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The depressing truth is that interstellar travel was always going to move slowly. Not in practical terms — approaching lightspeed is literally as fast as it gets. But logistically, it's slow. The scales of time are immense, the material gains miniscule, and the costs, well … astronomical.
If, after all that, you're still set on exploring the galaxy, you definitely don't want to do it on a manned vessel. It's pointless. It will never be worth the cost in fuel. Human pilots and the systems they need to survive are extraneous, unnecessarily heavy cargo — who are, moreover, sacrificing years on Earth to spend slightly fewer years hurtling through space.
None of which had stopped the Allied International Space Agencies from sending Danylo Janiv and the crew of the Iris 4 to the stars.
Flicking aimlessly through the ship sensor readings, Danylo let out a jaw-cracking yawn. "You know," he said. "I always thought if I ever got to travel to another star system, I'd at least get to see Erid. Maybe meet an alien."
"You cannot want to waste eleven more years in this bucket." Prita's voice drifted up from the far side of the pilot's seat across the cabin. "No one is that crazy."
"Wouldn’t be eleven for us. That’s if you’re counting from Earth."
"And twenty-two Earth years if we ever wanted to get home. Which I do. I prefer the planet that doesn't try to kill me in every concievable way."
It was a moot point. Iris 4 was already on its way home — not from Erid, but from the general vicinity of Epsilon-Eridani. A different star, six light-years closer to Earth; and the main ship of the Iris 4 had only gone part of the way there. Even with all those caveats, it was the farthest from home anyone had ever traveled since Grace himself.
Their mission was to build what Danylo had affectionately nicknamed the Rainbow Road: a sequence of infrared relays across a big span of empty space. Right now, the relays were useless. But in the long run, the hope was they'd support light-speed communication between Earth and Erid. It'd still take sixteen years to say hi, but at least they wouldn't have to build so damn many probes.
Danylo's eyes drifted to the one blank section of panel in the operations cabin. It was decorated with taped photographs of the crew and their families — his brother and sister, Prita's cats, Teo's nieces and nephews.
But the last photo, the one in the middle, was a group shot of the Project Hail Mary team. All six original primary and secondary crew members in the center. On the left, scientists like Lokken and LeClerc, who had been Danylo's heroes growing up. And, on the right, Eva Stratt and Ryland Grace.
It was an odd historical quirk that there weren't any official photos of just Grace in his entire tenure with Project Hail Mary. Not one. It was always those two together: the Director blank-faced and flat-mouthed, and her first officer looking exhausted, flustered and a little harried, like he'd just been dragged out of the lab.
That made sense. They were, according to most historical accounts, a package deal. It wasn't until a few decades ago, when the Stratt Papers dropped, that it started to feel … awkward … to see the two of them side-by-side. Maybe a little insensitive.
But what could you do? Those were the photos they'd taken, and both Stratt and Grace were long dead by now.
"Ever wonder what Grace's life was like on Erid?" he asked.
"I try not to."
"Humor me."
"Okay, fine. Let's say the Eridians make him air conditioning and oxygen, and water and food and light. What can you do about the gravity? Nothing. Slow and painful death."
"Sounds like you've thought about it a lot."
"What else is there to think about? But we still have eighteen months out here, and I am not letting the robot put me under until I am foaming at the mouth." She pointedly swiveled her chair away. "Ergo: Not. Thinking. About. It."
"Point taken. I'm just trying to make conversation. Where's Teo? Still napping?"
"Working on Minas Tirith."
"God, how is he not sick to death of that game?"
All three of them had spent a few weeks putzing around in Minecraft on the start of the journey home, but Danylo and Prita had nothing on Mateo. Their engineer had logged at least 2,000 hours at last check — and after that, they'd just stopped checking. It was exhausting even by proxy.
"Whatever keeps him sane." Prita shrugged. "He is the happiest person on the ship. Maybe you should play more video games and spend less time thinking about Ryland Grace. Or do I need to take the photo down?"
"I'm fine. I'm not coma-phobic like you — if it comes to that, I'll just put myself under for a few months and set the alarm for when I'm feeling better. You should consider it, too. Teo's here, he'll keep an eye on things."
"Yes, if you trust him to look up from his laptop screen," she said dryly. "Speaking of, do you really still need to check on the probes every day?"
Danylo shrugged and tapped the screen. "I can only check on some of them. We're on a delay, so the signal is chasing us home."
