Chapter Text
I wake up uneasily, eyes blinking as the room swims into color. I don’t stretch, don’t even reach for my glasses.
“Grace awake, question?” Rocky asks.
I rub a fingers along the pounding pain in my jaw. “Grace awake, statement.”
The Hail Mary creaks as Rocky scampers away, leaving me on my own to eat and get dressed.
Sitting up is as bad as I’ve predicted, every muscle in my back tensing. The suspicion that’s been circling the back of my mind for the last day returns and I place tentative fingers on either side of my jaw. It’s hard to tell, since the left side is sore from rubbing it up and down, but the subtle feeling is almost certainly there, left side jutting out more than it should, uneven clicking feeling. Heck. Well, I guess it was going to happen at some point, and laughing my butt off at Rocky’s take on Rocky wasn’t a bad way to do it.
“Coma slurry,” I ask the computer, and it complies without complaint, dropping the tube down. It’s gross, and sticks in my throat, and is uncomfortable, but it doesn’t require chewing.
When it started in undergrad, I hadn’t understood what was happening. Days of staring into microscopes gave everyone eyestrain, but the physical therapist said it was unusual for shoulder trouble to come of it. But we worked on it, and practiced, and it got better.
Then it happened a second time. That was irritating, and more weeks of healing and pain followed. It was very annoying to complete labs when doing them left me flat on my back for hours after, praying to have the energy to sit up and type them out.
I was less surprised the third time, and the fourth. I stopped counting after that.
Grad school was a nightmare of pain, back pain and shoulder pain and headaches, headaches that got worse and worse. Then they became migraines, and even ibuprofen didn’t touch them, and I’d run from class just to lie down, or wear sunglasses in the lab. Even the migraine pills had their detriments, ruining what little sleep I could get, taken sparingly to break up the worst pain.
I was sitting in my regular seat at the diner, reading through lesson plans and rubbing my temples, when the waitress came over with my plate of bacon and eggs. “Bad headache?” She asked.
“Among other things,” I said, taking the plate and shoving my papers out of the way.
She looked across the diner before leaning an elbow on the table. “I don’t mean to pry, but you ever seen a doctor about this stuff?”
“Yeah, he said I have migraines.”
“No, all the other stuff. Every week you come in and your leg hurts, or your shoulder hurts, or your back is killing you. I’ve seen it.”
“Well, I’m just a wuss,” I said, trying to coax a smile.
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not so sure you are.”
A month before earning my teaching certificate I was arranged on an uncomfortable exam chair, the rheumatologist pushing the ultrasound around, making small unintelligible notes to the assistant in the room. After a few hurried minutes he put the scanner of the machine away, snapping off a pair of blue gloves. “Young man, you’ve got benign joint hypermobility disorder. You need to do physical therapy to improve the strength of your joints, but that is why they are causing you pain. Unfortunately, painkillers will do next to nothing to improve them, so you will need to complete twelve weeks of physical therapy, three times a week, to improve things, but some pain will remain.”
“And ...” My voice was weak and thin.
“No need to come back. Give us a call if there are any issues with your spine, or your joints become stiff.”
Heck, if only my joints were stiff. Then I wouldn’t be there complaining, would I?
On the way out the door they handed me a sheaf of papers, the diagnosis followed by a thick stapled dossier that, on quick examination, I already knew because I’d read it before: the Wikipedia article for hypermobility.
For the first time in my life, I clambered into the back seat of my car and wept.
I pop open the storage area, sliding the hatch over to jump in and begin sorting out bags. I leave mine, the one with “GRACE” written in marker on a strip of curling tape, out on the surface, unzipping the others one by one and rooting around with a hand fruitlessly, pausing to lean against the side of the hatch a couple times.
I know the contents of each duffel bag well because I’ve packed and repacked each of them several times. Photo albums and personal effects and methods of death. Even though it would be more efficient to separate by use at this point, I’ve kept each person’s assemblage together. Even though they’re not here it feels disrespectful to divide it up.
