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Grace mixed his soluble tea into a mug full of water. It wasn't tea by the strictest definition, but this white powder was as good as it got on Erid. The resulting drink had a decent taste, and fortunately Grace had been off Earth for so long he wasn't bothered by the fact it likely resembled no tea at all.
It definitely wasn't coffee. Too sweet, for starters, and caffeine free too. Eridian scientists could most definitely synthesize caffeine by now, but they hadn't provided him any so far. He was starting to suspect Rocky had forbid them from making any. Little mother hen, Grace was not that old yet and his blood pressure was in his humble opinion incredible given the things he had put his body through.
He was bringing the mug to his lips when he heard the insistent knocking at his front door. Well he hadn't been expecting any visitors today. And whoever it was, they were certainly determined to see him.
Probably Rocky. He was the only one who got so bossy with him.
"Coming," Grace shouted, getting off his chair with a huff.
And Rocky knew sometimes Grace's knees struggled and he needed a minute to stand up and walk to the door, but that didn't stop him from knocking like the world was about to end. Grace huffed. His cane was more than loud enough for Rocky to know exactly where he was.
"Where is the fire?" Grace asked, opening the door.
"Grace's class is canceled today!" Rocky all but screamed.
"My– Hey! Why? What's happening?"
"There is Earth stuff in orbit!"
Grace looked up at the ceiling of his dome. "Like, the Hail Mary?"
"No. New object from Earth!"
"Okay, okay, wait, start from the beginning, what is going on?"
Rocky was near bouncing on Grace's doorsteps. "An object was found drifting in towards Erid from outer space. We thought asteroid but with astrophage emission spectrum, and then scientists noticed it emitted periodic signal. Calculated trajectory and consistent with origin near Sol!"
"Are you serious?" Grace asked. His terrible knees felt a whole new kind of weak. "Couldn't it be something else? Weird space debris with some astrophages clinging on to it?"
"And Grace think astrophages learn to emit signal consistent with human radio frequency, question?"
No, of course not. Grace's legs were at a strong risk of giving out. If this thing had astrophages and emitted an artificial signal, it had to have been built and sent over from somewhere in space. Given so far the only places confirmed to have life in the universe were Earth, Erid, Adrian, and the various dozen stars infected with astrophages, the easiest explanation was for it to be from Earth.
It had been a couple (Earth) years now since Eridians had observed an increase in energy output from the Sun. Assuming Earth had started working on whatever that was almost as soon as they had thrown the taumoeba to Venus and used an astrophage system to send it at a significant fraction of light speed, it wasn't too out there for this object to arrive now.
Oh god Earth had sent something over. To Erid. They had gotten the information from Grace's logs and decided to send stuff. There were people out there and resources to do this. Which, yes, of course, they had fixed the astrophages problem so obviously someone was alive, but this was different. Not just data on a telescope, but something solid. Tangible.
Presumably at least, it wasn't as if Grace was touching it. But potentially he might.
"Need to sit down, question?" Rocky asked.
"No. No, I'm fine. So what are we doing about that?"
"Object still far from Eridani, apparently slowing down. Debating best way to recover."
Grace's heart immediately jumped. "The Hail Mary could do it. I mean, I caught a cylinder thrown at me in space, this is definitely–"
"Grace is not going to stand out there and catch it, strong statement," Rocky said. "Object too big, for starters. Also Grace's reflex not as fast."
"That is rude," Grace said, one finger pointed at Rocky.
"Grace can barely catch object when they fall."
"Yeah, that's because the gravity here is twice what my brain is built for!"
Rocky laughed his Eridian notes of amusement. "Excuses excuses. Now want to plan object recovery?"
"Heck yeah!"
***
The Hail Mary's interior would never be called spacious, especially not with the xenonite partitions functionally halving Grace's space. However, it had been a while since Grace had left his terrarium. The change in scenery was nice. He also had a fancy xenonite vehicle down on Erid he could sometimes use to go out, but it wasn't that exciting on account of everything being pitch black around him.
"Five hundred meters," he announced, watching the radar.
"Less than one hundred would be ideal," Rocky said.
"Got it."
Grace dutifully pushed the Mary closer. It was aligned with the probe – Grace didn't know what else to call it at the moment, but probe seemed a good enough guess. It was only twelve meters in length, engines included. Considering the space required for fuel, there wasn't much room left. For sure there wasn't a human inside.
