Archive of Our Own

Day 9/10?

Doc says one thing humans and Eridians have in common is that regular dexterous movement (creating something, or in my case, writing something) is good for both mind and body. So now I have to keep a journal.

I don’t have much to say except I’ve been thinking lately that I don’t know if anyone who knew me on Earth would recognize me now. I’m not even sure if I would recognize me. My hair has turned brittle and falls out sometimes. My skin is patchy. Feet are still a little swollen. Today they took more blood to figure out what else I’m low in. I joked that I needed more blood in me, not out of me, but I don’t think they found it very funny.

A lot of these entries won’t be very exciting. I can’t remember most of the last few weeks, and a lot of my days now look the same. They’ve been keeping me in a dark room until they figure out how to make a light bulb that won’t immediately blind me. I have a little flashlight though I’m trying to conserve its batteries. Lately it’s been lots of tests and sleeping, waking up from surgery and then going back in when they realize they’ve missed something. The doctors are always extremely apologetic but I don’t mind. I’m v tired and in pain most of the time anyway so it all sort of blends together.

Day 10/11?

They built me a proper desk and chair today. Also they finally found the right antibiotic treatment on the Mary for my foot, so the swelling is down. I’m sitting up by my own power to write today. Three cheers for inter-species cooperation.

I know this room was the best they could prepare by the time I arrived, so I didn’t want to complain when they’re already going to such lengths to keep me alive. I’ll complain here instead: It’s about the size of that lab closet that I shared with Ms. Sheffield across the hall and smells very strongly of iron. It’s also usually dark, like I mentioned. But otherwise it’s not bad. The walls are cool gray and they brought my bedding from the HM. A lid and a deep, deep black hole for my business. (And when I lift the lid, it doesn’t smell, so that’s a relief.) Even though I called it dark, they do have faint light that comes from panels in walls that glow dull blue, but it’s not really enough to write by. On bad days I feel like I’m trapped in a tank but on good days it feels calming, more like an aquarium. Sometimes Chickenscratch even plays music they found on the Hail Mary’s servers. It even asked me if I have a preference on ASMR sounds from a database it found on the internet archive.

It took a while to get my Circadian rhythm coordinated to the way these new light cycle. (I’ve been wondering, if it’s not based on a 24-hour clock, is it even technically a Circadian rhythm anymore or is it something else? Maybe they’ll call it the Ryland Rhythm one day.)

And there’s no mirror, of course. But I’d stopped looking in Mary’s mirror months before we docked anyway. My hair’s getting long again and I’d like to ask for a pair of scissors but I doubt they’d give it to me. Apparently during my lost week, coming out from anesthesia one time, I didn’t know where I was, and I tried to fight off my dental surgeon by trying to grab someone else’s leg to use as a weapon, which obviously didn’t go well. I’d be mortified, but after Rocky watched me choke down that first batch of Taumoeba all those months ago and then immediately vomit it onto his ball, I don’t think I’ve got any more pride left in me to lose. It really feels like I can sink no lower. But somehow the pit I’m in gets deeper every day.

I’m still very very tired after three naps today. It’s taken me about five sporadic hours to write this much out.

There’s a section of the ceiling high above me that keeps flashing a pale, distant light. Most of the time it’s dark though. I just realized it could be the window I asked for on my first day here.

Day 11/12?

Rocky said there are no trees on Erid, yet here I am writing on paper. I can’t remember what I had in the early months, but I don’t think I ever had free sheets of paper like this aboard the HM. It looks like Earthlike paper but is very smooth. I could be writing on some sawdust analogue, for all I know. I’ll try to remember to ask about it when Doc comes back.

Three more teeth are getting looser. I thought it was just two but when I slurped my daily Tau-smoothie, a third one I’d been worried about moved as well, so I can’t deny I’m going to lose it anymore. I keep having dreams of all my teeth wiggling, and then I wake up and they’re still wiggling and I realize it wasn’t really a dream. I could joke about this stuff with Rocky but it’s hard to use dark humor with my new therapist friend. I don’t want to tell them in a way they’ll worry, so I make jokes. But it’s not even funny to me, it just makes me miserable. And I keep thinking I’m so close, and the right joke will make Doc crack one of these days and then it’ll finally understand what makes me tick and I can talk to it like I do Rocky. But dreams aren’t really a thing with Eridians; Rocky said the closest they have are hallucinations, but those only happen in extreme conditions when an Eridian has been poisoned or is near death. So I don’t want to mention all the other dreams I have of Earth/Rocky/me dying. It will probably think I’m crazy.

I’m trying not to spiral but it’s hard to believe I’m going to last the month, much less a year. Joking about losing all my teeth is easier but I know Doc doesn’t appreciate it because it takes it as an affront to the Eridians’ capabilities, and their investment in my health. It is doing its best, they all are, and me being a wise aleck about my own mortality probably feels like rubbing their failure in their face. But it’s hard not to catastrophize when your own body is falling apart as you’re still living in it, and your teeth are falling out as you’re using them. Maybe they should just make me a pair of dentures so they don’t have to keep wasting money on replacement surgeries.

All this doom-spiraling has reminded of a French saying I once learned about. I don’t remember the exact phrase but in English it means something like “A swallowed bite has no more taste”? or “sustenance”? Meaning that you can save the world, be a big damn hero, but the more time passes, the less people will care. People will forget to danger they were in, and instead wonder why they should bother with keeping this guy around, if the cost is worth it. Eventually they’ll inevitably start to think it might just be better to end his suffering now.

Day 12/13

I keep forgetting to ask about Rocky. He went into decontamination when we arrived and I haven’t seen him since. I think about him all the time but forget to ask because Doc is so focused on my progress when it comes in to talk and then we spend forever talking about me that I get depressed about my current state all over again and pull out this journal to mope about it.

Taumoeba smoothies are a little more potent now. Even though it can’t replace the teeth I lost, it’s been about a week since the latest formula change and I realize I do actually have a bit more energy now. (Crazy how eating food can actually give you energy. You’d think after 40 years, I’d stop being surprised by that.) The smoothies still don’t taste great but I hope after we figure out this cloning business, the next thing on the list is putting something in the smoothies to make it taste “less ass,” as the kids would say.

Today Doc came in with Heather. Heather and I mostly talked about how the latest batch of supplements is being incorporated into my diet while Doc listened. Doc always sits in the corner and listens to me talking with the other specialists, and swoops in if it sees signs of my distress. But anyway, Heather was concerned about stomach or liver issues from too much iron and magnesium. Erid has a lot of magnesium, and have been slowly working that into the Tau-slurry to avoid giving me giving me more diarrhea. They’ve also got a lot of iron, unsurprisingly, but the current dosage is giving me crippling stomach pains since it’s not being digested with real food. But as soon as Heather touched my hand through the glass mesh, it read me and cheered up. It said that I was actually doing much better, internally at least. It reassured me someone is being hired specifically to manage my nutrition, and will be onboarded soon. I’m calling this person my dietitian, but maybe unsurprisingly, that word didn’t translate when I tried to explain it. Eridians’ aversion toward social eating extends even to the discussion of food and topics of gastronomy: They don’t quite have an equivalent, as most people handle their own diets, hence why it has taken so long to find someone with relatable experience, a firm ego, and a (metaphorical) gut strong enough to handle dealing with all my issues.

I keep thinking this whole experience feels like some form of karmic justice for all those years I never went to the doctor. My punishment for this unforgivable transgression is, apparently, to see every single doctor all at once, every single day, for the rest of my life.

