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The conversation begins, as many with Rocky often do, with language exchange.
The burns on his body don't take to healing as smoothly as his injuries from above Adrian. Days after the xenonite tunnels are fully patched and the Hail Mary has departed from the Blip-A, he's still unsteady on his feet. He keeps mostly to the tunnels as his body heals, as walking around in his ball tends to put even more stress on his affected limbs.
He makes no secret of the fact that the confinement annoys him. I hear him grumbling as he enters through his side of the lab, low chords that carry no linguistic meaning but convey frustration all the same.
"Sorry, Rock," I say sympathetically. I'm finishing up my regular check-ins of the taumeoba farms, something Rocky prefers to observe as close as possible. The tunnels don't get him as close as his ball can, though. I reach up to adjust the angle of the microscope display for his camera.
"Not Grace fault," Rocky hums, settling into a nook above me. "Will heal eventually. Just need time. Have much much much time."
"Wish I had stuff on this side that could help you heal faster." A momentary thought flashes through my mind, and I snort. "Might see if I could actually get some use out of Ilyukhina's heroin."
"No understand last word."
Right. I suppose we never had any reason to go over those kinds of drugs. "Heroin. It's a drug. Kind of like the ones the robot gives me, but different. More extreme."
"Extreme how, question?"
"Higher highs, lower lows. Significantly lower." I glance back at him. "I'm joking about giving it to you, just to be clear. It's definitely not a drug you'd want to use for healing. Humans can die from taking too much of it."
Well. Actually, I'm pretty sure the same is possible with any drug the ship provides me with, but at least those are delivered in rationed doses that I need the mental wherewithal to circumvent. We were only meant to orbit Tau Ceti for a few months, anyway. I'd probably burn through the ship's entire painkiller supply long before I ever reach an overdose threshold.
Wow. What fun, morbid thoughts, Ryland.
Rocky hums, and I zone back in. "Why have so much available on mission, question? Seems dangerous."
I sigh, an odd weight settling over my chest. "Remember when I said the Hail Mary was never intended to return home?" Rocky whistles an affirmative for courtesy's sake. I know he can't forget. "Part of the provisions was offering the astronauts a means of dying on their own terms."
Rocky lowers his carapace, then taps a claw softly against the floor. "Crew end own lives with this drug, question?"
"Yeah," I say, running a hand through my hair to dissolve the discomfort buzzing under my skin. "Or, well, they were intending to, at least. If they hadn't died in their sleep, and the mission had gone the way we'd all anticipated. Heroin wasn't the only option; everyone picked a different method. Slow starvation in space isn't really a fun way to go."
But it'll probably be mine.
I shake my head. This conversation is taking my mind down paths I'd rather not tread right now.
"Understand," Rocky trills after a moment. His voice dips lower, a mournful note blanketing the chord. He clicks his claws together rapidly and sways his carapace, an indication that he wants to say something else but is contemplating exactly how to do so. Eventually, he finds the words. "What Grace method, question?"
And— oh.
That's… not what I was expecting him to say.
I must telegraph my shock like a beacon, because Rocky draws his body up tight before I can even think of how to respond. "Apology. Is not appropriate question."
"No, I just…" I blink slowly, all the winding, dark trails of my thoughts blown back open in an instant. I focus on the one true thing among them. "I don't have one."
"Grace no choose other method, question?"
"I…" I blink hard, turning away from him before tears can claw their way to formation behind my eyes. I figured I would have been more prepared by the time I had to explain this to him, but timing was never kind to me. Not on Earth, and not some twelve-odd light years away from it, either. "I was never asked. I didn't— I wasn't meant to be here."
I feel more than hear the words leave my mouth. The same numbness that consumed me when the memories first returned threatens to overwhelm me again. I clench my fingers into a fist and feel the dull press of nails into the core of my palm.
Rocky's confusion is anticipated. "What mean, question?"
The words spill out smoothly, like they've been rehearsed a million times in the recesses of my mind. A doctor delivering bad news to a family, a president breaking the news of the star-eating parasite on national TV. A colleague and a friend biting her quivering lip as she tells me to "think of the children."
