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The truth came out three weeks into their trip back to Erid. After figuring out a way for Rocky to control the ship from inside his glass protective tunnels, the two of them had split the days into shifts, trading off who was handling pilot duties to make as good of time as possible back towards Erid. Even so, they usually spent their off-shifts near the other person. After the scare with the Taumoeba and the xenonite ship, neither was feeling particularly fond of the idea of being alone at the moment. Currently it was Grace’s shift in the cockpit, and the Eridian had crawled inside about twenty minutes previously to do an Eridian activity that Grace could only assume, based on the fact that Rocky had done nothing but fiddle with bits of wire for the duration, translated roughly to “hang out.”
“What you think happen when we get back to Erid, question?” the engineer asked as he worked on whatever his unintelligible project was.
“You mean ten years from now? Let’s focus on getting there first, bud.”
Rocky set the wires aside and suspended himself easily in the zero-G weightlessness from the bars of his glassy enclosure, which Grace had intuited was the Eridian version of kicking back in a comfy chair. “We will probably be heroes.”
Heroes. Grace frowned down at the spindrive readings on one of the cockpit’s innumerable screens. Still fully operational. He almost wished there was a problem; it had been far too easy the last few weeks. It was boring, and stressful waiting for the other shoe to drop, and led to stupid conversations like this to fill the time. “Probably.”
“There will be celebrations. But it is complicated.” Rocky’s voice turned more serious and contemplative. “Other crew of Eridian ship not return. Rocky come home alone. Correction, not alone. With squishy space alien human.”
“Gee, thanks Rocky.”
“What about Earth?”
“Huh?”
“Grace probably hero on Earth, yes, question?”
Grace checked the nav readings, feeling vaguely sick. “Probably,” he repeated. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Straat’s words had started ringing like a red-alarm. If it’s any consolation, you’ll be hailed as a hero. God. There would probably be statues.
“Grace, question?”
“Yeah, Rocky?”
“Why Grace not want talk about this, question?”
Silence filled the Hail Mary, heavy as a neutron star. Sweat beaded along his forehead and then pulled away to float as a tiny sphere in the air. Oh, god. I’m going to have to tell him. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Rocky move closer towards him, as if hovering expectantly for an answer; the marriage tattoo, inset in turquoise, gleamed on his foremost leg. Rocky had left everything behind—his mate, his homeworld, a career as a talented engineer. A whole life. There was no way he could understand.
“Grace? Question?”
“Rock, I…” He pushed away from the alien to fidget with another set of dials on the other side of the cockpit. “I just don’t wanna talk about this right now, alright?”
“Ohh. Rocky understand.” Good. “Grace is humble.” Shit.
“That’s not it.”
“Grace very humble. Yes yes, Rocky be more like Grace, not good impression on Erid if Rocky too proud. Thank you, friend Grace, Rocky will be more humble too–”
“Rock!”
The Eridian fell silent. Grace reached up to push his hair out of his face, which was stupid, because his hair was too short and also standing almost on-end in the lack of gravity, floating around like he was underwater. He took off his glasses and ran his fingers through it anyway, half-covering his face with his hand. “I’m not humble, or brave, or anything else. Stop saying that. I just– I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Grace is angry. Rocky not understand,” the Eridian said slowly. “Did Rocky say something wrong?”
Grace sighed, lowered his hand. “...No. It’s not you. I…” God damn it. God damn it. “Look, you remember how I said before that I couldn’t remember how I got onto the ship?”
“Yes, Grace have amnesia. Squishy human brains very fragile.”
“Yeah, well…I remembered some more stuff, after we parted ways. Before I came back.” He adjusted his glasses, mostly for something to do with his hands. “The truth is– the truth is, I didn’t volunteer for the mission.”
Rocky shuffled, but doesn’t speak. If Eridians had eyes, he would have been staring at him. Grace tried to draw a deep breath and cringed at how it shook. “Um. I wasn’t– I wasn’t even part of the original mission team, actually. I was a consultant.”
“Rocky not know word.”
“Consultant. Uh, it means someone you hire to give you advice. I was hired—well, more like recruited—by Earth’s government to give scientific advice on the mission.”
“Ohhh, understand. But—if Grace schoolteacher and ‘consultant,’ how Grace on mission?”
“The third astronaut died in an accident before the mission left Earth. So did the alternate. I was the only choice.”