If the Iris 4 was actually moving at the speed of light, they'd have no signal from the Epsilon-side relays at all. But even with astrophage fuel, Iris 4 couldn't go that fast. So the infrared waves could gradually catch up. Just very, very slowly.
Maybe it really was time to take a nap in the knock-out pod. None of them wanted to be the next interstellar coma cautionary tale, but they'd been assured a dozen times over not to worry about it. Coma tech had advanced by leaps and bounds. So the researchers said … yeah, he wasn't quite ready to chance it.
He fiddled with the dials, then flicked through the sensor readings.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. No —
Wait.
His finger stuttered, and he nearly missed the back button. He'd been so focused on checking the probe signals that he hadn't seen it: Another infrared ping. Not from their own relays. Unlike the signals ahead of them, it wasn't whipping past at double speed. And unlike the signals behind them, it wasn't inching up from the rear. It was consistent, like you'd expect from a stationary source.
But Iris 4 wasn't standing still; it was rocketing home. So if something was stationary relative to Iris 4, that could only mean that it, too, was hurtling toward Earth just shy of the speed of light.
"Commander," he said weakly. "I think we've got an Eridian probe on our tail."
Iris 4 intercepted the probe three weeks later. It wasn't a difficult operation — as long as they didn't accidentally incinerate it in their jetstream, there was no problem. The part that took three weeks was arguing about it.
"We had to do it," Danylo insisted, as Teo got to work cracking the thing open. "If it's relevant to the Iris mission, solving it while we're already here will save a ridiculous amount of fuel."
"I heard you the last six times, Dany."
Prita wasn't happy. Fair enough. Unplanned detours were generally a bad idea in space — it increased the risk for both Iris 4 and the probe. But in the end, none of them liked the idea of heading back to Earth with the mystery probe shadowing them every step of the way.
"Cracked it!" Teo said in satisfaction. "It's pretty close to the last probe model. Let me find my laptop, I think I've got a port converter."
Danylo made a disgusted noise. "Thirty-five, forty years we’ve been in touch with Erid, and still we're trading physical data drives? Jesus. Can't get the Rainbow Road up and running soon enough."
Prita didn't answer.
"Come on, Commander, lighten up a little. All's well that ends … Prita? What is it?"
But she wasn't listening to him. She was staring down at the probe shell like she'd seen a ghost. When he leaned over to follow her line of sight, he saw why — a line of alphabetical characters etched deeply into the metal, legible to both humans and Eridians:
The Last Testament of Dr. Ryland Grace
"Holy fuck."
"Holy fuck," she agreed.
"Ryland Grace. Ryland fucking Grace?" But he was dead, long dead. He had to be. "Isn't he dead?"
"If he wasn't before, he is now," Prita said dazedly. "That's what 'last testament' means."
When Prita called Erid "a planet that tries to kill you," she wasn't kidding. Earth was jubilant the day they learned Grace made it to the Eridian homeworld … but they also knew, realistically, that he wouldn't last long. No matter how benevolent the Eridians were, no matter how technologically advanced, they couldn't fight biology.
Except apparently they had, and won. By about forty years, good God.
"Don't tell Teo," he managed to say. "I wanna see the look on his face when he opens up that file."
The look on his face, as expected, was priceless. It was almost enough to alleviate Danylo's whole-body stupor as he saw a human figure appear on the laptop screen. There was only one human on Erid, and he hadn't been seen by any living creature in decades.
Eridians, for all their technical expertise, still hadn't quite nailed cameras. Grace was a blur, out of focus most of the time. Now and again the image abruptly cleared, giving them a brief glimpse of white hair, deep creases, strange clothing and odd, thick glasses. When he smiled, it almost disappeared into the loose skin of his face.
This was really happening. They were going to be the first humans to hear directly from Grace since the Hail Mary beetles landed.
"Hello, world," said Dr. Ryland Grace.
Hello, world.
Sorry, I know it's corny, but I always wanted to say it. You'll have to cut me some slack. It's not easy to get back in touch after eighty years — and I'm probably the only person who's ever been this out of touch. Just think of this as a time capsule.
First of all, I'm sorry I didn't send this a few decades ago, when some of the people I cared about might've had the chance to hear it. I could have. I had the option. The Eridians have been insanely generous with their spaceflight budget. They'd have shipped me back to Earth in person, if I'd wanted to go. Probably it still would have been too late to see you guys. Earth is a long way from home.
But maybe you will hear this. I mean, I've stuck around this long, so anything's possible. Maybe Stratt is a brain in a jar. Maybe Dimitri's grandkids can listen to this and get some closure. Either way, this is my way to make a mark on history. And this time, I'll do it because I wanted to.