My voice comes out in monotone. "There was an accident. They had no time. I was the only solution."
I was never asked.
Rocky listens to the simple explanation in silence. Then, he repeats, "Apology."
"Not your fault," I say quietly. My fists aren't enough. Numbness pierces the membrane of my being, leeching into my blood like static. I scrub a hand over my eyes. I'm not crying yet, but I know if I look directly at him, it won't be long until I start.
"No. Not apology for humans," Rocky insists, tapping two fists together. "I am not them. I did not send Grace. Cannot apologize." He pauses. Then, more insistently, "Will not apologize for meeting Grace. Grace best best best thing to happen to Rocky. No, no, no. Apology for asking about method."
My breath catches. I finally look up at him. "Rocky, that's not—"
"I cause distress. Did not intend."
"It wasn't the question," I say. Okay, that's not entirely true, but he doesn't need to know that. I sigh and lean back, trying to will my body to relax. "The whole thing is just… I didn't leave on the best terms. I'd have probably reacted like this no matter what. It's really not your fault, buddy."
Rocky chirps a quiet sound of understanding. As the numb tension beneath my skin begins to recede, I break the building silence. "What made you want to ask?"
He clicks softly, wordless trills that indicate he's trying to get a clearer look at me. When he speaks again, his tone is gentle. "I know you doubt food supply. Doubt taumeoba will be enough when run out. Say starving in space is not fun, so humans bring other ways to die." He lowers his carapace, notes pitching towards the lower octaves. "You worry after all this, you still not live. Rocky worry Grace make that happen sooner."
My heart lurches. "Oh, Rocky, no." The words lodge themselves in my throat on the way out, choked by building tears. "No, God no, I could never do that to you." I will never do that to you, I almost say, but the promise dies on my tongue. I swallow it down to my heart and it lands like a burning stone against the muscle. A coward's omission. Even now, I don't have it in me to commit, in any sense of the word.
"Ship has many methods," Rocky continues, low tones of emotion permeating his words. "Is long trip back to Erid. I know Grace strong. I know Grace brave. But does Grace know?"
"I'm—" Every muscle in my body screams to argue with him. I don't have one. I was never asked. I'm not an astronaut. I'm not brave. I'm not ready. But that just answers his question, doesn't it?
I feel the tears burn hot down my face. I squeeze my eyes shut. "I'm sorry," is all I can choke out.
"Not Grace fault," he replies, and I almost laugh. "Impossible situation. Many impossible situations. Grace push forward every time. Grace brave brave brave. Stay alive against all odds."
"I've been getting a little too good at that, lately," I say instinctively. A bitter laugh snakes its way out of me as I say it. I know it's not fair to Rocky, digging into the wound like this, but dishonesty does us no good, either. "I don't think those cards are gonna stack in my favor forever."
"We make them stack. We get to Erid, we find way to make human food." Rocky seems to have taken my dejection as a challenge. He taps insistently as if to underscore each point with emphasis. "We go fishing over Adrian. We bring back predator. We breed it to live in planets' atmosphere. Grace Rocky do all this together. We can do anything. Even this. Even impossible thing."
I blink up at him through blurry eyes. I don't know about we. But Rocky… I have no doubt he can do the impossible.
It's in that moment that it crystallizes for me, truth etching itself permanently on the ridges of my skull. Hope is not an intangible prayer lifted to an ambiguous heaven, only interpretations left to read into its silence. It is a flesh and bone body with no pretenses promising everything it can possibly offer to secure your salvation. It is an engine, a machine, an invention crafted through trial and error, the scientific method in practice and execution.
Humanity has long pondered the nuances of science and faith, whether the two could ever truly exist as a unified concept. Every ounce of faith I can muster pools itself into Rocky. I know, without a doubt, there is nothing misplaced about that devotion.
Rocky reads the epiphany in my lack of response. He tilts his carapace up, eager, knowing. "Grace make deal with Rocky, question?"