I still don’t remember a lot of last week, but at least I’m remembering what’s happening at the end of each day enough to write about it. Doc says I’m not zoning out in conversations anymore. And it keeps asking if I am “hanging in there.” (It really likes that phrase—I think because, once it learned humans’ relationship to apes, it finds the idea of us swinging from trees amusing.) But I didn’t want to unload all the stuff I’d written about in here, so I just said that the lack of real windows can drive a human crazy. I told it some story I once heard about how one time, they did this test drive with window-less subway cars, because windows are useless when most just show dark subway tunnels and station information can be relayed on digital screens in the car’s interior, but without windows, the people inside got so sick and claustrophobic in the trains that they added the windows back and never tried it again. I’m not actually sure if that’s a true story but I think it got my point across. Anyway, Doc said they are working on a window “pronto.” (Maybe Rocky taught it that one because I sure didn’t.) Only after it left did I realize I never considered if I would actually see anything outside a hypothetical window. Probably just darkness.

Day 13/14?

Now that the brain fog has mostly lifted, I’ve been meaning to write down the current cast of colorful characters in my new life. If I meet my early and tragic demise under their care, I want it noted that these people, at least, treated me with respect, dignity, sensitivity, a truly godlike amount of patience and generosity, and also smacked me upside the head with a heavy dose of reality-checking when I got too in my own mind about stuff. I hope none of them are punished or ostracized if I don’t make it out.

• “Doc”: Dark, onyx-like surface, and very symmetrical. Some combination of psychologist, neurologist, counselor, and general wellness advisor, and also sometimes… my secretary? I don’t think it’s an actual doctor for Eridians (in fact, I think only Surgeon might have been an actual Eridian doctor before now). We speak every day. Our talks have become quite pleasant. It has studied a lot of English and Earth culture already and seem genuinely interested in it beyond its job as my caretaker. It might be the first Eridian to become fluent in other Earth languages as well.

• “Chickenscratch”: My other secretary/aide. I don’t see it very often but we talk a lot. I press a button and it will ask over the speaker what I need. Usually it’s just to get more water or to go get Doc. The day I arrived in this cell room, it had written out “HELLO SAVIOR GRACE” on the wall. I think it was very proud of learning a little English, so I didn’t have the heart to tell it I could barely read it. Its handwriting looked like (wait for it) my kids’ chicken-scratch. Sometimes it will call just to ask if I am okay, which reminds me of Rocky checking in on me when I started to get ill. I think its superiors have ordered it to be the one to watch over me as I sleep and generally alert anyone if the human needs attention.

• “Heather”: Golden-brown and medium height. I guess it’s the equivalent of my PCP in that I go to it with most of my in-depth medical questions, but it also seems to be a cardiologist, gastroenterologist, pulmonologist, hepatologist, and a million other things. It knows an awful lot about the human brain too so I suspect it’s gunning for the role of my neurologist as well. All I have to do is mention a symptom and it immediately seems to know what the problem is, like a walking WebMD. Even if it can’t fix every problem, it’s comforting to know someone’s doing their research and I don’t have to explain or justify the human body’s awful design, because even I don’t understand how I work. I call it “Heather” after my late mom’s friend, who was my childhood doctor and had very good bedside manner. The only downside is that it seems deeply worried about cancer at all times (a new concept for them since the Eridians recently learned of radiation), which is why I almost decided to name it WebMD, but had to stop myself because it felt disrespectful. But Heather is probably the one I’d trust most to know what to do if I went into cardiac arrest tomorrow (all respect to Rocky). It seems determined to convince me my body isn’t actually failing me, while also very prepared for what to do if that were the case.

• “Surgeon”: Works with Armando. Tall, skinny, light gray, very angular and precise. Seems like it will handle most of the practical extraction, incision, or surgical work, from dental care to orthopedics to anesthesiology. I just call it “Surgeon” because it’s the last one I see before lights out when I go under. Quiet, does not like to talk, but not in a rude way.

• “Chopsticks”: My cultural ambassador. Perhaps the first ever inter-galactic ambassador? I get the sense it was a local minister before being hastily elected to serve this role as soon as Eridian astronomers realized the Hail Mary was an alien ship, not their returning Blip-A. Gave me a pair of xenonite chopsticks as a gift the day after we arrived, inlaid with gemstones from their own rock garden. The patterns in the chopsticks are beautiful and remind me of Rocky’s mini-me figurine when we first met. I was very touched. Maybe Rocky mentioned chopsticks are a common utensil I use (or did back when I still had cup ramen in stock), and it quickly made some up as a welcome gift. Sadly I can’t risk using them, even if I had something to eat them with—not willing to risk xenon poisoning even in metal form—but must remember to thank. (They also gave me a xenonite spoon, but frankly “Spoon” doesn’t sound as good for a nickname. I suspect they aren’t allowed to give me a fork and knife because the squishy alien is not exactly in his right mind now.)

• There are more but my hand is getting tired.

Today Doc said Rocky is finally through decontamination, quarantine, and has passed all his mental and physical wellness tests. But I’m not sure why I still can’t see him.

(A note about pronouns: Rocky and I talked a lot about Eridian social stratification and classifications on the way here, and while Eridians do have their own series of pronouns, I obviously can’t pronounce any of them. So instead of creating a dozen new words in English, I’ve been making my life easier and just using “it.” I was worried people might be offended I’ve boiled down a dozen of their pronouns to just one, especially when that one is typically used for objects in English, but my cultural ambassador was completely unfazed and assured me nobody would care. I’m still not sure if I’ll ever think of Rocky as anything other than “he”—and I know every gender studies professor back on Earth is probably cursing my name into oblivion for anthropomorphizing him—but every time I meet a new Eridian, I hear my students’ voices in my ear reminding me how uncool I am being, and how disappointed they would be in me for forcing the shackles of Western gender politics onto the very nice aliens keeping me alive. Never let it be said my kids didn’t teach me anything.)

Day 14/15

Apparently this paper is made from marble and limestone. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that. My students used to haze me all the time with stuff like “If you’re so eco-conscious then why don’t you use a recyclable bottle,” and “You should print our notes on recycled paper,” and on and on. I once ended up turning it into a lesson and we spent a whole day discussing whether we might one day be writing on notepads made of CaCO₃ in the future, and then in a fit of youthful inspiration, they all went off and bought stone paper notebooks that I’m not sure they ever used again. I told Doc this story, which might have been a mistake because then we had a very uncomfortable talk about what “sustainability” means and why that’s important for humans. Hard to explain to an alien that has slightly different understandings of values than you do, even different understandings of what resources are. Eridians do understand resource scarcity, and they understand resource guarding*. As a longer-living species, thinking about consequences several centuries ahead is second nature to them. I suddenly got furious and embarrassed when I had to explain things like climate change and oil drilling, all products of human greed and shortsightedness. Felt suddenly ashamed of myself for being human, and for having to explain how we were such terrible custodians of our home.

I didn’t tell it I was upset, but it could tell anyway. I think it thought I was crying at the thought of my planet dying. I, who had helped save Earth and Erid, was so clearly blameless for the irresponsibility of my people back home, that I don’t think Doc realized I could feel ashamed of my fellow man. It reminded me that the danger had passed, and I had sent the cure back home, and I was safe here. It reminded me that I might experience severe mood swings. It must have explained this to me a lot before, but I can’t remember.

