Chapter Text
“Log number one!”
Olivia loved when the TV was rolled into class. Most of the time, it meant a free period (as long as they were quiet) while David Attenborough droned on about penguins or something and their teacher nursed a hangover behind his desk.
That day, though, was different. The TV wasn’t an excuse to take a nap, no, it was the entire unit. They were going to spend the next few weeks watching the logs of one Doctor Ryland Grace, that Doctor Ryland Grace. The one who saved the Sun.
Now, Olivia wasn’t a nerd or anything, but she had to admit she was excited for this one. Everyone was, even the teacher! She could see him in one of the empty desks, staring at the screen just as intently as the rest of them.
Everyone was excited to learn more about the man who had saved the Sun.
“My name is… Something. I have a few options, I’ll tell you later.” They had started with the first log, the one he had recorded right after waking up in the Hail Mary. Their teacher had explained before they started that Doctor Grace woke up a few months before his crewmates without any memories. She wasn’t sure if that explained the outfit the man was wearing in the video, half medical latex, half blanket toga. Surely there were clothes in the Hail Mary? She could swear she remembered a fox sweater.
“I think I’m in space. Well, I know I’m in space, I can see out the window. And that” The image on the screen shook as Doctor Grace picked up the camera and showed a star shining out the round window. “That isn’t my sun. It’s all wrong! We’re going too fast, I can tell by the gravity, and it’s been too long, I can tell by my beard. That’s not our sun.” Doctor Grace looked so afraid, Olivia had to look away from the screen for a second “So where am I?”
“Tau Ceti!” Video number two started with Doctor Grace, now with a haircut and real clothes, pointing at a screen “I figured it out! I’m going to Tau Ceti for some reason. I think it might be because of the stars. It’s the only one not dimming, I don’t know why. I think I’m here to find that out.” Doctor Grace looked out the window, brows furrowing. “I made the calculations. There’s not enough fuel for a return trip, but there’s four beetles made to carry some stuff back. There’s a gun and enough drugs to give someone an overdose on board. I get the picture. If the Sun’s dying, then there probably wasn’t enough time to design something that could handle the way home.
I’m going to die here.”
“The thing eating the Sun’s called Astrophage.”
Last week, class had off the rails after a few kids started crying over the fact that Doctor Grace had never gone home, and how unfair it was. The teacher hadn’t even looked surprised. He told them later that it happened every year, and that’s why they had some extra classes planned for the unit. The story of Doctor Grace was important and inspiring, but it was also really tragic. That was the main reason they taught it as late as they did, only mentioning it in passing until they were in 9th grade. But even as cynical teenagers who didn’t care about school, the videos of most people’s childhood hero realizing he’s going to die in space alone are pretty heart wrenching. Fuck, Olivia used to have a plushie of Doctor Grace back when she was scared of the dark. Her mom had given it to her, telling him that this was the man who kept the sun safe. He was something of a comfort person to most of them. He kept humanity safe. It was weird to see him as a real person, see him alone and afraid.
“I think I was the expert on it. There was this woman, she was terrifying.” He chuckled, “She came to see me after class. She was the one in charge of… everything, so she hired me.
Astrophage has a lot of potential energy, that’s why we’re using it as fuel, but that also means it’s very dangerous. We started living on a boat, just in case we blew up.”
“Hardcore” A kid muttered before being shushed by his deskmate.
“I found my crewmates. They’re still sleeping. I don’t know when they’re going to wake up. I don’t know if they’re gonna wake up at all.” He swallowed “I’m… lonely. And bored. There’s not much to do until we get to Tau Ceti. Hey, at least I found the computer! Someone downloaded the entire internet into it, including all the pirating sites, so I guess it’s time to rewatch all my favorite movies for the first time. I… I don’t know why I’m even recording this, of course you know what’s happening to the Sun. I don’t even know if someone will bother watching these.” He didn’t say goodbye before turning the camera off.
“I’m so bored!” The students chuckled as Doctor Grace slid through the screen, almost falling off his chair “I don’t have anything to do! Or anyone to talk to! And I watched so many movies I can speak only in references for the rest of my life! Not that I have anyone to talk to!” Ah, there it was. The sadness. “I remembered something the other day!” He started spinning in his chair “I was a teacher! I think I really liked it. The kids seemed so fun. I remembered I was giving a lesson on sound waves, we all grabbed instruments and put some rice over a speaker. We made music together.”
Olivia’s teacher had never done something so fun. He just droned on and on for an hour, before assigning them some work. She would have loved to have a teacher like Doctor Grace.
“I think music might be one of the best things in the world. It’s one of the only times people can come together and work towards something just because they want to.
We worked together in the Hail Mary, but that was desperation, not camaraderie. If things go wrong back on Earth, I don’t think the world will work together like this again. I really need to figure out why Tau Ceti’s different. I don’t want the Earth to die.”