“But if Grace not volunteer–” Rocky suddenly twitched and went still as he put two and two together. “Grace was forced on mission, question?”
He sniffed, hard, blinking rapidly. “Uh. Yeah, buddy. I was.” He breathed in sharply again, remembering the meeting in Straat’s office, the chase. The rainbow arching overhead, the last view of Earth he would ever see in person. “They sedated me and, um– I-I was, y’know, pretty angry at first when I remembered, but…the truth is, I was a–” His throat closed up, but he forced the words out: “I was a coward, Rock. I knew that Project Hail Mary was one-way and I-I didn’t want to die. But it was me or a third of the planet, I didn’t give them much of a choice.”
“Still should not have forced Grace. Scientists have– [[[[[]]]]] -standards.” The strange Eridian word echoed through the ship. “Need word. Adjective. For right thing to do.” Grace reached out to type the word into the secured laptop.
“Ethical. Ethical standards.”
“It was wrong. Statement,” Rocky insisted. Grace choked out a laugh.
“More wrong than letting two-point-six billion people die to save myself?”
They sat in silence with that for a long, long moment. Grace snuffled again and wiped his eyes on his sleeve.
“Grace…was coward,” Rocky admitted slowly. The human swallowed and nodded.
“Yeah. So, uh, y’know—when we get to Erid, I don’t want any statues or parades o-or whatever else Eridians do to honor people, alright, like I’m good. I’m cool just hanging out in the background while they honor you—and Ilyukhina and Yáo, if that’s okay, and the Eridians on your crew who died. And Shapiro and Dubois too. You guys are—you’re the heroes here, not me.”
“But…Grace come back for Rocky. Grace save Erid. Grace…Grace give up last chance go home, for Rocky and Erid. For people Grace never meet.” The Eridian shifted, his stance becoming more solid as if to emphasize his point: “Grace not coward anymore. Grace is hero. Statement.”
Not a coward anymore. Grace stared at the Eridian, who almost seemed to be glaring back at him, daring him to challenge his words. Not anymore. If Rocky had insisted that he’d never been a coward, Grace wouldn’t have believed him; it wouldn’t have been true. But… Not anymore. And Rocky was right, he had come back. Scared out of his mind, unsure of the future, unsure if he could even survive on an alien planet—he’d come back, to save his friend and a world he’d never even seen.
I’m a hero.
Statement.
Something cracked, and he pressed a hand to his mouth, trying to stifle the horrible keening that was threatening to pour out of him in an ugly, snotty, all-too-human mess. Rocky startled. “Oh no. Grace human sweating out of eyes. Rocky cause eye sweat, Rocky make mistake–”
“I-it’s called crying, Rock,” Grace choked out with a laugh, and then fully broke down into sobs as the Eridian panicked, skittering around his transparent enclosure like an anxious spider. “I’m– I’m fine, I’m okay–”
“Not okay, crying very loud! Why crying so loud if Grace okay, question!”
“I–” He laughed again, mopping his face. “I just– needed to hear that. Thank you.”
“Oh.” Rocky settled down, folding his legs under him. “...Grace is welcome.” The human nodded and reached out to grab his glasses, which were floating gently on their chain the void. “...Grace, question?”
“Uh– yeah, bud?”
He tapped his claws together. “When Rocky and Grace reach Erid…Rocky help. All Eridians help, welcome Grace to Erid. Grace not able stay on human ship forever.”
“Oh, uh– yeah, no, probably. But we’ll make it work.” Somehow. They hadn’t really figured that part out yet, but he suddenly understood why he’d been seeing Rocky make engineering models of something with a little human figurine in his free time.
“And Grace meet Adrian,” Rocky insisted, tapping his leg on floor. “Grace see. Rocky go home, Rocky have family. Because of Grace.”
“I wanna meet her too, bud.”
“Grace part of Rocky family now. And part of Erid. Always,” he vowed, tapping harder. “Understand, question?”
Despite himself, Grace smiled. “Yeah, I understand. …Thanks, Rocky.”
“No need thanks. Is obvious. Human brain catch up,” the Eridian scolded gently. Grace chuckled l. “Grace and Rocky go home together, yes? Question?”
“Yeah, Rock.” Somewhere on the ship an alert went off, and he wiped his eyes one last time and pushed his glasses back on. There was still a lot of science left to go between there and Erid. “Let’s go home.”