Chapter Text
4 months since departure
Estimated arrival at 40 Eridani A b: 33 months
Grace stares at the dish in his hands.
Did he assemble it right? Maybe not. There were all these fancy little boxes closed with ribbons, but no instructions. The first box had meat covered in cream, the next one had pasta. He just put one thing on top of the other. This could be incredibly disrespectful to Russian culture, he has no idea. He's never eaten stroganoff before.
A lump is forming in his throat, this feels wrong. Maybe he should just— It’s silly. Ilyukhina is not here to eat her last plate, he should eat it. It’s not like he can afford to let it go to waste. This is his last plate of real food, maybe ever.
After this it’s going to be coma slurry and then… Taumoeba. However that will work. And after that, he’ll see. He’ll be on an alien planet, on Rocky’s planet. His friend says that they can synthesize food for him. Eventually. Excitement and fear boil in his stomach.
He gets to live.
He’ll never be home again.
No point thinking about it right now.
The meat smells good, warm and spicy. Kinda like the steak his grandparents made on the grill by the porch. Not exactly the same, but kinda.
He’s been remembering more and more of his childhood; no parents so far, just grandparents. He’s pretty sure he was raised on that porch, to the smell of barbecue on weekends. If he could choose his last meal, it would be that. With the mashed potatoes that granny doused in butter.
Alright, this line of thinking feels incredibly disrespectful. Ilyukhina’s last dish should be cherished for what it is.
Grace takes the fork to his mouth— A new memory assaults his senses.
He was with Stratt in a white, sterile kitchen. The woman in front of them was a world-renowned chef, with the stars and the funny hat and everything.
“I will make food that honors the saviors of humanity.” Her Russian accent made the words flat, but her eyes were shining. “Food for heroes.”
She did a great job, this tastes amazing. It’s making his eyes water too.
Grace eats so slowly that Rocky comes to check on him. Which is embarrassing, because at some point his eyes started leaking and there’s snot running down his nose.
The combination of eating and crying looks so horrific that Rocky bolts from the room.
So, Grace does what any bored human would do to his equally bored friend: he chases Rocky around the ship with his disgusting leaky face, chewing with his mouth wide open as he laughs and calls Rocky’s name through the half-chewed pasta tucked in his cheeks.
“Rocky lay eggs in Grace brain while Grace sleep like movie, joke. Gross, gross, gross!”
It’s what Ilyukhina would have wanted, isn’t it? That her last meal is eaten with joy. And someone being mercilessly teased. Yes, this meal is properly cherished.
10 months since departure
Estimated arrival at 40 Eridani A b: 27 months
“So.” Grace taps the whiteboard with his pen, underlines a word that Rocky can’t see. The board is a force of habit more than a teaching tool. “We already covered the habitat needs, atmosphere needs… Let’s go back to food. We talked about calories, but humans also need nutrients, or we…”
“Die horrible death.” Rocky chirps.
“Yup!”
Rocky's carapace is lowered to the floor of his xenonite sphere, his legs folded under him. He sits like a cat, it’s cute. Not that Grace would tell him, that would be disrespectful.
"Lots of ways for horrible death for humans." Rocky chirps. “Stupid design. Too many requirements to not starve.”
Grace huffs a laugh. Rocky already explained the eridian digestive system to him; he’s honestly jealous. Rocky has plenty of food, all mineral-based and containing the three nutrients that his body needs. Just three!
Grace eyes the board, and he lands on “no food for 30 days = DEATH”. He averts his gaze.
A bag of coma slurry hangs from Grace's lips, the nozzle fitted between his teeth. He makes himself suck some of the gross chalky paste into his mouth. His tongue is already coated in bitterness, he can barely taste aspirin anymore. If he swallows fast enough.
“The coma slurry has all the nutrients I need, but I’m going to have to ration it to make it last to Erid. I’m not going to be in the best shape when we get there.”
Rocky makes an agreement sound, a light one. Grace isn’t sure if his friend gets all this. To be fair, it feels distant to him too. Like they’re talking about someone else. And not about how his own personal health will inevitably decline in the incoming months.
Another gulp of smashed up aspirins; faster this time and accidentally louder.
“Grace eating sound disgusting.” Rocky complains. Again.
“Buddy, if I don’t focus on something else while I gobble this down, I’m not going to finish it alright? Help me out here.”
Rocky lets out these clicking sounds that he makes sometimes. It’s his super hearing move, when he wants to look closely at something. Grace jumps back like he can escape it (he can’t).
“Hey, I told you not to point that at me! It’s rude to look—to hear into people’s insides!”
“Grace stomach empty but no want eat? Make no sense. Human body stupid.”
Grace can’t argue with that. He plops down on the chair by the whiteboard, all this standing is tiring him out.
“Another stupid part of it, is that the food has to taste good, or else it gets hard to want to eat." He says, resting his head on the back of the chair. Slurry bag dutifully close to his mouth. ”If it tastes bad, we have to force ourselves to do it, which is hard.”
