CHAPTER 6

"If I'm going to die, it's going to have meaning." Quiet determination in the dark.

"Figure out what can be done. Send answers to Earth. Then die." The mission redefined.

"I think I'm chewing on a little cube of carrot." First texture in days. Small joy.

"More water!" The arms respond instantly. Three days ago they were monsters. Now: furniture.

"The dormitory is a good place for thinking. My nice comfortable bed." A safe space carved from chaos.

The full scope of the task. Each question a mountain. He decides to start small.

"The control room has a nice chair but it's cramped and has blinking lights everywhere."

"Ship information can be found in the control room." — Same answer every time. "You kind of suck."

"Any screen can show any instrument panel. They're interchangeable." Customizable displays.

"Tau Ceti — same spectral type, color. I'd mistake it for the sun." He's really here.

"Hmph." The one tool he needs most — unavailable until engines cut off.

"Four planetary orbits shown as thin white ellipses." The system laid out. The path is automated.

"Ohhhh — that lowercase t on the crest is a tau. For Tau Ceti." Small delight in the dark.

"Four-digit days — the journey took at least 1000 days. Over three years."

"At least thirteen years have passed on Earth. Even if I find a solution now — 26 years total."

"I only notice the tears when the first one drops." Memory of friends he cannot remember — but the loss is real.

"I shake off their memory. My whole species is at stake." Grief acknowledged, then boxed away.

"A touchscreen in a pull-out drawer. A fantastic find." Research-only system — separate from ship controls.

"No reason to be stingy with information." All of human knowledge — with him, 12 light-years away.

"That's the beetles' data." When he finds the answer, these four will carry it back to Earth.

"They orient via stars, head toward Earth on their own." No human targeting needed. Elegant design.

"Okay. Noted. Not sure what to do with that." Classic Grace: cataloguing the unknown, moving on.

"They figured an EVA would be important. Probably to collect local Astrophage." If there is any.

"The next several days are an exercise in patience." He learns the ship. He waits.

"I don't like roller coasters or water slides. That dropping sensation." He knows what's coming.

"I straight-up panic. No mental prep would have worked." A scientist reduced to animal fear.

"Puke in zero-g is not okay. I tilt my head down just in time." Contained. Barely.

"I clench my teeth. My fists. My butt. Every part I know how to clench." Control through stillness.

"The panic begins to ebb. Human brains are amazing — we get used to anything."

"The feeling of warm vomit squishing. I need to change." Survival is often unglamorous.

"The whole lab is cluttered with random floating debris." He left things out when cataloguing. Dummy.

"Clean me!" The arms do nothing. Some commands outside NannyBot's vocabulary.

"Laundry?" The magic word. Arms snatch it, ceiling panel opens, jumpsuit disappears. Elegant.

"Putting on clothes in zero-g is interesting. It's Yáo's. Not too tight." A quiet tribute.

"I pull myself into the pilot's chair and strap in to keep from floating away." Time to use the Petrovascope.

"The Petrovascope screen says READY." Engine off — the instrument can finally function.

"I swipe left left left until I find Tau Ceti — a solid black circle. Metal plate protects the sensors. Good design."

"If there's no Petrova line here, I don't know what to do. I'll try to figure something out. But I'll be lost."

"I clap my hands. YES! I do a wiggly little dance in my chair. It's not easy in zero-g but I give it my all."

"There are so many experiments I'll need to do, I don't even know where to begin!"

"A flash on the screen. Just a quick blip of light. Nowhere near the Petrova line." What is that?

"The light source becomes brighter. Is it an object headed toward me?" First hypothesis forms.

"Brighter, brighter, brighter — then disappears. I wait. It doesn't return." Nothing to do about it yet.

"Half of the Petrova line is just gone. Like someone took an X-Acto knife to it." Physics doesn't do this.

"A straight line — like an X-Acto knife. Maybe something blocking the lens?" Reaching for any explanation.

"Maybe a visible-light view will give me a better idea of what's going on." The switch that changes everything.

"There's another ship in this system with me." The most important moment in human history. He can barely breathe.

"Huge flat surfaces — the worst possible way to make a pressure vessel. No one on Earth would. No one on Earth."

"Those flashes of light — those were its engines. Astrophage-powered. Just like the Hail Mary."

"Humanity isn't alone in the universe. And I've just met our neighbors." The weight of history.

"Stratt's Vat. The People's Liberation Army Navy Gansu. We wandered the South China Sea."

"Not much to look at — a metal pipe with ugly controls. But it worked. The concept was solid."

"She looked up. Her eyes had bags. She hadn't slept." First time Grace has seen her drink.

"How can I help?" "It's not easy." The rarest of moments: Stratt vulnerable, asking for something.

"The coma protocol alone kills one in three. We need crew who can survive a four-year sleep."

"The Soviets experimented on long-term coma in the sixties and seventies. The data still exists."

"One specific genetic marker. Only one in seven thousand people have it. They survive long comas."

"All three crew members must have the marker. You don't get to volunteer — you get found."

"Routine health survey, hm?" Grace starting to piece together how long he'd been watched.

"Yes." A one-word answer that contains an entire philosophy of pragmatic ruthlessness. No apology forthcoming.

"The outrage deflates. He's a scientist. He'd have done the same." Stratt has that effect on people.

"Stratt never softens anything. The fact that she's pacing herself means this is very bad."

"There's no return trip. The mission requires all the fuel just to get there." The thing Grace already knew but hadn't heard said.

"I'd wondered. The math never quite worked for a return trip. I'd wondered and then stopped wondering."

"She never asks why. She's asking why." The question is almost tender. She needs to understand him.

"No speech. No drama. Just: this is what I do. This is what I am." The purest version of himself.

"She nods. Just once. The closest she'll come to saying: thank you. And: I'm sorry." A universe in a gesture.

"The memory fades. He's back. Strapped into the pilot's chair. Petrovascope still on."

"Still there. Still the same. Not a glitch. Not a dream. The most important thing humanity has ever encountered."

"He holds all three at once: he found the line, he found alien life, and he chose to be here. It all converges."

"He unstraps. Floats toward the screen. Drawn to it like something magnetic. He can't look away."

"He presses his hands to the screen as if he could touch it. As if the glass is the only thing between them."

"He defaults to what he knows how to do: make a list. Categorize. Find the edge of the known." His coping mechanism.

"It's not approaching. Not retreating. Holding position. Watching? Waiting? Same as him." A standoff across the void.

"He looks at it the way you look at a mirror you've never seen before. Who is on the other side?"

"There is no human word for what he's feeling. He's the first person in history to feel it." Two lights on his face.

"They should have seen this. They died for this. He will see it for all three of them." Witness by proxy.

"The alien ship is on the Petrova line. Both ships are here because of Astrophage. Both here for the same star. Same reason."