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It’s been a long day.
Well, day. But, really…
I’m on a spaceship, 11 light-years away from Earth, so really, there aren’t days because I’m not orbiting anything (at least, not in the way a planet does, spinning, so days occur), and really, time is relative, so what even is a day?
A day on Earth, which is the time it takes for the planet to complete one full rotation on its axis, is 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds. A day on Rocky’s planet — which I have lovingly called Erid, and yes, I know it’s not very creative, but neither was “astrophage,” and neither was “xenonite,” and, hell, neither was “Rocky,” but sue me, I was sent on this mission because I know stuff about biology and made a stupid paper about how everyone in the science field was stupid for thinking water was necessary for life, not because I’m Shakespeare reincarnated — lasted roughly 5 Earth hours. Which was a whole other problem!
An hour, 60 minutes, 3,600 seconds, was only defined as being 1/24 of an Earth day, which assumes a day is 24 hours. But it isn’t. Because, really, one day is only 86,164 seconds. Which means one hour is technically 3590.1666666 (and on and on) seconds, and one minute (which is only defined as being 1/60 of an hour) is hence only 59.836111111 (and on and on) seconds, and one second, which is only 1/60 of a minute is really just 0.9972… 68, uh… 51… something, something… well, it’s 99.7% accurate. So, seconds aren't real and neither is time, and maybe nothing is real.
It’s been a really long day.
It was an exhausting, though admittedly pretty fun, several hours of doing “big, big science” with Rocky. Results? None.
Unless you consider mapping out every way in which we could die trying to collect the sample of Tau Ceti E’s atmosphere results. Those being that: the cable could snap as I go collect the sample, causing me to die as I either plummet into the planet and burn up or drift in space for all eternity, my suit could get punctured at some point as I go collect the sample, causing me to die from asphyxiation less than 2 minutes, I could have miscalculated our drift, spin, relative velocity and caused both of us to die as the ship gets torn apart, the thruster could malfunction, the mechanical arm launching the fishing line could malfunction, we could get hit by a meteor…
Just in case you were curious. There are a lot of ways.
And all that talk about dying has inspired, guess what, more talk about dying!
Well, not really. Kind of. Right now, yeah, but not originally. I mean—
It had started innocently enough.
Rocky was explaining to my video log all the ways in which we could die and probably other, more relevant things, and I wasn’t exactly paying attention.
“What think Earth, question?”
Rocky’s voice, or the computer’s voice translating the notes that radiated from his carapace, rang out, and, obviously, received no response.
“Earth, question? Listening?”
“Uh, they can’t hear you, Rock,” I find it in myself to say, offering the Eridian a small smile. “Earth’s too far away. That’s a camera, a…”
I have no idea how cameras work.
“...well, we just record this, tell them what we learned, and once we’re done, we’ll send it all back in a probe.”
Rocky turns to face me. At least I assume. He always turns the same direction when “looking” (listening?) at something, so his echolocation must not be a 360 view.
“Why not Grace tell Earth when go back, question?”
Fudge. Well, we haven’t had this conversation, and I really wish it had stayed that way.
“Uh…”
I pick up a box that didn’t need to be moved, just because the thought of explaining to Rocky that I was going to die out here made my throat close.
“This is a one-way ticket for me, pal.”
I clear my throat, gesturing to the air as if that could help anything, and I ignore the soft hum that I feel prickling at my skin that emanates from my friend. It’s the sound he always makes when he doesn't understand something I’ve said.
“Not understand word.”
“It means… I’m staying here,” I sigh as I finally face him. “We had enough astrophage to get here, but not enough to get back, so… once we’re done here, I… well, y’know, I’m not going back.”
“What, question? What happen to Grace? Grace cannot stay here, statement.”
“Oh, I have enough food to last me a couple of years, even more if I stretch it out. I’ll just orbit… and stuff.”
And stuff. And die. I am going to die.
I am going to die, and nothing can change it. I’m going to die alone, the closest living thing being the stupid whatever-kind-of-organism we’ll find on Tau Ceti E, and then millions of millions of miles of empty space. I’ll never see another human being again. I’ll never feel another person’s touch again, I’ll never hear another voice, I’ll never even know if Earth survived.
