Chapter Text

GRACE WATCH

NASA’s Missteps and What’s Next

BRENDON PARKER & LAURA PAULSON
JULY 20, 2089

They’d moved too quickly.

It was the conclusion of the large report that sat heavily on her desk. It’d been the littlest thing. A small detail. A goddamned screw that was merely a few millimeters off. And that screw led to one of the biggest embarrassments NASA has seen in recent years. In their eagerness to ready Earth for the Eridians, they—no, she hadn’t stopped long enough to consider if this path were the right one. Another two weeks, a few brainstorms, and maybe none of this would be on her shoulders.

"What the fuck was that, Longwood?"

Mary had been furious. All eyes were on them, she had reminded Madeline with a few more expletives, and each misstep was one step backwards in the public’s eye. It was embarrassing, it was a mistake, and now everyone questioned whether they could actually do this. The space heads had too much dignity to publicly question her, but they’d asked pointed questions about the situation with heavy implications.

The White House’s PR team sent through a new set of talking points that emphasized that no one had been hurt and reassured the public that they were exploring all potential options. She was fairly certain they'd decided to make her a punching bag for some of the tougher outlets as revenge.

In a debrief session with the engineering team, who met her frustration with grim resolve, they’d offered half a dozen options for the next iteration of the structure. As one of her engineers pointed out, Eridians had no trouble containing themselves in their EVA suits, which were glued with some sort of compound. They’d relied on human engineering for this, but maybe it was time to combine the best of two worlds.

She’d considered her options all morning. Someone would need to rapidly analyze and reproduce the sampled material (assuming they were willing to part with it in the first place) at a high quantity. 3M had the manufacturing capacity, and there were some chemists at the University of Michigan who could assist with the analysis. Then the solution hit.

Phoenix Enterprises.

Since Komorov’s death, the organization had changed. No longer was it a quasi-philanthropy/venture capital/non-profit entity that funded science for the sake of funding science. Instead, they’d become a beast of investments, research, and manufacturing, catapulting it to the top of the astronautics field. They’d secured a nasty contract with the North African Coalition that gave it a strong connection to Astrophage production, and they used that to their advantage. Supporting Artemis, designing spacecraft, securing the primary contract to manage ISS upkeep—they were not to be messed with.

But maybe this could work to her advantage.

She hit dial.

It didn’t take very long for him to pick up.

“Ah, Longwood, it’s good to hear from you,” he said. “How is Grace doing?”

Grant Gibson, a man who’d crawled his way to the top through private industry. Stints at SpaceX, Lockheed, and Northrop had prepared him well for this position. He’d single-handedly shifted the purpose of Phoenix with an iron fist, well-tailored suit, and a calculating eye.

“As well as can be expected,” she said. “Don’t think I didn’t see that offer you sent him.”

Grace had been the subject of about six dozen job offers in the short time he’d been on Earth. They’d set up a whole new inbox just to collect all the well-wishes, media requests, and job offers. She’d only gotten a glimpse of it when Danielle showed it to her, but his name had caught her eye.

“We are not trying to take him out from under you, Longwood,” he said with a chuckle. “But he should be aware of all his options. I know you can only afford to pay him a fraction of what we can.” She rolled her eyes. She couldn’t stop Grace if he really wanted to go elsewhere, but she was going to put up a fight about it. “What brings you to me today?”

“I’ve got a deal for you, Gibson,” she said carefully. He quieted.

“I’m listening.”

“We need an Eridani compound analyzed, manufactured, and shipped to us in the next three weeks,” she said. “I’ve got a lab in Michigan I know can do it. But I am offering it to you first in exchange for a 15% discount on Astrophage for NASA’s next mission directive.”

He was silent, his short breaths audible on the line.

“Per the UN, don’t all Eridani discoveries need to be made public? Even if we get it first, Longwood, we don’t retain that competitive advantage.”

“But you get time,” she countered. “You get several weeks with it before any of your competitors, and I know you understand the value of time, Gibson.” He was going to drive a hard bargain, she felt it. “You’ll get all publishing credit.”

“Five percent discount and right of first refusal for all other Eridani discoveries.”

