Chapter Text
Simon watched Grace flee clumsily up the ladder to the lab with his ears and the back of his neck a concerning shade of red. Given their previous discussion of the disabled gun (and how easily Simon had been drawn into secret-keeping for an eyeless rock alien), he assumed his best bet for an honest answer was not Grace but Rocky, who seemed motivated to facilitate some kind of understanding between them. "Did I say something wrong?"
Rocky made that tittering sound that was probably laughter again. It felt at odds with his words when the computer said, "Grace alone long time, no humans just Rocky. Forget how to do human things."
Simon looked up at the closed hatch. He rubbed his knee where it knocked against Grace's, savoring the warmth that radiated from the point of contact. It had been a long time since he had touched someone. He thought back to one armed hugs and grasped forearms, hands on his back and shoulder and roughhousing during late nights. It felt like a whole different era or age. BC versus AD. IMC versus EIC. Before Filament Station versus After Filament Station.
"Simon okay, question?"
He looked back to Rocky. Rocky tapped two fingers together, then knocked against the wall. Simon had a lot of thoughts about aliens, but this one was so different from what he knew that it was hard to hold onto his negative feelings. Watching the two of them interact made it difficult to think of Rocky as more than just Grace's friend, for better or worse.
Simon hadn't yet abandoned the thought that all of this was fake, anyway. For all he knew, Rocky was playing the long game. Simon had experience with that kind of tactic. He shuddered at the memory of the voice over the radio.
And he realized belatedly he hadn't answered Rocky's question yet. He looked at him, watched him tap the glass incessantly, and said, "I could be a lot better. But yeah."
"Grace is good human," Rocky said. "Grace take care of Simon if Simon let Grace. Good for both humans."
Simon felt his heart squeeze painfully in his chest, an iron grip of an invisible hand making his vision go black at the edges. He put his hand over his sternum and gathered the fabric of his shirt in a fist. It wasn't hard to admit he was afraid. Thinking the words even eased the rust around his heart and made the world a little clearer. The fear was a constant companion now, a voice in the back of his head whispering of loss and light and schemes bubbling under the surface. Suspicion and despair sat like guard dogs, waiting for the chance to bite.
Saying it out loud was different, though. Simon forced out the words before he could talk himself out of it, "I'm afraid to."
Rocky hummed. It wasn't the soothing hum that eased the knot in Simon's chest, but a thoughtful one. "Understand," he said. "Simon not trust Grace because humans hurt Simon in the past, question?"
"Yeah." Not just humans, but he didn't need to specify that. "Yeah, basically."
"Understand," Rocky said again. Then he did that soothing hum, and the grip around Simon's heart relented completely. "Grace Rocky patient. Simon safe here. Simon can say when ready."
Simon looked down at his knees and cracked a smile. It was hard not to, and harder to stop. He physically pulled the corners down with his thumb and forefinger and tried to play it off like he wasn't, but Rocky chittered and Simon knew he was caught. "Yeah, okay. Uh. Thanks."
"Tell Grace."
Simon looked up again. "What?"
"Tell Grace!" Rocky tapped the ground, not quite a stomp. "Tell Grace thanks. Grace needs to hear Simon say thanks."
"Uh, sure." He had a few guesses why Rocky wanted him to thank Grace to his face, and frankly wasn't sure if he liked any of them. He was still on the fence about Grace, truth be told. Looking at him made a yawning pit open up in Simon's stomach that he didn't know how to deal with. It wasn't quite fear, but it felt close enough that he labeled it as such until further scrutiny, and he wasn't about to take the time to do that right then and there. But he also craved the warmth of another person. That was also something he didn't want to think about, so he shoved the thought into a drawer and closed it. Maybe for later. Maybe not.
They lapsed into silence. Rocky was standing there, unmoving aside from a natural sway, focused on something Simon couldn't even begin to guess at. Simon watched him for a bit, then looked up at the hatch. He had been cooped up in the dorm basically since he arrived, but he knew there was more to see. Maybe now he could look around without fearing for his life, sanity or general wellbeing.
Only one way to find out.
When he got to his feet, Rocky followed him with a tilt of his weird alien rock spider body, then disappeared into the tunnel in the wall. Simon climbed the ladder, which was a little tricker than he thought it would be, and just as he got to the top and realized he had no way of opening the hatch on his own, it opened for him. Grace blinked at him with a mix of happiness and anxiety and said, "Fancy meeting you here."
Simon rolled his eyes. Grace moved out of the way when he resumed climbing, and then hovered with fluttering hands while Simon rolled onto the floor of the lab and then laid there. Just that was enough physical exercise to leave him exhausted. Grace's hands moved in and out of his vision like butterflies.
Rocky said something that made Grace go, "Oh, yeah. Good point." Then he was stepping around Simon to climb back down into the dorm. Simon was irritated for all of about 5 seconds before he heard Grace clambering back up, with the laptop in tow. "Kind of rude of us to leave you out of the conversation," he said.
"Grace can translate Rocky for Simon," Rocky said.
Grace winced, turned the volume down on the laptop, and then set it down on the floor next to the hatch. He stayed half in and half out, resting his weight against the lip, and shook his head. "No way. I'm not doing that."
"Grace teach Simon how to understand Rocky without machine," Rocky said.
"I'm not doing that either."
Simon sat up, propping himself upright and feeling the phantom sensation of his other arm draping itself over his lap. "Why not?"