“No,” Rocky is shaking his carapace, as he’s started doing to imitate me shaking my head, and I have to duck my head to stop myself from crying.
“C’mon, Rocky, it’s okay, I mean—”
“Bad. Grace say Grace will stay. Bad, bad, bad, statement.”
“Rocky, buddy, listen to me,” I try, but he insists.
“Rocky no listen, statement. Grace being stupid again, when last sleep, question?”
I crouch down to be level with him, setting one hand against the xenonite to steady myself.
“I got to meet you, I got to do all this amazing stuff… I’m good. I’ve made peace with it, alright?”
“...” The translator says nothing for a while, until finally, a series of clicks and notes reach my ears. I translate it in his head before the computer gets the chance to.
“What mean? What mean make peace?”
I smile, more for my sake than for Rocky’s. “It means… I know I’m not going home, and it’s okay.”
I’m grateful Rocky can’t see the shimmering of tears filling my eyes, and pray he didn’t notice the way my voice wavers.
For a few moments, it’s silent.
“Thumbs up?” I offer, showing him one in hopes he’ll mirror it (upside down, but close enough).
“No,” he chitters quietly, carapace dropping low to the floor.
“Tiny thumbs up?”
When I get no response, I sigh and rise to my feet. It doesn’t take very many steps in the opposite direction before Rocky speaks up again.
“...how much astrophage you need, question?”
It doesn’t even occur to me that the answer could change anything, so I tell him, mindlessly.
“2 million kilograms.”
It’s silent again, and I’m already coming up with different ways to divert the conversation when the computer’s voice interrupts my thoughts and rocks (haha, get it, “rocks”? Like Rocky?) my world.
“I can give.”
I turn.
Rocky is fiddling with his claws, his carapace turned up at me, and I feel something inside my heart bloom.
“I go home six years slower.”
I think of his mate, of his planet, of the 46 years he’d already spent up here, all alone, and the part of me I can’t recognize is already saying no before I can process it. “Rocky, no, bud, I can’t do that to you, I—”
“Rocky watch crew die. Could not fix.”
I’m crying now, and there’s literally nothing I can do to stop the tears from flowing as Rocky keeps talking.
“Grace say Grace will die,” each word is followed by him stomping his arm (leg, limb?) down against the xenonite gently. “Rocky fix.”
“Okay,” I manage, voice soft and barely audible to my own ears, but Rocky seems to make it out fine.
I sniffle, wiping my face as I let out a wet laugh, nodding. “Okay. Thank you.”
Before I register it, I’m on the floor again, smiling like I haven’t smiled since Rocky and I learned to communicate, because I’m going home. I’m actually going home. I’m going to live.
My relief must be obvious, because Rocky steps forward, carapace tilted.
“I thought you make peace, question?”
I have the heart to laugh, shaking my head while tears keep streaming down my face. “I didn’t mean any of that. That’s just something you say.”
“Mmh, Rocky no understand human behavior. Much easier just tell truth, statement.”
I didn’t answer him, just burying my face in my hands and trying to process the fact that I was going home.
Rocky’s ship is built of xenonite.
He won’t be able to find the leak, because the leak is the ship itself.
I can save Rocky. Or I can go home.
And I can’t do both.
I have enough fuel and food to get to either Earth or Erid. If I go to Erid, I won’t have the fuel to go back to Earth, but even if the Eridians could fill it back up immediately, I’d only have a few months of food left. Maybe less.
Let Rocky die — and Rocky’s people, billions of them — or I die.
Go home, be a hero, get about a million statues made in my honor and maybe a few planets, or go to Erid, save my friend and the entirety of an alien species, and starve to death shortly after.
It’s the easiest decision I’ve ever made.
I load all our findings onto the probes, send them off to Earth, and turn the ship around, using the Petrovascope to detect the alien vessel’s signature on the Petrova frequency.
Honestly, I doubt myself. I doubt that I’ll find him, that I’ll get to him on time, that I’ll be able to help him.
What if he’s already sick? I don’t know how long radiation sickness would take to kill him, and I sure as hell wouldn’t know how to treat him. And no matter how much information was loaded onto the Hail Mary (just about all human knowledge packed into several thousand terabytes of data), it wouldn’t help him, because, well, Rocky was an alien.
