Chapter Text
Rocky
As the Hail Mary’s spin drives engage and we start to accelerate, I reach towards Adrian. They hold out a hand and we come together. It still feels right.
I’m relieved to be leaving Tau Ceti. I never want to see the Blip-A again. I spent years in its silent, dead heart, and that was bad enough. But then the Taumoeba, which was supposed to save us all, devoured my fuel and left me drifting, alone and hopeless a second time.
I tried so many solutions. Nothing worked. I had failed again, after coming so close. Until one day, when I had given up, a miracle: Grace returned out of the stars, the Hail Mary whole and full of fuel. He gave up his chance to go home so that he could save Erid. I don’t understand why he still calls himself a coward.
I can’t wait to tell his planet that they sent their very best human to Tau Ceti. And then I’ll make it clear that I will never forgive them for the way they did it.
I never imagined I would have that chance, until a new Eridian ship appeared with a healthy crew and (amaze amaze amaze!) my incredible mate on board. Erid didn’t bother naming our first spaceship, so Grace called it the Blip-A based on the Hail Mary’s proximity alert. But when Erid built a second ship to learn why we never came back, they named it Ship Two. Grace and I call it the Blip-G.
Adrian says that neither of us are good at names.
With this new ship ready to bring the Astrophage solution to Erid, Adrian and I decided to join Grace on his return to Earth. Someone needs to watch him sleep and prevent the humans from hurting him when we arrive. He claims they won’t, but he also told me that they forced him into a suicidal space mission, so I think my caution is reasonable.
The Blip-G is on its way to Erid now, bearing the Taumoeba that will save our star. It was hard hearing the crew disappear into their ship for the last time, as they are the only Eridians Adrian and I will meet for many, many years. Once we could no longer hear them, Adrian keened softly in loss. I know what it is like to lose your last ties to home, so I clasped them tight and hummed soothing chords until our joined voices filled the emptiness.
Still, the prospect of Earth makes me shiver with excitement. Adrian and I will be the first Eridians to explore another planet! There will be so much to discover. Maybe we can even start diplomatic relations with humanity. I will leave that to Adrian. They are much better at dealing with people. I am too impatient and, according to Grace, too bossy. And I am not sure I will be able to refrain from hurling myself at Eva Stratt, if I ever meet her.
Gravity increases as we accelerate away from Tau Ceti. Towards Sol. Towards a new world.
Grace
So I have two alien roommates now.
Or maybe not roommates... road trip buddies? Space pals?
It’s going pretty well, but we’re only two weeks out from Tau Ceti. There’s still plenty of time for us to drive each other nuts.
There’s always an adjustment period as you learn to live with other people, and the Eridians are... a lot. Adrian is trying to be polite, but can’t repress their curiosity about humans. “Why Grace body make popping noise when stand up, question? Why Grace growl while asleep, question?” (Which is a weird way to find out I snore, for the record.) Rocky, on the other hand, didn’t magically learn about boundaries during our weeks apart. He’ll find me in the lab working on a project, or in my bunk reading, and order me to check our trajectory, to inspect the Taumoeba farms, to move another box.
Plus they always, always know exactly where I am and what I’m doing. Their hearing is basically a superpower. (Are they real-life Daredevil? Do Eridians have superheroes who can see? I make a note to ask.) I constantly feel observed, like there’s an itch on the back of my neck.
Most of the time I am overwhelmed with gratitude and relief that Rocky and Adrian are on this journey with me, but I do worry about how we’re going to handle the next four years.
After all, the Hail Mary’s original crew was put into comas to reduce the risk that we would kill ourselves or each other from the stress of being stuck in a tin can on a suicide mission. I have to hope that removing the suicide element will be enough to keep us sane and murder-free.
Sure, I could put myself into a coma again and skip all that pesky interpersonal drama, but the thought terrifies me. I never found out what went wrong and caused Yáo and Ilyukhina’s deaths, which means the same thing could happen to me. Maybe I should investigate it now. It’s not like I’m short on free time.
But there’s a more personal fear, too. Ever since I remembered how I was forced into this mission, a horror has been lurking in the back of my mind. Sharing the story with Rocky brought it out of the shadows and made me confront it in a way that I had been avoiding. Now, I often wake up screaming from dreams of hands on my back, a needle in my neck, grass under my fingers, my vision fading to black. In those dreams I’m begging and crying and trying to make someone understand that they are murdering me, but it never makes a difference. It never changes the ending.
