back in you ship!” I tell him. “Unless you want to look at tunnel from outside.”
A pause. “Oh, right!”
**
Everything takes too long. Time slows to a near stop as we try to get the tunnel latched back on to the Hail Mary. We finally manage it, and time races again, becoming a blur of movement. Grace is here! Grace is actually here! He is explaining how the Taumoeba escaped tanks, he is telling me to bring my things aboard his ship, that we are going to Erid. He sent the beetles to Earth. Earth will be saved! Erid will be saved!
“Good, good,” I tell him happily. “I will make sure my people take good care of you. They will make Astrophage maybe for you to go home!”
Grace’s face changes, the smile he’d been wearing gone, but his face isn’t in the same sad mode I’ve seen it in before. It is different. I don’t recognize it. “Yeah…” he says. “About that…I’m not going home. The beetles will save Earth. But I won’t ever see it again.”
He doesn’t sound hopeless.
He sounds certain.
That’s worse.
I become very still. “Why, question?”
“I don’t have enough food,” Grace says, voice too flat, unmoving. “After I take you to Erid, I will die.”
He’s thought about this.
He planned this.
He knew this.
He still came back.
No.
“You...you no can die,” I tell him. My voice drops. “I no let you die. We send you home. Erid will be grateful. You save everyone. We do everything to save you.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Grace says, his voice becoming lower too. “There’s no food. I have enough to last me until we get to Erid and then a few months more. Even if your government gave me the Astrophage to get home, I wouldn’t survive the trip.”
There has to be something. Grace can’t end like this. He can’t save me and just die. No. No, I won’t let him. It isn’t an option I will accept. “Eat Erid food. We evolve from same life. We use same proteins. Same chemicals. Same sugars. Must work!”
Grace shakes his head. “No, I can’t eat your food, remember?”
“You say is bad for you. We find out.”
Grace puts his hands up. He’s trying to make me calm down. But I can’t calm down. I won’t calm down. He’s planning to die. I won’t let him die. He can’t die. “It’s not just bad for me. It will kill me. Your whole ecology uses metals all over the place. Most of them are toxic to me. I’d die immediately.”
He’s thought about this. About all of it. About what he was going to tell me.
I am shaking. “No. You can no die. You are friend.”
Grace comes closer to the wall between us, his voice becoming soft, soothing. “It’s okay. I made my decision. This is the only way to save both of our worlds.”
I don’t want to be soothed.
I back away, back toward my dead ship. Away from Grace, alive and well, and not dead. “Then you go home. Go home now. I wait here. Erid maybe send another ship someday.”
Even though they haven’t yet. After all these years.
At least not one that has found me.
If it even survived.
Grace tips his head. “That’s ridiculous. Do you really want to risk the survival of your entire species on that guess?”
I hate that he’s right.
I think of my people, of Adrian, of the hope I’ve clung to all this time. I hate that I say, “No.”
Grace nods, like we’ve come to a decision together. Like I’ve accepted his death just as he has. “Okay. Get that ball thing you use as a spacesuit and come on over. Talk me through how to patch up the xenonite walls. Then you can move your stuff in—”
I’m not listening. I have an idea.
It might work.
It has to work.
“Wait. You no can eat Erid life. You no have Earth life to eat. What about Adrian life, question?”
Grace makes a strange noise. “Astrophage? I can’t eat that! It’s ninety-six degrees all the time! It would burn me alive. Plus, I doubt my digestive enzymes would even work on its weird cell membrane.”
“Not Astrophage. Taumeoba. Eat Taumeoba.”
Grace is shaking his head again. “I can’t eat—” he stops. “I…what?”
I’ve known my friend long enough to know when he’s processing information, turning it over and over in his mind, figuring out a solution to a problem. I wait, let him sort out the details. I don’t entirely understand it myself, but if I got him to think about it, he can.
He has to.
“I…I don’t know,” he says at last, very quietly. “Maybe I can.”
I tip my carapace in a smile and point at my ship. “I have twenty-two million kilograms of Taumeoba in fuel bays. How much you want, question?”
Grace’s eyes widen, and his face changes again. To one I recognize this time. Hope.
He has hope.
“Settled,” I say. I put my fist against the divider between us. “Fist my bump.”
Grace laughs. A real laugh. Happy, hopeful. “Fist-bump,” he tells me, putting his fist against mine. “It’s just ‘fist-bump.’”
I laugh. “Understand.”
We’re both going home.
END