But against all odds, I find his ship.
I don’t bother to double-check if my EVA suit is on properly or if the tether attaching me to the ship is secure. My last concern is my own life as I launch myself toward Rocky’s ship, wrench in hand.
“ROCKY!” I yell, even if I know he won’t be able to hear it that well, if at all, but that’s what the wrench is for. I bang it against the clear xenonite until my arm aches, straining my eyes to peer into the inside of the ship, hoping to see my friend crawl out of some dimly lit corner.
He doesn’t.
“Rocky…” my voice is quieter this time, already hoarse, and my breathing is erratic, because if he’s already gone, and I came all this way, this was all for nothing, and I’m just as useless as I was when Stratt forced me on this stupid mission and I couldn’t even save my best friend—
“—Grace, question?”
“Oh my God, Rocky,” all the breath leaves my lungs as I grasp at the hard surface, tears welling up in my eyes in relief. “Rocky, you’re okay, you…”
“Grace here. Grace here, how, question? Grace not go Earth?” Rocky trills desperately, almost fast enough and so high-pitched that I can’t understand him, but I manage. Then: “Warning! Leak! Grace know leak, question? Rocky try to fix, could not find, taumeoba eat all astrophage, statement. Rocky—”
“Yes, yeah, bud, I know,” I interrupt him, laughing, and still crying, because he’s okay. I got to him in time. His fuel is gone, but he’s okay. He’s gonna be okay.
“It’s the xenonite. We—the taumeoba was bred in the xenonite containers, remember? All those generations, trying to make them nitrogen resistant, and it didn’t occur to me that they’d evolve to get through it.”
Rocky is silent. His carapace lowers slightly, and he thrums, almost imperceptibly.
“Was xenonite fault, question?”
“Well, no,” I start, then shrug, shaking my head. “Sure, I guess. They learned to get through it, is all, but it wasn’t your fault, Rock.”
He shakes his body, his front two arms raising as he starts fiddling with his claws again. He trills quickly, a series of clicks and high-pitched notes indicating his — fear, disappointment, anger, I wasn’t sure — stomping another one of his arms against the floor.
“No, bad bad bad. Rocky engineer, Rocky make xenonite, Rocky should have known taumeoba could get out, Rocky bad bad bad. Almost kill Grace. Taumeoba eat all astrophage, almost can't go home, not save stars.”
“No, Rocky…” I don’t know what to say. Rocky was always the composed one. He was the one who called me stupid when I didn’t get enough sleep. Who said humans’ design was inefficient, too delicate, too complicated. He was the one who said I was a leaky space blob, that I looked disgusting while I ate, that I had a bad memory and couldn’t do insanely difficult mental math. “Rocky, that’s not true.”
It’s all I can say.
“C’mon, just—build the tunnel again, okay? We’re going to Erid.”
He is quiet again. Then he thrums, letting out a long, low whine that sends a shiver down my spine.
“No.”
“Wh—bud, what do you mean, no?”
“Rocky mean no. Stupid, Grace, statement. No only mean no.”
“Why are you saying no, Rocky?”
“Grace go home,” I’m shaking my head before he can even finish, already starting to cut him off as he points a claw at the clear xenonite, pointing behind me at the Hail Mary. “Rocky say Grace go home. Grace fix Grace ship, Grace go home. Rocky not fix Rocky ship because Rocky ship cannot be fixed. Rocky cannot go home.”
“No, bud, no,” my voice is firm, my hand reaching out to be against the wall between us, where he’s pointing. “I sent the probes. You remember those? That—I was never supposed to go back to Earth. That’s why they were there. Well, they’re on their way there now, and we’re going to Erid. I’m taking you home, Rocky.”
“No—”
“Yes, Rocky. We are going.”
“No, no,” Rocky shakes his carapace, taking a step back.
“I’m not asking you, Rocky!”
I regret yelling at him the moment it comes out of my mouth, but I’m a mess of emotions at the moment, and I can’t help it.
“Grace not die for Rocky.”
His answer makes me laugh. “I’m not dying, bud. I’m right here. I’m not going to Earth, that’s all.”
“Grace not go home for Rocky…”
At that, I nod. Then I think better of it.
“No. I’m already home, pal. You’re my home.”
