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It's lonely on the Hail Mary. Deeply lonely. Grace doesn't think he'd fully realized how lonely this place could be until recently. Sure, he'd woken up alone, but the loneliness had been dulled by fear and alcohol then. By the time it sunk in how alone he truly he was on the ship, he'd run into Rocky. Even while Rocky was asleep and healing from his injuries, he was there. Another living being to help him hold on to his sanity.
Rocky's gone now, headed back to Erid. Grace is happy for him. As happy as Grace should be for himself getting to go back home. When he thinks about being back on Earth, Grace just feels empty. He doesn't know what he's going back to. A dead, frozen wasteland, for all he knows. He'll have to come face to face with the people who sent him to die, rub his nose in the fact that they were right about him in the end. He'll be three decades out of time.
There won't be any Rocky.
That bothers Grace more than it should. They'd only been together a few months, but Grace has never felt as at home with anyone as he does with Rocky. What does it say about him that he had to leave the solar system to finally feel connection? Grace doesn't want to think too much about it. Not when he's speeding away in the opposite direction of Rocky and not when he's already granted himself his few minutes of Petrovascope time today.
Not only is the Hail Mary lonely, it's also boring. Sure, Grace has more space than any astronaut before him could have ever fathomed and of course, he has to admit Stratt was onto something when she decided to copy the entirety of Earth's media onto Mary. But there's only so many times Grace can pace the walkways and binge watch Star Trek episodes before that makes him want to tear his hair out. Earth media isn't as fun without Rocky around to explain it to.
Maybe he'll feel better if he spends his time doing something more valuable. His options are limited, but there's probably dozens of papers he can write about everything he's experienced up here and he hasn't even looked back at the video logs he'd made. He'll be around to explain everything, but the logs will be endlessly analyzed anyway. It's first contact! Grace should make sure they're coherent before handing them over to the UN.
Starting on the papers would probably be a better use of his time, but going over the logs gives him a chance to look through his memories with Rocky. It's no surprise Grace ends up sitting by the porthole, quilt over his shoulders and computer open on his lap.
It takes him a few minutes to find the collection of video logs. Grace knows he should have been keeping track of these the whole time, not just putting blind trust in Mary's backup system, but he'd been a little busy with the whole waking up amnesiac and then trying to save the world and not die in the process thing.
He finds the eventually, hidden three folders deep and all titled with nothing but a series of numbers and the dates. Maybe he'd go back and give them all snazzy titles. Something to keep the scholars entertained as they combed the logs for every bit of knowledge they could find on Erid. He has a few years before he's close enough to transmit these to Earth. Plenty of time to come up with stupid puns for them.
The top of the folder has their last log recorded together. It was only a few weeks ago they filmed it. Grace remembers how giddy they both felt in their celebration outfits, recording Rocky's goodbye to Earth. They'd been too caught up in the excitement of getting the Taumoeba ready for Threeworld to let the goodbye get them down. Grace is glad their last recorded moment was a happy one, but he doesn't want to see it now.
He scrolls further down. Scrolls and scrolls. He and Rocky really did record a lot of nonsense together. He keeps scrolling, hoping to find something from the earlier days, back when he and Rocky had first met. It'll be like reliving their time together. Grace makes it to the handful of videos he'd recorded in their tunnel. The end is in sight. He expects the vlogs to begin there. Maybe when they had turned on automatically after he woke up. Neither would make him think twice.
He gets to the very first one. Another file with nothing but numbers for a title. Except... Grace frowns. He knows, of course, that time is out of whack on the ship. Between time dilation and the ease of changing the ship's time to work around painkiller doses, Grace knows not to put too much weight on the timestamps on these videos. But the first one is dated over four years earlier than anything else.
Grace hovers the cursor over the link. It's either a computer error and he'll open it to find one of his own logs with Rocky or it's from right around when the Hail Mary took off. Could it be a message for him that he'd managed to miss?
No, if anyone was trying to get a direct message in his hands, Mary would have delivered it when he woke up. Not to mention, they expected him to wake up with two other astronauts. There wouldn't be anything just for him on what was expected to be a shared laptop. Grace needs to look at this logically. It's a video in the logs folder, dated to when the ship took off, and perfectly introductory log length at a few minutes long.
Of course it's a log.
His cursor still blinks over the video. Grace is tempted to just ignore it. Delete it without watching it and pretend it never existed. It might be easier that way. Without a doubt, it would hurt less that way. It's what a coward would do, isn't it? Grace has been a coward all his life, he remembers that now. This is exactly the sort of thing he would run away from. In honor of the man he so briefly thought he was, Grace clicks on the video.
His computer screen is overtaken by a shot of Ilyukhina recording herself, far too close to the camera. She seems to realize this and, with an embarrassed laugh, fidgets with the settings until she has a decent frame. She's on the Hail Mary, happy and proud and alive in her white flight suit. She's floating through the cockpit. Grace figures this must be shortly after launch, when the astronauts were going through their final preparations in orbit around Earth.
"House tour!" she exclaims. She moves the camera away from her and shows off the many buttons and screens. "Much nicer than recreation on Earth. Good job, team. I will be dead long time by when you see this, but had sick digs before dying."
She kicks off one of the chairs and navigates through the ship. She stops to show everything, full of eager energy as she shows off every nook and cranny. She explains things as she goes, giving shout outs to all the different teams that put all this together. This isn't the drunken exploration Grace put the ship through when he woke up. This is a real astronaut.
She hesitates in the lab. She still dutifully shows the camera every corner of it, stops at all the major equipment, opens drawers to show off how well equipped their interstellar grave is. Her voice doesn't have the same spark as before, though. Occasionally, the camera trembles in her hands and Grace isn't sure if the sniffling he hears is coming from him or her.