Grace blinked at him. His face slowly changed color until he was red. "Well, uh. It would take a long time, mostly. I've been hanging out with Rocky for a while and had to learn through immersion. I made this dictionary." He patted the laptop, then said something that might have been a curse under his breath when he accidentally pulled up a random program from the action. He closed it, then tried to go back to casually leaning against the lip of the hatch. His ears were red too. "Uh, so. So you don't have to learn how to understand Eridian without the translation software."
Simon opened his mouth. Rocky cut in. "Grace boring boring boring. Rocky try to help and what Grace do, question? Grace waste opportunity to spend time with Simon."
"Rocky!" Grace hissed. He glanced at Simon, and then his neck was also starting to turn red.
"Grace bad at human things," Rocky continued. "Humans spend time together, talk talk talk, become friends, touch and hug." He tapped the two closest hands together, first balled up and then by interlocking his fingers.
"Rocky!" Grace hissed again, now with desperation.
Simon looked between them, at Grace's reddening skin and Rocky's joined hands, then shook his head. Grace covered his eyes with one hand and sighed like he was being squeezed.
"I'm sorry about him," Grace said. His voice cracked and squeaked, and he cleared his throat. He repeated, sounding less like a broken toy, "I'm sorry about him. Rocky only knows about human things through movies I've shown him. He doesn't understand the concept of subtlety."
Rocky separated his hands. "Word?"
"Indirect," Grace said, enunciating. "You're about as subtle as a wrecking ball."
"Rocky not a ball of any kind."
These two could go on for hours if Simon let them. He'd seen it in action. "Can I look around?"
Grace looked over at him with a little too much giddiness. "Yes, of course! Help yourself. Nothing is off limits, just, uh. Don't go trying to pilot the ship. I did a lot of math to get us on the right route and I don't want to have to recalculate it."
Simon let himself be impressed by this for the few moments it deserved. Piloting a ship in space wasn't a small feat, he knew that from experience. "Are you going somewhere specific?"
"Yeah, we're going to..." Grace pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. "Okay, how much did we tell you about astrophage?"
Before Simon could answer, Rocky cut in. "Grace Simon get off floor and sit on chairs now."
Grace looked around like he'd forgotten where he was. Simon rolled onto his knees and pushed himself to his feet immediately, feeling the ache in his joints from the hard floor and the swift movement. He was worse off than he wanted to admit, even to himself. But that was a worry for future Simon, he decided. First, he was going to find somewhere to sit that wasn't the floor.
He found a stool not too far away, simplistic in design with a small cushion on the seat for at least some comfort. He settled in while Grace finished climbing into the lab, then watched Grace close the hatch, grab the laptop, and spin around to put it on one of the counters. Then he held up his hands like he was getting ready for something serious, and wiggled his fingers.
"So. Astrophage," he said. "What did we tell you?"
"Grace was school teacher before mission to Tau Ceti," Rocky said, like that explained everything.
It did, in fact, explain everything.
Simon looked at the whiteboard, at all of the drawings and equations and diagrams Grace had put on it since the lesson began, and his heart ached. It reminded him of his mother, of when she taught him math and reading. It had been a long time since he'd thought of any of that. Her face was hazy in the memories.
"Good?" Grace capped the marker, then held his hands out. "Does that make sense?"
All of the information rattled around in Simon's head like loose screws. He shook his head to chase away the hazy memories and squeezed his eyes shut. "I think?"
"Can you give me a summary of what I just told you?" Grace asked. It wasn't a demand, more a gentle challenge. A test of retention and his ability to convey information in a way Simon could understand. School teacher indeed.
"There's an alien bug that's eating stars," he said. It was hard to string the words together, but as he said them he was beginning to understand. That made his head hurt more than the huge dump of information he'd just experienced. He brought his hand up and massaged his temple with a thumb. "And you both came here because this star isn't being eaten even though the bug should have been here. Coming here took a long time and a lot of fuel, which this bug is good for, and it was a one way trip for the Hail Mary. So now you're going to…" He clenched his jaw. Grace frowned, but said nothing. "To where they…make more?"
"Breed," Grace supplied helpfully.
"Breed," Simon repeated slowly. "To see why."
Grace's smile was dazzling. He shook his hands in the air, and Rocky did the same. "Yes! Very good, good job!"
Simon's cheeks warmed. He staunchly ignored it. When was the last time he'd been given such straightforward praise? He couldn't even remember. He wasn't sure it ever happened before now.
"We were gearing up for that when you showed up," Grace said cheerfully. Simon wondered if the blood was still pooled in the airlock, or if it had dried and flaked away, or if Grace had cleaned it. "We got kind of sidetracked, but that's fine. A few days won't make a huge difference here. Plus." Grace motioned at him with both hands, with enthusiasm. There was a near manic light in his eyes as he did. "Maybe you can help us!"
It felt like a knife in his heart. "Help you?"
This was the other side of the coin, the possible outcome if all of this was, in fact, real. That nothing was that different from where he'd come from aside from the level of technology, and Grace was lying in wait. Ease Simon into a false sense of security. Draw Simon out enough to trap him into service through the use of resources. He ate the food, now he had to pull his weight. It was a sentiment Simon was all too familiar with. The floor felt like it fell out from under him, dropping him into the vacuum of space.
Grace adjusted his hands so they were held up in placation, the manic light gone and replaced with a shard of worry that darkened his eyes. "Hey," he said, voice now soft. "You don't have to. I got kind of excited, I'm sorry."