Although a smaller adult immobile due to coma might fit. Grace was choosing to believe that was not the case.
The weeks since the probe had been discovered had been a flurry of activity. Special equipment had been mounted on the Hail Mary in order to recover the object. Studying the trajectory and deceleration had revealed it would stop between the orbit of Erid and Eridani's second planet. Not too long a trip, with astrophages providing steady acceleration.
Now Grace could barely contain his nerves. They had waited for the probe to settle into orbit before approaching. Every hour it sent out a signal lasting five minutes. Human voices speaking in multiple languages, each saying, "This vessel comes from the planet Earth. It carries gifts for the inhabitants of planet Erid."
"Perfect," Rocky said. "We can begin construction."
It would be hard to haul the entire thing back to Erid. Nor necessary, likely, since the message clearly said the gifts were inside the probe and not the probe itself. But they could make a tunnel for Grace to pick up whatever it carried.
"Grace nervous, question?" Rocky asked, as Grace left the pilot seat to go put on his EVA suit.
"A little, not going to lie."
His first contact with Earth in... better not think about it, regardless of which subjective time he used to calculate it. A wonder he was not crying right now. But he might in the near future, so better save the fluids.
The only people on board were Grace, Rocky, and a second Eridian Grace had nicknamed Johan. Officially Johan was here to document findings and all those things, but Grace suspected they had been sent over specifically to babysit Grace and Rocky and make sure they didn't do anything overly dangerous. What an undeserved reputation they had in Eridian space programs.
The tunnel construction did not take long. It didn't make the probe act out, which meant the computer was either too smart to mistake them for a threat or too stupid to recognize they might be. Luckily, the probe had a fairly accessible hatch.
"Construction completed," Rocky finally announced.
Grace let himself float through the tunnel. The hatch's opening mechanism was easy to figure out, but it still took an infinite time for Grace to be able to peer inside.
There were boxes. Various boxes, all perfectly sealed. And the most accessible thing what a small, flat container, which Grace would be willing to bet contained a message of some kind.
***
"Put it on put it on!"
"I'm putting it on right now," Grace snapped. The little disc labeled Hello 40 Eridani A was perfectly compatible with hardware on the Hail Mary, which. Of course it was. Whoever had made it must have known that was the baseline for Eridian understanding of human technology.
Rocky walked around the room on his side of the xenonite wall. "Putting disc into slot not difficult why Grace taking so long question!"
"Why don't you do it if you are so good, question?"
The answers to those questions were, in order, that Grace's hands were shaking and Rocky would risk melting everything. Reminding himself of how much it sucked to throw up in zero-g, Grace slid the disc in. The laptop recognized it without issue.
"Everyone ready?" Grace asked.
"Been ready for a while."
"Yes, ready," Johan said. Poor guy, having to put up with Grace and Rocky. They were so prim and proper, sitting there in front of an Eridian screen.
Taking a deep breath, Grace pressed play.
The video was centered on a woman who was most definitely not Eva Stratt. Weird how in some way Grace had been sure she would have greeted him from that screen. Instead he found himself looking at a brown-skinned, brunette woman who might have been between her fifties and sixties.
"Hello, people of Erid," she said. Her English held a very non-American accent, and Grace suddenly felt like crying, hearing the most recent recording of a human voice he had had access to in more than twenty subjective years. "I offer you greetings on behalf of planet Earth. My name is Lakshmi Nair, I am the current President of the Republic of India."
India? In his perhaps still too American mind, Grace was for a moment mildly surprised, but thinking about it it made perfect sense. He didn't know how much the Earth had cooled, but it stood to reason that tropical and subtropical countries would fare better than those at higher latitudes. Places like Alaska and Canada might be frozen over, and Russia had never been known for being warm. Maybe China had had to relocate all the population in its south. Maybe Grace's old San Francisco now had the climate he associated with Anchorage.
It wouldn't surprise him if the current superpowers were all closer to the Equator. Brazil, all those African countries now receiving power from the Sahara solar panels, and India. India was huge, subtropical, and its space agency had been going strong when Grace was on Earth.
He wondered if NASA still existed. It would break Grace's heart a little if it had gone down with the rest of the US.
"We have received the taumoeba sent to us," Nair was saying on the screen. "They have already been sent to the planet Venus. We hope that by the time you receive our message you will also be able to see the change in our Sun's luminosity. We also hope to see the same happening to your star."