"Most of lab is mystery to me," Ilyukhina admits. "If Martin were here, he explain much better. Annie, too. But... Ah, well. Could not bear to leave each other, those two! Is okay. When Dr. Grace wake up, I make him give tour. He will explain. Maybe better! He is like muppet on Ulitsa Sezam. Can make anything sound simple."
Grace laughs. How can he not? He's been alone for weeks and his long dead crewmate is calling him a muppet. It's absurd. It makes his heart pang and ache and he can almost believe everything will be okay. Ilyukhina was always good at that, at brightening up rooms that had grown heavy with the end of the world on their shoulders. As much fun as he'd had with Rocky, Grace knows they would have never stopped laughing if she'd survived the trip here. Rocky would have loved her.
Ilyukhina leaves the lab behind and makes the trip to the dormitory. Yao is there, going over something on Armando's panel. Grace is there, too. Already asleep and laying under blankets on the bed. He's not in the body bag, yet. Grace in the present day is glad for that. He's having a hard enough time seeing his comatose self on screen. If he was already bagged up like a corpse, the way he woke up, he wouldn't have been able to stand it.
Grace remembers when they were all on Earth and traveling back and forth for preparations. He recalls a few trips to Beijing, when he'd met some of Yao's colleagues at the CNSA. Astronauts who had already been to space with him and had nothing but the utmost praise to share about their old commander. They'd shared stories of how intense he was when the mission began, how he became a different man when he broke free of the atmosphere. Grace had a hard time imagining their Yao, always kind and joking, with that version of him.
He sees it now, on screen, as Ilyukhina approaches him with the camera. There's a steely resolve in his eyes, a clench in his jaw, his back impossibly straight in the zero gravity. This is a man who means business. A man ready to lay down his life saving the world. This is what bravery looks like. Grace wishes he'd been around to keep them steady at Tau Ceti.
As mission minded as he might be, Yao still softens and offers a smile when he sees the camera approach. "The logs are meant for when we reach Tau Ceti. They're for documenting an answer to the Astrophage problem and the scientific process. Not for commentary."
"Boring!" Ilyukhina laughs. "Is okay. We have much much storage. Plenty room for yap."
Yao shakes his head, fond, and finishes his check of Armando's systems. With that done, he swims his way to Grace's bedside. There's still lots to do before Grace is ready for the coma, clothing to be removed and tubes to be attached, but Yao only fusses over the blanket around Grace's chest.
"He would have hated this, I think. Too scratchy," Yao remarks.
"He can have nice one when he wakes. I won't make him share," Ilyukhina promises.
She comes in closer. Grace, watching all this from the present, notices a scabbed over scratch on his brow. It must be from when he'd been tackled while trying to run away. The whole memory is a frantic blur even now. He doesn't remember pain, only fear.
Ilyukhina leaves the camera to float. It bobs a little, like it's floating in the tide, but it's not difficult to keep track of the video. She pulls herself closer to Grace's bed and ruffles his hair, like he's her irksome little brother. It doesn't escape Grace's notice that before pulling away, she makes sure a few tufts of his hair fall down to cover the injury.
"We are glad you changed your mind, Dr. Grace," she says.
The video is quiet. It feels eternal, but from the timestamp, Grace can see it's only about twenty seconds. Ilyukhina finally pushes away from his bedside and goes to grab the camera again. She takes it with her to the nearest window and points it out at Earth beneath them. It's stunning. As beautiful as every picture Grace has ever seen of their planet from orbit. Even with the obvious damage to Antarctica, the black swath of panels over the Sahara, the vicious storms forming as the planet fights back its destruction. It's still beautiful.
Everything is peaceful from up in orbit. There’s no bureaucratic squabbling or impending famine. No one is being backed against a wall to send astronauts to their death and no one is running from responsibility. Astrophage explosions are as imperceptible here as imploded academic careers. There’s no borders or conflicts. Just all of humanity staring up at them with an impossible hope.
“You will regret going to sleep early, Grace.” Ilyukhina sighs wistfully. “Earth is beautiful. No view like this.”
Yao chuckles offscreen, next to her. “It doesn’t matter how many times I come up here. Nothing compares to seeing Earth from here.”
“We will take scenic route around Tau Ceti after mission,” Ilyukhina decides. “Find something beautiful for Dr. Grace to look at.”
“If there’s enough food left, we will,” Yao agrees. “For now, we have work left to do.”
Ilyukhina sighs. “Almost bedtime!” She turns the camera around to face the two of them again. She grins, as wide and fearless as Grace remembers on Earth, and flashes a peace sign. Next to her, Yao waves goodbye. “We will see you in Tau Ceti!”
“See you in Tau Ceti,” Yao echoes. “With an answer to astrophage.”
Ilyukhina nods. “We will find answer. Swear it. Goodbye, Earth.”
They wave goodbye for a few more seconds before the footage cuts back to Earth on orbit. It lingers there for almost a full minute before the video cuts out entirely. The screen is black for only a moment before cycling automatically to Grace’s first log, still half asleep and incoherent. Grace simply shuts the laptop screen to avoid seeing it.
They should have been here. Ilyukhina and Yao. They deserved to get to Tau Ceti far more than he did. They would have probably found a solution faster than he did. They would have been braver than he was.
Grace has already used up his allotted engines-off-check-on Rocky time, but he still makes his way up to the cockpit to cut the engines and turn the Petrovascope on. He’s sure Earth will forgive him for the time added to the trip.
The Hail Mary has never felt as lonely as it does now.