Work Text:
For about a month after setting course for Erid, the two-man crew of the Hail Mary were euphoric. They knew the journey would be long, even with the time dilation, and that there were bound to be complications and near-disasters on their way (for one, Grace had done the math and there were far too many coma-slurry meals in his future). But there was now an end in sight, and they were gonna ride that high until it died.
Eventually, it did. It would be poetic to say that it went out not with a bang but a whimper, but in this case, it did, actually, die with a bang. –Namely, the bang of a large alien lifeform with a mineral carapace smacking into a xenonite tube in earth-type gravity.
Rocky let loose a string of curses that sounded like a discordant wheezing church organ as Grace stood up from where he’d been analyzing some astrometrics data (after all, if they were going to be were out here for the next few years, they may as well get some science done on the way). “Rocky? You okay?"
“Rocky fine, Rocky just fall, Rocky just dumb dumb 🎶-ing moron can’t even hold onto 🎶s correct–”
“Whoa, okay, language,” he snorted. The Eridian scrambled upright and somehow managed to glare at him without eyes.
“Grace computer not even translate Eridian curse words, why Grace care!”
“It’s a joke, Rock.”
“Dumb 🎶-ing human humor! Rocky done with human humor! Rocky be alone!”
He stomped off down his little glass corridor into another room, leaving Grace to blink behind him. “Jeez, what’s got him in a mood.”
“Rocky hear that!”
Grace put his hands up in surrender and sat back down at desk, running calculations and occasionally glancing over his shoulder. He could hear the engineer rummaging around quietly in the next room, which was also Rocky’s bedroom/workspace. Eventually the noises stopped, which was somehow more worrying, and after debating it to himself for a few minutes Grace stood up, walking over. He poked his head around the corner. “Rocky, buddy? You okay in there?”
The Eridian was sitting in an upper tube near the ceiling, quiet. There was something made of Xenonite in his hands, but Grace wasn’t able to see what it was until the Eridian let out a low hum and set it down inside the tube and crawled down. Tilted on its side, Grace could see that the object was a small model of a planet surrounded by rings. “Rocky apologize,” the alien said tiredly. “Rocky is–” He hummed again in annoyance. “Need word. For when emotion state bad.”
“Bad mood?”
Rocky reluctantly repeated the same in Eridian, and the ship recorded it, entering it into the computer in the next room. “Rocky apologize. Bad mood. Bad bad bad mood,” he added darkly.
“What’s up, bud, what’s wrong.” Grace glanced upwards at the tiny model of Erid resting inside the glass above him. It didn’t take a pair of rocket scientists to figure that clue out. “You’re going home, isn’t that a good thing?”
“Rocky…happy, see Adrian. See Erid. Happy not breathe recycled ammonia.” There was a long pause as he clicked his fingers together, hunching his legs slightly. “But.”
“But?”
“But—Rocky think Rocky die in space. Many, many years, Rocky think–”
“What– no, c’mon, Rock, we’ve got this! No one’s dying in space, okay, we’ve done way more difficult stuff than this–”
“No!” He hit the glass hard with his leg, startling Grace. “Grace not understand. Rocky think– Rocky thought Rocky die in space.” The human blinked at the shift into the past tense; the translator only ever picked it up when Rocky used a specific cadence, one he’d been told Eridians used to emphasize that something in the past was now over. “Rocky never expected go home.”
“But– hang on, Eridians live a long time, right? You had enough fuel and you would have survived the return journey just fine, I mean you were in the Tau Ceti system for over forty years–”
“Yes. Long time. Long long long time.” The tone of his voice dipped, as if by the end he was whispering to himself. Grace stared. Something clicked into place, slowly, like a ship on a docking port.
“Rock…we’re less than a decade away from Erid,” he said, watching the alien. “Why didn’t you go home? Even without understanding relativity, your ship was set to make a return voyage, right? Why didn’t you ever try to go back?”
The Eridian was silent. He seemed to be hunching down further, curling in on himself.