"I don't know if I like what that entails—"
"Grace hold on to survive trip to Erid. Rocky thrum with other Eridians when arrive. We make plan to give you food. You save Rocky, you save Erid, Erid save you. Deal, question?"
I fight the urge to dismantle the lack of specificity in his plan. Even if I agree now, I can't predict the state my body will be in three years from now. The thought of Rocky watching me slowly wither away from hunger makes my heart twist painfully in my chest. But the thought of leaving him completely alone in the unfamiliar void of space again… that is an agony akin to being impaled.
Rocky curls a claw into a fist and presses it against the xenonite barrier. "Deal, question?" he repeats.
I sigh and wipe my eyes, pressing my fist against his. "Deal," I say, managing a tiny smile.
"Good good good." Rocky moves to stand then, trembling slightly on still-healing legs. "Tired. I sleep. You watch, question?"
"Always, buddy."
After Rocky goes to sleep, I take up residence in the observation room. The ambient lights are dimmed, leaving the bulk of the room's luminescence to the screens that watch my movements like a mirror.
Even after the beetles have launched, the ship's cameras stay rolling.
There's no logical reason to retain the logs. They won't be seen by anyone on Earth. Not in any amount of time that would matter if I were to send them, anyway. There's nothing left for me to say to anyone that may remain, and nothing that they could send in return if I asked. I've made peace enough with that parting.
But peace enough is not peace in whole.
The conversation with Rocky has dislodged a fragment of emotion from my scrambled mess of memories. Somewhere inside, next to the animalistic terror that left me clinging to the dirt in a futile plea for life, a selfish root flares up. It gnaws at me, hot and sharp, lodging beneath my ribs like a hunger pang.
Earth is too far away to hear my last request, but I can't help but feel like I am owed something.
A wry smile twists my lips in the display monitor as I reattach the camera to its fixed perch beside it. "Stratt requested I do this for the others, some time ago," I find myself saying to the lens, exposition for an absent audience. "I'll never understand why she wanted it to be me who asked them, but it only seems fair that I get to do it for myself, too."
Once it's stable, I turn around and climb up onto the back of the centrifuge-configured chair. The gifted quilt drapes over my shoulders like a cape, a shield of luck and fortune. Behind me, the wall of children's artwork sits center frame over my head.
In the end, all the Hail Mary holds now is all that humanity has left to give me. I am, by some miracle, still included among that number.
And so, in concession, I give myself the only thing my selfish heart deems plentiful enough to take as sustenance.
I give myself grace.
So… how would you like to die?
I cast a glance back over my shoulder. From my elevated position, I can see the shape of Rocky's carapace inside the tunnel. Silent and unmoving, low light cracking in halos as it shines through the xenonite around him.
It's the closest thing to the breaking dawn I will ever see again.
Grace best best best thing to happen to Rocky.
Right back at you, buddy.
"I want to die on Erid," I say, something soft and warm in my tone. "In the atmosphere, with Rocky. And if my body gives out before we arrive, the tunnels here will suffice. If I do run out of food, if the taumeoba doesn't work and Erid can't find a suitable substitute…" My fingers trace the raised skin of my right arm, the contrast of scar tissue prominent in the screen's display. "That's it. There's no other end I'd rather face."
The starving gnaw in my heart seems to settle as I say it aloud. He will never agree to it, and I will never ask him to. This is for me and me alone. It was my job to handle the requests, after all.
I log it in my mind, in lieu of a pen:
Aboard the Hail Mary, there is a contained atmosphere of ammonia at 210 degrees Celsius, 29 times the atmospheric pressure of Earth. It is contained within roughly 30 meters of xenonite tunnels, accessible through the use of an airlock in the dormitory. In the case of an emergency, the airlock has a release valve to allow for air flow from the ammonia side. If required, this valve may be opened to initiate atmospheric flow between both halves of the Hail Mary.
And hopefully, like the gun, the heroin, and the nitrogen, it never sees its intended use.