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It was a week in when Rocky asked the harder questions.
We were making our way to Eridani, or Erid as we had started to call his home, breeding up the Taumoeba to keep steady on the journey. Rocky was ecstatic that I was going to his home world.
I, on the other hand, was not sure how to tell him that I might not make it.
It weighed heavily on me at times—the pressure of the unknown.
I would run out of rations by the time we were three quarters of the way back to Erid.
It's daunting…
“Grace, how much food will last, question?” Rocky repeated as I came back to myself, my thoughts having gone into a buzz that stopped me from answering the first time.
“As long as I can make it last, buddy.” I sighed and rubbed over my eyes, leaning further into the heat of his reinforced xenite biosphere tunnels.
“That is not answer. How much? How long?” Rocky tapped on the glass behind me.
I stared out to space—what's been my home for months and might even be the place I stay. “About two years and eleven months if I stretch it enough.”
Rocky was silent behind me. “Not long enough. Bad bad bad.”
“Yeah, buddy, I know…”
“Grace die, question?”
I shrugged. “Probably.”
“No, no no—we find more food.” He skittered around making noises as he rushed back toward the labs.
“Woah, woah buddy—where are we gonna find food?” I questioned as I got up to follow him.
“We use taumoeba.” He points. “Grace can eat it, yes, statement.”
I shook my head. “I don't, buddy—thats…” I made a face as I looked at the breeders. “I don't know if that's a good idea, and I don't think they will be able to offer me much in vitamins or protein to really sustain myself.”
Rocky started vibrating and shaking his carapace in the simulation of no, having learned it from me with the amount of time we have been together already. “No, will work.”
My mouth opened but closed as I looked over the breeder tanks of Taumoeba. It could, in theory…
I sighed. “Alright, alright, I'll see if it's safe and see what options I'll have. It could work…” I mumbled and set to work putting my glasses back on.
Even if I knew…
----
Armando could only do so much. Mixing vitamins and protein powder with the Taumoeba provided me enough to get farther into the journey home, but really it barely gave enough sustenance as I thinned it as much as I dared to keep myself alive for as long as I could.
I slept more, Rocky having to watch over me more and more as my body just didn't have the energy anymore. My body shrank to half the weight I had been before—ribs showing over skin and hip bones jutting out precariously.
“Mary, how much time until Erid, question?” Rocky’s voice brought me out of a doze as I tilted my head to look at him; he seemed to shrink in on himself at the question.
“T-minus 62 days and 18 hours till we reach Eridani,” Mary responded.
It was quiet.
The screen closest to us held a message that read: empty.
Empty as in there was no more vitamin or protein powder, no more food reserves.
The Taumoeba may sustain me further…
Yet we both knew the inevitable was happening.
“No no no no no—” Rocky muttered as he skittered around his tunnels, pacing.
“Rocky,” my voice was rough, barely used as I slept more than I was awake.
“No No No - Grace cant die, grace live!” His tonal whines had my heart squeezing in my chest.
“Rocky,” I tried again.
“No no no—” he continued to pace, stopping to bang his carapace against the xenite walls.
“Rocky, my hand is up!” I sat, arm shaking in the air. The blanket slipped from my shoulders, causing me to shiver.
He finally stopped to look at me. “Not enough, we go to slow- Grace….”
I came over and sat in front of him. “I know…”
“You knew would not make it…”
I smiled at him. “Yeah, I knew.”
“Why stay then?”
Rocky knew about the lethal heroin that Ilyukshina and Yao had chosen as their way out. He knew I could have taken it if I knew I was going to die anyway…
“It was not enough.” I simply stated. Repeating something he had once said to me, just this time platonically.
Rocky shuddered and made mournful sounds as he toppled as close as he could get. I leaned forward and shared a hug with him.
“Rocky…thank you for everything…” I whispered.
__________
It was only a few days later that Rocky watched as Grace lay down on the makeshift bed and settled. His food had run out.
He watched his vitals dip while he slept, watched as Grace shuddered his last breaths before going still.
“Grace?” Rocky tried.
Nothing woke Grace up.
When Andrian asked him one day if he missed Grace, Rocky could only state, “All of the time. It was not enough.”
Not enough time, not enough….
The end