My first message is to the people of Earth. Seems like you're doing a lot better these days. Glad to hear it.
If you're alive right now, if you're hearing this message, I want you to know that you don't owe that to me. Not really. They didn't — they didn't ship me out the moment we learned about Martin and Annie. I got my chance to choose. Hours to think about it. And I chose to die slowly with the rest of the planet. Stratt chose not to let me.
There are heroes in the world. I've seen it up close. Yao and Olesya, Annie and Martin, Stratt and Rocky — they were all heroes. But I wasn't. And that's okay. In the end, it wasn't heroism that made the difference; it was love and a whole lot of science.
Rocky and I aren't going to be around forever. So when we're gone, I'm asking the rest of you to look out for each other. Be kind to each other. It's a big, lonely universe out there, and Earth and Erid are all we've got.
My second message is for Stratt — no; Eva. You're not my boss anymore, so I get to call you Eva.
Fuck you, Eva. Edit that part out if you play this for the kids, but, sincerely, fuck you. I know why you did it, and I should have known that you would, but I don't have to make my peace with it. I owe you the worst days of my life.
And, just in case I'm the only one who says it: thank you.
Thank you for saving Earth.
Way back when, you said you'd be the world's whipping boy if that's what it took. I don't know if things went down that way — it's hard to imagine what history will look like when you're living it. But you were probably right. You usually were.
I hope you weren't. I hope you got statues built of you. You didn't want them any more than I did, but we can't always have what we want.
There's a lot more I should say to a lot of other people who are already dead. But you don't need to hear an old man rambling, so I'll keep it short. To my kids, to Marissa, my lab guys from the Vat, Lokken and Dimitri and the others. Love you all. I hope you all lived great lives and did a lot of great science. I know I did.
This is Dr. Ryland Grace, signing out from Erid, with love.
Five Years Later. Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
"Welcome aboard the Hail Mary," Nuur said with a grin. "You're gonna love it here."
The tourists flocked around her, letting out ooohs and ahhhhs at the spotless white plastic and brushed steel. A dozen smartphones all shot up in synchrony to snap photos. An overeager kid clambered up on the edge of one of the crew pods for a better look, before her mom hurried her down.
"Touching is fine!" Nuur assured her. "It's a reconstruction, after all — not the real thing. But keep your feet on the ground, okay, kiddo? Unlike astronauts, we're not in zero-G."
"It's not real?" another kid asked, disappointed.
"The original Mary never came back to Earth, but trust me when I say this is as close as it gets. Keep moving down to the end, folks, we've got a full tour today. Everyone have room? Everyone can see? Awesome."
She didn't blame them for wanting a closer look. The Ryland Grace Memorial Museum in Baikonur was home to the most detailed replica of the Hail Mary in the world. It was exactly to scale, from the crew bunks to the robot arms to the hatches in the ceiling and floor.
The only major concession was that the tiny cabin was split into two halves, one on either side of the tour path — because, unfortunately, the actual Mary hadn't been designed for a crowd. It had basically been a spacefaring tin can strapped to a mega-nuke.
"If you look around, you'll see the same surroundings Ryland Grace did when he recorded his first video logs in the Tau Ceti system — right down to the dirty laundry."
She pointed to a cardigan artfully slung over one side of the crew bunk. Nearby, one of the pull-out tables had a display of fake foods that Grace would have eaten during the journey: tubed nutritional gravy, freeze-dried rations, and a pouch of coffee.
"This is the crew dormitory, where Grace slept for the entire trip from Earth to Tau Ceti. It was a long trip — does anyone know how long?"
"Thirteen-years-but-it-felt-like-four!" hollered one of the kids. She was the one who'd been climbing on the coma pod. Must be going through her outer-space phase.
"Bingo!" Nuur snapped her fingers. "That's exactly right. Because the Mary traveled at close to the speed of light, the crew experienced time dilation. For four years, Grace was sleeping in that bunk there. And, as we know, he was the only one of the original three-man crew to survive the trip."
The only signs of Yao and Ilyukhina were small, tasteful tributes — a pair of duffels with their names sewn onto the strap, and a few photos taped to one wall. Down on the first floor, there was a separate exhibit that paid respects to the other Project Hail Mary crew members and scientists, but the ship tour was focused on Grace.