Sometimes just slipping into sleep is enough to remind me, and as I feel myself sinking into unconsciousness I will suddenly jerk upright in panic and rub my neck to make sure there’s no syringe. There is no sleep for me on nights like that.
These episodes upset Rocky and Adrian almost as much as they wreck me, but my friends still make sure that one of them watches me sleep every night. I am pathetically grateful: after reliving that memory, waking up alone on the Hail Mary might put me over the edge.
I’ve never been brave. I think I’d rather do just about anything than face another coma.
Even if it means putting up with Rocky bossing me around for four years.
Rocky
Grace is loud loud loud.
How did I never notice that before? Was I just too focused on our task, or too happy to have company? He mutters to himself as he works, he taps his fingers when he thinks, he breathes all the time. I can hear the way his stomach digests his food (disgust disgust disgust) from anywhere in the ship.
Normal Eridian sounds and shapes fade into the background until there’s something we need to notice. My brain instinctively filters that input. But Grace is completely alien, so his presence is a constant stream of data that I’m subconsciously assessing for threats.
Worse than Grace’s natural sounds, worse than any sound, is the noise he makes when he wakes up remembering his abduction. (He doesn’t call it an abduction, but how else should I label being overpowered, drugged, and transported against his will?) When that happens, he screams and screams until his voice is shrill, desperate, raw. Sometimes there are words and sometimes he’s too frightened to form words, and it’s just an animal keening. It feels like I’m being smothered by the sound.
It’s worse than when the Hail Mary spun out of control and Grace lost consciousness, starved for air and crushed by gravity. That was awful, but silent. And I could help him then. Now, in these episodes, I hear Grace die again and again. And I can’t do anything but listen. I tell him he’s safe, but he can’t hear me. He’s locked in his own mind.
I watch Grace sleep most nights because I want to spare Adrian from these fits. Not that it makes much difference: they can hear everything anyway.
Compared to that, I know that the everyday noises Grace makes should not bother me. Usually they don’t. Most of the time, I like to hear the sounds of his life around me: they remind me that he is safe and that I’m not alone. I especially appreciate them when Adrian is sleeping and silent. But sometimes I just want to stop noticing him, to turn off my awareness of his strange and leaky human body.
Like right now. He is shaving the hair off his face as he does most days, and I can hear the razor scratch and the hairs fall and his breath hitch as he nicks the skin. It’s overwhelming and I know Adrian is even more on edge as they sift through a cacophony of new sounds.
Grace isn’t doing anything wrong (though I wonder why humans grow hair only to remove it), and he does try to make it easier for us. When he can, he takes his meals while Adrian or I are sleeping so that we don’t need to hear every time he eats. He even apologizes when his body makes a particularly leaky sound and stops tapping his fingers when he notices.
Maybe we’ll get used to it and eventually Grace’s human noises will register as a background hum. I try to comfort Adrian with this idea when they are over-saturated with sensory input.
“Or maybe you can make a solution,” says Adrian one day. “What about installing a sound blocker?”
That’s my smart smart smart mate! On Erid there are spaces for eating which are nearly soundproof. I could try to build sometimes similar here, so that Adrian and I can take a break from the sounds. It would require a lot of xenonite and it’s not my specialty, but I know the theory.
A sound blocking room might benefit Grace too. I know he’s uncomfortable with the fact that Adrian and I are aware of him anywhere on the ship. He might appreciate if there are times when we can’t hear him. Humans need privacy and personal space, he told me soon after I first moved into the Hail Mary. Back then, filled with joy at having someone to talk to after so long, I didn’t understand what he meant. Now I think I do.
I consider possible privacy room designs as I go to find Grace. He hasn’t checked the Taumoeba farms yet today. We can’t risk another escape, so I make sure he monitors them. He needs a lot of supervision; he is brilliant in many ways, but his memory is deficient.
I can hear that he is in the lab. That’s good. He can inspect the Taumoeba right away.
“Hi Grace! Time to check the Taumoeba farms!”
He groans, which I think means he’s frustrated at himself for forgetting again. Luckily he has me to remind him.