Chapter Text
And I feel so alone //
And I feel so alone out here //
I feel so alone //
I feel so alone out here //
My bed rocked slightly. Why did my bed rock? Because my bed just totally moved. Like a gentle, soothing baby cradle except my bed was a couch, a really crappy couch with sinking cushions so I didn’t know- Oh, God. Is there an earthquake? I lived in an apartment, that has got to be one of the worst places ever to live for this sort of thing and-
I was on a ship. Right. A massive, uncomfortable, unwelcoming aircraft carrier. In the middle of the ocean. By China. I made the idiotic decision to assist Dr. Eva Stratt on Project Hail Mary, which is arguably the most important thing in the history of ever. Maybe I should have been slightly concerned that something that large and important was rocking, because it had all these really fragile supplies on it. I groaned as a shiver ran through my body. The ocean’s really, really cold. Fun fact. I’d been there a while, and was thoroughly aware of my surroundings. Maybe I forgot where I was when I woke up, but I knew where everything in the room was once I registered it. I could picture the bland gray sheets beneath me and the depressing white walls next to me. The right side of the bed was pushed against it. It was a small room, but at least it was a single room, right? It could always be worse. And sharing a cramped room with some stranger was decidedly worse. A small aluminum filing cabinet got repurposed as a nightstand was on the left side of the bed, by the pillow. On more than one occasion I had hit various parts of my body against the corner of it, due to me having truly awful depth perception. Not fun.
I get jostled again by the shaking bed. A small, tired grunt escaped my mouth as I flung my arm around behind me to grab my glasses off of the cabinet. Instead, I was startled as my hand hit warm skin.
I bolted up, sitting up with my legs stretched out straight in front of me. I slept curled up, and now with them out in front of me, my ankles hung off the end of the bed. I turned my head and found myself staring into the eyes of a very unimpressed looking Dr. Stratt.
“Why were you shaking my bed?” I asked, extremely confused. My voice was hoarse.
“What?” She replied, looking some cross between bewildered and disgusted.
“Was that not you shaking my bed, just then?” I became even more perplexed.
“Your bed wasn’t shaking, Dr. Grace,” Stratt responded, irritation lacing her tone. “I was shaking you.”
“Oh. Okay,” I said. I guessed that maybe the bed was so small the force of her shaking me just moved the bed beneath me. “I’m going back to sleep then.” I yawned, eyes dropping once more.
“What? No, Dr. Grace, I need you to come to a meeting with me.” She protested, clearly exasperated. My eyes popped open again and took in her- albeit blurry- long, auburn hair and hazel eyes. She looked very put together. She was dressed in a simple black coat and pants.
“You can’t just barge into my room at-” I checked the small analog clock on the cabinet. “4:30 A.M and expect me to-”
“But that’s what I’m doing. Get dressed. You have five minutes. I’ll be waiting outside your door.”
“No, this is-” I started, angrily.
“Fix your hair. It looks stupid.” Then she left, walking out and closing the door behind her. I sighed loudly, like she could hear me. Shoving on my glasses and stumbling to the mirror on the other side of the room, I looked at my reflection and exhaled yet again.
I did look stupid.
After slipping into a deep blue knit sweater and khakis, I pushed the door open to find her leaning against the wall.
“It only took you four minutes. Impressive.” Stratt said to me.
“Well. I didn’t brush my teeth.” I responded awkwardly. She studied me for a moment, then shrugged and pulled away from the wall.
“You’ll be fine.”
“Oh. Okay.” Then she started walking and I really felt like I had no choice but to follow her.
She led me down a series of hallways and through some doors- this place never stopped being a maze- and we walked in silence until we finally reached her supposed goal destination.
It was a tense room with a long conference table that sat twelve chairs. Eleven were occupied. Everyone looked up at us, and I recognized some of them, including Yáo and Ilyukhina. She grinned. He did not. Stratt gave me a small shove to the front of the table and made to sit down in the last remaining chair.
“Wha-” I started, confused.
She pointed at me. “Everyone, this is Dr. Ryland Grace.” She gave me a terse, but maybe encouraging smile. Maybe.
I was frozen, standing there awkwardly. I cleared my throat and clasped my hands in front of my lower stomach. Someone in the room groaned. Stratt sighed and rubbed her eyebrow.
“Dr. Grace, they want to ask you some questions about your research.”
“Oh, right. Okay. Fire away.” I said with a small laugh. Yáo dropped his head into his hands. An angry looking man with a very large nose coughed. Ilyukhina giggled.
A young blonde woman raised her hand, and I pointed at her like she was one of my students. God, I missed my kids.