"In the storage hatch we're standing on, Dr. Grace had everything he needed for the journey — clothes, toiletries, tools and more. All his food was rationed carefully by the computer systems to make sure it would last the full trip. Of course, no one realized just how long the full trip would be."
"What about the bathroom?"
Nuur smirked at the man who'd called out the question, and leaned over to tap a panel on the wall. With a spring-loaded click, it swiveled in place, revealing a small toilet and faucet. "It's small, but it does the job. Not much privacy in space."
The grown-ups tittered, and the kids craned their necks for a closer look.
"But there's one thing missing from this model — it was added much later on. Does anyone know what it is?"
"Shower?"
"The beetles?"
"Not quite!" She pointed at the talkative kid. "What about you — any ideas? I'll give you a hint. It's not a what; it's a who."
The kid's face lit up. "Rocky!"
"That's right! Not long after Dr. Grace arrived in Tau Ceti, he made contact with the Blip-A. When they decided to work together to solve the Petrova problem, Rocky moved right in. Eridians can't breathe the same air we do, so he built xenonite compartments throughout the whole ship, including one in the dormitory. Right up ahead in the lab, we'll get to see what that might have looked like."
Once the kids caught sight of the lab, nothing and no one could stop them from trying to climb through, over, and around the xenonite tunnels — and Nuur didn't bother trying. It was normally an interactive exhibit anyway.
Instead, she headed over with a few of the adults to the main lab tables, where two mini-models of the Hail Mary took the place of lab equipment. The first was in the normal, rocket-shaped configuration; the second in centrifuge mode. Nuur tapped it and set it off spinning.
"Turns out, it's a little tricky to do science in zero-G," she said. "That's where the centrifuge comes into play."
She dragged on the spiel about ship's gravity a little longer than it needed to be, giving the kids a bit more time to play in the tunnels. After that, she rounded them up and headed for the computer room. When the kids saw it, their eyes glowed like stars. Giving kids buttons to press: Worked every time.
"This is where the magic happened,” Nuur said reverently. "Eleven point nine light years. More than one hundred trillion kilometers. It's been eighty-five years since Ryland Grace set out for Tau Ceti, but in that time no human has traveled even half as far from Earth as he did."
"Do you think we ever will?" someone asked.
"Well, we've got good motivation — meeting the neighbors! But it takes a long time, and any astronaut who made the trip would be giving up decades of Earth years in the bargain. It also takes a massive amount of fuel, and astrophage is expensive."
"What about the Iris missions?"
"Oh, someone's been following the news. Yep — in about a month, AISA will launch Iris 7. If all goes well, it'll complete the infrared transmission relay from our solar system to the Eridian stations on the other side. Once that's done, we'll be able to send messages to and from Erid without using probes. Unfortunately … it'll take our messages about sixteen years to get there."
Disappointed groans from the crowd.
"I know, I know; it's a bummer. But that's how big space is — we're around sixteen light-years from Eridani, and you just can't travel faster than light."
"But Eridians live hundreds of years," piped up a small voice. "So they could come here."
Nuur turned in surprise. At some point, the little space-enthusiast girl had stopped hammering the buttons and turned to look at her with a serious expression.
"That's right," she said. "They'd need protective gear to stay alive in Earth's air, but Rocky proved that was more than possible. It's also much easier for Eridians to make astrophage. So there's a good chance we'll welcome Eridians on Earth in our lifetime."
"I'm gonna be the one to meet them," the little girl said with conviction.
It was the kind of thing a lot of kids said. I wanna be an astronaut, right. But Nuur felt her heart swell a little in her chest. She'd been a kid once too — watching raptly as the TV announcers brought the fateful news: At long last, Earth's Hail Mary is a success.
"I bet you will," she said. "Actually, I can take you to Erid right now — or the museum version of it, anyway."
“Erid” was a warm, dimly-lit room, illuminated by red LED strips that suggested stifling heat. There was a play area for the kids, with little xenonite experiments, and a life-size model of Rocky that occasionally let out musical greetings in Eridian.
After that they went back to the first floor to see the Vat — the PLA Navy Gansu aircraft carrier, that is. Unlike the Hail Mary replica, this one was mostly the real thing. Whole cabins had been painstakingly preserved for posterity, including the astrophage research lab. There was an exhibit dedicated to the other members of the team, from the researchers to the crew, and the two original science officers. And, of course, there was Grace's old office.
"Contrary to popular belief, Dr. Grace was never officially named first officer of Project Hail Mary. In fact, he never took a title at all. But his impact on the project, and his fellow officers, was immeasurable."