The conversation moved on, I think in an attempt to distract me from my emotions. I learned that Eridians don’t use currency in quite the same ways I am used to. I assumed I was costing them quite a lot in both resources and money, but perhaps this didn’t translate correctly. Doc explained xenonite is one form of currency, of course, but other materials are worth different amounts, but it is not a system I can really put into a measurable chart: within different contexts and relationships, the exchange rate of both common and precious metals can vary quite a bit. The long and short of it is that to my ambassador and most of the continent—and according to recent data surveys, most of the whole planet I call Erid—the cost for my upkeep is essentially pennies, to use an Earth term. I was very relieved to hear this. I don’t know if they’ll think the same in 20 years’ time—if I do make it out of this alive—but again, Eridians are long-lived forward-thinkers. Hopefully if there is any regret, by the time it hits, I will be long dead anyway.

Now that I think about it, I vaguely remember Rocky trying to explain Eridian currency to me once (it is unlikely the topic never came up) but I don’t think I remember what he said. I sometimes get a disturbing feeling I might be missing memories not just of my arrival to Erid, but of my time with him. I don’t know how to put to words how upset I am at this and I’m glad the Doc isn’t here to see me crying over it. What we went through wasn’t something I would wish on my worst enemy, but it was also somehow the best time of my life, and I don’t want any piece of it taken away from me.

(*Apparently there is a portion of locals who are worried the human alien has actually arrived to take Eridian resources in return for saving their lives. Hearing about this was actually somewhat reassuring to me, because Doc telling me this means it is now comfortable discussing uncomfortable truths with me—and this apparent protest right outside my dome really makes Erid feel more like Earth, full of people with fears and a home to protect, just like humans. Still, Doc insists they are a minority. I pointed out I am technically taking resources from them: the labor and resources now dedicated to my survival. Doc said again that the cost is negligible and asked me if I feel guilty for this, and I told him no. It is true, but guilt doesn’t truly describe how I feel. I’ll take a thank-you, sure, but it’s like the fanfare came way too late. From my perspective, I saved their planet years ago. It feels a bit like receiving your diploma a decade after it had been lost in the mail. You get bombarded with “Congratulations!” or in this case “Thank you!”s and all you can think is “Oh yeah, I guess I did do that. Wait, how on earth did I manage to do that?” Or worse, “I really hope you’re not looking gonna ask for an encore.”)

Day 16

Apparently it is Day 16, not 15. After the first dental surgery, I slept a full day away and barely remember it.

Anyway, two pieces of surprising good news came today:

• My dietitian has arrived! I haven’t thought of a name for it yet but it introduced itself and said that the first batch of my cloned meat is nearly ready to test. I really tried not to be disturbed by this prospect when Heather suggested it, but ultimately I couldn’t think of anything else, although Heather says they will continue to study human nutrition to consider other alternatives. Cannibalism is less frowned upon in Eridian culture as much as it is viewed with confusion, because I suppose it practically would be so difficult to eat another person. So I had to explain that the thought of humans eating other humans is as disturbing to me as a group meal would be to Eridians, but multiplied times ten, and I think it understood that. Anyway, they have enough of my “me-meat” now (note to self: think of a better name), but it’s being synthesized to add flavor and form different textures. As long as it doesn’t look like my own skin, I think I’ll be able to handle it if I close my eyes.

• The second bit of good news is that tomorrow, I’m getting a bigger cell. (I know I shouldn’t be rude and liken this place to a prison or institution, but let’s face it: It doesn’t exactly pass the burrito test.) In a very ironic turn of events, they are simply making a bigger room around my cell, and once it is ready, these smaller walls will come down, and the moving will be complete. They are essentially doing to me what Carl and I did to find the lost Astrophage, all those years ago.

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Day 17

My new space. Is. Amazing.

Really, it’s just a bigger room, about the size of my classroom back at Grover Cleveland. But it has a “bedroom,” a “bathroom,” and a “living area” to receive guests. There are proper ceiling lights. The bathroom has a sink, a shower, and a toilet (okay, it’s a squat toilet, but it’s still better than before. Did they make a plumbing system just for me?). I took my first shower in weeks today. The water pressure nearly stripped my skin off, but I nearly cried, it felt so good.

The living area has a single large window that looks out onto—you guessed it—mostly darkness, but occasionally I see the odd streak of white light flash across what I think is the sky. Chopsticks said that I was probably seeing the Passerines* and that is how I learned that there is another, semi-intelligent apex predator that calls this planet home. Eridians** are the dominant species on the ground, and Passerines largely control the skies. Occasionally they get into tussles with each other when the Passerines land, but they largely stay out of each others’ way. Chopsticks extended a diplomatic invite for them to meet me, but they were apparently uninterested and more than happy for the Eridians to take responsibility for my welfare, which is honestly fine by me. I feel overwhelmed enough.

So today I did stretches in my “living room” and sat on a “couch” and read a book without my flashlight and washed my hands with running water. I feel a little more human.

*I call them passerines because from Chopsticks’s description, they are birdlike creatures that spend nearly all of their lives in flight. I wish I were a biologist, an ornithologist, hell even a bird watcher, to understand how they might do that.

**Obviously I need a better word than “Eridians” to describe my new friendly, echolocating, five-limbed neighbors, since there many more species on Erid and I can’t call them all things like “Flying Eridians” and “Rocklike Eridians.” Rocky had mentioned the Passerines before but, since they spend most of their time in the air, I get the sense they mostly keep to themselves, and the Eridians of course are terrestrial. The Eridian word for them translates roughly to “Flying Ones” (although Rocky calls them something different that doesn’t translate). For now, as the only native English speaker on the planet, I’ll keep calling my hosts Eridians and I’ll come up with a name for the others later. (It’s every scientist’s dream to get to name something new, but I don’t think anyone expected one lucky stinker would get to name not one or two but FOUR new species in his lifetime. I know, I know, stop complaining, Grace. Still, times like this I wish Stratt had assigned a linguist or anthropologist to the Hail Mary as well.)

Day 18

Rocky came back today! Of course as soon as he came in I wondered why I’d missed the guy, because he was yelling at me “What Grace doing? Grace hurts self! Grace stupid without Rocky!” because “Bad sitting! Bad sitting!” which is his dramatic way of saying I’ve slipped into a bad posture that’s going to hurt my back in the long run. In a way it was very good to have the normalcy of someone being willing to yell at me out of kindness. It was like we were roommates back on the Mary again and I am now the thing he is trying to fix.

Doc quickly gave up on trying to keep the session on track, and just listened to Rocky and me talk for hours. Then Chickenscratch came in too, and the four of us ended up playing Go Fish (we use an old “deck” Rocky had made out of xenonite with raised symbols, so they can read the numbers and suits). Rocky had gotten pretty good at it in our time together, and Doc loved learning an Earth game. I knew it was interested in human stuff, but I get the sense it might have been an academic or perhaps an anthropologist before becoming my babysitter, so Earth games might be my ticket to distracting it from any unpleasant topics in the future. (That reminds me, I still haven’t introduced Rocky to Tetris. Though I know as soon as I do, I’ll lose his attention for months.) Rocky and Chickenscratch are apparently from the same cluster and got into a heated debate about what I believe is some form of sports(?) rivalry. It’s nice to see Rocky yelling at someone other than me for a chance but it’s also nice to see Rocky with other people in general, after so long alone.

Rocky being Rocky, he also outed me in front of my new friends, of course. He asked what names I had given the others, because he’s a nosy little jerk who wanted to see me justify what I was calling everyone, and also show off how much English he knew. Doc was easy to explain, but then I had to be honest about the name I’d given Chickenscratch and why. Turns out I needn’t have worried about its reaction: It was delighted to have been named after an Earth animal, and an Earth idiom at that. “Everyone curious about Earth,” it said. “Friends will be jealous!” It also thought the sound of its name was “weird,” which made it unique and thus doubly enjoyable. It demanded I say it three times and crowed that it was given the most interesting human name of all three of them, which, to be fair, might be true. Rocky heatedly protested this, claiming it had been named after a popular Earth entertainment which was even cooler, and that became another argument.