Simon watched him, waiting. Grace met his eyes and didn't move except to blink slowly and breathe.
Rocky's musical language barely registered on the edge of his mind, but the computer's voice that followed a second later made him jump. "Simon need rest, statement! Simon not helping!" He stomped the same foot a few times, and the music coming from him grew discordant. "No lift no run no strain just rest, statement! How can Rocky make new arm if human not in good shape to use it!"
"Rock." Grace sighed. He let his hands drop to his sides. "Do you have to yell?"
"Simon heart beating very fast!" Rocky stomped again, switching which limb he used like a five legged dance. "Simon misunderstand Grace Rocky. Bad bad bad! Bad bad bad!"
"Yelling isn't going to make that better, Rocky," Grace said. Somehow, he sounded amused.
Simon felt for the gun in his pocket. Grace cringed, but he kept his face towards Rocky and pretended he didn't notice. He was a terrible liar. The gun was there, even if the bullets were useless, the barrel pressed against his thigh by the fabric of his pants. It was warm from being against his body for so long. Grace still didn't know about Rocky's suicide prevention, and that meant that Simon still had the threat of the gun to leverage in an emergency.
He dropped his hand to his side without grabbing the handle. Grace's shoulders relaxed, and he let out a long, slow breath.
He inhaled, just as slow, and Simon, without consciously deciding to do so, copied him. Grace held it, Simon held it, then they exhaled. Simon felt his heart begin to slow back to a normal rhythm.
And then, after what felt like hours of just breathing, he felt ashamed, embarrassed, and like he had run in circles until his legs were ready to give out from under him.
Only then did Grace relax completely, the tension dropping away like discarded clothing. He asked, so soft it was almost lost to the hum of the ship around them, "Better?"
Simon couldn't handle the small smile Grace gave him and looked away. Rocky was quiet and still, with a hand against the barrier, seemingly watching them. Simon still wasn't sure how Rocky perceived anything since he didn't seem to have any eyes, but by this point he had a few guesses. Maybe he'd ask them later, if he could power through his hesitation.
He cleared his throat. "Yeah." And, because the shame was simmering under his breastbone like boiling water, "Sorry."
"It's alright." There was no false note to Grace's voice, just hesitant good cheer with gentle edges. "It's kind of my fault, anyway. I stepped on a sore spot."
Simon opened his mouth, denial on his tongue, but paused. Considered. Closed it again. There was no use lying now. Rocky's words sat in the back of his mind like a shy animal, Grace too kind to take. He didn't think Rocky meant that Grace was also kind enough to give, but he recognized the concession as what it was: A peace offering. 'I am not blameless in your pain' even. It was more responsibility than anyone had ever taken, and for a fraction of the stress caused.
Simon said, "It's not your fault." He was glad his voice didn't crack or waver, because he wanted Grace to believe him. If there was anything he wanted to get Grace to understand, it was that his scars were not something Grace had to answer for.
"Still," Grace said. He shrugged one shoulder and rubbed the back of his neck, eyes up and away. "I could have phrased it a lot better. Of course resources were tight if all that was left of humanity was some ships and space stations. Taking anything meant having to prove you were worth the cost." He glanced at Simon, then stared off in another direction in continued awkwardness. "Right?"
Simon let out a breath. Hearing it said out loud made it feel too real, like it was going to be that way again. "Yeah."
"Rocky and I are pretty capable." Grace nudged the barrier as if it was Rocky's body, shooting his alien friend a grin. "You don't have to worry about being forced into service or something. It's voluntary service only around here."
"Grace bad at math," Rocky said. Grace scoffed and elbowed the barrier again with more force. "But Grace good good good scientist."
"Aw, shucks." Grace put one hand to his cheek and waved the other at Rocky with exaggerated embarrassment. "Thanks bud."
"Rocky engineer, do what Grace cannot."
Grace interrupted to say, "Rocky good good good engineer." He nodded and pointed at Simon, a wordless got it? in his raised eyebrows.
Rocky puffed out air, maybe in embarrassment, maybe in annoyance at the interruption. "Grace Rocky good team," he continued. "Grace Rocky do not need need need Simon to help. Simon can learn and help in future if Simon wants." Rocky bobbed up and down. "Understand, question?"
Existing and taking up space on a cramped ship wasn't anything new to Simon. He had lived on his fair share of space fairing vessels and stationary structures, by himself or with others for different lengths of time. Each time, he had a job. Each time, he was expected to contribute to the crew or be considered a waste of resources. There wasn't enough of anything left to give to someone that wasn't useful. A small, angry voice inside his head screamed at him to be useful.
The Hail Mary was a familiar situation. A small vessel, limited resources, skeleton crew. Grace had excess because it was supposed to be a three person team, but that didn't automatically mean it was available for Simon to use. Taking what they were saying at face value, that he didn't have to fulfill a particular role in order to benefit from the onboard resources, it was difficult. It was like trying to imagine the smell of fresh air. He knew it existed, but he had no way to know what it was like.
"Simon?"
Simon looked at Grace, at the worry clear from the lines of his face. He was practically broadcasting his emotions, and whether that was for Simon's benefit or just because that's how Grace was as a person, it eased some of the weight on Simon's mind.
Rocky think humans kind, like Grace. The words sat squarely in the middle of his head and refused to budge.
He sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I understand."