They must have seen it, by now. Earth, that was. If their telescopes were pointed towards 40 Eridani.
"We are deeply grateful for your assistance to our Dr Ryland Grace."
Grace flinched hearing his name. It should not be a surprise to be mentioned, at all, but it was. How... weird, to hear the actual sound of his own name.
Nair took a measured breath. "In his messages to us, Dr Grace let us know he had chosen to head towards Erid with you. We hope he has not come to regret his decision, and that he arrived on Erid safe and sound. It is unfortunate that our worlds are so far apart. At present time, we must devote our resources to rebuilding Earth, but we hope in the future some of us may come to visit you."
That'd be nice. Although maybe it would be more practical for Eridians to visit Earth. The time required for the travel back and forth was shorter for them, after all.
"Dr Grace," Nair said, and Grace straightened up, "I was told you should appear to be in your fifties thanks to the effect of relativity, and as such there is a good chance you are alive now. If you are, and you are watching this, then know all of humanity is grateful to you. The world is very different from how you left it, but with time we might rebuild it even better than before. You have given us hope when many of us had long since lost it. Words are not enough to express our gratitude."
Oh, wow, this video was getting so blurry all of a sudden. Maybe someone should have told the President the camera had gone out of focus.
"In the vessel we have sent, you will find more messages from Earth, data on the current state of the planet, and a few objects we hope will bring you some comfort for your stay on Erid. If Dr Grace is not watching this video, we kindly request that the contents of the vessel will be brought to him. If Dr Grace has already passed, then we hope they will at least be of interest to the people of Erid. From me, this is goodbye. I hope our planets shall remain friends through better times."
The video faded. It was then replaced by an older bald man, who was probably also a leader of some nation and repeating a similar message as to Nair. Grace wasn't too sure. His eyesight was turning more and more unfocused by the second. Maybe if he choked to death on his own free floating tears he would not have to deal with this weight on his chest.
"Grace?" Rocky called.
"I'm fine," Grace lied. "I'm fine, just great."
It had been a long time since he had wanted so badly to curl on the floor and cry. Except the floor was a very vague direction in zero-g. Also getting off the floor once he was on it had become harder and harder in the past few years.
They were doing good. Earth was recovering. Maybe some decade from now Eridians would go visit it, too. Maybe it would be one of Grace's students. Maybe even one of Rocky's kids. And maybe there they would end up meeting the children or grandchildren of Grace's old students. What a wild coincidence that would be.
And they were thanking him. Him. All of Erid had been thanking him ever since he landed there, and it was crazy, but as much as Grace loved Eridians they were not human. They didn't have a face with eyes and lips and tongues that could shape English words.
"Earth is right to be grateful to Grace," Rocky said, pride in his notes. "Grace saved them. This is well deserved."
A deep sob shook Grace's chest.
"Can we take a break?" Rocky asked, words quickening a fraction the way they did when he spoke to other Eridians.
Grace suspected not all of Johan's words had been spoken in a frequency he could hear. He did however guess it was something along the lines of Johan being very interested in watching the rest of this video. By the time it went through all nations of Earth, Grace might stop crying.
***
"Ready to see what we got?" Grace asked. The first of many boxes was in front of him, only waiting for him to open it.
"Grace has to be ready, not Rocky."
"I was trying to built some anticipation."
"So Grace can leak harder when Grace opens the box, question?"
Grace rolled his eyes. What an absolute pity Rocky couldn't see that gesture, he had downright perfected it throughout the years. "No more waterworks for now."
"If Grace say," was Rocky's only comment.
Now the reason Grace had picked this specific box first was because the label on it was possibly the single most exciting word he had read in his entire life: Food. The thought of any food that was not me-burger left him dizzy. And me-burgers were great, as well as the various mystery sauces Eridians had come up to allow him to vary the flavor somewhat.
But this was actual, genuine human food. Boy did Grace hope his digestive system was up to working with things other than his own meat again. He probably should start small, maybe a tiny bite at a time.
Packed in vacuum-sealed plastic, the unmistakable and divine form a breakfast burrito greeted him.
"I might cry again," he said. Was there an expiration date on this stuff? Because if this was shelf-stable so long as it stayed packed Grace was going to ration it for the rest of his life.
"Is everything alright, question?" Johan asked.
"Grace very prone to leakage," Rocky said.
Carefully, Grace put his new reason to live back in the box. "I'll go through this later."