It’s very good to have him back. I asked him if he’s seen Adrian and he said yes, and Adrian has actually been trying to see me too, but couldn’t get clearance. Apparently there is a massive queue of people submitting requests to meet the alien, and they’re all being rejected, of course. Adrian’s request got swept up in the pile without Rocky to vouch for it. Now that Rocky’s free from his own medical quarantine, he’s going to try to make this meeting happen as soon as possible.

Rocky wanted to stay as long as possible, but he had to leave and rest for his own health. Apparently, even in quarantine, he has been staying awake and working long hours because he keeps sticking his nose into everything the doctors, architects, physicists, climatologists, etc. are doing to make sure I am being treated well. Knowing him, he probably just left to go boss them around, but I hope now that he’s reunited with Adrian, he’s at least sleeping better these days.

After he left, Doc told me Rocky had lobbied hard for the position of my ambassador, but was unsuccessful for several reasons, chief among them that it would be a full-time job he doesn’t exactly have the qualifications for. As much fun as that would be (and I think Rocky is, in fact, more than qualified after three years of living with said alien) I think it might be for the best. I want Rocky to have his own life, and be able to spend time with his loved ones, not forever tied to me. His passion is in engineering and building, not inter-species communication (though he’s certainly good at that too). But he is apparently part of the team working on my long-term habitat, which makes me feel confident I’ll see him again soon.

Now comes the bad news: Apparently I was a bit of a rude guest. After three years, I thought I was halfway decent at communicating with Eridians in a casual setting. I knew I wouldn’t be giving public speeches any time soon, but I thought I knew enough not to offend. Except after Rocky left, Doc explained that in a group setting, most Eridians say each others’ full names* every time they address someone new. The cultural ambassador was supposed to explain this stuff to me, but I get the sense Doc thinks that Chopsticks isn’t doing its job very well, but that’s just a hunch.

Sleep now. Even though they only visited for a few hours, it was a long day.

*The average Eridian has somewhere between five to ten names, sometimes up to sixteen or seventeen, and all of them are sung using vocal chords that I am not capable of mimicking in my wildest daydreams. Absent that capability, the polite thing for me to do would be to restate someone’s name every time I address them, even if I’m “facing” their direction, because not every Eridian understands how human sight works, and so they might not know who I’m speaking to without clarification. I’ll try to remember that.

Day 20

I had another seizure yesterday, which is why I didn’t write. I thought those were over. I’m just now feeling back to normal again.

Heather tried to explain I am actually doing well, and they have managed to stabilize me. My next dental surgery will remove that new tooth I lost and replace the others in one go. But it’s hard to feel optimistic after I vomited up all the Tau-slurry I’d managed to stomach. I don’t even want to write anything today, I’m just tired and miserable again. All this effort, all these people, and yet somehow it feels like we haven’t made any progress at all.

Day 21

Awful day today. It started with another surgery to replace those last teeth. It went fine, but that wasn’t the dramatic part. But I couldn’t speak well the whole day because my left cheek was very swollen, so I mostly wrote out my thoughts and Doc put his English literacy to the test.

Then there was a visit from Chopsticks. It was furious today. Apparently a group of courageous citizens infiltrated the team building my future home and tried to install their own monitoring system, to livestream* the alien’s dome (*livestream isn’t the right word, but they made up some sort of recorder that links up to a less-than-legal monitoring system, as I understand it). I believe most of them were young, which gave me the sense they might have been our equivalent of teen rebels trying to fight the man and uncover the “real truth” about the alien. I told Chopsticks I didn’t want them punished too harshly but obviously that can’t happen again; I feel enough like a zoo animal sometimes it’s hard to remember I’m also a person, not just a thing being kept alive on life support for everyone else’s morale. Chopsticks left and Doc asked if I was OK, and I told it honestly it’s hard not to feel a little like Truman Burbank in here.

Then Doc suggested I swear to release some stress. It asked me for some of my favorite swears and offered to share the equivalent Eridian profanities in return. I wrote that as a teacher, I’d worked hard to remove swears from my system so my kids wouldn’t pick up on my language. It hadn’t known that about me, so it asked me why a teacher was sent to space, and all of a sudden, I was crying again, thinking of Rocky asking me the same thing and all those dumb voices we tested in the tunnel. It tried to cheer me up so it asked me if I’d like to see Rocky again and I said yes. So then they had to call Rocky from across the city and Rocky came and I was so glad to see him but then when I said “Hey Rock” like I normally do, he didn’t understand me because my mouth was so swollen, and I was upset and crying all over again.

Nothing terrible happened. I made no real social blunders and didn’t offend anyone. Yet I feel mortified and burdensome, like I’m wasting everyone’s time here. Rocky spent an hour calming me down and then stayed another two hours longer. I’ve comforted crying kids before, kids who struggle with school or family life, and now I’m the one wishing so badly for an authority figure to tell me things will be OK. Hell, a very childish part of me wishes I could call Stratt to come pick me up and she could deal with all this bullcrap for me. People are uprooting their lives to save mine and we don’t even know if it will work. What if the dome is faulty or there’s a leak? What if it suddenly runs out of power and I suffocate to death in ammonia? What if the dome itself collapses? What if the next time someone infiltrates the architectural team, it’s not a group of punk kids, but a saboteur with real malicious intent?

If I’m not thinking about all the ways I can die due to cardiac or respiratory failure, I’m thinking about ways I’ll die due to mechanical accidents. But I can’t tell anyone that, because they’re trying so hard. I wish Rocky’s voice was enough to calm me down, but if he isn’t, then I don’t know what is anymore. They’re reassuring me every day they’re triple- and quadruple-checking everything, and there are several fail-safe systems in place in case anything goes wrong. Tomorrow I’ll even see the architectural plans. But no matter how much I hear, part of me just doesn’t believe it will work. If Eridians truly are just like us, then they’re also human enough to make mistakes.

Day 22

I met two new people today: the lead architect for my dome and Adrian.

It turns out Adrian is on the building team. On the HM, I had understood Adrian as some sort of architect, but I realize now that isn’t quite the right word. What it does is a mix of drafting work, carpentering, and some other technical work that is way above my head to do with the hydrologic systems. It finally received clearance to say hello to me by bullying its way onto the dome team, which was only tolerated because Rocky had argued yesterday that meeting Adrian would be good for me.

It turns out he was right, as he usually is. Given how much Rocky and I mean to each other, I thought perhaps I’d have to prove myself to Adrian but talking to it is like talking to a friend who I’ve known for ages. Adrian must have learned a lot about me from Rocky already, so it’s a very good conversationalist and doesn’t get put off by all my humor or human eccentricities. I ended up talking to it more than I talked to the head architect, who I think might have been a bit irritated. I didn’t even get to know it well enough to come up with a name for it yet, though I will try to do so by the next time we meet as an apology.

The dome itself will be much bigger than I thought. Not a circle but more of an egg shape: about a mile wide, half a mile tall, and two miles deep. Originally their plans had been ten by ten miles, and then they scaled down to five by five, and then scaled down further to one by two, and the architect begged my forgiveness and hoped that would be enough, as if I haven’t been living in a shoebox for the past month. They also apologized for the weather: They have successfully managed clouds and fog, but not proper warm sunshine that doesn’t risk heatstroke, or rain that isn’t acidic. I told them as a proud San Francisco native, I was perfectly happy living in cool, cloudy, foggy days for the rest of my life.

They wanted to base the geology on beaches I might know, and had already prepared a topographical map that was ready to go; all I had to do was give the word. I saw the diagram, touched the little models, and in my head I’m imagining it looking something like Mile Rock or McClures Beach, where I used to go with my parents when I was a kid.

