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Xenonite can be made from different elements. Why, then, had I used the same composition utilized to build my ship to make the breeder tanks for the Taumboeba? It is hard to remember, and remind myself, that I didn't know then what I know now, about Taumoeba's evolution and how they'd learn to sustain themselves in their breeding environment. Although I learned so much from Grace, I was not and am still not a scientist...
For the longest time, Grace has been hard-set on not hearing me out, when I try to lament this part of our saving our worlds together. And even as I've had years to try to convince it to let me talk about it one time—or more than once, maybe it knows this, too—he hasn't let me talk about it at the length I want to. Yet, what else am I to say? If only things has been different? I know I will never be able to forget them as they are.
"I make mistake." After all this time, we still don't have the words between us for me to express my guilt and regret properly, so these are the only ones I land on, still. And now, after all this time, with Erid in view, it does let me go on talking.
Grace has told me it doesn't rue flooding its ship with my atmosphere and hurting itself to save me. It has said that it doesn't regret turning back to Tau Ceti to rescue me a second time. Grace says it doesn't bemoan abandoning its journey home, back to Earth, for my sake. So many times, and at least as often as I have tried to tell it how I feel. After all, I had failed in so many parts of my mission even before it came. Granted they don't outweigh returning to Erid with the remedy for our dimming star, and I am as surely elated in anticipation as I will be in fact once we land, in the Taumoeba to save Eridani.
I can't but remember the conversation we had before parting, though. Knowledge that the approximate lifespan of humans wouldn't allow for us to meet again in Grace's lifetime, even if either of our species made it to Earth from Erid, or to Erid from Earth, thanks to astrophage. As many other things, I can't forget that either.
Four years have left the Earth ship, not made for the kind of journey we've been on, in need of many repairs on the way home. Now, rational thinking tells me that it will take a while for other Eridian engineers to fix it back up properly, to allow it to sustain a journey of another 16 lighty ears, too. Of course, I'll help, but I know that I will want to be with Grace also.
At the moment I still wait for it to say something, or at least end this topic where it always has. As it has brushed my concerns aside, assured me this is the choice it made while full well knowing it wouldn't be able to return to Earth for a while.
As we approach Erid, and Grace has described the light it 'hears' from my home planet though it's still so far away, I am filled with excitement and relief equally as I must imagine the feeling of melancholy that resides in Grace, for it to not see its own home planet after so many years. I am coming home, not it.
I give Grace much time to think these days. With little food left, it truly suffers from the lack of nutrition. Things it explained to me at length even before they happened, but with the big ask of me not to worry too much. Well... Where it had deficits in thinking fast before, it's still slower now. Even in the things it did well, though, like thinking complex, abstract thoughts, it has diminished. I hear Grace lean against the Xenonite, seemingly heavy although its mass has become less over time, too. I continue to wait for an answer, but finally repeat myself when one doesn't come. "I regret very much." In the end, even though it does let me talk, I falter... I did not expect that.
Finally, Grace shakes its head before deliberately pressing its flat palms and its cheek against the Xenonite partition. "Don't," it smiles, "I told you before, didn't I?" It did, that's my issue. "So, please... Don't tell me anymore." Grace sounds tired, more than patient.
I want to shrink away, but touch is so important to both our species that I feel I can never abandon the little bit of it that we have between us, as Grace has told me he thinks of it as a comfort just as much as I do. We have talked, at some length, how this lack of touch will, and has, affected it. We share this as well, the desire and even need, but only I will soon feel the touch of my mate again. All of Erid will need to remain separated from Grace by a centimeter of Xenonite. I hope I can think of something to let it be part of my world, the world it saved.
Grace then continues. "I'm so excited to see your home, Rocky." Here is where I feel melancholy in its place, superseding its words. It was the first thing it proclaimed, actually, when Erid came within its view. But Grace is crying now. I can sense the water leaking from its eyes even as it squeezes them shut. "But you also are sad you not see Earth, question?" I feel stupid asking, but I must. I don't think Grace lies to me when it tells me it is excited. However, Grace has cried from happiness and from sadness. I think this is both, a difficult, tangled mix of emotions.
He nods. "I feel very strange right now." I'm not unfamiliar with the thought of never seeing home again, yet what can I say to Grace now, really...?
So, I press my whole body against the Xenonite panel. Although we are separated by it and our atmospheres, I can sense its soft body conforming to the outside shape of the tunnel, and it can sense the light off of me. We haven't been able to hug properly, but I deeply hope that we will, as odd as it'll be to the other Eridians, entirely different from the kind of touch we usually have for each other.
"I feel strange also," I finally say. I do. Grace shares my excitement. I think I share its grief.