The next box he opened held various items. Some new clothes, mainly. A soft cardigan was on top, and Grace couldn't help but run his hands on it again and again. His poor old clothes were struggling by now. Eridian fabric was not the best, what with Eridian's carapaces not being as sensitive as human skin.
There were also new pants, that looked a bit too large for him, but Earth must have guesstimated his size. A pair of boots, sturdy as if made for long hikes. One shitty cotton t-shirt that read I saved Earth and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. Grace was going to wear it forever. He wasn't even ashamed that whoever had packed these had decided his most basic necessity would be horrible print t-shirts.
And then he struck true gold.
"Seeds?" he gasped.
Actual seeds, from plants. Organized in tiny packets, each labeled with the plant species and instructions for growing them. Mostly they were edible species, but there were also some flowers and even acorns. The idea of an oak growing on Erid, still standing strong years after Grace's eventual passing, a completely incongruous piece of Earth left in his terrarium was... it was something.
Maybe they could turn his biodome into some kind of garden, in the future. It'd be a waste to leave it empty once Grace was gone, with all the work that had been put into constructing it.
But on the far shorter term, Grace turned in awe a packet labeled Tomato. There might be some tomato in the pre-prepared food he had been sent over, but it would be treated for the journey. A whole other beast from a fresh, juicy tomato. Grace had basically forgotten what they tasted like.
Oh, god, he was about to cry over the mental image of a tomato.
***
Returning to Erid had been a buzz of activity. The message from Earth had been passed on to the whole planet, the cargo from the probe unloaded and carried to Grace's house. Adrian had had things to say when they had landed, about how none of them had checked that there was no potentially harmful contaminants before letting Grace handle everything with his bare hands. But, well, humans weren't stupid. They had probably thought of sterilizing everything before launch.
Eridians were over the moon about the possibility of cultivating a variety of Earth plants. And the closest moon was orbiting Threeworld, so that was a long way to go. Rocky had not found the joke very amusing when Grace had explained it.
Anyways, Grace and his care team were working hard to make sure the seeds would germinate. Gravity was not a huge issue, but Eridian soil was a problem. Not only was it richer in heavy metals than Earth's, it also didn't have the organic matter most plants needed. Luckily, Earth had thought about it and send some dirt too. It was enough for a starter for some starter cultures, and they could figure out the best way to produce more later.
The first thing Grace had done back at his home was break off a pitifully small amount of dried ramen and set it to boil. Only a mouthful, to check whether it would hurt him. And it didn't! Well, Grace was slightly bloated after, but he wasn't violently ill and that was a good sign.
Besides, that was a small price to pay for his first carbohydrate in a decade. The texture was bizarre, after so many years living off of me-burgers and taumoeba and vitamin shakes. But the taste, oh. You don't know how heavenly cheap ramen is until you lose it. Grace chewed it slowly, eyes closed. Orgasms were so overrated actually.
It dawned on Grace after he had had the best dinner of his life and he was laying in bed, full and sleepy and at peace with the universe. Earth must have suffered those food shortages Stratt had told him all about. The world's population might be lower, but everything had to be rationed. The climate would take time to bounce back, and likely wasn't stable yet. And whoever had packed these boxes had decided to take precious resources and send them to Grace, even if they didn't know if he would ever get them, even if they didn't know if he was alive or dead.
He wasn't sure he deserved it. Savior of Earth or not, he was just one man. His life might not be perfect, there were days where he missed Earth and humans and the real sky something fierce, but he had a whole planet pampering him. Eridians constantly went above and beyond for him. People shouldn't worry for him in a solar system sixteen light years over.
But that all led to the thing he had seen and decided to put off until he was back home. A tiny box labeled Messages For Dr Grace. There wasn't much in there, just more memory discs.
Grace had decided not to watch those on the Hail Mary. Johan was alright, but they had already seen Grace bawl his eyes out far too many times for someone Grace barely knew. And Rocky was his best friend, of course, but... Some things are better done alone.
It took Grace a whole week back on Erid to work up the courage. Now he sat at his desk at, laptop open in front of him, cursor hovering over the play button. Was he ready for whatever this was going to be? No, definitely. Although surely it wouldn't be as bad as being locked in a spaceship against his will, so.
The first video he picked opened with a couple of people grinning at him. One, the first to speak, wore a hoodie with the old, beautiful NASA logo.