So my new dome will have fog, sand, cliffsides, and (if they can manage it) trees. I’m still not sure I believe trees could exist on Erid, because they obviously can’t be organic, but at this point, I was deciding not to question it. If they want to have a crack at making xenonite trees, they can have a crack at making xenonite trees.

There was already a little model of my house prepared, with lots of windows. This is so far beyond what I ever expected that I almost don’t want to believe it’s real and get my hopes up. Adrian had initially wanted to build me a bridge as well so I could “admire the view”—a miniature Golden Gate, maybe?—but I had the sense the lead architect is trying to rein in their ambition. Maybe in the future. Utility or transport bridges are not a new concept for Eridians, but sightseeing bridges are, so it would be an interesting challenge for the team.

They ended the meeting by asking if there was anything else I wanted. My head was feeling a bit dizzy at this point and I couldn’t think of anything, so I joked that all I needed now is water that’s swimmable, and they said they’re “already working on it.” They really think of everything.

Doc came in afterward asked if my teeth—and I—were feeling better. I told it yes, and it was true, but I also didn’t know how to explain what was really wrong with me yesterday. I’m feeling fine today, but I can’t guarantee I will tomorrow. These mood swings are really putting a damper on any progress I make. I think it understood I need something it can’t really give me.

Day 23

I may have an idea what my problem is. Yesterday I was in a good mood because it helped me to know the plan and be involved in what’s going to happen to me. On the Mary, it was easy to distract myself from my inevitable demise because I was trying to figure out the Astrophage problem, and traveling to Erid, I had Rocky to distract me, but here, I don’t have a goal other than to survive. Maybe what I want is to be involved in some small way. After all, I didn’t travel 96 light-years just to do nothing for the rest of my life.

Both Doc and Chopsticks visited today to prepare me for travel. I’ll be in some sort of fancy cart? train? thing that they had to modify to have breathable oxygen. So after talking about that, I raised the issue of contributing to my dome in some way.

Doc is on board, but Chopsticks protested. And fair’s fair, I don’t exactly know what I could do. Chopsticks is very concerned I might hurt myself in my condition; I’m on the mend, and the Tau-smoothies are keeping me alive, but still far from a hundred. But Doc said it would try to think of something for me to do without risking my progress. I was very grateful it understood.

Before I went to bed, Chickenscratch cut over the speaker to say goodnight and announce that apparently the first me-meat is almost ready for human taste testing. Can’t wait.

Day 24

Adrian visited again today, this time without its boss. I got the sense it was visiting me without permission. It said Doc had told them I want to be involved in the dome, and it immediately had an idea for something I could help build: a swing.

At first I thought I had misunderstood it. But it pointed to a picture it pulled up online of a real, proper porch swing, and showed me a little sample model it had made, and I realized it was serious. Pillows and bedding would have to come from the Mary, but it sounds doable. Since it can’t build a bridge, it wants to create something else recreational, for fun, not just for utility or aesthetic. I think building something that lets humans “sit in the air” presents it a unique challenge.

I’ve decided I love Adrian. Sure, yeah, let’s build a damn swing in a biodome for the weird alien’s entertainment.

Seeing its excitement for the project, it’s very easy to see how Rocky fell for Adrian. At the very least I’ll be distracted from my anxieties. If I die under some unforeseen structural accident nobody could have prepared for, at least I’ll die with a swing.

Day 25

My dietitian introduced itself today, and visited with (drumroll) my first… me-burger? I’ll have to workshop the name. But it really does look like a burger: a patty inside, surrounded by two “buns.” It doesn’t look great, but at the very least it doesn’t really look or smell like skin. It’s a cliché, but if I close my eyes it does actually smell a bit like chicken.

Apparently my dietitian cooked it themselves, so I’ve decided to call it Chef. So I thanked Chef, apologized in advanced if I vomited, closed my eyes, and took a bite.

It wasn’t as terrible as I thought, but as I chewed, I remembered that I was eating me, and I almost gagged. I had to pretend it was literally anything else—Super Duper, In-N-Out, hell, even McDonald’s—and honestly, that just made me miss home even more, but it did work. I swallowed without upchucking, at least.

Chef didn’t seem offended that I didn’t love it. It asked if I “liked the taste of me,” and I laughed, so at least they got someone with a sense of humor. It said it may not be able to easily change the taste yet, but it can change the form and texture: pasta, soup, pizza, rice, candy, even smoothies. I said I’d be open to anything except the meat-smoothie. Tau-smoothies are enough for me.

Tomorrow, another me-burger and then the day after, bloodwork. Hopefully I’ll show signs of improvement because if not, I don’t know if I can handle everyone’s heartbreak.

Day 26

Adrian snuck in today to get started on the swing. It wants me to work on the chains to start. My work won’t be as good as an Eridian’s, and Adrian could obviously make it much quicker alone, but Doc approved of this because it’s more tactile engagement, so it’s healthy for my hands. (My hands really have ben feeling much better lately, I have better movement and they’re much less swollen, so the writing is doing some good at least.) It reminded me a lot of making the chain with Rocky back on the Mary, except of course it went by much quicker. Rocky likes to chat, but Adrian mostly works in silence.

As we worked, I asked it how Rocky is doing. It said Rocky is very busy helping with my house, namely moving everything from the Mary into my new living quarters, because it knows what I like and how I like it. I’m touched, though I wish he had time to visit me in between because I’d like to see him.

We managed one and a half chains today because my fingers started to ache after a while. There will be four in total. Adrian is going to handle most of the actual construction, including fitting the chains onto the hooks or anything that requires a more dexterous touch.

Another me-burger for lunch, but for dinner, I had… me-dumplings? Me-violi? Me-rogi? They were not half bad, at any rate. Maybe it’s the variety or maybe I’m already getting used to them, but I was pleasantly surprised how tolerable it was.

Day 27

The bad news is that my bloodwork isn’t anywhere near healthy yet. Blood pressure is also pretty bad, so bad that they don’t even want to risk a stress test. The good news, however, is that I’m out of the immediate woods and no longer at risk of active collapse.

Heather, Doc, and I had a long session today about my symptoms and progress. It was only after they went down the checklist, comparing what I’d told them my first day, that I realized I haven’t thought about some of these symptoms in a while, and I was no longer feeling a lot of the pain I did when I first arrived here. My new teeth are sore and I have to chew on one side of my mouth, but other than that, my gums feel much better and are no longer bleeding. The red patches on my skin are fading into pale pink and a lot of my bruises are gone. Most of the swelling is down across the board.

Then they asked me about my mental and emotional health, which was a lot harder to articulate. I’m no longer spiraling about death every day, or at least, not brooding with as much finality, but it’s hard to put to words how it feels to live on an alien planet that’s hostile to everything from your bones to your chemical makeup. Sometimes it feels like their planet wants to kill me, and if someone looks away for just a second, I’ll die a horrible, painful death. I know there are dozens of systems in place to prevent that—Chickenscratch is always there and and they have pre-seizure detection alarms that will go off—but it’s not an easy feeling to shake, even when everyone around you tells you not to worry. It’s like being the only flightless bird in a great migratory flock as you travel across a vast ocean: everyone is putting in shifts to carry your weight, but all it takes is one small mistake for you to tumble to your death.

Heather got very solemn when I said all this. Doc didn’t seem surprised, however. It asked if I would like to see Rocky again, and I said yes, of course, but I didn’t want to distract him from his work. Wild horses couldn’t pull him away when he gets focused on something, and it isn’t like I’m unappreciative of the effort he’s putting into making my home nice. I told Doc if it talked to Rocky soon, I’d appreciate a visit.