Rocky is quiet, except for the low clicking noise that radiates from his body”
“Grace save Rocky. Grace save Erid.”
I smile, even though I feel like sobbing and maybe untethering myself, so I drift off into the vastness of space at the thought of knowing I’m never going back to Earth. Again.
“Yeah… I save you.”
“Grace ♪♫♪♭♫♪♭♪. Need word.”
“Yeah, sure… what word do you need?”
“Sacrifice self for others. Not care what happens to self.”
I don’t correct him and tell him I do, in fact, care that I’m going to starve to death.
“Dumb,” I say quickly, and try not to let my heart swell as I think he’s calling me brave.
You’re a coward, and you’re full of shit.
I shake my head at the memory.
Rocky seems to know I’m not being sincere. “Uh, brave, bud. That’s the word you’re looking for. But I’m not very brave. At all.”
“No, Grace brave brave brave. Grave not go Earth to take Rocky to Erid, save Erid, statement. Rocky make sure Eridians help Grace go home, exclamation! Erid very grateful to Grace, will find way to save Grace.”
I don’t tell him I don’t believe him for a second.
“Sure, buddy. Let’s just go, yeah?”
The trip to Erid is gonna be long, and hard, I realize quickly.
The mission was meant to take about 6 months, but Stratt gave us 9 months worth of food. That means we each had a predisposed amount of meals, just over 800 per person. We were three, but… Yao and Ilyukhina didn’t make it, so I had about 2500 meals in total.
The Eridani system is 10 light-years away from Tau Ceti, but we will experience about 4 and a half due to time dilation.
If I ate three meals a day, I’d eat about 1100 meals in a year and run out of food within two years. So— wait, no, nevermind, I’m an idiot.
I had 2500 meals, but I already ate a lot of them. Rocky and I worked on the astrophage problem for about 7 months, and between the time I started returning to Earth, realized the taumeoba had gotten out again, and went back to save Rocky, another three months had passed. In that time, I, mostly, ate two or three meals a day.
I consult Mary, and the ship’s records confirm I had already used about 10 months of food, or about 900 meals. So, I actually have 1600 meals left. Great.
If I ate three meals a day, 1100 in a year, I would run out in about a year and a half. If I ate one meal a day… well, five years is about 1800 days, and the journey should take a little less than that, maybe 1700, so… I might make it to Erid with one meal a day.
Okay, that’s fine. I can live with that. Mostly.
I can always eat the coma slurry if I run out (I try not to gag at the thought of having to do that, because I know how Rocky gets about vomit).
I also try not to think about the lack of vitamins I'll be getting from that, and how even if I do make it to Erid, I’ll have scurvy and probably rickets by then. Great. Super fun for me.
Rocky must notice how much skinnier I get within the first few months. I have to sit down often because I get dizzy. I’ve passed out a few times before, which is the closest the human body gets to Eridian sleep, except for a coma, in the sense that no matter what Rocky does, I won’t wake up.
I’ve never seen him so scared.
So I try to warn him when I feel dizzy, sit down, breathe, and remind my alien friend time and time again that no, I can’t eat, or I won’t have enough food to even make it to his planet.
But we get by.
He keeps on doing his big science in the lab, and I wallow in my own misery in the screen room (the “don’t go crazy room”, or “boring room”, according to Rocky), trying to ignore the way my hips and ribs dig into the cold metal beneath me.
Rocky does research, I think, on the computer I had adapted to his vision (echolocation), about how to help me. He spouts facts about what happens to the human body when it doesn’t get enough sustenance, followed by a string of comments about how inefficient and leaky we are.
I, in particular, am very leaky lately. In every way.
I can’t stomach food sometimes, so I vomit into the toilet bowl when Rocky’s asleep. I don’t want to worry him.
I know I’m dehydrated when my urine turns gradually darker.
I know my constant crying isn’t helping the dehydration either. I cry every day, at least. About Earth, about my students, about my life, about Stratt. I wonder what happened to her. Did she go to prison, like she was so sure she would? Did any of this even matter? Will the probes get there on time?
I won’t ever know.
I get stomach flus often. The fever worries Rocky the most. I get warm, and I sweat a lot, I shiver and get so unbelievably cold I look out the windows of the Hail Mary and think maybe absolute zero temperatures (a little lower than -270 °C) don’t sound so bad.
