Chapter Text
Rocky’s atmosphere starts leaking pretty soon after he moves into Hail Mary. Everything on my side had taken on a bit of an ammonia smell. This wasn’t concerning at first. Of course I would notice trace amounts of ammonia, given that it’s an unusual compound to come in contact with, and there’s no easy way to air out a spacecraft. Rocky moved a considerable number of items in, still piled in duffel bags by the airlock; it would make sense that an ammoniac odor would linger. But I noticed that it was intensifying after a few days. We get the official contaminant warning from the ship’s AI on day four.
I spend an hour searching for the ship’s manual, bleary-eyed and groggy, reading through it on the floor of the control room while the lights flash and alarm blares. Meanwhile, Rocky is in and out, searching for leaks in the seams between xenonite panels. I figure out how to dismiss the alarm without entirely disabling the ship’s alert system. I raise the NH₃ tolerance levels in Hail Mary’s contaminant tolerances so we don’t have to worry about alarms going off every few minutes as we fix the barrier.
Once I get that settled, I go back to the lab and start looking for a gas detector. Of course, the ship has one built in, hence the alarms, but I’m looking for a handheld one that will give me more immediate information than “YOU ARE GOING TO DIE MAYBE!” I find one in the lab drawers. The moment I turn it on, it whistles a warning and the analog screen trails a message about the percentage of ammonia in my atmosphere. As I turn the alarm off, I hear Rocky grumble something. “...many noise, cannot think. ♪♬♬♬.” I’m curious what the last word is, but he seems frustrated, so I leave it. Instead, I hunt for some sealant.
I end up finding a tube of concrete repair sealant with a long nozzle so I can use it like a caulking. It’s perfect. “Hey, Rocky?” I hear him thumping down from the control room, maneuvering on his handholds like a literal spider-monkey.
“Yes?”
“Remind me how hot you have the air on your side.”
He taps his claws, taking only a second of hesitation to convert his units to metric. “210 degrees Celsius.”
I press my lips together. “Is that an exact figure?”
“Temperature never exact consistent figure. Sometimes hotter, sometimes colder. I approximate an approximation.” Engineers! I fight the urge to roll my eyes.
“I ask because I found some sealant that we can use to fix the leak, but it’s siliconized. Silicone degrades at 250 degrees. I don’t want to use this if there’s a chance that it’ll make the problem worse.” Of course, the vast majority of the sealant will be on my side, but some of the sealant will still be exposed to Rocky’s brutal atmosphere. Worse yet, silicone doesn’t melt so much as it burns and chars. That means that it might introduce not just ammonia, but burnt plastic particulates and maybe even fire into my atmosphere.
“Temperature will not exceed 220 degrees.”
“Okay. Are you sure?”
“220 degrees far below critical limit 250 degrees. Am sure.”
I take a deep breath. The ammonia stinks. “Okay. We’ll use it.”
We go our separate ways again. Rocky continues to search for the leak, which involves a pretty intuitive series of tapping both with his voice and his claws, and feeling the seams of the xenonite panels for rushing air. Meanwhile, I take the sealant tube and one of the plates of xenonite Rocky made for me to play with and put them in the biosafety cabinet. I want to make sure that the sealant will bond to the xenonite panels and form an airtight seal. I wish I had a blowtorch to be as sure as I can about the heat resistance, but it’s probably better that there isn’t a canister of pressurized flammable gas onboard. I find a fine-bit drill among some of the random geology tools. No idea what it’s called, but I get a small bit and drill my test panel until a small splinter forms. I apply the sealant, which comes out a little hard with the changes in pressure. I appropriate another geology tool, this time a brush, and paint the sealant on.
Rocky comes back just as I set up some clamps under the hood. I fasten the xenonite panels to them so they can set. “What’s the damage?”
“Located numerous leaks in xenonite barrier.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “How many?”
“More than eight, no more than twenty.”
Is there any point in asking him to quantify that? It’s a disturbing amount, alarmingly confrontational with respect to our vulnerability out here.
“We have to go back,” I say exactly as Rocky says, “We use you sealant.”
“What? No, we can’t just patch these up. We don’t even know how long it will hold, or if the sealant might have a long-term reaction to the xenonite. Besides, the fact that there are multiple points of failure in the barrier make me think there’s a systematic error, rather than j--”
“Need word.”
“Systematic? It’s…systematic describes something that follows a method or order. It follows a system of doing something. Systematic error occurs when there’s a problem in the system that evenly distributes the error.”