The worried lines disappeared and were replaced with a radiant happiness, making even Grace's posture change. He brought his hands up slowly until they were raised above his head in celebration. "Awesome," he said. "Heck yeah."
Rocky held up two of his hands, and they wiggled them at each other. Simon shook his head, but it was hard not to smile.
I left Simon alone while he poked around the lab. If he did something, Rocky would tell me, and I wasn't that worried anyway. Maybe he'd mess up the calibrations of some of the machines and I'd have to fix that, but short of him breaking something off there wasn't much he could do to make any of it inoperable. I knew he was literate because he responded to Rocky's words on the laptop screen while I was sleeping, so I knew he wasn't going to open anything dangerous since it was all labeled and his survival instincts seemed too strong for that. Besides, it was a show of trust.
Rocky settled in beside me in the cockpit, and hummed to get my attention. «What did Grace mean by 'probably going to die out here anyway', question? Rocky give Grace fuel and Grace go home, right, question? Grace happy happy happy when I said I give extra astrophage.»
I sighed. He got right to it, and I knew he wasn't going to let it drop. "Thanks to you I have the fuel to get home, yes. That doesn't mean I'm home free yet though."
«Simon change something, question?»
"Not really. It's just dangerous out here, and anything can happen. I'm still a squishy human, you know." I tried to make light of it, but it just ended up making the air awkward instead.
Rocky got quiet. It was a few seconds before he said, «Understand.» He didn't seem to want to talk about it any more than I did. I didn't want to make a habit of thinking about my own mortality, anyway.
"It's easier not to promise anything. It means I won't fail him if I can't do it," I said. Rocky hummed in morose agreement.
We fell into silence. There was the faint sound of something falling and scattering around the lab, but Rocky made no attempt to get up so I knew it wasn't a big deal. When I tilted my head, he answered my unvoiced question, voice still an octave lower, «Simon opened drawer, items fell out.»
That reminded me! "I was going to turn on centrifuge mode while on our way to the planet, but I forgot because of all the excitement."
There had been a strange, blood covered man in my airlock. Something like that made it very hard to concentrate on anything else.
Rocky fidgeted, but didn't get up. «Engines off, question?»
"Yeah, I have our velocity set already. Engines are off and now we just wait until we get there."
«Good good good.» Then he got to his feet and stretched his legs out one at a time before settling back down into his usual posture. «Simon okay in lab during gravity change, question?»
"Good point." I got out of the captain's chair and leaned over the hatch down through the mental health bay and into the lab. I called out, "Hey Simon?"
I expected a verbal response back, but received none. All of the monitors were off and it was just a dark tunnel before the light of the lab illuminated the open hatch. Before I had the chance to worry, though, Simon popped into view, looking up at me with wide eyes. He held onto the ladder and looked almost like a kid caught doing something he wasn't supposed to.
"I'm going to change the gravity," I said. "It'll set off an alarm and then everything will gradually shift until you're standing on that grating instead." I pointed, and his eyes followed the line. Then he nodded. "Cool."
I got up and back into the chair, and Rocky made a noise of unease. «Simon heart beating fast,» he said.
I said, "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." Then I turned on centrifuge mode.
Once Mary confirmed the centrifuge was active and everything was settled, I walked out of the cockpit and into the mental health node. It was easier now that there was a proper floor and it wasn't all one big tube with ladders. Rocky followed in his tunnels, then scuttled ahead of me with a curious chirp. I followed.
We found Simon standing by some racks in the far corner of the lab. He was staring at the tobacco plant like it personally offended him, while his hand gently touched its leaves like it would shatter at any moment. Rocky chirped again. Simon didn't seem to notice. I leaned against the wall and decided to wait a bit, because disturbing him now just felt mean.
«What is Simon doing, question?» Simon was deaf to the world around him. He didn't even blink at Rocky's question, and the only acknowledgement I got when I answered was a slight tilt of his head in my direction.
"He's looking at the plants I have," I said. Louder, to Simon, I said, "They're for gene editing. We didn't know what we'd find out here so we came as prepared as we could get."
Simon turned to look at me. His eyes shone with unshed tears, and he looked for all the world like he was in physical pain. I pushed off the wall and took a step closer, but the idea of touching him stopped me. He took a shuddering breath and looked back at the plant under his fingers, then looked at each plant I had in turn. He lingered on each one like it was precious, more valuable than anything else in the universe, like his whole life was leading up to this point.
I didn't know what to ask, so I just said, "Simon?"
"There were no plants left," he said, voice low. He pulled his hand away from the leaf with visible effort. His entire arm was shaking as he clenched his fist and held it to his chest. "Except for a single tree. When I…Things happened and I." He clenched his jaw. The muscles in his neck looked like they ached from the force of it. "I didn't think I'd ever get to see a plant again."
The longing in his voice was enough to bring tears to my eyes. "I get it."
"Sorry." Simon rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand.
I reached out to pat his shoulder, but I stopped short. I could still feel how warm he was through the inch of space between us. I let my hand drop before I could find the courage to close the distance. "I get it," I said again. "I'm out here hoping to save as much green as possible. As long as I don't die, there will at least be something." I nodded to the plants.
Rocky trilled. We both looked over at where he stood in his xenonite tunnels, a little too far away for a human to hear. «Grace will not die. I will not let you die.»
"Thanks, Rocky," I said, and wiped tears away with my sleeve when they started to fall.
