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I don’t remember much of the first few months.
Okay, more like the first year.
Isolating and synthesizing the correct vitamins in the correct dosages is simple enough on Earth, where an entire industry revolves around manufacturing supplements from the scientifically backed to the quackery that gets peddled by pyramid schemes. Less so on Erid, where the Grace Not Die team have to invent the entire process from scratch. Not for the first time, the laptop of all human knowledge gives them the basic building blocks, but refining the process sufficiently takes time.
And then my body needs time to process those nutrients. Slowly, ever so slowly, I come back from the brink. I stay awake longer and longer. My gums stop bleeding, and the reopened burns on my arm close over with soft pink flesh. I learn to walk again, pushing through the punishing double gravity of Erid’s surface, and every time I make it further and further before I tap out.
I’m not healed, and I’m not healthy. But I am standing on my own two feet, and I can no longer see the outlines of my own bones through my skin unless I look really hard. Good enough to be released from Eridian intensive care, and transported to my new home.
Rocky sits next to me in the transport vehicle, the xenonite panels of his form-sitting suit pressing up against my leg. There are no windows, of course. A single small light has been mounted on the ceiling of the pod, casting pale shadows like candlelight that jostles slightly as the vehicle moves over rough ground. “Grace nervous,” he points out, a sympathetic hum underlying the basic chords of my name.
Okay, yeah, I’m a little nervous. Rocky has been very cagey about the details of the enclosure they’ve built for me. Grace will see, was all he would say. Is surprise. And I trust him with my life, without hesitation. But I’ve been staring at the same dark, rock walls for endless months, my existence shrunk down to that tiny medbay as if that was all that existed. Is my home going to be more of the same? A fishbowl made to hold one human, swimming in circles round and round? The Hail Mary wasn’t exactly spacious, and it’s not as though he’s had many other examples of human habitat to draw on.
“Just excited to see what you’ve made for me,” I say, and it’s at least not completely a lie. Rocky doesn’t call me out on it though, simply reaches a xenonite-covered claw to hold my hand.
The pod pulls to a stop, and we wait, listening as the hatch seals against an airlock. The whirr of pumps reverberate through the walls, exchanging ammonia for oxygen and equalizing pressure with the vehicle. And then there is silence, and Rocky pushes open the hatch, gently pulling me along.
I stoop to fit through the hatch, ducking my head against the bright light coming from somewhere above, and I can hear the blood rushing through my head as I step forward. Wait… no. Through Rocky’s encouraging whistles, I can hear the crash of water against rock, rhythmic and primal, and a faint breeze stirs the limp hair on my forehead. My shoes crunch into pebbles and sand, and I let go of Rocky’s hand, straightening to my full height, and my jaw drops as I behold my enclosure.
It’s a beach.
Gentle hills give way to sand and stone, a large arch reaching from cliffside into what looks like deep blue water, which boils and steams as it washes up against the shore. It almost looks like wispy fog rolling in if not for the bright artificial sun overhead, shining brightly from what look like giant versions of the LED panels from the Don’t Go Crazy room, their seams mismatched against the horizon. White shapes that are probably supposed to be birds swoop across the projected sky, tracing a path along the shoreline.
I suck in a deep lungful of air, and it doesn’t matter that it’s missing the smell of salt and algae, or the cries of seagulls overhead. I raise my arms and it feels like spreading my wings after being trapped in a cage all my life.
Rocky stands in front of me, clicking his foremost claws together anxiously. “Surprise!” he warbles. “Grace like, question?”
My eyes feel wet, and a genuine laugh escapes me, choked like a sob. “Grace like,” I say, taking a step forward, feeling the gentle shift of soil under my foot. Erid’s gravity pushes down on me, but I take another step, and another, and I’ve never felt lighter. My pace quickens, and vaguely I can hear Rocky’s alarmed whistles behind me as I break into a run, pebbles and dirt flying up from the impact of my feet against the beach, digging deep imprints into the sand. Wind rushes against my face, whips through my hair, fighting to dry the wet tracks down my cheeks as fast as I can make them. My heart pounds in sync with the thud of my shoes against the ground, my chest heaving from exertion, and it aches like somebody has reached inside my ribs and pulled me apart.
It’s wonderful.
I don’t make it halfway down the beach before I have to stop, my weakened body not yet ready for this level of exercise, my breath swift and shallow. I can’t stop laughing, and I give a little twirl before I collapse onto my back on the sand, grabbing fistfuls of gritty grains in my hands so tightly that I wonder if they’ll be engraved into my palms.
A desperate skittering noise heralds Rocky’s arrival, finally catching up with me, squeaking and honking in concern. “Grace! Why you run, question?”
I smile up at him as he looms over me, and the ache in my chest has nothing to do with my body. “Because,” I gasp between breaths, “I’m alive.”
He wiggles in confusion, and I reach for his closest claw, the grit of Erid’s soil crunching between our hands. Rocky settles then, hunkering down on the sand next to my head, and I roll toward him, curling up on my side. He hums quietly, apparently satisfied that I’m not in distress. “Grace go fast.”
“Grace go fast,” I agree, and for a moment I’m tempted to launch into a lecture about bipedalism, hip flexors, and tendons. But instead I simply smile at my friend, who loved me enough to remember that I like beaches, who spent months upon months building a fishbowl so large I feel like I’m outside. Like I’m on Earth.
It’s close enough.