“Coma slurry has all nutrients, so taste good, question?” Rocky’s tone says that he already knows the answer.
Grace grimaces.
“Not how that works. Sorry, bud. It’s going to be a hm… a bit of a pickle to keep me alive.” Grace chuckles. It comes out more tired than he means.
“Eridians build whatever Grace needs." Rocky chirps. ”Food that taste good and other stupid needs. Grace no worry. Stay alive and happy, Rocky make sure.”
Grace stares at his awful handwriting. Words like temperature, atmosphere, diet, light needs… It’s a lot of needs. Lots of very complex moving pieces to be recreated on an alien planet.
That familiar fear creeps up on him, the one that visits him when his head hits the pillow. That makes him feel like he is just stalling the inevitable. These are only the absolute basics to keep him alive. Not happy, not living. Just enough to survive. And it’s so much.
The silence is getting heavy.
“And how taumoeba ration going to be like, question?” Rocky asks.
Grace's eyes wander up to the white ceiling. Maybe the silence was not that bad.
“It's hm… It’s going to be worse with the taumoeba. That stuff is going to be enough to give me energy, but my body is going to start running out of nutrients.”
“Taste good, question?”
Grace runs a hand over his face.
“I mean, maybe. Recipe’s not done yet.”
He has been spending a lot of time on the taumoeba farms, trying to work something out. Something edible. Maybe he can breed them for taste, or texture. Anything that doesn’t make him gag. No dice so far, but there’s still time. He’ll only need it when they get to Erid.
He turns his head back to the board. No food for 30 days = DEATH.
Another sip from the slurry. Grace makes it loud on purpose this time. He hopes to get a disgusted reaction out of Rocky. It doesn’t work.
“How long until unhealthy on taumoeba, question?” Rocky asks.
Grace purses his lips. It’s unhealthy from day one. It’s all calories, no anything else. Like a diet comprised entirely of grease. He wants to lie, but he forces the truth out of his mouth.
“I will get weak as soon as my diet is just taumoeba. It has the calories to keep my heart beating, some salt, but that’s pretty much it. I’m going to get stupid fast, and I won’t always realize that I’m stupid. You’ll have to look out for me.”
Rocky lifts himself up, tilts his body up and down fast. A vigorous nod. He picked up the habit from Grace.
“Rocky look out for Friend Grace, forever. Forever, forever!”
Grace huffs a laugh. Yeah, he supposes they’ll figure it out. Rocky is the smartest guy he knows, he’s very lucky to be stuck here with him. Even when Grace inevitably gets hungry and stupid, Rocky will be here. It’s going to be alright.
Probably.
Grace is not that stupid, he knows there’s a chance he won’t make it. And the survival of a civilization can’t depend on the life of a starving human. They have to make preparations against… The occasion that something happens.
He sits up, staring at the board so he doesn’t have to look at Rocky.
“We should hm… We should figure out a way for you to pilot the ship, just in case.” Grace says, casually. “Can you add hands to your ball or something?”
Rocky is very still. He gets it right? If something happens, Rocky needs to be able to pilot the ship. They’ve been talking about how easy it is to kill a human for hours. They don’t have to make this even more awkward.
At last, Rocky nods, and mercifully doesn’t say what they’re both thinking about.
“I invent something, I build. Just in case.”
Grace relaxes against the chair.
“Yup, just in case.”
24 months since departure
Estimated arrival at 40 Eridani A b: 13 months
Warning. Radiation levels dangerously high. Warning.
The siren blares all over the ship, loud and obnoxious. It assaults Grace’s ears and vibrates through his skull. What a perfect headache-making machine.
He drags his feet through the corridor, a hand covering an ear and the other holding a Geiger counter. The readings are normal; they’re in space so they’re high, obviously. But safe high.
Rocky is running around like something is chasing him. His ball scrapes against the wall and the sound it makes— Like nails on a chalkboard. Eek! It makes Grace’s shoulders fly up to his ears.
“Rocky! Stop doing that!”
Rocky sings something unintelligible over all the noise. A Geiger counter is tapped to the outside of his ball, it’s a miracle that it hasn’t been smashed yet… Grace can’t hear its popping sounds, but Rocky can.
“Geiger device claims safe. Grace and Rocky check laboratory again. Make sure taumoeba safe.” Rocky chirps, his tone high and frantic.
Grace sighs. He just wants to be done with this and shut the alarm off… He follows Rocky. Because he’s not a jerk.
If there was even an inkling of a chance that there was real radiation, Rocky wouldn’t be out and about. It just wouldn’t be safe. Who knows how much radiation it would take to harm him? But this is just another alarm acting out. Just like the oxygen leak alarm, and the crack in the hull alarm, and the sulfuric gas in the dormitory alarm… No real radiation problem.
Grace plops down onto the lab chair, head held up by a hand. Rocky runs to every corner, circles the taumoeba farms. He scrapes against the metal of a table— Yup, headache’s here already.
Warning. Radiation levels dangerously high. Warning.