"Hey there, Dr Grace," he said. "My name is Sam, and as you can probably see I work with NASA."
"Hi Sam," Grace replied.
Sam gestured to the other man. "And this here is my friend Rahul from the ISRO, Indian Space Research Organization."
"A pleasure to meet you," Rahul said.
Grace smiled. "Pleasure's all mine."
"Now NASA's not what it used to be, I'm afraid," Sam continued. "The US has seen better days, let's say. Right now, the ISRO is pulling the most work into space research and the rest of us are lagging behind. They're the ones who put most of the work into the probe we sent you, by the way. And we have worked together with them to make the little taumoeba bomb that's on route to Venus as we speak. And not just NASA and ISRO, all space agencies worked together to launch it as fast as possible. Rahul was one of the project overseers, so I'll let him tell you all about the program."
Rahul shifted forward in his chair. "I have a model here of what the probe looks like."
Grace's attention was captured by the miniature probe on the desk. It was very similar to other space probes Grace had seen before, and yet it was so much more than anything they had sent out there before. Rahul and Sam in turn explained the functionalities, how various agencies had contributed, the precautions taken to ensure taumoeba arrived safely on Venus, how the probe would send data back to Earth for a few months before its eventual demise in Venus's atmosphere. They had done a lot of studies on how to make things last on Venus while Grace away, it turned out.
"We thought about the mission name for a while," Rahul said, turning the model over. "We had all sorts of names lined up from every mythology on the globe, but then we thought it over and realized the choice was very simple."
If they named it Grace or Ryland or any variation I'm letting the ammonia take me, Grace thought.
Rahul put the model closer to the camera and pointed at one word. Rocky.
"You said in your logs your alien friend left his partner behind on Erid to save our planets. We hope they're back together now, doing whatever married couples do there, having plenty of children. Your taumoeba left the planet Adrian and we decided Rocky should carry them."
Grace laughed. Oh, he had to tell Rocky about this. He would be so confused and then so so smug and never let Grace forget humans had named a probe after him.
The video came to an end with Grace still laughing. There were more on the disc, and Grace debated for a moment leaving them for another day. End the evening on a positive note. Then again, maybe it was all good news for him.
So he clicked another random one. This was shot outside. The camera must be on a tripod, and it showed a woman standing in a snowy forest. She was forty or so, bundled up in winter clothes, the only parts of her body not covered being her face and the braids escaping her knit hat.
"It's February 23rd," she declared, "about two in the afternoon, and we have a lovely negative six degrees Celsius, about twenty Fahrenheit, and we are in Northern California, some thirty miles from Eureka."
Woah. Alright.
The woman laughed, looking around. "Guess this isn't going to last a whole lot longer, now is it? I was kind of getting used to it. We have snow every year here now, and down in San Francisco too. Not that a lot of people live in San Francisco, turns out California buildings aren't good for this kind of cold so we have to rebuild a lot."
Grace could only imagine. He had never liked the cold, it was one of the reasons he had stayed in California up until getting relocated to a Chinese warship in the Pacific.
"But I didn't introduce myself," the woman said, taking a few steps towards the camera. "My name's Monique. I don't go around telling people this usually, but I used to be called Aaron back when I was a kid. Remember me, Mr Grace? I was in your class back in 8th grade."
Grace paused the video. Aaron. Yes, he did remember one Aaron, a quiet sort of kid who sat in the back of his class. Loved animals, hated anything that required any sort of maths. It had been a long time now, but Grace thought the woman's features were a little familiar if he squinted.
Well, clearly she had gotten a confidence boost in the last decades. She looked happy now, grinning ear to ear even as she had told him San Francisco was abandoned.
Grace pressed play again.
"Yeah, you can imagine my shock back then when I got told my cool science teacher was getting shipped off to space! You were one of the best, really. Everyone could see you weren't just one of those guys who came to teach as an excuse to bully some middle schoolers, you actually loved science. You're one of the reasons I kept studying and got a biology degree."
Damn, the waterworks again. Grace pushed his glasses up, drying his eyes.
"I'm not gonna lie, all ecosystems took a massive hit," Monique was saying. "So many species went extinct, others are only alive in zoos, and now we have animals like moose and grizzly bears going around these parts. I work in environmental protection and it can be real bleak. Also, I get why she did it but your boss still did some pretty fucked up shit in Antarctica."
"Language," Grace automatically chided, although he couldn't deny it.