Day 28

Adrian and I finished the second and most of the third chain today. It went much faster now that I’ve learned how they work.

If all goes well, the day after tomorrow, I’ll move into the dome. This is a lot sooner than I thought, but maybe one day I’ll be stop being surprised that Eridians work much faster than humans. My home is apparently nearly complete, but the lighting and temperature still need tweaking.

Day 29

I don’t know how to explain what happened today. It was such a nothing argument. We’ve never argued about something so stupid before. It was like a whirlwind, I still don’t entirely think I know what happened.

Rocky and I fought today. He came not because Doc told him I wanted to see him, but because Adrian told him I’d been helping it build my home a swing. That already upset me, because he knows how much I look forward to his visits, so the thought that he’d visit not when I ask, but to come pick an argument, already set a bad tone for me.

I asked why the swing mattered, and it said “Grace and Adrian stupid crazy foolish dangerous” and on and on and on. It was like back when he first barged onto the Mary, just an avalanche of criticisms. It was made worse because we’re no longer using the electronic voice, and at times he was speaking too fast for me to follow. After I told him to calm down and use his words, he explained that Adrian wanted to attach the swing in a tree located on one of the high cliffs, which is just below an air vent for the dome: It would be susceptible to sudden winds, and Rocky insisted they could knock me off the cliffside. This would be extremely unlikely given Erid’s gravity, but I said I didn’t have to have the swing up there; it could be down on the beach, for all I cared. But Rocky just went off about how the water also wasn’t ready, it still needed adjusting because it was too hot, and I’d fall in and boil alive. I told him I haven't lost so much weight I would fly off at the slightest breeze, and he told me I didn’t understand because things weren’t ready and I shouldn’t be moving in yet anyway and nobody was listening to him, and I couldn’t understand because I’m not an engineer like he is. That’s when I got a bit angry. I think he was arguing to argue, or tell me off, and granted I’m not as good with my hands as he is, but braiding some rope is well within my capabilities, and besides which, it’s helping me to have a project.

But Rocky insisted he knows me best, and he wants to wrap me in cotton wool and not let me overexert myself. He insisted I’m still tired and weak—which is true—and I might make mistakes and the rope might snap and I’d fall while using the swing and break my neck. I told him Adrian is checking all my work, and then I snapped just because he lived with me on the Hail Mary doesn’t mean he knows everything I’m capable of. Rocky insisted he does, and then we just went around in circles for a while till he stormed out.

Like I said, a nothing argument. I don’t know how to put it to words. I don’t think he’s really angry just about the swing, but maybe that Adrian and I were doing something behind his back, and his perfectionism is making him a bit controlling about the rest of it. Maybe he’s jealous—it’s not the first time I’ve wondered that, but it doesn’t seem fair, when he chooses to spend so much time away from me. He doesn’t get to make demands of what I do in my time away from him. Heck, I’ve asked to speak to him, and he’s busy. If he wants my attention, I’m right here. It’s not like I can go anywhere.

Day 30

My architect visited again, this time without Adrian. Heather accompanied it. They’re both prepared to move me into the dome tomorrow.

I was shocked because I didn’t think it’d be ready this soon. I did wonder why Rocky was so anxious about the dome not “being ready” and now I know why: It’s completely functional, but they’re just putting in the finishing touches, and Rocky is apparently the lone voice who wants to wait to move me because he wants it to be perfect, but everyone else thinks I should decide since a lot of them know I’ve been going a little nuts cooped up in here. My architect (who I’ve decided to name Dorset, because of the inspiration it took from the Durdle Door rock formation in Dorset, England) said that we can do a “test run” tomorrow if I want, where I see it first and make suggestions, then return to my current apartment. But given the travel distance, I don’t think I’d be able to make two trips in one day without getting exhausted, so if I spend the night, I might as well stay permanently. If my new home is livable, I think it’d be better to just move once, and they can make tweaks as I request them. Rocky may not like it, but sometimes Rocky isn’t as correct as he thinks he is.

I’m weirdly nervous. I haven’t moved in a long time (in a traditional sense, anyway), so now I’m fighting this niggling sense that I’m forgetting something. I’m never going to come back here, but it isn’t like they can’t bring something to me later. But mostly I want to see Rocky again before I leave, to clear the air. It’ll be a long trip and I have this weird sense if I leave here, he won’t know where to find me. Which is stupid, because I know he’s been working on my house, and that’s part of why it’s so hard for him to make regular trips to come back and see me. Maybe we can talk at the dome and clear the air.

Day 31

Moving day.

I’ve packed up the few things I have here, but there’s not much I can’t replace. Just a toothbrush, my notebook and pen, a few books, the flashlight, and a few changes of clothes. But all of that’s going to go in a bag and will meet me when I get there.

Chopsticks is going to travel with me on the train today, and then Dorset and some others will give me the grand tour. After that I’ll hopefully collapse on my new bed and fall into a deep sleep where I can pretend I’m somewhere where life makes sense. But either way, I’m going to be exhausted at the end of the day, so I’ll write late tonight or tomorrow if I’m really tired.

I said goodbye to Chickenscratch today. It came inside my apartment and we played Go Fish one last time, just the two of us. Then it said it wanted a human hug, so I obliged. I asked what it’s going to do next and it said school will be in session soon, and I said I didn’t realize it was a student. It corrected me: It is actually a teacher, like me. An anthropology and sociology professor specifically—how did I not know that after a month? I realized I’ve been a bad conversation partner, talking about only myself all this time, but it seemed too late to make up for this. I wished it well with the semester and it said maybe we could meet again one day and compare pedagogical styles and lesson plans. All this time they’ve all been learning about me and I’ve been moping in my room. It just now occurred to me I could be using this time to learn from them as well. What kind of scientist doesn’t make the most of his time on another planet? An arrogant one, that’s who. Of course I’ve been preoccupied, but dying is no excuse. I was dying before and still saved the galaxy with Rocky; there’s always more to do, more to research, more to see.

Day 33

It’s been an exhausting few days. I almost forgot to write.

The biodome is more than I ever thought possible. I stopped and stared for a full five minutes when I walked in and saw sand and the wide, rolling “ocean.” There is a light system high above that simulates Earth’s sun. It also feels much bigger than one by two miles, although the fog helps obscure the dome panels in the distance. I haven’t walked the full length of the beach but I don’t feel the urge to rattle my bars just yet. Just getting to hear waves and wake up to “sunlight” has added years to my life.

The “trees” are metallic, like I expected, but what I didn’t expect was how incredible they’d look. They’re works of art. There aren’t many of them, but each is large enough I can’t wrap my arms around the truck. While they don’t look arborescent up close, they still give shade, and there’s a bench underneath each for me to sit. And the leaves! There are millions of woven xenonite “leaves” on each tree. Apparently the leaves were a collective project from the locals, and schools have pitched in to let their students each craft a leaf on one of my trees. I thought about how back on Earth, elementary classrooms will create those large paper trees for the kids to add their leaves to, so they can write down their goals for the year, and then I was thinking of all the Eridian kids outside my dome who put so much effort into their leaves, wanting me to live with something beautiful, and how disappointed they’d be if I bit it. They’re rooting for me, so how can I let them down? Now I want to live for a bunch of kids I’ve never met, even if it’s to spite myself.