"What did it say?" Simon asked quietly. Ah, right, the laptop wasn't there to translate for him. He looked like he had mostly pulled himself back together, though his eyes were still red rimmed and a little wider than usual.
"He said he won't let me die," I said.
"Oh." He looked down.
I sniffled. Rocky grumbled about leaking humans and made his way towards the cockpit again.
"You're free to keep looking around," I said to Simon. Out of habit from a time long gone, I reached out to touch him, but an alarm blared in my head and I stopped short again. I really had to do something about that soon. It'd be hard to get anything done if I kept getting distracted by another living human and the thought of a single point of contact. "I'm going to get lunch. Holler if you need anything."
Simon nodded as I stepped back, and said nothing as I left him standing by the racks of green leaves.
With that, something major felt like it changed.
Simon spent more time looking around the ship now that he could move around easier. He explored every nook and cranny, every closet and drawer and shelf, until he had a better idea of the inventory than I did. Completely unprompted, halfway through his exploration, he commandeered the laptop with the translation software running on it and started carrying it around. I could hear him talking to Rocky pretty frequently from my spot in the dorm. Simon's voice and the synthesizer were muffled by the walls of the ship, but Rocky was easy to understand because of how the xenonite made his voice echo. It didn't help me at all because it was just one half of the conversation, but it was fun to hear Rocky talk to him.
Like: «Rocky has been in Tau Ceti for 46 earth years. Yes. No. No. Simon is younger than Grace. Rocky met Grace 26 days ago. Yes, earth days. Do all humans ask for clarification about timeframe, question?»
Or: «Human science machines delicate. Simon can touch but if Simon breaks something Rocky is not helping. No. I refuse.»
Or: «Rocky have enough fuel on own ship to give some to Grace and Simon for return trip. Yes Grace knows. No, I know not why Grace still talks that way.»
Or: «Simon needs to sleep. 18 hours since last sleep. Grace also need sleep.»
At that, I heard them start making their way to the dorms. I didn't want to interrupt Simon so I had stayed there since my mealtime, and now it looked like I wasn't going to be allowed to leave. That was fine, since Stratt had included more laptops than I knew what to do with and I used one of the extras to start researching prosthetics. I was itching to check our trajectory, more for reassurance than anything, but I resigned myself to my cozy prison sentence.
Rocky appeared first, walking over to his small observation bubble and settling in. Simon came in second, and much slower. He hesitated in the doorway, looked for a brief second like he was shocked by what he was doing, and then walked in and set the laptop on the floor next to his nest of blankets.
I said, "Sounds like you two had a fun time."
Rocky piped up immediately. "Simon curious about everything on ship."
Simon, to my great surprise, joined in without prompting. "This is all way more technologically advanced than most of the ships I knew. A lot of them didn't even have functioning navigation and this one has a bunch of science equipment I've never seen before."
I couldn't help but smile. Hearing him talk so much, seeing him gesture with his arm and emote, watching him glance at Rocky like he was asking for his input, it warmed my heart. I would never know what it was like to be on this mission with the two people I was sent with, but I at least knew what it was like with the two people here now. It wasn't the same, but it was enough.
"Grace can show you science machines after sleep," Rocky said. "Humans need sleep. Rocky will watch."
Simon looked like he wanted to ask, so I answered before he had to struggle through figuring out how to phrase it. "Eridian culture thing," I said. "They can't move when they sleep, so someone needs to keep an eye on them. We don't." I motioned between myself and Simon. "But I doubt he'd listen if you told him that."
"Rocky will watch," Rocky repeated, layering a higher octave overtop and sounding even more stubborn.
Simon shook his head. "Aliens," he muttered. Louder, he asked Rocky, "When do you sleep, then?"
Rocky, unhelpfully, said, "Later."
I said, "He slept just before you got here so he's due for a rest period soon. We'll probably switch out when we wake up and can do science stuff afterwards."
"Sounds like good plan to Rocky, now humans sleep." Rocky puffed to highlight his annoyance. I knew from the way his carapace shifted that he wasn't annoyed at all, though.
With a shrug, Simon rolled himself into his nest. He disappeared under the folds of the covers, which deflated as he let out a breath, and then he muttered, "Goodnight."
Mary dimmed the lights until they were at the low luminosity for the ship's night cycle. Rocky trilled, "Sleep well, Simon. Sleep well, Grace."
I felt like I was already dreaming. This was is the happiest I could remember feeling, which wasn't saying much because of the coma induced amnesia, but it still meant something. I closed my eyes and knew that they'd both still be there when I woke up again. "Goodnight."
There was a strange man standing in my airlock.
The scene was hazy around the edges. I recognized the dreamlike quality to the way my body refused to move. That was fine. It was mostly just reliving a memory right now. I stood there staring at the airlock camera feed, watching Simon watch the stars out of the window into space. He was dripping blood onto the floor, his eyes wide and reflecting the galaxies like a mirror. He was bracing both hands on either side of the glass.
Wait. That wasn't right.
The dream glitched like a broken monitor.
He was bracing a hand on one side of the glass. The other was a tangle of roots growing out of where his arm should have been, digging into the walls and tearing the ship apart. The vacuum of space ripped the door off once the roots breached the insulation, and the ship lurched.
The dream glitched again.
Simon was standing with his back to the camera. There were no stars on the other side of the glass. When he turned, his eyes reflected light like a wild animal. My hindbrain screamed at me to run, but we were in space. There was nowhere for me to go that would save me.