"It's probably still going to be a mess once the sun returns to what it was. We've got some hard work ahead of us here. But for how fucked up it was, your boss did buy us some time, and hopefully the damage is not too far. We're never going to go back to how things were before the astrophages, but we can try."
Grace nodded. He could only imagine the degree of environmental destruction. There was information on it on the various hard drives he had been sent, but he hadn't managed to look at it yet. Mostly he had been hitting the newest astronomy papers.
"But I also heard you're with aliens now!" Monique said, her voice rising in pitch. "We've got the logs, they haven't released all of them but we all saw your friend! He looks like a rock but he's a living being, man I'd love to study one of those. Wait, hold on, that came out creepy, I do not want to do any unethical mad scientist things to your friend, I just mean, the biology over there must be insane."
"You have no idea," Grace said.
"I hope you're happy over there with them, Mr Grace. We missed you, down here. Thank you for everything, really."
Monique's eyes turned shiny in the last seconds of the video, even if her smile didn't falter. Grace himself had to swallow down around the lump in his throat.
At least one of his kids had made it. She was alive and thriving by the looks of it. That made it all worth it. The drugs, the coma, the almost dying on Adrian and then on the journey, it was all Grace could have hoped for.
And she wasn't the only one they had tracked down. Regina lived in Florida now, together with a teenage son. Jorge's family had moved back to Mexico a few years after the Hail Mary's launch, and he now enjoyed a somewhat warmer climate in Veracruz. Kevin had studied chemistry and worked in pharmaceutical research. Kathyrinelee had legally changed her name to Chris, which was extremely fair, and ran a small business with her wife.
Of course, it wasn't all equally cheerful. Grace almost shut the laptop when he realized he was watching a video of Yao's son, now an adult and with a daughter of his own, thanking Grace for giving his father a funeral. Ilyukhina's younger sister said the same, together with Ilyukhina's best friend.
There was a eulogy for them both, jointly held by Roscosmos and the CNSA. Not for the first time, Grace's stomach twisted in guilt, knowing he had done nothing for them but send them off to space. The additional food prepared for them had helped keep him alive. Their clothes were all small on him, but they had worked as additional blankets while he was shivering with malnutrition.
By all means, their bodies were unrecoverable down, floating forever somewhere near Tau Ceti. He hoped their families were satisfied with that.
There was also a recording of the Rocky spacecraft taking flight from the Satish Dhawan Space Center. It was not all that dissimilar from all launches, really. A lot of fire and smoke and the rocket going up, up, until the camera gave up on following. Grace smiled watching it all the same.
And last, almost hidden by all the other file, was the message Grace had on some level been expecting the whole time.
"Dr Grace," Eva Stratt greeted. She was visibly older than Grace remembered, thinner maybe, but her matter of fact tone was the same as always. "You've made it. Despite being the only human left on the Hail Mary and all the obstacles along the way, you've sent us the solution to our problem. Thank you."
After all the heartfelt messages, hearing Stratt thanking him with the same amount of emotion one might use to describe cardboard was almost refreshing.
"You told me you were not the kind of person who could conclude the mission. That you would be useless in space. Yet my prediction on your character proved itself right. Thus, at risk of sounding cliche, I told you so."
Grace groaned, head falling back. "I knew it, I knew you would say that, you never would have skipped out on the chance–"
"Now, realistically there is a possibility you will be dead by the time this message reaches 40 Eridani A. A number of things could go wrong along the way, the planet cannot sustain human life, and your food is limited. However, you have proven remarkably tenacious so far, so I'm choosing to believe you are seeing this video. By the time you watch, I might be dead. I don't have the benefits of relativity on my side, after all. If I'm alive, I'm probably locked somewhere in a maximum security cell. They already arrested me once, in fact, but I wasn't finished doing my job, so I managed to pull out of there."
"A prison heist, of course, look at how not surprised at all I am by this."
"For what it's worth, I'm relieved to think you might have made it. Regardless of our last meeting, I did not wish for you to die. I'm a pragmatist, not a sadist."
"You're a ruthless, merciless–"
"Once we know the taumoeba is working, I will turn myself in. I will try to shield the rest of Project Hail Mary's staff as much as possible, but I know many of them will likely be put to trial with me. Maybe you would have been too, had you stayed." Stratt offered him a small smile. "But you are a hero instead. Please don't mistake this for me trying to pain my actions in a more positive light, I'm only stating a fact. I hope your final years will be as comfortable as they can. You've earned it."