As for my house, where do I even begin. It’s a bright cottage with beautiful floor-to-ceiling windows and light cream walls, nothing like the dark apartment I was in before. I’m no real estate agent but I know prime seaside property when I see it. There’s natural sunlight in every room and the cloth—curtains, bedspreads, blankets, and more—all repurposed from the Mary. Heck, there’s even a chessboard with beautiful xenonite pieces. Armando has already been moved into the sitting room with the coffee machine so I can wake up every morning with a cup of decaf. There are no stairs, and the slopes down to the beach are easy for my bones to manage. Dorset has gone above and beyond.

(The only funny thing is that there is no door to the bathroom, or any doors inside, really. The only door is at the front of the house. I suppose I don’t really need one either way, but it reminded me of old locker room bathrooms back in high school. At least I’ll never have to stand next to someone at a urinal again as long as I live.)

As they gave me the tour, I had the sense that I will never leave this place. This is where I will die. My body might even be buried and preserved here forever. But instead of panic or melancholy, I just felt at peace knowing where I will end up. Instead of drifting alone in space, this is a very beautiful place to spend eternity, surrounded by friends, or at least comrades who I know did their absolute best to save me.

I still haven’t heard from Rocky. I know he’s stubborn, but I can’t stand the thought that after years of living together, our friendship has strained over this small, insignificant hurdle. Who cares about a swing? He has the freedom to walk away for good, but I’ve got the rest of my life in here, and all I can do is wait.

Day 36

It’s been a few days of rest and, dare I say, relaxation. They’re letting me get accustomed to my new home, only bothering me with medical tests when it’s necessary, and I’m grateful. I’m slowly making it farther and farther down the dunes, up into the cliffsides, and back again, although I do need to take frequent breaks on those benches under the trees. Usually Doc accompanies me and we talk about my mental health, but sometimes we talk about nothing, which is also fine. I think we’ve got a good push-and-pull now that he knows when to ease up on a topic. I also know he can’t fix everything, but it at least helps to get it out.

Adrian says that Rocky is still being a brat about the swing. I’m really not sure what’s got into him, if even Adrian can’t make him see reason, but it does feel validating to know we’re on the same side in this. I tried to delicately ask Adrian if it thought perhaps Rocky was jealous that we had a project together, but Adrian said no. I’m not sure if I’m convinced—the Rocky Adrian knows isn’t quite the Rocky I think returned to Erid—but I didn’t push the issue. One concession Adrian made was to move the swing to the deck instead of up on the cliff. The deck is a short walk from my house, a large patio that works as reception spot for any guests who might want to visit me, but also doubles as a relaxation area if I ever want a change of scenery. There is a low human seat for me, stone “cushions” for any guests, and a round low table that’s mostly for my comfort, but they have reminded me to eat there only when I am alone, not with other people. Right now I’d be perfectly happy if I never left my house, but it’s nice to have options.

Day 37

Today I asked Dorset if it could make two graves, for Yáo and Ilyukhina. It asked for the dimensions, the depth, the materials, and I said I would have to get back to it. I’m not sure of their heights, but at any rate, I think the size of the graves didn’t really matter. Maybe I should’ve asked for two headstones instead.

In the afternoon, Adrian and I began installing the porch swing on the deck. The “seat” itself is mostly made, and the ropes are done.

That night, after the lights went dark, I saw two large streaks of light out the window and heard a loud, booming cry; it almost sounded like a pterodactyl mixed with a whale. I think those might have been Passerines passing by over my dome. I went outside to see them but they were gone. I just sat in awe for a few minutes, wishing I’d been quicker.

Day 39

My me-meals are getting more diverse in texture, if not in taste. Today I had “pancakes” for breakfast, a “burrito” for lunch, and “fish and chips” for dinner. It’s all the same of course, just refolded and hit with different types of hammers. They’re trying to process synthetic flavors so maybe one day I’ll have my choice between sweet and savory me-meats. Maybe even desserts, but they’ll have to get it to work with the Tau-smoothies, because I am not sure I’d be able to stomach me-flavored ice cream. Chef wants to research to see if the Astrophage could be safely digestible for me because if so, its energy may help with my stamina and work as a calcium replacement. I’d never considered that, although I’m sure some people on Earth probably have. I wonder if Stratt has or had a team dedicated to researching Astrophage bromatology to try to solve the hunger crisis.

Adrian hasn’t been by in a few days, which is strange, because we were just about to wrap up the porch. It bothers me for it to just be sitting there like an unfinished project.

Today Heather said I needed to face the facts and accept I need a cane. I’d rejected it in the past but it showed me on an X-ray how my bones are feeling the strain, and explained I need to accept that my stamina may never go back to what I’m used to. It’s gotten bolder about my healthcare and more direct about insisting it knows what I need, no longer concerned about hurting my pride. It’s a little hard not take it personally when it calls me out for overestimating myself—it seems to have learned “Grace crazy” from Rocky—but I know it’s right. If I want to last here for a long time, I can’t pretend like I’m on Earth, as much as it might look like it. It said a cane would be dropped off in the morning.

Day 40

Rocky came with Chopsticks today. At first I was surprised and hurt why he didn’t come himself so we could clear the air, but then he came with apology gifts: two headstones for Yáo and Ilyukhina. Apparently he had made them himself after my request to Dorset; maybe he knew I didn’t really need full graves, just a place to lay them to rest. Chopsticks wanted to be there as the cultural ambassador and so that’s how I ended up standing up on the cliffside, giving eulogies again for two people who deserved to be here just as much as I did. I tried to list all the things I remember about them but my memory is still patchy. I’m sure I missed some things. I wished I’d saved their photos and personal items and buried it all here, instead of ejecting it into space with them, where they’re now lost forever.

I was kind of crying hard again by that point, so I couldn’t continue. Then Rocky surprised me by saying something. He said “Thank you for being company of friend Grace. Brave humans save stars. Brave humans always welcome on Erid. Rocky grateful, grateful, grateful. Sleep-death greatest tragedy among Eridians. Will watch over human friends resting here long, long time.”

At first I thought he meant he and his people would watch over me when I slept here, to make sure no harm came to me. Then I realized he had said “friends” plural—meaning he and his people would watch over their graves too, long after I’m gone. I felt in that moment things were going to be OK. With us, with the planet, with how it all shakes out. No matter what happens to me, even when he’s upset with me, I just feel so much braver when he’s around.

After the funeral, the three of us sat around the deck and talked for a long while about a lot of things. Chopsticks told me several thousand people would like to interview me and Rocky told me not to talk to any of them, so sorry journalists, what he says goes. But we also talked about what my future might look like here. In some ways, I’ve been waiting for this conversation for a long while. Now that I am out of immediate danger health-wise, Chopsticks said that there have been several human-rights advocates arguing that keeping me trapped here for the rest of my life violates my autonomy as a sentient being. I told it that I was perfectly fine spending the rest of my life here and happy to put that “in writing,” which of course confused it and Rocky had to explain paper contracts and tell me that was not necessary, as Eridians have better memories that humans and don’t need paper to remember things like this. I also am not exactly ready at the moment for getting my skin tattooed or carved up to signify any promises, so we’ll just have to treat this journal like proof of my word.

Chopsticks then asked if I wasn’t interested in interviews, if I might be interested in speaking to fellow scholars and academics about, well, anything. They’re learning a fair bit from the databanks on the Hail Mary, but having a human to explain anything that doesn’t translate would help a lot. Chopsticks said several seminars are already planned in case I said yes, and if I agreed once, this might be something I would do for the rest of my life because Eridian academics are relentless and won’t abide by me giving preferential treatment to one group over another. I told him I knew the type, because I was one once upon a time.