He opened his mouth, and it stretched all the way to his ears, tearing the skin of his face. Jagged teeth lined the inside and blood dripped down his chin. When he held his hand out, his palm glowed. I felt drawn to the light, like the prey of an anglerfish, and reached for the camera. A hand crusted in blood and rot and barnacles reached through the monitor to grab my wrist and pull me closer.
I woke up to Rocky yelling. «Grace, wake up. Grace, wake up! Grace! Grace Grace Grace wake up!»
There was a hand holding my wrist and shaking me by the arm. My heart was pounding in my ears and there was bile in my throat that really wanted to get out. I yanked my arm away and pushed myself up and over the side of my bed so I could do that. Lucky me, the nannybot was holding out a bucket and my aim was dead on. By the time I emptied my stomach I was shivering, and sweaty all over from the nightmare and the strain of vomiting. I just wanted to go back to sleep.
Simon was standing over me when I flopped back into bed. My heartrate spiked without me wanting it to, and fear made my throat constrict. I stared up at him, and he looked down at me.
His eyes didn't shine with tapeta lucida. He looked human. He looked lost. He looked confused. His hand twitched, but he didn't reach out. I flexed every muscle I could to trick my brain into calming down, and I reached out to where his arm hung at his side. He was hot to the touch, and his hand clamped down around mine as soon as my fingers met his palm. It felt like holding onto a burning ember, and I didn't want it to stop.
One by one, I relaxed my muscles. The fear left me light headed and even more exhausted, and I threw my other arm over my eyes. It helped to distance myself from whatever had just happened to me. I said, "Sorry." It was more like a croak, but it was understandable at least.
«Is Grace okay, question?» I heard Rocky get as close to me as he could, tapping on the xenonite to get a better picture. «Grace yell while asleep. Grace move around like in pain. Is Grace okay, question?»
"Just a nightmare," I said. "Normal human thing." Rocky made an unhappy noise. Simon gently tugged on his hand, but I held tight and did not want to let go. It almost hurt, the way my skin tingled and burned where he was holding my fingers, but the rest of me was practically screaming for more. "Sorry for all the trouble."
Simon said, "Ryland." He might as well have used a defibrillator on me with how it felt like my heart stopped and restarted in the beat after my name left his mouth. I couldn't tell if it was a good feeling or a bad one.
I wasn't sure how I felt about people using my first name anymore. I was so used to being called Dr. Grace or Mr. Grace or just Grace that Ryland might as well only exist in my head. Hearing it out loud after so long was. It was weird.
I reached for more memories, but I couldn't remember the last time someone called me by my first name. I was sure it happened, but there was nothing in my returning memories currently like that.
"Ryland," Simon said again. He shook my entire arm, the same way he had when trying to wake me up.
I had to focus on keeping my breathing steady. Holding hands should not have been this distracting. "Yeah?"
"Are you okay?"
He had said so few words by this point that I found myself focusing on the timbre of his voice to keep myself from thinking so much about the contact. It was velvety, heady in the way it resonated in his chest, with very little variation in the pitch he settled on to talk to me. It was almost more of a vibration than a sound. Spending so much time with Rocky, these were the kinds of things I noticed now. It was totally because of Rocky and not any other reason.
I let out a breath, and I knew I could answer truthfully. I dropped my arm from my eyes and looked up at his worried face. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay. It really was just a nightmare."
Simon settled down in a crouch beside my bed, squeezing my hand. "You sure?"
All good things had to end, so I slowly let go of him and carefully pulled away. "I'm sure." I reached out and poked his shoulder before I could think better of it, then tucked my hand under the covers. My fingertip tingled. He swayed from the contact. "Go back to sleep. You clearly need it."
He huffed a laugh and lowered his head. I could see the smile from the way his cheeks lifted. "Okay."
And then he got up, went back to his corner, and curled back up in his blankets without another word.
Rocky settled down next to me on just the other side of the barrier, and I closed my eyes. I rubbed my thumb against the middle phalanx of my fingers under the secrecy of my blanket and thought about how Simon's skin felt against mine.
He had callouses.
Grace had erased the previous day's lesson on astrophage and started on a new doodle. It was a poor rendition of a human arm, starting at the fingers and ending just before the deltoids. He pointed at it with the butt of the marker. "Far as I can see, that's what we need."
Rocky trilled, not words but a noise of consideration. "Grace not Eridian," he said. "Grace not able to perceive Simon enough with just human eyes."
Grace looked at Simon with a raised eyebrow, and Simon shrugged a shoulder. Don't ask me, his face said.
"What do you mean?" Grace asked Rocky. He crossed his arms and tapped the marker against his chin, forgetting that it was uncapped. Several purple dots now decorated his skin.
"Rocky need to know how much of arm to make for Simon," he said. "Rocky can see where arm ends but humans are noisy. Hard to hear details. Grace need to get details for Rocky." And now, he stomped. "With more than leaky human eyes."
Grace glanced at Simon, then turned in the exact opposite direction and started writing on the board again. He was just listing muscle groups found in the arm, not even labeling his drawing.
Rocky said, "Grace bad at human relationships!" Part of his carapace moved like loose rocks, probably for emphasis. Simon was still learning the basic Eridian anatomy so he wasn't quite sure.