The thing I really want, a plush heating pad that rolled up and packed well, was definitely left behind in a trailer in Russia, and there’s no sign of another version in here. I spend more time looking for the other thing, flipping through every personal item, turning over every nook and cranny. It packs basically flat, so there wouldn’t even have been a problem throwing it in. But it’s not there.
I stare up at the robotic arms in the ceiling. “Hot water bottle?” I ask.
“Operation unknown,” the robot replies.
Darn.
Rocky’s busy as usual in the lab, claws twisting away at some new ship upgrade. He straightens as I enter, giving me his attention. “Good morning. You sleep for long time, twelve hours. I show you new component I make for generator. Then we—”
“Yeah, Rock,” I say, already drifting to a side of the lab. “I’ve gotta find something first.”
“What Grace looking for, question? You seem very distracted.”
I think through the question, opening a couple of drawers that contain some less-sophisticated medical supplies. “Something like a rubber bladder, for putting water in.”
“Rubber bladder over here!” Rocky says, excitedly tapping in the direction of the analysis equipment, most of which was dead now.
I lunge towards him, opening up the drawer and disappointedly extracting the rubber pipette. “This is too small.”
“There no is bigger rubber bladder in lab.”
The truth falls on my shoulders as Rocky says it, because it was a fragile enough hope to start. They’d put me on the ship unconscious, I’d been swapped out only three days in advance, and even in the years I’d worked for Stratt it had only happened a couple times and I’d never complained. People don’t like it if you announce your jaw unhinged and needs to be put back.
“Is Grace wears extra clothes day,” Rocky chirps merrily. “Come see generator upgrade. We install after.”
I nod and walk back over to his tunnel, corner of my mouth twitching up. At least that part doesn’t hurt.
Sitting in meetings was the worst part of the Hail Mary project, and the time spent sitting was only increasing for me. At first the lab work had been great. Physical therapy and braces and years upon months of work learning what pain meant what transformed lab work from a terrifying chore, where a wrong move meant weeks of being unable to crouch down.
And the lab work was the kind I liked, messy, mostly focused on the science, with minimal time writing up reports and reviewing things, instead working late into the night and reading printouts on my bed, or with my laptop balanced on my chest. I was between standing and sitting most days, and there was enough going on to ignore the pain.
But Stratt never slept, and there was still not enough of her to go around, so I ended up sitting in more and more meetings, and in front of more and more paperwork. The Astrophage were replicating successfully, and the farms were working at their greatest capacity, and I was suddenly needed outside the lab.
I’d told myself for years there were plenty of reasons I’d left academia. It wasn’t for me, and the kids were wonderful, and I loved working with them. There were other reasons, however, though less loud ones. The kids loved me, and they didn’t push my out like my colleagues. They didn’t demand months of peer review and sitting at a desk checking through someone else’s paperwork. In theory, my mountains of student loans would be forgiven after a while. The day ended at four and I could go home and grade papers on the couch rather than in the painful confines of a chair, braces strapped across my body.
“Dr. Grace?”
I snapped to attention. “Yes?”
“I was asking where the project was in procuring Astrophage for the launch.”
I replied with the answer, looking at the faces around the room. Had I fallen asleep? I’d probably fallen asleep. The dull ache was emanating from my jaw, and my hip had popped out of place about an hour ago, and I was only running on a couple hours’ sleep anyway. The launch was getting too close to be able to rest properly, now.
For the first time, brushing it off wasn’t going to get me anywhere, and changing tack was impossible on my own.
Stratt was sitting in her usual place, two cups of coffee before a true mass of papers in more languages than I wanted to think about. I picked up the one on her left which was, as presumed, empty, tossing it into the trash on the other side of her desk before sitting down. “You should know,” I started, “I’ve been diagnosed—”
“With a joint disorder. Yes, I know.”
“You know that?”
Her eyes flicked up. “Yes. I have your medical records. I needed to know everything before hiring you.”
“Well, you should know that lately I’ve been not doing so well.”
“You manage.”
“I manage?”
“Yes, I have seen it. You manage yourself well. What do you need?”