“Rocky?”
“Rocky save stars. Rocky…save Erid. Or…die trying.”
Grace sucked in a breath. “...You were going to stay until you figured out what was happening to Tau Ceti's Petrova Line,” he realized.
“Yes.”
“But you’re an engineer, not a scientist. You’re not a biologist, you don’t– Rocky, you don’t have the training, you couldn’t have–”
“Could not go home. At first, Rocky think Erid send more ships to Tau Ceti, solve astrophage problem. But no ships come. Rocky not know why, maybe other crews die too." He rubbed the turquoise marriage tattoo on his arm. "Rocky realize...no more ships coming. If mission fail, many many many Eridians die. Rocky only survivor Blip-A. Needed…needed reason.”
“Reason the astrophage weren’t dimming Tau Ceti?”
Rocky uncurled slightly, as if to better hear Grace, facing him head-on. As if, in his own Eridian way, meeting his eyes with all the courage he could muster. “Reason Rocky not dead too. Reason Rocky deserve to come home.”
Grace stared. Rocky curled in on himself again, like a crab trying to avoid the attention of a predator. “You– Rock, come on, you can’t think– look, you know what happened to the rest of the crew wasn’t your fault! I’m sure Erid would have wanted you to come back, I mean what about Adrian–”
“Adrian one Eridian. Erid population ten billion. If sun die, not all Eridians blame Rocky, yes? But some maybe say, ‘Why he come home, question? Why he not try harder save Erid, why he– why he survive, instead someone useful.’” Grace tried to object, but Rocky leapt ahead: “Now, Rocky and Grace save stars. Eridians live! But crew still dead. Grace—I can’t tell them.” He had shifted into the first person, distressed by the responsibility that lay at his feet: “I survive, while rest of crew die? How I explain to mates, to families? How I explain to Erid?” He tapped the glass again, urgently this time. “You tell. Please.”
“Rocky–”
“I can’t. Please, Grace.” The desperation in his voice was clear even through the translator. The human hesitated, and then nodded.
“Yeah. Okay. When the time comes I’ll, uh– I’ll deliver the bad news.”
“Thank you.” The Eridian’s relief was palpable.
“But—Rock.” He pressed a hand to the glass, and the Eridian twitched uneasily. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know. Radiation kill crew. Rocky survive by accident, not Rocky fault.”
“Exactly! And that means you don’t have to feel guilty about surviving, okay? You didn’t need a reason to deserve to live, you could have gone home. Like don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you didn’t, because otherwise I would be dead and so would a whole lot of humans.”
“And Eridians,” Rocky agreed ruefully.
“Yeah, exactly. But you didn’t have to earn your survival, okay? You did a brave thing by staying, a selfless thing, and you should be proud, not guilty. Rocky—you’re the bravest man I know, human or Eridian.”
At last the Eridian seemed to relax a little, their legs becoming less rigid. “Rocky is only Eridian Grace know. Very small data sample,” he pointed out dryly. Grace grinned.
“Still true.”
“Grace…thank you.”
It was clearly not the end of whatever he was going through—Grace could only imagine the kind of survivor’s guilt Rocky had to be carrying, after forty-six years in space with only the picture-perfect memories of his dead crew and absent mate back on the world he thought he’d failed for company—but it was good enough for today. “Don’t sweat it, bud. You good?”
“No. But better.”
“Yeah, I feel that.” He nodded back towards the lab. “Wanna hang out? I’m doing some calculations you could help me with.”
“With slow human hand and computer, yes. Rocky help, much faster.” They began to walk, and Rocky added: “What mean, 🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶, question?” It came through the xenonite walls as something more along the lines of “drrrrrnnnnt rmrmrmrmttttt tttttt,” but Grace understood.
“It means don’t worry.” He glanced over his shoulder back at the xenonite model of Erid, sparkling where the wires caught the light. “We’ll get through it together.”
“Together,” Rocky murmured, with relief.
“Yeah, Rock. Together.”