Grace glares at the taumoeba farms. Those are the most precious things on this ship. They are what will save their stars and what will keep Grace from starving.
Looking at them makes him sick to his stomach.
He has a stable taumoeba ration now. Stable enough that his body doesn’t reject it on sight. Most of the time at least. Since last month, he’s been eating it once a week. He can taste the slimy saltiness of it on his tongue. Yuck.
“Grace check corner, request.”
“It’s just a false alarm again, Rocky. Can we just turn it off?” Grace sounds more annoyed than he intends.
“Have to check. Be sure. Grace eat this. No radiation allow.”
Grace drags himself up with a groan. His limbs are heavy and he’s nauseous and he just wants to tuck himself in bed, maybe sort through all the movies humanity has ever made until he finds something worth watching. But he’s going to be respectful of Rocky’s reaction. He’d probably be freaking out more if things were inverted.
So he kneels down by the taumoeba tank, Geiger counter in hand. His mistake is glancing up at the amoeba culture. From this close, the cloudy, jelly-like stuff… His stomach makes its opinion known right away.
Grace folds over himself, hands to his spasming stomach. His mouth fills with saliva and the next thing he knows he’s gagging. Rocky is yelling somewhere to his side, sharp notes that make no sense to Grace’s ears as a precious portion of coma slurry splatters on the white floor.
He thinks to himself, that’s a day’s worth of food gone. And he wants to cry.
“What happen. What just happen. Grace unhealthy. Grace. Grace. Talk.” Rocky’s notes are so high that they hurt Grace’s ears a little. He never explained vomiting to him, of course the guy is freaking out. “Grace not talking. Why not, question? Grace. Grace.”
Warning. Radiation levels dangerously high. Warning.
Grace lets out a groan, covers his ears. Then he drags himself to sit with his back to the wall. Just breathing and shaking. Rocky is still yelling, so Grace explains vomit as well as he can without giving a new example. Knowing what is happening usually calms Rocky, but not this time.
“Grace take radiation test now, request.” He chirps. He’s vibrating with anxiety, legs fidgeting in place.
“It's not radiation, I’m just nauseous.” Grace breathes out. Although vomiting is actually an early sign of radiation poisoning, now that he thinks about it.
“Please.” Rocky chirps. It’s a word that he rarely says, the note long and sad.
Grace sighs, lets his head rest against the wall.
It’s a long day.
Grace sits on the edge of the bed as Mary draws his blood, very pointedly looking away. Needles are not— Alright, just don’t think about it. He stares at Rocky, fidgeting on the foot of the bed.
“Do you hm… Do you want to talk about it?” Grace tries.
“Talk about what, question?”
The needle exits his arm and Grace grimaces, head tilted down. His heart is racing, this is so stupid…
“Grace.”
“Sorry, I mean your crew mates. Do you want to talk about what happened to them?”
He doesn’t talk about it often, not directly. But today was stressful, maybe he wants to air it out.
Rocky tilts his carapace to the side.
“That long time ago, why Grace want to talk about it, question?" Then Rocky lifts his carapace up. Alarm. ”No, no, no. Grace dumb from radiation, question? When exam results ready, question?”
He’s changing the subject. Alright then.
“Like a day, I think?” Grace says.
“Grace no move until then. Grace rest, Rocky watch.”
“Rocky, you’re the one we should worry—“
“Grace rest!” Rocky’s song goes off note, almost like a crack in his voice.
It's a very long day. And it ends six hours after waking up, because he’s going to bed. Well, sleeping pod. And Rocky is coming with him, because he can’t watch from outside.
The sleeping pod is barely big enough for Rocky’s xenonite ball, he needs Grace to help push him inside, which is getting harder and harder to do.
“You getting heavier, bud?” Grace pants.
“Human weak like baby, statement.”
This is the best sleeping arrangement they could find: Grace pressed into the wall of the pod, Rocky scraping the ceiling. The xenonite ball warms up the small space and it kind of feels like being under a blanket fort. It’s cramped, but nice. Beats sleeping in the medical bed, or on the floor by the xenonite wall. By a lot.
Grace rests the laptop on his lap and puts on a silly movie, something light and with no radiation or vomit. Audio description on for Rocky.
Usually he asks questions about human culture and what people are saying and doing, but today he just lies on the corner of the ball, right next to Grace’s head. The xenonite gets even warmer where Rocky is pressed against his shoulder. If Grace closes his eyes, he can almost pretend that they’re actually lying side by side. That he’s on Earth, watching a movie with a friend.
He falls asleep halfway through it.
An alarm is ringing. Again.
Grace stirs and his feet touch the closed door of the sleeping pod. The metal is cold, so he flinches away from it. His body is curled around Rocky’s ball.
Grace wants to fall back to sleep, but that stupid alarm… Bleh, bleh, bleh! He lets out a groan.
“Grace finally awake, question?” Rocky chirps.
“What's with the finally?” Grace rolls to the side, rubs his eye.
“Grace sleep for twelve human hours.”