I think about Yao’s gun and Ilyukhina’s heroine. I stumble past the lab and peer into the hall where their bodies lay for the last time, and know that in one of those boxes, below a few of their personal belongings, is all I need to end my life.
It’s tempting.
Each day I stumble a little closer.
Until one day, when Rocky is on the other side of the ship, working on something, I make my way into that room. The “corpse room”, I’ve decided, just now. Because it held both of my crewmates' bodies before I commended them to the stars, and it would hold mine once I blow my brains out with Yao’s gun.
I’m not sure why I reach for his gun, and not the heroine. But I don’t question it much.
The bullets are wrapped carefully, individually. There are three. Maybe in case Ilyukhina and I changed our mind and decided to join Yao. Or in case he missed. Twice.
I’m looking out the window as I load the gun, with all three bullets. In case I miss. Twice.
I wonder if Rocky will commend my body to the stars. We haven’t exactly gone over decomposition yet, but I think he’ll get the gist of it once I start rotting.
He’ll understand, I think. What happened, I mean, not why I did it. I haven’t talked to him. I probably should, but I can’t bring myself to.
He’s happy. He’s going home, he’s going to see Adrian again, and he’s going to be hailed as a savior of Erid. I don’t want to ruin it.
I don’t think he’d understand it, actually. We’ve talked about our respective cultures and, as far as I understand, Eridians don’t really… struggle, in that way. Not emotionally, or mentally. It happens, he says, but it’s rare, usually as a result of physical trauma that inflamed or caused bleeding in their pain. It’s a physiological thing, treated as such, and cured relatively easily.
They don’t get bursts of random, inexplicable sadness. They don’t sometimes feel like hurting themselves, or others. They don’t wish they were never born. They didn’t hold guns to the roofs of their mouths, their finger shaking over the trigger as they screw their eyes shut, trying to talk themselves into it. Partly because they didn’t invent guns, and because they don’t have mouths or fingers or eyes. Mostly because they don’t really do suicide.
Or if they do, it’s so rare and unthinkable to most Eridians that I had to spend over 2 hours explaining it to Rocky. Why we do it, why so many people do it, the ways to do it. I laughed when he asked if I’d ever thought of anything like that, his worry palpable in the tone and pitch of his singing.
But here I sit (my plan was to stand, but my legs shook after too long holding up my weight and I had to sit), the gun in hand aimed at the roof of my mouth, my finger shaking over the trigger as I screw my eyes shut, trying to talk myself into it. I can’t talk myself into it.
You’re a coward, and you’re full of shit.
I cry, and nod, and curse under my breath for the first time in years because goddamn it, Stratt was right. I’m a coward, and I can’t face my problems, and I’m full of shit, and I’m gonna die and there's nothing I can do about it. I’m a coward, and I’m full of shit, and I can’t even kill myself and end my pathetic life—
“Grace, question?”
I drop the gun, burying my face into my hands instead as I sob. My body hurts, I’m hungry, I’m so hungry, and my head is pounding, I think, and maybe I’m lying down now, crying as I curl up into a ball.
Maybe Rocky rolls his ball over to me, and maybe he understands, maybe he doesn’t. I think he does. He’s seen enough action movies with me to know what a gun is, and we did go over shooting yourself as a method of suicide.
He trills sadly, nudging my head gently. “Grace friend…”
“Rocky—” I cry, my voice breaking before I can even say his name. His “name”, but it’s not his name. I can’t even say his name. I called him Rocky because he looked like a rock and because I’m uncreative and inconsiderate and can’t do anything right.
My crying quiets down, more so just shaking now, but I feel Rocky’s warm xenonite ball roll over to my chest, like imitating my hugs he usually shrieks and runs away from.
“Rocky here…” he sings softly, and I wrap my arm around the xenonite with great effort, pressing my forehead into the hard material. Rocky does the same, like trying to soothe me by rubbing his carapace against me (if the xenonite wasn’t in the way).
“Grace sleep,” he thrums, and I sniffle, feeling my heavy bones digging into the floor, and, thinking how much pain I’ll wake up in tomorrow, I close my eyes.
“Grace sleep. Rocky watch, statement.”