She pressed a button to start the reel on the wall monitor. A clip from an old news interview played in Dr. Dimitri Komorov's tinny voice: "Yes, my friend Grace. Brilliant man. He had that rarest trait in an academic: good sense. But he could be persuaded to think better of it at times."
"Mr. Grace, come back soon!" The video cut to a clip of a group of sixth graders holding up posters. One said: My Science Teacher Can Beat Up Your Science Teacher, and another Kick ASStrophage, Mr. Grace!
"Earth is in Ryland Grace's hands now — the best of hands." Dr. Lokken was saying at the post-launch press conference; her eyes were red. "Yao and Ilyukhina will be as glad to have him on the mission as we are heartbroken to lose him. I will miss our infuriating conversations for the rest of my life."
The clips went on and on. Photos of Grace with the original science team, in the middle of a demonstration. A pre-launch crew party, where Olesya Ilyukhina had one arm slung around Grace’s neck and a bottle of liquor in the other. Even a few old family photos of a young Ryland Grace touring NASA, posing with a science decathlon certificate, dressed as a Jedi for Halloween. Most were personal photos donated to the museum by Grace's friends and their descendants.
"People often say that Dr. Grace didn't leave anyone behind when he left Earth," Nuur tells the tourists. "Certainly, it's true that he didn't have a family. His parents both passed away when he was in college, and he had no siblings, partner, or children. But that doesn't mean he wasn't loved."
"I heard he didn't want to do it." One of the teens spoke up. Until now they'd been mostly silent. "That's what they said in the movie."
"No, that's true," someone else added. "They drugged him."
No point asking which movie. Saving Grace, Ave María, The Petrova Gambit, Who Art in Heaven, Our Lady of Omelas … in the years since the Stratt Papers dropped, every major blockbuster about Ryland Grace painted the same grand tale of betrayal and sacrifice. For the younger generations, the mélange of fact and fiction was rapidly metastasizing into myth.
"That's correct," Nuur acknowledged. "Before her death, Director Stratt wrote a letter attesting that Dr. Grace was coerced into joining the crew after the deaths of the original two science officers. Most historians agree that it's probably accurate."
Director Eva Stratt was a figure who evoked strong feelings, no matter who you talked to. Not altogether surprising: She'd bombed Antarctica off the map and commandeered the entire world's resources to do it. That was generally the kind of thing that made people throw around words like terrorist and autocrat.
But the nail in the coffin was the letter she left behind with her attorney, to be released publicly after her death.
"Any testament given from the deathbed is apt to be labeled a confession," Eva Stratt wrote. "Let me state, then, that this letter is not a confession. Nor am I writing from my deathbed. I am in good health and excellent spirits. Earlier today, AISA astronomers confirmed that the sun returned to full brightness.
"Instead, my purpose in writing is to correct a matter of public record in respect to a dear friend. Ryland Grace did not volunteer for the crew of the Hail Mary."
Clinically, she described the measures she had taken to subdue him: sedation, mind-altering drugs, physical force. "I have had to make many difficult decisions in my life, but sending Ryland Grace on that ship was not among them. It was easy to put my faith in him.”
The world erupted in fury. For once, Eva Stratt was not there to absorb the brunt of their anger. All that remained of her was stored in a freezer at the Karolinska Institute, where she had donated her body to science; and her corpse declined to comment. People demanded retribution, restitution, justice — but Eva Stratt was already dead. What more could they ask for?
In lieu of answers, speculation ran rampant. A bevy of books and films sprang up overnight. Some of them were even good, in Nuur's opinion. A timeless tragedy of good and evil, an innocent human life cast aside for the prosperity of nameless billions — compelling stuff.
"Everyone's heard a different story about Project Hail Mary." Nuur took her time sweeping her gaze across the dismayed group, meeting their eyes one by one. "They all have some truth to them, and they all have some fiction. But we've got one more exhibit left in our tour, and I think it'll tell you a story worth hearing."
Nuur held open the door.
Compared to the elaborate models that preceded it, the final exhibit was a simple room. A few rows of benches were lined up in the center of the room, facing a large screen on the far wall. There, a short video of an elderly, bespectacled, cardigan-clad actor was reading out Ryland Grace's last transmission to Earth.
"There are heroes in the world. I've seen it up close. Yao and Olesya, Annie and Martin, Stratt and Rocky — they were all heroes. But I wasn't. And that's okay. Because in the end, it wasn't heroism that made the difference; it was love and a whole lot of science.
