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Why does he speak to us like we are children?
Eva Stratt blinks. At her side, Grace trails off in his introduction of Astrophage and spin drives, hands still mid-air in what she supposes is the universal gesture for “little engine that could”. She feels him turn to her, brow furrowed. Not offended (never offended). Confused. It takes a second for Stratt to realize Commander Yao had interrupted in Mandarin, and Grace had not understood.
For the better.
He had lost sleep over the selection of these astronauts the past few weeks. Stratt had wanted him to help her identify the most qualified. Grace had agonized, hemmed and hawed over glowing application letters and resumes piled high with credentials, awed and humbled, not by those credentials, but by their willingness to die for Project Hail Mary (for humanity, Stratt reminds him time and again).
Where Stratt sees a dedicated, competent crew, she knows that in his mind, Ryland Grace holds each and every candidate high on a pedestal.
Stratt introduces him to the newly assembled Hail Mary crew as the leading world authority of Astrophage biology, which he is. She stands by as he swallows the liquorice dangling from his lips and tries to hide his shirt – apparently featuring an obese cat – under his lab coat as he comes over to greet them.
Yao stares at Grace, bemused. Shapiro is amused. Iluyukhina has a smile on her face, and Dubois listens intently, completely oblivious to the fact that Grace had reverted to middle-school teacher mode.
No matter, Stratt replies smoothly in Mandarin, you get used to it.
Grace follows the exchange with his eyes. Polite. Still confused.
“You’re doing great,” she whispers, as she herds the group over to Komorov and his spin drives.
“What?” Grace whispers back, bewildered. Because that really is the appropriate response to you’re doing great, when he hadn’t done anything at all. And it is ever the only thing Stratt can think to say to him when she’s sprung another meeting, another deadline, another problem on him, when she can see him shutting down before he’s even started. Words of encouragement, and all that, and she has no time to come up with anything more creative.
It can’t be all that effective. Even in her mind the words sound stupid. But maybe it is enough. Because Stratt has thrust enough surprises at him to know that eventually, he finds a way.
Stratt takes a backseat as Komorov demonstrates the spin drives. Grace stands behind him, and she watches as he blows up a latex glove. It inflates like a ridiculous blue turkey-shaped ballon, as Komorov explains Astrophage’s energy potential. He releases the air as Komorov talks about engine thrust.
The astronauts don’t notice this time, but Stratt does.
Another childish display, Commander Yao would probably point out.
Sure, Grace has all the goofiness of a seventh-grade science teacher (and on occasion the maturity of a seventh grader). The kind that hangs Styrofoam models of solar systems on the ceiling and keeps molecules of plasticine and toothpicks on his desk. Stratt has seen his classroom, after all.
Yao could not be faulted for not recognizing Grace’s teacher mode. Stratt had not been familiar with it either. They had both been raised in societies where teachers did not talk about Engines that Could or toss around bean bags for games. Her teachers held switches over their heads, or at the very least, rigid wooden rulers. Their childhoods did not have room for charm and mischief, did not have time for jokes – especially bad ones.
Perhaps that was why she is now tasked with saving the world, and he piloting the ship that would save it.
Grace – finally wearing the gloves as intended – takes over their demonstration of Astrophage in action, and the crew is riveted. Locomotive euphemisms aside, he really is a good teacher. She’s seen him explain complex processes to other scientists, persuade obtuse politicians of the incredible science behind their project. More and more, she has him giving updates to the press and general public. He delivers sound-bites of information like annoying little jingles, and somehow, people remember. Stratt herself has turned to him, countless times by now, for an explanation. Grace is always patient. He is often funny.
And – it is here that Eva Stratt knows that he is different, knows with absolute certainty that of the entire team, the entire world, she would continue to choose him – Ryland Grace is kind.
Astonishingly kind. Unreservedly kind.
Kind to a fault. His bleeding heart is entirely averse to pain, to hurt. He has remarkably low tolerance for loss. He cannot bear to let other people down.
Stratt would be lying if she said she never took advantage of it. (Perhaps that was why you’re doing great worked on him at all – delivered more as mental manipulation rather than words of encouragement.) She tasks him with seemingly impossible problems, unreasonable deadlines (weren’t they all, at this point?), pushes him further than either of them expects by taking the option for disappointment entirely off the table.
But Eva Stratt would also be lying if she said she wasn’t a little bit smitten.
She finds herself peculiarly taken with what others might see as childish, what she herself had originally written off as maddening Ryland Grace quirks.
She softens toward his self-effacing mannerisms (better he be awkward and her at ease), tolerates his jokes and the very bizarre timing he chooses to share weird facts. She sees his attempts to make her laugh (and she finds that increasingly, she does). She allows him to voice his many concerns about the team’s wellbeing as he trails after her from meeting to meeting, his worries about their futures. He is even worried for her, and her future – her most of all, he admits openly, since she is the most important (she flushes with warmth, even though he is wrong.) She sees humanity, and he sees individuals, and while she brushes off his concerns, she will think about it later, like she thinks about much of what he says, and she will do what she can.
It is when she is with him, that she feels most keenly the demands, the restraints that this mission and this role have placed on her.
But she had accepted her fate long ago. And she watches as Grace throws himself into his role as Astrophage expert with the very thing her role did not allow – his whole heart.
