Chapter Text
I wake from sleep with a start. The lights are dimmed in the dormitory, and I’m sweaty and tangled in the sheets.
“You are awake, question?”
“Is there an alarm going off?!”
“No. No alarms.”
I exhale in relief and tell the computer to turn up the lights. Rocky is nearby on his side of the xenonite barrier, “watching” me sleep, like he always does. He has some little project in three of his hands, the other two support his weight.
“You only sleep 3.62 hours.”
He focuses more of his attention on me, now, an unspoken indication of concern.
“Why do you think alarm went off, question? You see bad things in sleep, question?” Eridians don’t have words for dreams or nightmares. Eridians don’t dream at all. Sleep for them is complete, total unconsciousness. Must be nice. (They also don’t really have a word for “see,” but I usually interpret “hear” as “see” unless the context indicates I should do otherwise. It can get a little confusing at times, but I make it work.)
“I don’t remember.” I sit up and rub my eyes.
“Water,” I tell the computer.
It dutifully hands me a cup, and I take it with shaking hands and sip. I wish the ship had something hot to drink other than coffee. Rocky is used to me talking to him while eating in front of him by this point, so he continues the conversation.
“You move a lot in you sleep.”
“Yeah. I guess I’m feeling pretty stressed.”
“No be stressed. If alarm goes off, I wake you. I watch. Sleep.”
“It’s not that easy.” I disentangle myself from the sheets and swing my legs over the edge. My body feels sore, the 1.5 Gs at which the Hail Mary is hurtling us along towards Erid are really dragging at me. And the scarring from the burns I got a few months back really itches lately. It’s driving me nuts, but scratching at it until it bleeds isn’t exactly productive. I lightly rub it through my sleeve, anyway.
“No make arm leak.”
“I’m not. Geez.” I feel testy, but I know he’s just trying to help. I think he still feels bad that I got burnt putting him back in his atmosphere after he saved me. I’m overjoyed to have my friend back, but the Hail Mary is a pretty cramped space to spend the next four years, and I find myself getting easily annoyed.
“Why sleep no easy, question?”
Rocky, on the other hand, seems totally recovered from his own near-death excursion into my atmosphere. He’s even already completely healed up from the injuries he got when trying to combat the Blip A’s Taumoeba outbreak. His Eridian biology is much sturdier than my own. I can’t say I’m not a little jealous. I get up and make my way up the ladder with my cup of water.
“So many things could still go wrong. If the Taemoeba escape again, we’re dead. We don’t have anymore spare astrophage.” Rocky sets aside his latest project to follow, climbing up his own tunnel alongside me, and now we’re both in the lab. I pull open a few drawers and get out a hotplate and a beaker. I pour my water into the beaker, and then set it on the burner and turn on the heat. Rocky skitters a bit in his tunnel to get a better “look” at what I’m doing. I go around to each of the Taemoeba farms as I wait, checking each to make sure each slide of astrophage in the nitrogen filled outer containers is still black.
“If things go wrong, we fix.”
“And I’m still not entirely sure if I can actually eat Taemoeba,” I add as I watch the water in the beaker start to bubble. I hadn’t found anything toxic to humans in my tests so far, so that was promising, but I wasn’t satisfied they were safe to eat, yet. And handling the Taemoeba was nerve wracking, now that I knew that they could get through xenonite. They could probably evolve to get through other materials, too. Even though I was extra careful when working with them now, the worry remained. I could tell Rocky was anxious about it, too, even though he hadn’t said anything, because he was always watching closely any time I had the samples outside of their pure nitrogen buffer zone.
“Science Eridians help when we get to Erid.”
“If we get to Erid.” The water in the beaker has come to a full boil, and I shut off the heat and watch the steam rise.
“You think we not, question? Why, question?”
“I… I don’t know.” I pull on the autoclave gloves and pick up the beaker. There’s still steam rising off, but I lift it to my lips and blow on it gently. It’s surprisingly cool, so I take a sip. Oh, right. The Hail Mary’s only pressurized to 0.33 atmospheres, so water boils at around 80 °C.
“How not sleep help keep Taemoeba from escape, question?”
“It doesn’t. But if I don’t hear an alarm, then I won’t be able to catch them in time and our fuel will be gone. And you can’t see the slides. What if my alarms break?”
He thinks about this for a minute.
“Alarms simple, question?”
“Yes.” Rocky already knows this. When he had first moved back onto the Hail Mary, I had shown him exactly how I had set them up (just in case I had missed something) and he had added his own modifications.
“Alarms have own power supplies, separate from other systems, question?”
“Yes.” Again, Rocky already knows this. He had done those modifications himself, and was only asking for my benefit.
“I can hear alarms anywhere in ship. Understand, question?” I knew that, too.