"The hardest part is going to be the mounting," Grace said, rounding out his list of muscles with metacarpals, ending with a flourish. He ignored Rocky, who squeaked in indignation. "Prosthetics come in a lot of different forms and some of them require surgery." He looked back at Simon with his hands held up for emphasis. "Not gonna happen." He turned back to the board. "We're not equipped for any kind of intense surgery, and I'm in no way, shape or form a surgeon. So we'll have to aim for something that's easier on your body since we can't do anything to fix any issues with your shoulder and residual limb. I will preface the rest of this by saying I am not a prosthetist."
When Grace turned to Simon, he had added a few more dots to his chin and was waving the marker around as he emphasized the 'not'. Simon leaned away to avoid being drawn on. "That's fine," he said. "It just has to be functional."
"We can do functional, that's not the problem." Grace pulled over another stool and sat down in front of Simon. The energy on his voice dropped until it felt more like an intimate conversation than an impromptu presentation about what he'd learned. "Simon." He put his hands together like a prayer. His voice was soft, and it tingled in Simon's fingers. "You're not going to have the same level of dexterity with whatever we come up with as you would with a flesh and blood arm," he said. He sounded apologetic. "I just want you to understand that before I keep going."
"I know." Of course he'd known. Hearing the words made it all too real, but he had thought about it more than once already. When he unwrapped meals or carried more than a few things or reached for something with an arm that wasn't there, he thought about it. He knew he wasn't going to get his arm back, but he still wanted something.
Whatever Grace saw in his face, it made him purse his lips. Then he slapped his knees and stood up again, turning back to the board. "What you have is known as a transhumeral amputation, which is only about ten percent of amputations in the United States." He paused, then said over his shoulder, "If you know what that is." Simon didn't want to interrupt Grace for a different kind of lesson, so he said nothing. Grace continued: "There are a few different kinds of prosthetics we could aim for, but I'm telling you right now that myoelectric is probably out of the question."
He wrote passive, body powered, myoelectric, then crossed out the first and last. Simon tilted his head. "Why?"
"There's no way for us to consistently and safely power it." Grace pulled over the laptop acting as Rocky's voice and pulled up an image, helpfully titled 'myoelectric'. It was a robotic arm with various components labeled like 'battery pack', 'electrodes' and 'transmitter'. "We have astrophage and the Hail Mary does use electricity, but we don't exactly have stray batteries hanging around with enough power to keep an arm running for extended periods. Plus." He looked at Simon with a squint, eyeing the outline of his shoulders with his eyes. "It's heavy. Xenonite is a lighter material, sure, but that doesn't solve the whole issue. It's easier to make a body powered prosthesis and make it do what you want than it would be for us to figure out how to even begin making a myoelectric arm."
Simon thought about this for all of five seconds before deciding. "Simple solution first. We can get complicated with it later."
Grace smiled at him with thinly veiled relief and naked happiness. "My thoughts exactly. We have another 7 days before we reach our destination, so I'm hoping we can get something by then."
There was no doubt in Simon's mind that they'd come up with something, but whether or not it was functional was a different question with a less certain answer. He put a lid on his hope and shelved it for later, when there was something more substantial to feed it.
He pointed at the board. "What's a passive prosthetic?"
"More or less cosmetic," Grace said. "They're meant to resemble the limb you've lost. If you wanted one we could make one, but, uh." He rubbed the back of his neck and closed out of the myoelectric diagram on the laptop, moving it back into place. "I kind of figured you would want something functional. I'm sorry. I assumed."
Maybe in the future he'd want something like that. He tried to consider a life where he wouldn't need to have two functioning hands all of the time and came up blank, but that didn't mean it was impossible. He once thought he'd never see the stars again, and now here he was, in full view of a thriving star. He decided to shelve that thought for later too. Until then, it wasn't worth the time and resources to make something he couldn't actually use. "You're fine. You're right."
Grace only looked marginally relieved at this. "So. Body powered prosthetic arm." He started drawing again, making the vague outline of a head and shoulders in purple and then grabbing another marker to draw something that looked like a harness in red. "It'll take some MacGyvering but I can make a harness out of materials we have on our side of the ship. It'll need to be strong enough to support the arm but comfortable enough to wear for a length of time." He added a simple arm shape to the image in purple, leaving the hand unfinished and instead drawing a question mark. He drew another red band around where the upper arm would be. "The tricep cuff might be tricky but we can figure that out. Rocky can easily make the arm itself out of xenonite and pass it over to us for fitting and preliminary tests. You just have to figure out what you want the hand to be."
"Is there…" Simon waved his other hand around in circles. "A default or something? I don't know anything about this stuff."
"I only know what I spent yesterday researching," Grace said. "So don't count yourself out. As far as I know, the default would be a claw." He erased the dot of the question mark, then drew another curve to match the first. "Inelegant but functional and easy to make."
"That, then." Simon gestured at the picture. "Let's just stick with that."
Grace capped the red marker and tapped it against his palm a few times. Then he capped the purple one and put them both down, sitting across from Simon again with his hands on his knees. "Simon," he said, in that voice that sounded apologetic.
"Ryland," Simon said in response, sounding tired. Grace snapped his mouth shut with an audible click of his teeth.
It took a few seconds before Grace found his voice again. He cleared his throat and started with, "Uh." He shook his head. "I'm sorry."
"For?" Simon asked. The tiredness gave way to annoyance, which masked a spike of panic. He was still in the process of accepting that he wasn't an indentured worker because of the effort Grace put into helping him. It would take a while, he was sure.