Stratt is used to thinking of science as black and white, as problem and solution. But Dr. Grace wanted all the colours seen and unseen. He converses with his experiments, murmurs to the petri dishes (perhaps words of encouragement). He gives his reagents names. He entertains outrageous hypotheses and his methods are questionable, at best. There is something childlike about it, she supposes, the way he approaches science with the wide-eyed eagerness of a toddler who never outgrew the why phase. But if the results didn’t speak for themselves – breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough – the way Stratt finds herself pausing by the plexiglass walls of his lab just to watch him work, particularly in the middle of a day that feels like it will never end, is all the answer she needs.
There is something to be said, she thinks, in believing that all things are possible.
Watching him becomes so natural to Stratt, that walking down the Gansu’s primary corridor one rainy day, tablet tucked under her arm, his familiar slightly slouched silhouette stops her in her tracks. She is not seeing him through his lab’s plexiglass walls. She is watching him through a porthole to the deck. He is outside. In the rain. Not even wearing his ghastly yellow raincoat. His back is toward her, his face tilted toward the sky in much the same way he stares at the ceiling of his lab.
What the hell?
Stratt raps on the window. The noise outside is too loud, and he does not hear.
She backtracks toward the nearest door, which slides open as she approaches. Salty wind nips at her face and rain pelts the ground before her.
“Dr. Grace!”
He turns. Sees her. His lips tilt in that easy way of his, his expression somehow both sheepish and full of mischief. His Project Hail Mary shirt is soaked through. His glasses are askew, but she doubts he can see through them with the rain, anyway. He looks happy and ridiculous, and she nearly smiles.
“What are you doing?” She has to shout to be heard. “Are you trying to catch cold so you can beg time off work?”
She can see his chest heave in a laugh. “You know that’s not how it works, right?” He yells back.
“I’d rather not put my lead scientist’s immune system to the test somewhere in the South Pacific.”
In answer, he stomps into the large puddle beside him, sending up a spray of water. “There is absolutely no evidence to support that hypothesis!”
“Please come inside.”
He starts to make his way toward her. She suspects it’s mostly because he wanted to jump through more puddles on his way.
“Plus, it’s warm.”
“What?”
“The rain is warm,” he repeats, coming to a stop before her, smiling and breathless. She moves aside to let him in, and he ignores it.
“Would you care to explain why you’re standing in the rain in the first place, Dr. Grace?”
“It’s good for you.”
“No it’s not.”
“It is,” he insists. “Your psychologists are programming rainstorms into Mary as we speak.”
“They are installing familiar earth environments into the mental health node. Rain is one such environment.” She levels him with her gaze. But it’s hard to keep a straight face when he has such a silly grin on his.
“Maybe I just, uh… really like water?”
She quirks a brow. “Do you?” Ironic, for a man whose argument against water-based lifeforms proved his academic downfall.
Grace sighs. He looks fleetingly disgruntled. “Lokken and I had a disagreement, and I suspect she might be right.”
She swallows an indulgent smile. “You’re hiding out here instead of telling her so?”
“I was on my way to her office.”
“And you proceeded to come out into the rain for absolutely no reason.”
The moment she says it she knows it’s true. Grace frequently did things without premeditation. On the fly, as the Americans say. Although Stratt was not certain if it was an American thing or just a Grace thing.
He grins roguishly. “Come on, you can’t say you’ve never wanted to frolic in the rain?”
“I – ”
I have never is on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t quite make it true.
There has always been something about nature, and its ability to express what Stratt could not. The German forests of her austere childhood, full of life. Long winding shores in the Netherlands where she once learned to dream. Gardens with trellises and ponds full of lilies in Paris near ESA headquarters, fleeting and beautiful.
Now, trapped aboard the Gansu in the middle of nowhere, between endless meetings, averting crises, and running headfirst into disaster, she found herself wanting it all. She wanted to witness every sunrise, catalog every sunset, wanted wind at her back and in her face, and the endless echoes of the sea.
She suspects Grace knew this. He always knows where to find her on the deck and – for the most part – ensures that nobody does.
Now, he is fixing her with a decidedly knowing look, and a twinkle in his eye.
“Dr. Grace – ”
He reaches for her, and she tenses, thinking he is going to take her hand.
Instead, he plucks the tablet out of her arms, sets it down on the ground beside them, straightens, and then takes her hand. Because he is Grace, she lets him.
“Eva Stratt.”
“This is childish and unnecessary.”
She is leader of the Petrova Task Force.
His expression brightens. “Well aware, Captain.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“I’ll add it to your calendar if you like. Frolic in rain.” He pretends to make a mental note.
A laugh bubbles up before she can help herself. He is ridiculous. He should be working with Lokken to ensure their spacecraft has a lab that is actually operational. And Stratt knows for a fact he has a meeting with Dubois and Shapiro that afternoon. Neither of them have time for this.
But if she is to answer his question truthfully, then yes, she has always wanted to (and never did).
Grace pulls her out into the rain with him. Within seconds, water is running into her eyes and soaking through her clothes. It is warm, like he said.
He smiles at her. She returns it.
It feels good.
“Race you to the elevators.”
Her eyes narrow. “…and back.”
And then they’re off, tearing down the deck of an aircraft carrier somewhere in the South Pacific, in the rain, like children.