“Yeah, well, not like there’s anything else to do around here…” Grace sighs. He’s being cranky again. “I’ll go check the alarm.”
Grace drags his bony arse to the cockpit. A frown on his face and hands rubbing the goosebumps on his arms. Half awake and longing to be back in bed. This is so annoying...
He plops down on the cockpit chair, turns the screen on, chin resting on his hand— Wait what? That’s impossible.
A planet. It says they’re approaching a planet. There are no planets on the way to Erid. He doesn’t recognize the name of it, he doesn’t think he’s seen it before, and he’s seen the names of all the things close to their route. Purple 242 G… Does not ring a bell.
He’s suddenly very awake.
Grace checks different sensors. Again and again, they all tell the same story. He can’t check the camera with the engines going, but the story is pretty cohesive already. Except that they are following the scheduled route perfectly.
But all the navigation sensors can’t possibly be malfunctioning at the same time. So this means… It means they’re right. And the route must be wrong.
Where the heck are they?
Wherever it is, it’s not where they should be.
Grace can’t breathe.
They’re somewhere with a random planet. They’ll have to reroute. It will take years. Decades if they’re far enough. His coma slurry ends in fifteen months, he can’t stretch it more than that. He’s already— He survived all this, and now he’s going to starve to death in this darn ship because they’re in the wrong place.
He stumbles away from the chair. Crashes to the floor of the cockpit, knees hugged to his chest. If the navigation sensors are malfunctioning, they’re dead. There’s no way they can reach Erid blindly. No, it can’t be that… He made a mistake, that’s so much more likely. But what mistake? When? He doesn’t know. But it’s his ship, navigation is his responsibility. Whatever it is, it’s his fault.
Grace can’t breathe.
His heart drums on his temples and his hands are tingling and he can’t breathe. Heart attack, he thinks. Maybe a stroke. He’s going to pass out. He’s pretty sure he just doomed an entire civilization, and also killed himself and his best friend. The universe is so mad at him that it's killing him on the spot. Fair enough.
His brain is running numbers for him. Thinking about fuel and slurry and taumoeba and life support energy costs. Of spending the rest of his short life inside this ship. Of how fast he's burning through the coma slurry since he keeps throwing it up. He can’t afford to make mistakes. He can’t take any more of this.
He’s so selfish… Rocky’s entire planet is on the line here! What if he had slept through the alarm and, and…
There was a meteor two months ago. It was in Mary’s way, so he calculated a reroute. He had just started alternating the coma slurry with taumoeba paste. Stretching out the vitamins as much as he can. And right on that week, the meteor. It has to have been then. It’s all because of that stupid meteor! No, it’s all because of him. The most important math of his life, and he gets it wrong.
All the muscles in his body are shaking and there’s no air, there’s no—
The sound of xenonite clinking on the metal floor, rolling closer. Great, great, great.
Grace hugs his legs tight, hides his face against his knees.
“Grace find problem, question?”
He feels very pathetic. Snot is running down his face, he wipes it away.
“R-rocky. I— I messed up. I—” He mumbles, the words muffled against his pants and interrupted by sobs.
“No understand wet words, statement.”
Grace covers his face with his hands. Maybe there’s a problem with the oxygen system, maybe that’s why he feels like he’s drowning. He has to warn Rocky. Rocky has to know how to fix the route. He tries to speak, but all that leaves his mouth are these pitiful whimpers and gasps for air.
Rocky nudges his side, taping the inside of his ball.
“Grace body sound all wrong, unhealthy. Fast, fast, fast. Rocky hear from other side of ship. Rocky help. Grace say how Rocky help now.”
“W-wrong route. I— the math— I got it wrong. I don’t… I'm sorry—”
“Math wrong not problem, Rocky and Grace fix.”
“I— Rocky, I can’t. I think— I think I’m—” dying. It’s a good thing he can’t get the word out.
“Grace. Stop leaking. Now. Talk.”
There’s something about being told to stop crying that makes Grace cry even harder, which makes Rocky even more worried, so his line of questioning gets more frantic and Grace gets so overwhelmed that he gets annoyed and mean and—
“Rocky, shut up!” He yells.
Oh, this is a panic attack.
He’s never had one before, the scientist in him wants to write down the experience. Which is such a ridiculous idea that it snaps him out of it.
Rocky is frozen in place, Grace paws at his ball.
“Sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell, I—”
His friend comes closer and Grace sprawls over the sphere, covered in tears and snot and sweat. The xenonite is warmer than a person would be, and it feels like glass under him. He desperately wishes it felt more like a person. Like a human. He wishes Rocky could hug him back.
Grace is acting like a toddler, this is so embarrassing… He wants to hide himself forever, but he can’t. He has math to do and he has to get it right this time.
It wasn’t the math, the mistake happened when Grace inputted the commands into the system. Turns out that learning to pilot a spaceship on the go is not foolproof stuff. He’s not a pilot, neither of them is a pilot. A pilot would have noticed it. Any qualified person would have noticed, he—
He’s done enough spiralling.