“They woke up!” Doctor Grace was laughing, arms over the shoulders of who were apparently his crewmates. His hair was longer, it might have been a few months since the last log. “This is Yao, Ilyukhina, and I’m Grace! I finally know my name!”
The girl, Ilyukhina, laughed “Grace, calm down!” She had a pretty strong Russian accent. “Hi” She waved at the camera “I’m the engineer. Yao is the pilot. Grace is the science officer”
“Wait! Is Grace my first or last name?”
“Last name. Your full name is Doctor Ryland Grace”
Doctor Grace grimaced “Eugh. Nope, too pretentious. My name’s Grace now. Just Grace.”
“Really? I think Doctor makes it sound dignified”
“Do I look like I wanna be dignified?” Considering he was wearing a dress, a party hat and those sunglasses with slits that were trendy in 2012, he made his point.
“Fair. Now give me back my Cats t-shirt”
Mondays had become Olivia’s favorite day of the week. Every time that beat up TV set rolled into the classroom, she could feel herself and her fellow students sit up with interest. Even the laziest or roughest of students paid rapt attention to the man on the screen.
“I met an alien”
The teacher had to pause the video as all the students cheered. It went on so long that the teacher from the classroom next to theirs came to check what was going on.
“The Grace unit. We just got to Rocky”
The other teacher nodded as if it explained everything “I love Rocky.”
“He’s brilliant” Grace explained after the teacher pressed play “His name is Rocky. Actually, his name is a series of notes and whistles I can’t pronounce. So I named him Rocky cause he’s a rock. I’ll try to convince him to show himself on camera once we have enough words for me to ask.
He’s all alone here. The rest of his crew died from radiation poisoning years ago. I can’t imagine being alone for so long.” He fiddled with his glasses “I’ll try to get him next time. You’ll love him.”
Olivia loved Rocky so much. Of course, everyone on the planet knew the alien had been instrumental to the whole ‘saving the Sun’ thing, but it went beyond that. Seeing Grace and Rocky on screen, slowly becoming closer, made Olivia believe in the goddamned Power of Friendship. They watched as they slowly fixed the lab in Rocky’s ship, made it safe from radiation and filled it up with all kinds of equipment they taught each other how to use. Olivia didn’t know why they didn’t just use the Hail Mary’s lab, but there must have been a good reason. She didn’t know anything about science, maybe the Eridan’s ship had something special.
“So, we might have found life in Adrian. That’s what we decided to call the planet, by the way. We found it first, we get to name it.” He was leaning on Rocky’s ball of Xenonite “It’s just bacteria, but it’s eating the Astrophage. It could be the answer. This could be it.”
“Life is reason” Rocky managed to pack so much emotion into a computer generated voice.
Grace wiped his face “Life is reason.”
“I don’t know if we should tell the crew about the Taumoeba yet.” Grace said from his place perched on top of Rocky's ball. He was assembling something made of Xenonite. “I mean, it might not work, right? I don’t want to give them false hope”
“Grace not trust other humans, question?”
“No, I do” Even Olivia could tell he was lying “It’s just… I don’t know. There’s something they’re not telling me.”
“Other humans lie, question?”
“Maybe. I don’t know about what, though.”
“Grace have no memory. Easy to lie to Grace. Cannot argue.”
“So you think they’re lying too?”
“Other humans don’t like Rocky. Think Grace Rocky spend too much time together.”
Grace chuckled “We do spend too much time together. But it’s not a bad thing. You’re my best friend.”
Someone in the back of the classroom aww-ed.
“Grace Rocky’s best friend too, statement.”
There were a few seconds of silence as the two kept working.
“Grace should come to Eridan after mission is done.”
Grace almost fell from his perch at the words “Buddy, I can’t survive on your planet.”
“Rocky mate Adrian build Grace habitat. Like in ship.”
There was something like hope building in Grace’s eyes “I would love to. But- what about Yao and Ilyukhina?”
“Other humans not like Rocky. Other humans go back to Earth, statement. Grace go home with me.”
People nowadays didn’t mention the fact that Project Hail Mary was supposed to be a suicide mission too often. Everyone had come out of it alive, there was no need for them to keep reminding themselves of the sacrifices they had been willing to make in their desperation! But here, watching the actual mission logs, Olivia couldn’t forget it.
“We’ll see.” Grace deflected “Now let me concentrate, we still need to make three kilometers of chain.”
“The plan is simple.” Grace held up a big, metal… thing. It looked like one of those dice nerds liked to play with, Olivia thought. “Yao brings us close to the atmosphere of Adrian, I go out, cast down the fishing line and… fish! After that, we’ll use our lab to breed a strain of Taumoeba that can survive in our solar systems, and we’re done. Easy peasy!”
“Grace and Rocky die if plan go wrong” Rocky said “More Grace. Rocky stay inside. Grace die if plan go wrong.”
Grace giggled. Olivia could tell at least five of the girls and two guys fell in love. Damn.
“Yeah. We might die. But if it works, everyone lives.”