“Understand,” says Rocky. He gives me his word, and I put it in the terminal. “Systematic error not relevant.”
“Is relevant. If there’s a problem in the installation--”
“Need word.”
I try not to get frustrated. Our growing shared vocabulary is equally as important as our physical safety; they are directly related. “The installation, as in the set-up of the xenonite barrier.” He gives me his word; I add it to the terminal. “If there’s a problem in the installation, it’s not going to go away if we don’t address why the problem happened. We’re just going to kick the can down th--”
“Need word.”
“Postpone.”
“Need another word.”
“Delay, avoid, defer. If there is a systematic problem, we can deal with it now or later, and I would rather we do it now when we’re still close to Blip-A if something catastrophic happens!”
“Cannot accurately predict outlook without testing. We use you sealant, fix leaks, proceed to Tau Ceti E, address problems as they occur.”
I shake my head. “That’s too optimistic. We should go back to Blip-A, you could move back to your ship, we can spend some time re-evaluating the xenonite enclosure plans, run a few experiments to model what happens when my atmosphere changes by this or that degree, rebuild it, and then try again for Tau Ceti E.”
Rocky makes an untranslatable noise. I almost ask him to stop so we can translate it, but when he speaks, I realize that the noise is probably his equivalent of a scoff. “We go back to Blip-A every time we have problem, question?”
“I mean, if it’s this close by and we have no idea what we’re dealing with, yeah, why not?” There’s a finality in Rocky moving into Hail Mary, a permanence to the changes to the ship and its resulting wear. Rocky doesn’t realize it, but by flippantly sacrificing the integrity of Hail Mary, he reminds me that it really doesn’t matter if the ship is falling apart by the time we’re done with whatever work we’re out here to do. But I can’t throw it all to the wayside that easily. I’m going to die, and I only have one shot at it. I’d like to save my life for a moment that counts, for something that’s worth it, and hopefully after I’ve done all I can do to help my planet.
“Correction: Grace not know what we dealing with. Rocky understand very well.”
It’s my turn to scoff. “That’s just objectively not true.” My voice is rising. “You don’t know anything about the capabilities and limits of this ship and you hardly know anything about Earth’s atmosphere or how to keep a human alive! We don’t have time to be arrogant!”
“Have no time for caution!” Rocky stomps his foot. He’s shouting too. I can feel his voice in the fillings embedded in my teeth. “We proceed!”
“And then what? I become useless because my brain is swollen from all of your ammonia and I can’t pilot the ship or do anything and then what will you do? Huh? And that’s the conservative estimate, Rocky! What if your enclosure collapses? What if the whole ship implodes under the pressure?”
“Could say same thing for Coward Grace! Waste time going back forth back forth back forth, save Earth, save Erid and return to dead planets! Everything die while wait for us to commit! Nothing left to save!”
“That would never happen!” We’re screaming at each other. The ammonia is irritating my throat.
“Neither would ship explode! Stupid! Coward!”
“It’s my ship, Rocky! I make the final decision!”
I don’t understand whatever Rocky shouts next. His voice hits me square in my chest, taking the breath from me. I double over, kneeling, one hand gripping the floor, the other grasping my chest. Rocky’s voice knocks the wind from me so I can’t even cry out when I feel pressure in my head suddenly release and send a sharp, intense pain shooting up and down my spine, radiating from deep in my skull. I clap my palms over my ears and press as if I can smother out the all-encompassing pain. It provides only a small bit of relief.
It takes me a moment to come back to myself, and when I do, I am hardly oriented. All noise is subsumed by a loud, flat tone. There must be something wrong with the ship, catastrophically wrong--maybe in our arguing we wasted too much time--, but the light is a calm white instead of the pulsing red signaling an alarm. I look around, trying to pinpoint the loud noise. Vertigo sweeps through my body as I turn, and I have to again brace my hand against the floor. That’s when I feel something tickling my cheek. A trail of liquid dripping down my face. I touch it and my fingers come back with a thin, watery fluid on them tinged pink. I can't identify the source of the tone because it’s coming from inside my own head. Rocky is gesticulating in front of me incessantly, and I can feel his voice vibrating against me, through me, making my head throb with that same acute pain, but I can’t hear him. I can’t hear the computer, I can’t hear his strange, melodic voice. I can’t hear anything.
Where’s the laptop with his text-to-speech software? I grab it from where it tumbled out of my lap and onto the floor and fix the screen.