" I know, but…" I already know all of that, and I don’t really know how to explain to him exactly what’s bothering me, because I don’t even know myself.
“What if there’s something else? Something we missed, or didn’t think of, or forgot?”
“Then we find. We fix! Worry no fix. Only fixing fix!” I drink my water in silence. Rocky fidgets a bit.
“I watch. Understand, question?”
" Yeah, I know. You’ll watch me sleep."
“No.”
“No, you won’t watch me sleep?” That was new. I turn to stare at him. He wriggles his carapace back and force in annoyance.
“No, you no understand. Need to teach you new word. For when you know someone will do thing, so you not worry about thing.”
I look at him for a moment longer. I think I know where he’s going with this.
“Trust? Like when you trust someone to do something, because you know they’ll get it done?”
“Yes! 𝅘𝅥𝅮 𝅘𝅥 𝅗𝅥 𝅘𝅥 !” He says the Eridian word for “trust” for me before continuing. I’m surprised we haven’t come across this word until now.
“Grace, you trust me, question?”
Of course I trust Rocky. I’d trust him with my life. He’s got to know that, right? I mean, he’s saved me multiple times, now.
“I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone.”
“Sad.” Okay, that is not the response I was expecting.
“What? How’s that sad?!”
“You trust me, but no sleep good when I watch.” He lowers his carapace a little.
“Uh, sorry?”
“When Eridian sleep, other Eridian must watch. Eridian culture rule. When friend watch, feel safe. You no feel safe when I watch,” he says sadly.
“Humans are different,” I protest. I’m suddenly kind of feeling like a jerk for all those times I’ve snuck off to do something else when Rocky was asleep instead of staying to keep watch, though. I mean, I knew it was important to him, but I guess I never really thought it was important. Maybe I’m a crappy friend.
“Look, Rocky, I’m sorry. I do trust you. It’s not that. I’m just having a hard time right now.”
“… Understand,” he says, but his pitch and stance only raise a little.
Logically, I know he’s right. I have no reason to be jumping up in a panic at every imagined sound. Rocky’s got my back. Together we can handle whatever else gets thrown at us. We have so far. So what’s got my lizard brain on edge? I drink my hot-ish water.
I do trust Rocky. Unconditionally. It’s everything else I don’t trust. I don’t trust the Taumoeba not to escape again, they’re tricky little suckers. And I don’t trust the Hail Mary to not break down, she just wasn’t meant to last this long. But most of all, I don’t trust myself to be able to keep on rising to meet every problem that will inevitably crop up.
“I guess it’s myself I don’t trust,” I say slowly, coming to a realization.
“I mean, I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes.”
“Yes.”
“Thanks for the support. But seriously, if I mess this up, it’s not just my death. It’s also yours, and all of Erid’s. That’s a lot of pressure.” Like, 29 atmospheres worth. I chuckle uneasily.
“And the Taemoeba smell worse than the coma slurry tastes,” I add. My ever dwindling supply of “real” food is often on my mind, as is the dread of the inevitability of having to live off coma slurry and eventually taste test the Taemoeba.
I finish my water. Rocky still looks a little down, but he’s back to his usual fidgeting. Maybe it was the warm water, or the talking, but I’m feeling more relaxed now. And a little tired. Maybe I will go back to sleep. But maybe I should be trying a little harder at understanding Eridian culture. Erid will be my home for the foreseeable future, after all, if we make it there in one piece and I don’t starve, first. Come on monkey brain, think of how exciting the future is. I’m going to a totally alien planet full of sentient alien life! I’m the luckiest scientist ever!!
I leave the beaker and hotplate out on the lab table. I’ll deal with them tomorrow. I do make sure the hotplate is unplugged and off, though. No more stupid mistakes. I go back down the ladder and get back in my bed, trying to wriggle into the most comfortable position I can find. I tell the computer to dim the lights. Rocky takes up his watch nearby on his side of the barrier.
“Alright, Rocky. I’m going to go back to sleep. And, I trust you to wake me up if something goes wrong and I need to fix it.” It feels stupid to say it out loud. Of course I trust him to do this. But maybe I can will myself to relax by repeating it.
“Good good good. You sleep. I watch.”
“Yes, you watch. You watch watch watch. I trust trust trust you to watch watch watch.” Okay, this is silly. But I feel a few little pinpricks of tears at the edges of my eyes. I think it helps to say it aloud. And Rocky looks happy.
“Yes! Trust trust trust me, Grace. Trust trust trust me to watch watch watch. Goodnight, Grace.”
“Goodnight, Rocky.” I watch him happily go back to the gadget he was working on. I know he’ll be there when I wake up. And he’ll be there if anything happens before then, too. Rocky’s got my back. Whatever happens next, he’ll be there with me to see it through. I’m not alone.