“You wrote your thesis which said that water is non-essential for alien life forms, correct?”
“Um, yeah. Basically just said that even though water is needed for our evolution and life, it might not be for other life outside of earth because the conditions would be different-”
“I know what it says,” She interrupted. “And you found water molecules in the Astrophage, yes?” I pursed my lips.
“Yes.” I dragged out, clicking my tongue against my teeth.
“Right. So you were wrong? Like, very, very wrong?”
“I wouldn’t say-”
The blonde woman starts angrily muttering something in another language that I am nowhere near qualified to guess at.
“Dr. Grace was not that wrong. Until we come into contact with other life we wouldn’t know if none of them needed water.” Stratt intervened, tone flat. I looked at her, and she nodded to me. I nodded back, grateful.
The next several hours went pretty much the same. They were uninterested in my research and more invested in humiliating me. By then
I was exhausted, and it was only six in the morning. I walked out to the back deck of the ship and leaned my forearms on the railing. The sun was still rising, and the sky was made up of medium blue-gray hues with streaks of coral, gold and tangerine. It’s too quiet. I miss the sound of birds.
In truth, I did not like being here. It had already been two months, and I missed my kids. Maybe they weren’t really my kids, but I cared for those little jerks. They were the closest things I had to any family. My parents were long gone. I never had any siblings. I hadn’t ever tried to date. My life was real lonely before I got here, but I sure loved my job. Now I was completely alone. My chest ached when I thought about my students. I wanted to help Stratt with this mission because I wanted my kids to live. I prayed I made the right choice.
Speak of the devil. Stratt walked up to my right side and placed her long fingers on the railing, next to my arms.
“You did good today. You may sleep now, if you wish.” She said. She stared out at the waves.
“Did I really, though? I don’t think they like me very much. I don’t think anyone here really does.”
“They do not dislike you, Dr. Grace. They just see you as less qualified and frankly, I have many, many scientists working on these Astrophage. You are not special and they really already know everything you could tell them.”
“So what am I doing here, then?”
“You just work differently. And I need that.”
“I’m alone out here, Stratt. I’m practically useless and I have no one but myself and those engineers who probably spend every fucking minute thinking about how awful I am at this.” My voice caught in my throat. I turned my face away from her. She sighed.
“They were not kind, no. But you are a very sensitive man. That is not a good trait to have.” Stratt said softly after several moments of silence. Her accent seemed heavier.
“I am not sensitive,” I mumbled. “I’m emotionally inclined.”
“Ah. So you’re a pregnant woman.” My head whipped around to stare at her, jaw dropped. “Joke. I made- that was a joke, Dr. Grace.”
“Yes, I know- Eva Stratt, did you just make a joke? You did!” She glared at me.
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I probably will.”
“Yes, you probably will.”
We both turned back to the sea, watching the water gently lapping at the side of the ship. The sun had risen more, and the colours in the sky had faded to nearly completely blue.
“Dr. Grace, you are not alone here.” She said quietly after a couple minutes.
“No?” A small, pathetic part of me wanted her to tell me that I had her. Instead, she pointed out at a dolphin leaping out of the water a couple hundred meters away.
“Talk to the dolphins.” Stratt told me.
“I’m not going to talk to the- wait, isn’t that illegal?”
Stratt shrugged. “Not if no one else knows. They might not even respond, and in that case, who cares? I’m walking away now. You’re alone. No one will see you. It didn’t happen.”
“What didn’t happen? When did I actually say that I was going to talk to the dolphin?” She shrugged again, backing up.
“You will.” And then she left.
I let out a grunt of frustration. After the dolphin jumped a couple more times, I hummed quietly. Then louder.
I had to be the most stupid, embarrassing person ever.
I started chirping and humming to the overgrown tuna fish. I saw it perk up out of the water a bit, swimming in a couple laps before making its way over to the ship. It stood (stood? floated?) In the water so that the top half of its body was above the waves.
“Hey, buddy.” It squealed. Was I talking to a dolphin? Yeah. I was talking to a dolphin. “My life kinda sucks right now. Does yours? I don’t know about that. You look pretty happy. Can dolphins be sad?” It squeaked in response. “That sounded like a no. That’s pretty lucky. Maybe I should just carry the mindset of a dolphin. My life can’t be sad if it can’t be sad. Does that make sense?”
It chirped loudly. I sighed.
“Yeah, I know. I’m rambling. I sound pretty stupid, don’t I?” It chirped. “I know I do. But I just-” It leaped up, then disappeared beneath the waves. It popped back up several feet away, then continued swimming in the opposite direction. “Oh. Bye, I guess.”
Stratt lied. I was still lonely.