Grace stared at the now black screen. He raised one finger, pointing it at the laptop. "I am not getting emotional about you."
Years passed, and his feelings concerning Eva Stratt had not become any less complicated. She did what she had to, he knew. There was no malice in her actions. For a while back then he had liked her company as a person. Before she had drugged him and tossed him on a starship against his will and condemned him to what she thought was certain death.
He didn't think he'd scream at her or anything if they met again. Mainly because he wasn't that kind of person. But he also wouldn't go for a hug either. There would be tense, awkward silence, most likely, tense mutual respect without real warmth.
It might be for the best he and Stratt were never going to meet again. He hoped her prison cell had a comfortable bed at least, she had to be getting on with age and old bones needed some care. Now that he thought about it, he had no idea how old Stratt was. Nor did he know any sort of personal information about her. To think they had worked together for that long and she had never opened up. It sounded like a sad way to live.
A yawned pulled itself from his mouth. Looking at the clock told Grace he should be in bed already. Instead he had stayed up this whole time, watching videos and going through multiple emotional roller-coasters.
He sighed. Time for sleeping. Tomorrow he had class, and his kids had been bombarding him with questions ever since news of a human probe had arrived.
***
"Alright, alright, everyone calm down," Grace said, raising his voice to be heard over the din of voices. "Be quiet until I tell you so, yes?"
He received a chorus of agreements, before finally receiving silence. Nodding, Grace picked up the camera. It had been mounted on arm so that he could get as wide a shot as he needed.
"Hello, everyone," Grace said, once the blinking red light was on. "I'm Dr Ryland Grace, recording live from planet Erid. I am in a biodome built for me, that is a very large and glorified terrarium where I can live without risking my life. I'm doing pretty good, starting to feel the years and the additional gravity," he raised up his cane so the camera would show it, "but I really can't complain. I got your gifts and I appreciate all of them so much, and the messages too. I am so grateful to all of you, and I hope you'll be doing well on Earth by the time this gets there."
It would be a long time, even with astrophages accelerating the probe Eridians were building. Seventeen, eighteen years at least, depending on which fraction of c they could reach. Eridians had never created a remote controlled craft before, so it might take some time to finish it, and Grace doubted he would live long enough to receive any sort of reply. That didn't really matter, however. Plenty of Earth left for him to enjoy for however long he would last.
"My friend Rocky is also doing great. He's very happy with his mate Adrian, and they are now proud parents of five little Eridians. They're about five Earth years old now, and I'm basically the Eridian version of a godparent. Rocky was very touched by the probe, by the way."
By which Grace meant he had vented steam and let out a scream that had been very uncomfortable on Grace's poor eardrums upon finding out.
"I'll record another video with him and Adrian too later, but for now there is something else I wanted to show you. Say hi, class."
Grace turned, and let the camera focus on the gathered kids behind him. His students were pressing up against the xenonite barrier, and on cue they all started chattering on top of each other, jumping around to be seen better. They were making an absolute mess, and Grace laughed watching them.
"They're very enthusiastic," he shouted, hoping his voice was being recorded. "They're basically the Eridian equivalent of twelve years old and you all know how they get. I'd try to translate what they're saying but I can barely understand a word myself with how they're screaming. And I've got a surprise for them today!"
The word surprise had the voices suddenly drop down, his students' full focus on Grace rather than the camera.
Leaning against the desk, Grace picked up the thing he had previously hidden in the drawer. "This is the second Erid grown tomato in history. The first tasted pretty good, if you're curious. It took us a while to figure out the best way to plant it but with the environmental controls in here they grew up so fast. Although I had to manually pollinate every flower myself, which takes forever, so please everyone on Earth, remember to care for your pollinators. But now that we are here, this tomato here is going to get cut up so the kids can see what real, terrestrial fruit looks like."
Behind him was a chorus of cheers. Grace had been hyping up the plants growing for a while now, and finally he had brought in examples. No one had ever been more excited for a humble tomato in the history of the universe, except maybe Grace when he had eaten the first one.
"Over for now, Earth," Grace said, "I'll make more of these videos, but I unfortunately only have two hands and I need them."
With that, he turned off the camera. Placing it down and turning to the class, he grinned wide enough for everyone to see his facial expressions.
"So, who's ready for some alien biology?"