"I'm sorry that you ended up here with us instead of somewhere better," Grace said.
"I'm not," Simon said, talking over the tail end of the sentence. He moved like he was going to cross his arms, then made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and settled with hooking his thumb through his belt loop. It was an issue they were hopefully going to solve soon. "I'd rather be here than anywhere else."
He didn't hesitate. He didn't even stutter. Grace looked like he was going to cry again, and Simon resisted the urge to sigh or roll his eyes. Maybe it was the same for Grace, where hearing it was different than thinking it. Maybe he hadn't even considered the alternatives. Simon was sure that if it was anyone else aboard the Hail Mary, things would have been worse off in a lethal way. If he'd showed up on Earth, he had no idea what would happen. He didn't know what Earth was like aside from gone, and that wasn't even true anymore. It was hard to catastrophize when so much information was missing. All he could say for sure was that if it was anyone or anywhere else, he was a dead man walking.
Grace still hadn't spoken. Simon said again, softer but no less certain, "I'd rather be here than anywhere else."
A tear fell and Grace swiped it away quickly, then stood. "Alright," he said. His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. "Alright," he said again. "Then let's get to work."
The planning stage lasted all of a day before Rocky put his foot down. Repeatedly. «Grace. Need. Examine. Simon!» he said, stomping for emphasis. «How can I make socket for Simon if Grace has no basis for Rocky to work from!»
I hung my head and sighed. I had been putting it off for as long as possible, and now that just wasn't an option anymore. I said, "Okay."
Rocky stopped just before hitting the xenonite wall again. Then he settled back and said, «Good. Grace go talk to Simon now.»
Simon was sitting in the mental health node, cycling through every scene we had available. He had settled on a sun dappled forest when I walked in and was looking up at the screens showing the light filtering through the leaves. He hummed a wordless greeting when I sat down beside him, a few inches of space between us, but didn't take his eyes off of the swaying branches.
"Hey." I kept my voice low because it felt appropriate for the peaceful scenery. "Doing alright?"
He hummed again. I was going to take that as the full answer, but he added, "Adjusting is hard."
"I bet." I hadn't been one of a small number of still surviving humans struggling to find an answer to the reason why everything else in the universe disappeared. I had been a scientist on a project trying to save the world, and now I was out here looking for the answer. They might as well have been different stars for how little overlap there was.
Simon fell back into silence. The speakers played the noises of a gentle breeze and birdsongs. I thought that if I hooked up some fans I could simulate the wind enough to make it realistic to Simon, someone who had likely never experienced it. To me, it felt as real as a postcard and twice as malicious.
I clenched my fist. I couldn't keep stalling.
"We should probably ease into touching each other," I said.
Simon blinked, then squinted at me. I could see the wheels turning in his dark eyes, and I so very badly wanted to hold his face in my hands and feel his jaw muscles move as he clenched his teeth.
"Why?" He always sounded angry when he asked me things, but I'd learned by this point that it wasn't true anger. He was feeling defensive, vulnerable maybe, but not angry.
"Because I don't know about you, but I'm touch starved," I said. I gestured to him with both hands and he looked mildly offended by that. "And if your experience being sent off to die was anything like mine, you probably are too."
He grumbled. There were no words to it, just frustrated emotion. The fake sun illuminated him in a way that made him look soft.
"So jumping right into it is a bad idea," I continued. "I'm so desperate to touch you it's hard to focus on anything else when we're close. I want to crawl all over you like a weevil."
The first admission made his face darken with a blush. The second made him look at me like I had lost my mind.
"Just me, then?" I said, because it was too late to back down now. Might as well own up to the crazy.
Instead of anything I expected him to say, he asked, "What the fuck is a weevil?"
"It's a bug that— you know what? That's not important." I turned away. At least like this I could pretend I was talking to myself. "I need to look at how your arm and shoulder have healed so we get a better idea of what to do for the prosthetic. That'll need to be a physical exam so that I can get as much information as I can, and I don't want to just jump into that because, as previously stated, it's hard to focus on anything else when we're close."
I was hyperaware of the space between us ever since I sat down. It was small enough that I could lean over and bump his shoulder, but big enough that I couldn't accidentally knock knees. Maybe Simon had noticed, maybe he hadn't, but now the words were out and he knew what I was thinking.
Simon rubbed his hand over the fabric of his pants, looking down at his knee instead of up at the sun. He looked thoughtful, and his cheeks were still red from earlier. "How…would we do that?" he asked.
It wasn't blanket permission, but it was enough of an excuse that I seized it before I could think about it too hard. "Like this." I reached over and placed my hand on his shoulder. He tensed. He was warm through his clothes and his shoulder was solid, and it didn't burn as much as the last time we touched. I squeezed and he twitched, and then he was shrugging me off. I didn't touch him again. "It's a lot, I know."
"You're right, though," he grumbled.
"We just need to take it one step at a time." I smiled at him when he glanced at me. He huffed that quiet laugh of his. "Just think! By the end of this, you'll have a prosthetic arm and we won't have to avoid bumping into each other like doing so would be the end of the world."
He laughed again. "That would make all this easier, yes." He motioned around, mostly up at the cockpit and down at the lab. "There isn't exactly a lot of space around here. More than I'm used to, sure, but…"
"We'll get there," I said. Pretty soon, I'd be able to hug him and hold on, and it wouldn't hurt and he might even hug me back. Just the thought of it made my heart beat faster.