[01:23:45]U:\Rocky.tts>> wrong what wrong what wrong respond what wrong Grace Grace Grace Grace Grace why no respond respond respond respond respond respond respond respond respond Grace
The stream of text races across the screen. I turn the computerized voice off. It makes almost no perceivable difference to me except a marginal lessening of that bright pain. “Stop talking.” I feel the words in my throat and my chest. “Rocky, stop talking! Stop!”
[01:24:35]U:\Rocky.tts>> and Rocky not finished discussion. Will not stop
“You’re hurting me!” I shout, desperate for him to understand that we’re no longer arguing.
Rocky quiets. The pain in my head lessens to a persistent sharp ache that I immediately connect to the ambient hum of the ship. It’s the only thing still creating noise. Nothing to do about that. I press my palms over my ears again and go to the lab, taking some paper towels to wipe up the fluid weeping from my ear canals. I look at the pinkish liquid and think, one hand still blocking out the low sounds of Hail Mary. My eardrums are injured, that much is for sure. Whether permanently or temporarily is anyone’s guess. Fortunately, the only treatment for this is rest. Unfortunately, that means all I can do is rest. I don’t think the spare noises of the ship will worsen my condition, but the amount of pain I’m in is distracting, to say the least.
“Computer, painkillers.”
The computer says something because it intensifies the throbbing in my head, but I have no idea what. Maybe asking for symptoms, or requiring a diagnosis before distributing medication. “Headache,” I say, not confident. Nothing happens. I don’t have it in me to set up another text-to-speech stream, even though I know I will eventually have to. There has to be a way to configure it on the screens around the ship, some kind of accessibility feature. Would anyone think of that? Would anyone plan for a situation where the crew might need it? I’m considering asking Rocky to translate. He could tell me what Armando is asking for, and I could read his response on the laptop, and then respond directly to Armando. But Rocky and I don’t have words for "non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs" or “analgesic and antipyretic” or “eardrum rupture.” He could be an intermediary, but his translations might just be a stream of: <null><null> a <null> and <null> but <null>, capiche? Besides, we just had a pretty ugly argument; I don’t want to talk to him, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to talk to me.
Luckily, there are other options besides conventional painkillers. I get up from where I’ve been leaning on the counter, gripping the bloody paper towels in my hand. I pull open the hatch down to the storage compartment. My head throbs heavily as my body inverts, leaning down for the handle. I leave the laptop on the floor and crouch down in the hold. I drag the bins around until I find Ilyukhina’s. I open it up and grab one of the big two-liter pouches of vodka. I unscrew the plastic cap on the bladder and drink directly from it. Two big swallows and a little sip. It tastes like gasoline, but the pain of it burning my throat is much less than the pain radiating from my head. It’ll set me straight.
As I tip my head back, I notice the computer scrolling.
[01:41:47] U:\Rocky.tts >> Grace
[01:42:01] U:\Rocky.tts >> Grace grace grace grace grace grace grace grace grace grace
He's trying to get my attention. He must be confused, concerned. He wants answers, and I should probably give them to him. Pain and shock keeps me focused on my singular track; I ignore him and instead close the storage compartment and start to head down to the dormitory. Eventually I will have to figure out a way for him to get my attention if he needs something, rather than just chant my name until I happen to notice the text on the screen. I turn the lights out and crawl into my cubby, pulling the laptop in with me. The booze has done its job; the pain in my ears is lessened. The only problem is that it’s reacting poorly with my vertigo. I feel like I'm slowly spinning in a vat of heavy water. Although, that might be the more-than-eight-no-more-than-twenty leaks draining ammonia into my atmosphere. It’s a problem for when I wake up, whenever that is.
I play around on the laptop and scroll up through Rocky and I’s conversation. I find the last phrase he said, which was untranslatable, and look at the metadata. 153.29 decibels delivered in 1.8 seconds. That’s about as loud as a jet taking off, all concentrated into two seconds. No wonder it tore through my eardrums. It’s probably not loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage, but there’s no way to know for sure. Not yet.
I let my head fall back, that obnoxious dial tone still buzzing in my ears, my body spinning slowly, alcohol numbing me to the worry and fear I would otherwise be feeling. It sours my mood more than it otherwise would be. I should probably go tell him that I’m going to sleep the whole day off if he’s interested in watching--which he always seems to be--but I’m too surly. There’s no time to watch me sleep, anyway. When I get up, no matter what state I’m in, we’re going to have to figure this out. For now, we can sulk.