So they were going half a degree too high, just half. For a month. At their current speed, the course correction will add fourteen months to the trip.
Fourteen months.
That would mean twenty-seven months ahead, twelve of them with only taumoeba as food. An entire year of empty calories? It’s out of the question, Grace would die for sure. He’ll arrive in Erid already at death’s door, and there’s no telling how long it will take the eridians to make food. And if hunger doesn’t kill him, his mind just might.
The thought catches him off guard. No, he wouldn’t really do it. He doesn’t think so.
He wouldn’t, right?
No point thinking about it. He should think about how to make the ship go faster. It’s possible. All they have to do is make cuts to life support functions to funnel the fuel into the engines. Then the mistake only costs them six additional months, not fourteen. He can survive that. Probably.
Grace tells Rocky his idea, and then he looks away. He sounds desperate, because he is. And they both know that he is currently stupid. Leaning on the warm xenonite barrier with his stupid puffy red eyes and his stupid quilt wrapped around his stupid bony shoulders.
Two of Rocky's arms are working on something, a liquid. Grace doesn’t know what it is and he’s too tired to care. His head is pounding so hard that he can’t think straight.
He expects Rocky to say no, to change the subject, to suggest something else… It’s a selfish thing to ask, Rocky will be affected too. For the energy saving to be significant, they have to reduce the temperature of Rocky’s side of the ship, the pressure of his atmosphere. All so that Grace doesn’t have to eat icky food. Rocky would have reason to not agree to it, he waited forty-six years. His planet can wait many more. What’s a few more months for him?
When Rocky answers, his chirps are low and soft. The tone for kind words.
“Grace choose short awful trip, instead of long bad trip.” Rocky says. “Rocky understands. Human life short, twenty-seven human months feel like long time. Grace sad for long time already.”
“I'm not—“
Rocky snaps the claws on one hand. It makes a loud click that is hard to ignore.
“Grace is sad and unhealthy. We get to Erid fast, so Grace happy and healthy again. Rocky keep promise, look out for Grace. Forever.”
Grace presses the side of his face against the xenonite. He closes his eyes with a hum.
“Thanks Rocky, I’ll look out for you too, buddy.”
Funny thing to say as he’s about to pass out from exhaustion. But he means it.
27 months since departure
Estimated arrival at 40 Eridani A b: 10 months 16 months
The cold messes with Grace more than he expects. The ship is at a crisp eight degrees celsius; it makes the oxygen sharp and unpleasant as it goes down his airways. His nose is always runny now, to Rocky’s disgust.
Back on Earth, he remembers eight degrees being a lot less punishing, but back then he actually had fat in his body. And the energy to move. None of that is true anymore.
He hasn’t checked on the cockpit in weeks. Twice now, he catches himself standing at the bottom of that ladder, staring up… He tells himself that he’ll feel strong enough to climb up there another day, and then he goes to lie down.
What if another alarm goes off and Mary needs him up there? He has no idea.
He is slumped against Rocky’s xenonite wall, soaking up its warmth. Under blankets, many of them.
He stares blankly at the laptop resting on his legs. The screen is black, he must have spaced out for a long time. He can’t remember what he was doing. Did he eat today? He doesn’t remember. He’s tired. And hungry. And nauseous. But that doesn’t mean anything, he’s always like that.
Next month taumoeba is officially going to be most of his diet. Thrice a week… He shudders at the thought. Then his mind floats elsewhere, and he forgets all about it.
Soft clinks come from the other side of the wall. Rocky has been working pretty hard on something. He told Grace what it was, but Grace didn’t understand the word and he didn’t ask. His memory is so bad lately, he’d just forget it right after Rocky explained.
Grace should drag himself to the sleeping pod, but he can’t muster the strength to get up. Plus, it’s unfair to Rocky to spend so much time there. Let him finish his project. Grace puts the laptop to the side, rests his head against the wonderfully warm xenonite wall and closes his eyes.
“Grace no sleep now, Rocky show new invention.”
Grace hums an agreement, eyes still closed. He hears Rocky’s claws clicking on the floor, towards the airlock, then the gush of wind of him leaving his side of the ship. Huh, that’s weird. Grace thought he’d show whatever it is through the xenonite wall.
The tap, tap, tap of claws moving close… Grace blinks tired eyes open, and right in front of him, there’s Rocky, outside of his ball. In human air.
Grace jolts upright. His nose conjures the smell of ammonia, of burning, Rocky’s out of tune chirps of pain—
“Rocky! What’re you—?“
But his friend is not burning, he’s just standing there, tall and proud.
“Rocky make new suit. Can pilot ship, can help stupid Grace, can enter sleeping pod alone. What Grace think, question?”
Grace’s jaw hits the floor and it stays there. He sees it now. Thin xenonite, surrounding Rocky’s body like a second skin. And on top of his carapace there's a tiny device, flat against his body. Rocky says it recycles the atmosphere and keeps the gravity comfortable. And it’s thinner than a phone!