Then Rocky asked if I could teach again too. Not fellow academics, but Eridian children. I laughed until I realized he was serious. I told him I couldn’t, and he said I could learn. I suppose he’s technically correct, but all my teaching credentials and old lesson plans were tailored around how young human brains work, not Eridians. He said “Grace can save stars and adapt to Eridian environment and Eridian friends but no adapt to Eridian children question?” And I suppose he has a point. I’m very rusty though because it’s been years since I’ve taught and I really would not want to screw this up. Imagine the embarrassment if you bring home an alien who says he’s a teacher and it turns out he’s not even a very good one.

Chopsticks said it would look into the teaching thing for now but it wasn’t sure if it was very likely. Suddenly its skepticism made me want to do it even more, which I guess is very typical of me. Even if I don’t end up doing it, it’ll be nice to be in the presence of other academics again. I keep trying to remember this whole thing is a learning experience not just for them but for me too.

Then Chopsticks left, and I finally had Rocky alone. I asked Rocky if he could stay for a while, and he said yes, and then to my surprise, he said he wanted to finalize the swing with me. Adrian had OK’d it. I think it must know both Rocky and me need the time together.

Rocky and I talked for a long time. It was almost like back on the Mary. He said seeing me in pain is very difficult for him, so when we landed on Erid, he wanted to do everything he could to make sure I was getting the best treatment possible. Apparently to him, this meant—and I say this fondly—sticking his nose in absolutely everything: reminding the medical team about all my allergies, telling the dome team all about the climate and landscapes of NorCal beaches, arranging my furniture the way I like it, and on and on.

I told him I appreciated his attention to detail but I really just wanted to see him more often. I’ve made my peace that my life on Erid won’t be perfect. Then I asked what it was about the damn swing that pissed him off so much. And apparently my gut was half right—it was partly jealousy but also partly cultural blunder on my part. I had forgotten that in all our talks about Eridian culture, agreeing to “weave” a project with someone is a very, very big deal, even if my role in the swing was relatively small and Adrian did all the hard work. Adrian had meant it as a welcome, a thank-you, an offer of friendship, a chance to get to know each other, and possibly even more, and I had no idea. (Well that’s not true. I guess I did have some idea, as Adrian and I have grown quite close. Maybe I picked up on enough to get the gist.) Rocky said that it wanted my first project on Erid to be with him, and Adrian thought he was being ridiculous, since we had already completed so many projects together on the Mary, like the chain and the breeding tanks and the first English-Eridian dictionary. But Adrian let Rocky and I complete the swing now as a gesture of goodwill, so I guess now it belongs to all of us.

Rocky also said it was weird to see me talk to others when he visited me, and he realized I had changed, that I was no longer the Grace he knew, and that scared him. I asked him what he meant and I struggled to understand him a little bit here—apparently my speech patterns have already changed since arriving on Erid, meeting people where they’re at, and Rocky pointed out I’ve already developed individual ways to talk to each of them. This surprised me, but I guess maybe it shouldn’t have. I’ve met a lot of new people since landing. Only when he said that did I realize I really have got a new, little community here on Erid, and soon it will grow even bigger.

I told him none of that meant I saw them as a replacement for him or what we’ve been through. He knows he will always be my favorite Eridian, heck, my favorite person. I’ve grown so used to him that I think about his opinion on nearly everything, like he’s my true north. I think he got a bit bashful? embarrassed? when I mentioned that. I think Rocky can still be very proud, or maybe it was easier in space but on returning home, he felt like our relationship is something he has to defend or protect. Me, I don’t think it’s that fragile, but I can’t deny this transition hasn’t been weird and challenging, probably in ways I may never appreciate for him.

By this point, we had attached the last chain to the hook and Rocky attached each to the ceiling. I added the pillows and pushed myself up onto it, and man, you don’t know how good it feels to rock on a swing until you’ve lived on a planet with two times the gravity as Earth. I sat criss-cross applesauce just so I could feel weightless for a moment. Then Rocky fashioned himself a stepping stool and joined me up on the swing. I pushed us using my new cane, and Rocky loved it.

It’s been a long day. I still feel death breathing down my neck but it’s more like a whisper these days. It’s getting easier to feel grateful every morning instead of dread. Something like this, all the things I have, shouldn’t be possible, yet here I am, and here he is.

Day 65

I’ve been thinking about Stratt lately. Mostly just about what she’s up to right now, if she or even Carl are still alive. It’s so frustrating not to know for sure what happened to everyone. Is anyone I knew in my life still alive? Has the sun cooled faster than expected? Are they all dead now? Was I too late to send the beetles back? There’s no way of knowing. Maybe in about 20 years we’ll be able to see if Earth’s sun has brightened at all—I’ll have to help Eridian astronomers track that—but I’m also telling myself I need to make peace with the possibility I’ll never know the fate of life on Earth. For all I know I’m the last living human. If all I could save was one planet, that has to be good enough. Life survives here on Erid, and mine with it, so I have to make a home here, not just for myself but for everyone, Yáo and Ilyukhina and Rocky and all the Eridians who put so much work into this impossible project.

Maybe I should try being optimistic. If we found a way to keep me alive here, then maybe they found another way to stop the Petrova Line back on Earth. For all her faults, Stratt will stop at nothing to do what she thinks could save the planet, so I’m sure she hasn’t been just sitting on her hands all this time. Of course if she found another solution, it would kind of kill the drama of calling ours “Project Hail Mary,” but it’s somewhat comforting to think she’s still out there trying.

I’ve really lapsed in my journaling lately because of my new schedule. Doc and Heather have both been insistent I walk every day up the cliff and back to help my blood flow. I’ve also started PT to help my bones. My skin is mostly back to normal, though some parts might be rashy for a while, possibly forever. A few weeks ago I cut away all the wiry strands of hair, so it’s growing in soft again, although some parts are more pale blond than dirty blond now. I told Rocky and the others that hair pigment can change over time and they were amazed by this.

Rocky visits almost daily. When he can’t, Adrian or one of the others comes instead, but it’s usually him. He loves to come early, before I leave the house, so he can knock on the door he made me—turns out he insisted on making that piece himself. I think knocking on the door reminds him of when we met back in the tunnel. I could be reading into things but the window he added in the door always reminds me of that small window back in the tunnel through which I saw him for the first time.

What else… The Passerid flybys are indeed a regular occurrence. (I’ve decided to call them Passerids, after Passerine+Erid. Not very creative, but I’ll remember it.) They aren’t loud enough to wake me up but sometimes I see them streaking overhead from my window and it feels like I’m watching airplanes back home. Fortunately they’re much quieter than aircrafts, aside from the occasional caw. Rocky thinks they are awfully distracting, as he finds their vibrations annoying and he hates it when they leave droppings on the dome because they’re very difficult to clean up. I have to remember Eridians can't see their flight paths the way I can, so understandably a silent visit from them is more irritating than interesting when you can’t watch the view. Maybe one day their caws will become such a regular annoyance to me as a thunderstorm waking me up in the middle of the night, but right now, the sight of something flying in the sky is familiar enough to stave off homesickness while different enough to feel slightly magical.

I’ve had two seminars with fellow biologists so far, and another one planned with a group of astronauts and astronomers later this week, including astrobiologists and xenobiologists, a new field for Eridians. To say they’ve been illuminating is an understatement. I feel like I’m in undergrad again with how much I’m learning: about Eridian physics, molecular biology, genetics, etc. I sometimes feel like I’m the underprepared new kid Stratt just shoved to the lecture podium again, because I’m not always sure how my knowledge of Earth microbiology will help them here, but I’m always reminded over the course of the session these people are nerds like me. They ask a thousand questions and want a million answers. They even love to hear about the science puns on my shirts. Eridian scientists really are in it for the love of the game.

Including me, I should probably say. I suppose I’m an Eridian too now.