“Enough time to sleep would be nice.”
“Time is the one thing that we do not have, Dr. Grace,” she said, eyes piercing directly through me. “You should do everything else you need to do to manage. I need you to be present.”
The next morning I woke up with my jaw mostly back in place, courtesy of sleeping on my face atop a heating pad and a shot of the Russians’ vodka the night before. It was nice knowing that migraine medication was pretty much unnecessary, but without anything to take the edge off, the idea of getting through another fourteen hours was more than I wanted to think about. Instead, I put on the rest of my braces to keep everything else in place for the day, hoping that at least the pain in my face would be mitigated with the support of everything else. I put off removing my coat until the moment before the meeting that morning with the astronauts started, sitting down quickly at the table.
Ilyukhina had raised an eyebrow at me. “Is Dr. Grace trying to dress like an astronaut too, now?”
I gave a nervous laugh, hiding my mouth behind my hand. “No, nothing like that. It’s … uh … it’s a brace.”
“Ah,” she said, and there was no further discussion.
I rest my back against the storage entry hole. Crouching down in there is murder on my joints, and the generator is not going in that easily.
“Is Grace tired, question,” Rocky asks. “You spent so many hours asleep. You should not be tired now.”
“I’m not … I’m not tired. I’m fatigued.”
“Has been many days since Adrian incident. Why fatigue if no reason, question?”
I peel off my glasses, rubbing my face in my hands. The dull pain in my jaw has ramped up to extreme, and it’s almost the only thing I can think about now. “I wish it was that simple, buddy. It’s not the Adrian incident.”
There’s scrambling and when I turn my head Rocky has a concerned expression to his stance. I look him over. Every word is murder, but he’s my best friend. He’s my best friend, and we’re flying to his planet right now that has nearly twice the gravity my body is used to, and if I tell him now then I will lie down on my jaw for at least thirty minutes after to see if that alleviates any of the pain.
“Rocky, you know I wear special clothes sometimes.”
“Yes, culture.”
“They’re not cultural. I have something wrong with my joints. Nobody really understands exactly what is wrong, but there is a problem with the collagen, the connective tissue. It is weak, and bad at its job. So I hurt all of the time, and sometimes my joints pop out of place. My hips and my shoulders most often. Others also pop out of place, like my jaw, and that’s more painful.”
Rocky’s full attention was on me, his hands even still for once. “When Grace wear special clothes, you hurt. You hurt today. But you no hurt for reason.”
I nod. “That’s why I slept for so long today. Sleep is more comfortable when being awake hurts. I was looking for something hot because it makes my jaw easier to put back into place.”
“Your jaw no look wrong to me.”
I look back at Rocky. “Watch me. When my jaw closes, it pops in and out asymmetrically.” I open and close my mouth a couple times, putting a protective hand to the muscle that is screaming now, smoothing a few fingers along the sore line.
“I understand now. How fix, question?”
I catch my breath. This is too much talking. “Honestly, just lying on my face.”
“You are leaking.”
I wipe the tear that’s been forced out of my left eye involuntarily, the last stage of pain before I can’t stand it anymore. I nod, getting out of the storage hole. “I’m so sorry, I have to go lie down and not talk.”
“Okay,” Rocky says, scrambling around his tunnel so that he is able to watch me in my bed like I am asleep. “Want you better. More important.”
As I lie back on the bed with my head to the right, jaw propped on the mattress to force it back into place, I wipe tears out of both my left and right eyes.
I looked at the assembled scientists and astronauts, Stratt at the center of the table. “No, you don’t understand.”
“You are the best candidate for the mission,” Stratt said.
“You want healthy people on this thing. I’m not healthy people.”
Commander Yáo asked a question in Mandarin, which Stratt crisply answered. There went my secret, loose across the whole of Project Hail Mary. There it went, almost a decade of never sharing, never asking for accommodations just to make sure nobody would see me differently, or pity me, or deny me the things that I wanted most out of life.
“You have performed with no issue for the past five years,” Stratt said to me.