“Rocky, you’re a genius…” Grace breathes out, kneeling on the floor. He reaches out a hand, but survival instincts kick in. Rocky is usually all over him with the ball, but he’s kept polite distance so far. “Can I touch it? Is it too hot for me?”
Rocky steps forward, right on the edge of the quilt; within reach but still not touching.
“96.6% chance is safe.” Rocky chirps. He sounds so proud of himself. “Heat dissipation never above 40 degrees Celsius. Comfortable for human… If work.”
“Your inventions always work, buddy.”
Grace reaches for the top of Rocky’s carapace. He rests his hand there and lets out a chuckle. It’s hot, and it’s glass, but it’s not burning him.
Rocky moves under his hand, leaning into the touch? No, he’s actually repositioning his body to lift a claw off the floor. The xenonite is almost invisible, wrapping around his fingers like a sheer glove. He points them up at Grace’s face. Waiting for permission.
Grace bends down, within reach like Rocky just did.
“Go ahead.”
His brain doesn’t like the idea of a claw made of rock approaching his eyes, but Grace makes an effort to hold still. It’s Rocky, he trusts him.
Then something hot and hard touches his cheek and Grace’s eyes close despite himself. A finger pokes under his cheekbone, tentatively.
Rocky lets out an amused chirp.
“Squishy! Human squishy like water! Amaze, amaze, amaze!”
Grace chuckles and it comes out wet. The claw runs over his nose, his mouth. Soft like a feather, even though it’s rock and glass. This is the first time someone touches Grace since— The cold hard ground under him and a knee pressed onto his back, dirt in his mouth. ‘You're killing me!’ Rocky is being so careful. There’s something warm in Grace's chest, a lump forming in his throat.
Rocky reaches higher, and Grace tilts his head down so the claws can investigate his hair. Good excuse to hide the hot tears streaming down his face.
“Dead tissue, but soft." Rocky’s fingers thread through the locks of hair, brushing against his scalp. ”Grace amaze!”
Grace’s breath catches and the claw is gone.
“Grace hurt, question?”
Grace shakes his head. He sits back, rubbing his eyes.
“Rocky sorry.” He chirps. "Try to be gentle with squishy parts—”
Grace waves a hand, looks away.
“You didn’t hurt me, I’m not that fragile! I’m happy." He gives Rocky a teary-eyed smile. "Humans miss touch. I— I missed it. A lot. I’m happy.”
“Rocky happy then. Grace leak long time, Rocky wait.”
His friend is stretching his limbs, testing the boundaries of the suit. It looks somewhat elastic, freely adjusting to Rocky’s movements.
Grace is overcome with the urge to hug him. This was not on the table up until this moment and now that it is, the craving feels like it’s going to spill out of him. People hug in movies, Rocky’s heard about it. He knows the word. Will he find it weird? Grace has no idea if it’s a weird thing for eridians.
He wants a hug so bad… But the coward in him wins. He lets himself melt against the warm xenonite wall, pulls the quilt over his shoulder.
“I'll show you the piloting commands later, ok? I need to be less stupid to do that. Wake me up in—”
Rocky taps a claw on the floor. The sound is different now, sharper. Glass against metal.
“We try human hug first, question? Grace say it how humans show love. Grace loved, Rocky want to show it human way.”
Grace blinks. His heart speeds up, but he tries to play it cool.
“I mean, if you don’t mind—”
Rocky scuttles to the top of the quilt, stops right by Grace’s leg.
“Human culture, Grace show how.” Rocky sounds excited, impatient. It draws a smile out of Grace; his friend is only like this when he means it. Rocky actually wants to hug him. His eyes are burning again.
Grace sits on top of his legs, and Rocky lifts up two of his limbs. As the human culture ambassador, Grace leans into the hug first. He wraps his arms around Rocky’s carapace, rests the side of his head on top of it. His underbelly—where his mouth is—is up in the air. Grace makes an effort to not touch it. With what he knows about that part, it would probably be weird.
“What I do now, question?” Rocky chirps. From this close, Grace feels the chirps reverberating through Rocky and through himself too.
“Hug me back. You can hear my lungs, right?”
“Yes.”
“Wrap your arms around that, and squeeze.”
“Grace is squeezing, question? Human arms weak. Rocky show.”
And that’s how Grace almost breaks all of his ribs at the same time.
He already understood, on an intellectual level, how much stronger eridians are compared to humans. But as the arms close around him, unforgiving like clamps, he truly feels what that means. His lungs are physically unable to expand. Fear floods his body; he tries to speak, but he can’t.
“Rocky do human hug right, question?” He chirps happily.
Grace’s mouth gapes open, reaching for air like a fish. He manages to produce a sound between a whimper and a gasp, and Rocky jumps away.
Grace catches himself on his hands, coughing and wheezing for air. That’s a funny sound coming from his chest. It shouldn’t be making that sound.
“Rocky crush lung! No, no, no. Grace hurt, Grace hurt! Rocky sorry, sorry, sorry!”