“Grace almost die”
Grace laughed. There were about a million little cuts littering his face, and there were more than a few bruises everywhere, but he was holding himself with pride. Weird, Olivia hadn’t noticed how small he tended to make himself until he didn’t do it anymore.
“But we did it. We have a container full of Taumoeba! We need to breed them to be able to survive the different environments, but that’s just microbiology. Finally, something in my wheelhouse!” He stopped himself from falling off the chair by grabbing Rocky’s ball, which just rolled with him. “Fudge!” A few kids laughed at the reminder that Grace was, in fact, a Middle School teacher.
“Grace dumb” Rocky said once they righted themselves “Rocky need word”
“What do you need, bud?”
“Word you say. Grace say ‘Finally, something in what word”
“Oh, wheelhouse. It just means it’s something I’m actually trained to do. I’m a microbiologist, not an astronaut or linguist or physicist or anything. One would think they’d send an astrophysicist, not a biologist. We were lucky the thing keeping Astrophage controlled in Tau Ceti were microbes, because if it was literally anything else we would have been… fudged.”
“Grace and Rocky very lucky. Grace and Rocky find each other in big big space.”
“Yeah. We’re lucky.”
“Rocky found out the Hail Mary was a one way trip.” Grace was already crying when the next video started “He- He told me… He told me he could give us the fuel to go back. I- I checked. He can.”
A few students cheered.
“I…” Grace trailed off, fiddling with a knitted ball in his hands. Olivia knew it was a tiny version of the Earth. “There’s something important I’m not remembering. I always knew I was missing something, but now… I don’t want to go back to Earth. I’m scared. Why am I scared?”
The students almost couldn’t pay attention to the next few logs. They knew it was getting closer, the day Grace would remember how exactly he got to the Hail Mary. Some of them had googled the video, had seen it already, too anxious to wait. Most of them had decided to wait. Olivia would never admit it, but she didn’t want to be alone when she saw it.
They knew it was the video as soon as it started.
Grace opened his mouth, as if he were about to speak, a couple of times before he managed to get the words out.
“I didn’t choose this.” He finally said. “Stratt gave me three hours to choose. I… I said no.” Olivia couldn’t tell what he was thinking, his face was so blank. “Yao and Ilyukhina knew. They… Stratt told them I agreed, but they knew I didn’t.
I’m… I’m a coward”
The students gasped.
“No he’s not” A kid whispered “He’s not. He saved us.”
“I begged them not to. They- they had to hold me down and sedate me, because when Stratt wouldn’t take no for an answer I ran.” He laughed, but it was bitter “I was scared. I should have said yes. It’s humanity, who am I in the face of it? I- I told them there were others, people more qualified, someone who had an actual degree in astrophysics instead of a passing interest. I was just consoling myself, easing my guilt. I didn’t want to die alone, so far from home. I wanted to at least have someone to bury me. Someone to hold my hand as I went.”
Olivia was crying. She wasn’t ashamed to admit it. The idea of Doctor Ryland Grace, her childhood hero, the man who kept the stars lit, her favorite plushie, dying alone and forgotten in space, after everything he’d done… He hadn’t chosen to go, but he did it, and he saved the world.
He deserved a funeral.
He deserved to live.
“I don’t want to go back to Earth” He almost whispered. “I love humanity, but we’re cruel. I don’t want them to die, but I don’t want to be at their mercy. Yao and Ilyukhina didn’t tell me, they decided it wasn't worth the risk. They don’t treat me like a person. No one’s treated me like a person since I left my classroom. I was just a- a scapegoat, a sacrificial lamb. Lesser than, just because I didn’t have a partner. Stratt told me, there was nothing for me back on Earth. I didn’t even have a dog. I- I had my kids, I thought. A life. Isn’t that enough? Is living not enough proof of your worth?” He was sobbing “Humanity needed a savior, I get that, I do, but I needed mercy.”
They had a free day after that.
“I made a choice” Olivia couldn’t believe there were any more videos after the last. She couldn’t believe Grace had found enough mercy in himself to save the people that had abandoned him, to give them the grace he never got. “I’m sending enough Taumoeba and instructions on how to breed them with Yao and Ilyukhina. There’s also a second copy of everything in the beetles, just in case. If everything goes right, Earth will have only cooled a few degrees by the time you have enough Taumoeba to fix things. If you used the new crops and Stratt went with the ‘Nuke Antarctica’ plan, everything will be fine. You’ll be fine. You’ll be safe.
“I’m not going back. Not because I’m resentful, or scared. I… I talked it out with Rocky. We managed to get a little farm going on his ship, I’ll have enough food to get to Eridan, and some after. I might be a little anemic by the time we get there, but it’ll be okay. I’ll be fine.” He smiled “Rocky was the one who suggested I go with him. Apparently he wasn’t joking all those times he said it. I… I agreed. I’m not going to die, but I’m not going back. There’s nothing for me back on Earth. It’s not my home.
Rocky is.”