“Yeah, but I’m on Earth.”
“Earth is not different from space. You’re avoiding the issue. You will have no more trouble in space than you have here—maybe less, in zero gravity.”
I wanted to protest, to bring up the fact that during space travel we’ll be in 1.5 g, that it might exacerbate my condition, that even the muscle stimulation may not work to maintain tone, that if I got injured I’d take much longer to heal than anyone else, because the conversation was picking up and turning somewhere else.
Sitting in the cell, Stratt’s last words were still echoing in my ears as I tried to savor the last remaining hours I had with my memory, if not my last few hours on Earth, on solid ground, before I was sent to die. I stared at my hands, the only part of me that had managed to continue working reliably, eight out of ten digits that didn’t give me any pain at all. I shifted onto my back, regretting that I’d been too afraid to try any tattoos, because I would need to remember this. Amnesia wasn’t going to make me any better at ignoring my pain, because it was real, and physical, and not something to brush off. Would he know what the braces were for? Would they even remember to send them up? Maybe there would be vet wrap. I should have checked that there was vet wrap on the manifest, but that was not possible anymore.
I wake with a start, picking up my stopwatch. Thirty-three minutes and twenty seconds. I massage my jaw slowly. The pain is still there, but definitely diminished. It always goes back in stages, I remember, and this is at least one stage. Heat will help, and let it go in gently probably tonight. Three or four sessions usually are what do it, but I should be over the hump in the morning at least.
Rocky waves his happy jazz hands. “You are awake so soon!”
I nod, turning to face him. “Yeah, I’m feeling a bit better.”
“Jaw back in place, question?”
“Not quite. It’d be easier if I have a source of heat. If I have that plus a muscle relaxant, it’ll probably go back in pretty soon, but I don’t know of a source of heat.”
Rocky’s claws click together. “Use my tunnel as heat source.”
I walk over and place my hand against the tunnel. It is warm. “Yeah, but I need the combination of heat and gravity and pressure to push it back into place. I’m not strong enough—well, I’ve never done it with just my hand before.”
“Why you sleep on face this time, statement.”
“Yeah, pretty much. And the sleep thing … it’s kind of involuntary. When my body can finally relax it often falls asleep.”
Rocky clicks his claws a couple more times. “I will make you heat source for face.”
“I used to have one, you know. They call them heating pads on Earth. They’re covered in fuzzy material, and get warm but not hot enough to burn you. The one I had had five heat levels, and it turned off after two hours to make sure that you don’t get burned.”
Rocky has already disappeared into the depths of his storage area, compiling parts, but I know that he is listening, because he’s always listening. He returns eventually with a pile of components in his bandoleer. “You should take muscle relaxant, so ready for my heat source.”
“I don’t think you want me to do that yet,” I say, starting to climb out of the dormitory to the lab. “Then I’ll be stupid for much too long.”
“What is muscle relaxant, question?”
“Two shots of vodka.”
Rocky laughs a little with me, scampering up into the lab. “Do not take, bad bad bad for science.”
“I agree,” I say, silently checking on our Taumoeba farms instead.
My bag of personal effects had clearly been packed first on the Hail Mary, shoved into the back of the storage space. Everyone elses’ had been sent up weeks before in the final launch of building material to the ISS before the astronaut launch. Someone had packed mine and somehow put it aboard with us, but it was packed light as a result, not an errant gram. Clothes, a quilt that had been sent in from around the world when we were still aboard the Stratt’s Vat, messages of encouragement from my students that I’d left around the office, packets of skittles. There were only two things inside of substantial weight: a beanbag, crocheted with the continents of Earth, and my favorite brace, the one that went around my shoulders and abdomen and hips and held everything together. There were other braces inside too, ones for knees and ankles and even wrists. I did not even know who I was then, really, and spent some time mucking around with them and wondering why they were inside. Even reviewing my medical chart on the ship was not useful.
That was what I got for always hiding it away, and never writing it down. Instead, each memory of every mistake was recovered painfully slowly over the weeks.