“I'm fine.” Grace forces out, and even he is alarmed by how thin his voice sounds. He coughs. “Next time… More careful.”
“Grace say not fragile, say squeeze! Rocky squeeze!”
A wave of exhaustion takes hold of Grace, so he lets himself fall on his side, pulls the quilt around him. Breathing and breathing with his eyes closed… He suddenly remembers how he taught Rocky the word squeeze: by crushing a water bottle in his hand until water shot up.
Grace huffs a laugh. Dumb word to use.
“Yeah, that was probably on me…”
A warm touch on his shoulder. His tired brain reads it as a hand and it makes him so irrationally happy.
“Grace stomach only have liquid, no food. Observation.”
Oh, so he did forget to eat. Grace grimaces, he wishes he had already gotten that over with.
"I told you to stop peeking at my insides..." Grace mumbles.
"Rocky help Grace get up, question? Take Grace to food. Rocky more careful. Most careful.”
Grace blinks his eyes open. Rocky is fidgeting with two limbs, swaying from side to side with the others. Nervous. Guilt pangs in Grace’s chest.
“Alright.” He breathes out.
Rocky is very careful indeed. He lets Grace lean his weight into him as they stumble through the ship, a lot like he did from inside the ball, but now he can catch Grace if he loses balance, and he doesn’t accidentally roll over Grace’s foot.
“Rocky carry Grace next time, question?”
Grace doesn’t doubt that he can, but he still has some dignity left. He says no.
He stares down at Rocky, at the suit; barely visible, except for when light catches on it a certain way. The just-in-case suit, the one for the something that may happen. It’s here. It’s starting to feel very likely that something might happen.
Mercifully, the fog of his mind takes his thoughts somewhere else.
36 months since departure
Estimated arrival at 40 Eridani A b: 1 month 7 months
Man, hamburgers look really delicious. The warm bun with sesame seeds, the sauce that’s savory and spicy and the bacon… Oh, the bacon. Look at that cheese dripping down the patty!
Grace clicks to the next photo and his lips tilt into a smile. This one has lettuce and tomatoes, he used to love these. He closes his eyes, tries to imagine the crunchiness and the freshness contrasting with the savory meat. He can almost taste it.
But he can’t really, of course.
He steadily sips taumoeba from a straw. His body is screaming at him that what’s in his mouth is not food, which, fair enough. But the human body should have a button to disable this function.
Taumoeba tastes vaguely salty, vaguely musty, fully slimy. There’s always a hint of that smell from the rotten fuel tanks, which Grace knows is amoeba poop. He really wishes he didn’t know that. He’s angry at his sense of taste sometimes, it would be a lot easier if he didn’t have it.
That’s why he needs to remember about burgers. Hamburgers are a great reason to have a sense of taste. Just look at them. Rocky says that eridians could synthesize something like it one day. Taumoeba now, so he can have synthetic burger later. C’mon, he can do it.
Another sip of taumoeba and his stomach makes a gurgling noise. Sounds like it won’t tolerate the non-food business for much longer.
Grace puts the cup down. He’ll finish it later. Or not. Probably not. It’s better to eat less than to risk throwing everything up. It’s all that he does lately; sleep, force slop down his throat, and try to keep it there. Even now that he’s out of the sleeping pod, he’s sitting on a chair right beside it.
He wants to lie down, that’s pretty vital to the non-vomiting efforts.
Grace blinks around the room, looking for Rocky. Nowhere to be seen. He would come if Grace called, but it’s embarrassing how much he’s been depending on the guy lately. Rocky has been running the ship by himself. He makes sure they’re going the right way, tends to the taumoeba, tends to Grace. There’s shame in admitting it, but Grace has been very useless.
The sleeping pod is right there, Grace can drag his bones a few steps without help.
So he puts the laptop to the side, adjusts the quilt around his back and he gets up.
His vision goes black, but he was ready for that. He leans on the back of the chair, waits it out… Oh no. This feels weird. He’s getting more lightheaded, not less.
He tilts his head down, both hands pressed onto the chair. Ok. Deep breaths. Should he sit down? Can he sit down? He’s not entirely sure where the chair is. He feels very big and very small and he can’t tell up from down...
This was a terrible idea. His head is spinning and his stomach isn’t liking it.
“Rocky…” He breathes out. And as he opens his mouth, something hot drips over his upper lip. His nose is running, nothing new— Oh, it tastes like iron. That’s blood. Shoot. His nose is bleeding. And he’s going to fall. Or throw up. Or both. “Rocky.”
His knees give up—Arms under his armpits catch him, help him into a sitting position. Grace puts his head between his knees, presses his sleeve under his nose, feels the warm liquid spread into it.
“Don't freak out,” Grace says. His voice sounds weak and nasally, muffled against fabric. “I started bleeding before I fell. It’s not a wound. I think it’s hm… There’s a vitamin deficiency that does this. I don’t remember—”
“Vitamin K.” Rocky chirps. “Blood pressure fluctuation also bad.”