"Rocky and I aren't going to be around forever. So, when we're gone, I'm asking the rest of you to look out for each other. Be kind to each other. It's a big, lonely universe out there, and Earth and Erid are all we've got."
Nuur didn't need to watch the video. She'd heard it a thousand times; she could recite it by heart. Instead, she eased onto the backmost bench with a sigh and stretched out her sore feet, rotating her ankles to stave off swelling. Her eyes rested, as they always did, on the opposite wall from the screen.
"F—— you, Eva. Edit that part out if you play this for the kids, but, sincerely, f—— you. I know why you did it, and I should have known that you would, but I don't have to make my peace with it. I owe you the worst days of my life.
"And, just in case I'm the only one who says it: thank you. Thank you for saving Earth.
“… I hope you got statues built of you. You didn't want them any more than I did, but we can't always have what we want.”
A mural in bright colors, commissioned a few years ago, decorated the formerly blank plaster. It was a mess of planets and stars wheeling through a vast galaxy — and above the whole, in big, vibrant letters, it read: From Erid, With Love.
"This is Dr. Ryland Grace, signing out from Erid, with love."
It was a long tour. By the end, all the kids were worn-out and dragging their feet. The museum directors really should cut it down to an hour, but as long as reservations kept selling out, they probably wouldn't.
As the tour group poured out from the dark theater into the sun-drenched museum atrium, they squinted in the light. A geometric glass-paneled ceiling captured every bit of life and warmth Sol had to offer. It was almost unbearably beautiful.
And there, at the center of it all —
"You actually built her a statue?" said one of the tourists, his tone falling somewhere between consternation and disbelief. "After everything she did?"
It was, of course, a statue of Eva Stratt. She stood as impassively in sunlit bronze as she had in life; and just as in life, Ryland Grace stood next to her. On his other side, Rocky the Eridian. A combination that was impossible to misread: The saviors of Earth and Erid.
"We did," Nuur agreed, laughing. "People weren't happy about it."
People had been appalled. It was one thing to acknowledge Stratt’s contributions in some small, discreet way. But to endorse her, to celebrate her alongside the triumphant figures of Grace and Rocky? It smacked of sacrilege.
Internet outrage, slam articles, resignations, harassment, bomb threats … you name it, the Ryland Grace Memorial Museum had been on the receiving end. Thousands of historians signed a letter of protest, accusing the museum forsaking its duty to the world and to the past.
There had also been a quiet undercurrent of support. At the forefront was the team of Iris 4, the same three-man crew who had recovered the Last Testament probe: Prita Chanda, Danylo Janiv, and Mateo Rivera.
"We were the first to hear Dr. Grace's message, far from home among the stars," Commander Chanda told the press. "In that moment, we knew it was our duty to bring his last words and wishes safely to Earth, whether or not Earth wanted to hear it."
Earth did not, in fact, want to hear it.
By that point, the story of Eva Stratt's crimes had been told and retold for the better part of a century. The Stratt Papers had alchemized an old, formless grudge into a kind of righteous fury — as if by condemning her memory, they could give Grace his long-overdue justice. A few words from the mouth of a dead man didn't make much noise. The Ryland Grace of their imagination spoke louder.
There would never be an Eva Stratt Memorial Museum, as far as Nuur could tell. No one would pledge themselves to honor her legacy, because her legacy was a mess. No part was wholly free of blemish, and the parts the world knew best were in tatters. Stratt spent decades in prison, destroyed the environment, flouted laws, extincted species. Yet she had never begged forgiveness or absolution. She did not seem to want to be absolved. And wasn't that its own sort of crime?
How could such a person capture the same pathos as the schoolteacher who saved the stars?
Nuur didn't say any of that. She had learned the hard way to stick to her approved talking points.
"Our mission as a nonprofit organization is to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Ryland Grace," she explained instead. "And we got lucky — Dr. Grace contacted us from across the stars to share his wishes. So we listened to what he had to say. That's all."
The tourist still didn't look happy, but after a moment he scratched the back of his neck, shrugged, and turned away. Maybe she'd given him something to think about; maybe he was just in a hurry to get in line at the museum café.
But some of the others lingered. A few took photos. The older guests, the ones who remembered the cold, closed their eyes and basked in the warm afternoon sun.
Today, a statue of Eva Stratt was a travesty. Maybe tomorrow it would be too little, too late. History was a story told by the living, and no one — not Stratt, not Grace, and certainly not Nuur — could guess how it would change.
But they were still alive. History was still alive. That was enough.