This time I didn’t take any chances. The file was barebones, literally written in the notepad and not even shared between all of the other laptops, but I made sure that it was saved to the device that ran Rocky’s voice translation software, when that was still more necessary. Lists of problems and solutions, daily exercises, stretches, the feelings of weakness and pain that meant something was actually wrong.
Oddly enough, the coma had somewhat helped, at least in the beginning. The muscle stimulation was conducted independent of my own joints and motions, and for the first month I had proper abdominal support in a way that had been nearly impossible before. My shoulders had been more stable than I remembered. Of course, there were tradeoffs, and my body was now more balanced, so the fingers in both my left and right hand gave me trouble, and both wrists were worse, and my ankles had rolled several times already.
One day the pain was too severe to ignore when I woke up, and referring to my little notation I strapped on the body brace before ascending to the lab.
“Why you wearing extra clothes, question?” Rocky asked. “Culture, question?”
“Hmm,” was all I said, and he must have taken it as an answer. Maybe a yes, maybe an either-or.
“How you feel, question?” Rocky asks.
I sigh, running the pads of my fingers over the keyboard. “You don’t have to ask me that, Rocky.”
“I ask. How you feel, question?”
“I—” I pause. “For humans, asking ‘How are you?’ is more of a cultural motion. I hate it. I don’t feel good most of the time. I don’t like lies.”
“Understand. No ask for cultural meaning. Ask because want to know how Grace feel.”
“Well, my jaw’s out of it’s socket where it should be, and one of the body’s strongest muscles is pulling against it. How do you think it feels?”
“Bad.”
“Bad bad bad,” I add.
“Better than when sleep, question?”
“Yes. That was horrible horrible horrible.”
“Understand. Heat source for you ready.”
I perk up, turning back to Rocky. He’s holding a fabric pad, a thin tube attaching to some kind of small generator, already swinging through the tunnel down to the dormitory airlock.
It takes a while to cool down in there, so I do my best to listen to Rocky’s explanation. “Made small version of life support system for me, only temperature. Not hot. Wire through fabric, then fabric on top and bottom. Safest use double layer. Little switch for you on side of generator.”
“Thank you, my friend,” I say as I retrieve it from inside the airlock, still a little warm with a whiff of ammonia that’s gotten more and more normal over time.
“What do now, question?”
“I’d like to get my jaw back into place, if you don’t mind,” I say, setting Rocky’s heating pad on my bed, grabbing the bag of vodka out of storage. “I can put on another movie for you to watch, then I’ll just lie down.”
“Watch together.”
I look over at my bed, oriented in completely the wrong way for us to both watch a movie together while I lie waiting for my stupid jaw to go back into place. Then I look at the two empty beds, that I haven’t felt right appropriating. They’re not mine.
I climb up into the lab, returning with a drill and a couple of bits, trying a few before I pick up the bag of vodka.
“No,” Rocky says, “No stupid drink before tools.”
“Oh, it’s not that much I’m doing with the tools.”
“No.”
“Fine.” I pack as much sarcasm as I can into the word before setting the bag back down and unscrewing the bed pod from its support, dragging it over in front of Rocky’s bed area and airlock. The projector is already set up and I queue up one of the movies that we’ve discussed, noting that Rocky has already procured his watching crystal and pad.
“Better,” Rocky says. “Now you stupid drink.”
“Thanks,” I say, taking a sip of the vodka before flicking on the switch to the pad.
It’s not like the old one I had, taking at least five minutes to heat up. It’s hot almost immediately, the temperature steady and perfectly distributed throughout the pad, though nowhere near hot enough to burn me. The fabric is soft too, probably one of Rocky’s sweaters that no longer has holes for his arms. How did he get it to be flat? When talking hurts less, I’ll ask. I take another sip of vodka and don’t even bother waiting for it to metabolize, laying down on my stomach, pad right beneath my chin.
Rocky shifts behind me, the opening notes of the movie just starting. “You are leaking again.”
“Yeah.” My voice is thick with tears. “Thank you, Rocky.”
“You are welcome, Grace.”