He’s getting very good at this. This nursing thing. He spends so much time listening to articles from the laptop that he must know more about the human body than Grace. It makes him feel horrible; Rocky is the best engineer of his planet, he shouldn’t have to do this.
“I thought I could get to the bed on my own.” Grace chuckles. “Stupid."
“Don’t walk alone, Rocky helps.”
A claw touches Grace’s arm, but he shakes his head.
“I’m feeling sick, no getting up for now.”
He hears the anxious clacking of Rocky’s claws, the xenonite hitting metal as he shifts from side to side.
“We rest on ground then. I bring blankets and pillows and laptop, we watch more of the Walter White tragedy from ground. Get up when you are ready. Good, question?”
Grace reaches a hand to the top of his friend’s carapace, and Rocky leans into the touch with a chirp.
“That sounds great, bud, thanks. I really hm… I really should thank you more. I don’t know what I would do without you. I’ll try to stop making it hard for you…”
“Rocky don’t mind. Grace get healthy and happy, that is the important.”
Grace just nods, because if he opens his mouth he’s going to cry. Or vomit. Or both. Hey, at least the bleeding stopped.
Rocky efficiently produces a pile of soft things on the floor and lies in the middle of it. Grace curls up around him, claws wrap around his torso. Warm, so warm. The only thing that’s warm in this entire ship. He throws an arm around Rocky, presses play on the laptop and they watch forty minutes of a man trying to kill a fly. Which Rocky finds exhilarating.
“Walter evil even to animals, human creativity is infinite like space!”
“What, are some eridians not evil too?”
Rocky lets out a pensive note, like a hum.
“Rocky not think about it before, think about it and tell Grace later.”
Grace blinks at the top of his friend’s carapace. They’ve talked a lot about Erid. About the society and the planet and the animals… But not much about the people. Not much about the individuals that will have complete control over Grace’s life. He just kind of assumed that they were all like Rocky, which is stupid.
He’s been so focused on not starving, that it never occurred to him before:
What if the other aliens are evil?
“Grace heart racing. Bad sensation happening, question?”
“No, just… It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Be quiet then.”
Grace huffs a laugh. He’s going to throw up.
43 months since departure
Estimated arrival at 40 Eridani A b: 10 days
They are so close to home… To Adrian, to the salvation of the sun, the end of the crisis. Rocky thought he’d be so happy, but he's not. Friend Grace doesn’t sound like himself anymore. It's hard to be happy.
He cried today, because he didn’t want to eat the taumoeba. It was one of the serious cries, the ones that make his breath hiccup so hard that he can’t speak. He sounded loud loud loud. Rocky, I’m so tired. He made a happy face then, even afraid and starving, he was showing his teeth in human affection. Grace is very brave.
Rocky watches him sleep. He doesn’t do anything else, just watches. Grace sounds so frail… His sleep feels like something that he can’t sustain alone. If Rocky gets distracted even for a moment, the drum inside his chest might stop, or the bags might stop filling with air. He won’t risk it.
They are inside the sleep-cave, with Grace curled around Rocky in a way that suggests the space is a lot smaller than it really is. He folds his legs and wraps his squishy arms around Rocky almost like a ♪♪♪—eridian predator that crunches prey in its grip—but with jaws made of soft water bags. Grace really enjoys sleeping in this bizarre position. Humans have cute habits, the other eridians will think so too.
Grace’s fingers twitch against his carapace. Is he awake? His lungs and heart are picking up speed, so maybe. It’s hard to tell with him.
His head moves, the tangled dead strands rubbing against Rocky’s carapace. He lets out a low sound, high-pitched and pained. A sleep hallucination must be happening, one of the bad ones.
Rocky holds still, sometimes these resolve by themselves.
“Please…” Grace mumbles, softly. “Please don’t… Please…”
His breathing is fast and wet, his legs are moving. Kicking the covers away. Please can be a polite word, but now it sounds like a begging word. It sounds like the words of someone inside the mouth of a real ♪♪♪.
Rocky produces a low hum; a frequency that Grace can hear, but that won’t startle him. His hand is still bandaged from the time he punched Rocky’s suit.
Grace gasps for air, like a jolt of energy just ran through his body. He deflates against the bedding, breathing through his mouth. He’ll fall back to sleep soon, human rest is a wonderful thing. Resilient to interruptions. Sometimes he lets out an apology, then his heartbeat smooths out.
That’s not what happens.
This time, Grace starts crying. The same breathless, desperate cry from earlier. The hard parts of his fingers dig into the nooks of Rocky’s suit, as he curls himself closer.
Rocky does his best to reciprocate. He runs the tips of his claws over Grace’s back. Careful to not put too much pressure.
“Want to talk about dream, question?”
Grace shakes his head. He cries and it’s such an awful sound. His entire body pumps fast and unhealthy. Rocky hums louder, now in the frequency that made Grace laugh. You sound like a cat.
The low, cracking note that escapes Grace’s mouth is so different from that laugh that it sounds like a different person.
“Rocky, I’m so scared.”
Rocky lets out his own cry, low and mournful.