“You know I can’t do that,” she said. “I am calling you right now because Phoenix has the capabilities needed here. I am not going to give you something better suited to someone else. Ten percent.”

“What is NASA’s next mission focus?” he prompted. “Titan?”

“Most likely, we’ll know more once the ISC can actually get us together.” He was silent.

“Seven.”

Madeline smiled. “Deal. I’m sending the request up to the ISS now—you should get the compound plus Eridani background in two days.”

“I’ll get my lawyers to draw the contract up.”

She hung up, sighing as she sat back in her chair. It was a relief to have something settled, even if it meant dealing with that man. A 7% discount wasn’t anything to sniff at either, with the price of Astrophage, it would save them millions between launches, construction, fueling of whatever spaceship they built for Titan.

Madeline sighed as she clicked through the multitude of unopened emails clogging her inbox. Her Houston office was barren, with only a few photos she’d had the foresight to bring in when she first took this appointment. Someone had scrounged up a framed photo of the Martian base and an old photo from one of the Apollo missions to add a bit of color to the sad walls.

It’d been truly non-stop since June.

It was flight after flight, meeting after meeting, interview after interview. She and Alex cancelled a vacation they’d planned for the Cayman Islands, and she was going to miss her grandson’s fifth birthday. That, above all else, had upset her. Not to mention her daughter who’d hung up on her during the call.

It would die down soon enough, she assured herself. She was going to get help, whether he wanted to or not.

A data dump from the Zeus team caught her eye, and she clicked it without hesitation. They had another two months before they started their trip back—time that could not come soon enough.

To this day, she remembered the moment Isaac told them that he’d applied to the astronaut program. A program that was both extremely competitive and highly in demand. She knew how hard he worked and how talented he was as a pilot and there was little doubt he’d be accepted. His qualification for the Zeus mission came as a surprise, however.

His personality, experience, talent, and perseverance pushed him to the top of the list, and she wouldn’t pretend like she wasn’t terrified for him the day he shot up in that rocket. She knew just how dangerous it was out there, and she would only be able to breathe easy once his feet were firmly back on Earth. 

The first video was for the public. It was a day-in-the-life style video that showcased parts of the station, their equipment, and their experiments. They’d managed to get a few hours on the surface of Europa and had some neat POV work. Bethany’s team was going to love that—not that Zeus content was performing particularly well compared to anything Eridian right now, but it would be great for the archive.

It was irritating that Mary’s team had been right. Their media blitz had been successful beyond expectation. The negativity hadn’t disappeared entirely, but the world was warming up to the idea of Eridians. And dare she say it? People were excited to see them.

She clicked to the next video.

“Hi mom, dad, Lily, Joe, and the little brats my sister calls her children,” he said, a grin on his face. “Can you believe we’ve only got a few more weeks here? It feels like so much time has passed and no time at all. I’m sorry to miss your birthday, Elliot, but I promise I’ll make it up to you when I come back. I’ve got some cool Jupiter rocks for you as long as you don’t tell grandma about them.” She snorted. Yes, technically those cool Jupiter rocks were NASA property, but astronauts since the beginning of time always snuck a rock or two for loved ones.

“Mom, I hear you’re quite busy nowadays. Don’t forget to take care of yourself and tell Grace we expect a full ranking of the snacks we left him on our desk when we land. Dad, I need to know if the pickleball drama was resolved or not ASAP. I still recommend you get that nasty beagle you walk involved—it’s sure to liven things up. Lily, I am going to win Christmas this year, sorry. Tell your boys I miss them.

Elliot, keep making trouble, I want to hear all about your marker wall art as soon as I get back. Chris, I know your mom will love making slime, you should ask her if you can do it on your own.” He grinned at the camera. “Alright, I’ve got to go do cool astronaut things. I look forward to seeing you all soon.”

The video ended.

Lily was going to love that, particularly the part where he encouraged her children to draw on the walls. Her grandsons looked up to Isaac and his return was going to be a big day for them. She’d already booked them flights for the landing.

A knock at her door brought her out of her musings.

Danielle stood in the threshold, a cart sat outside, upon which hundreds and hundreds of documents sat. She looked rather incredulous.  

“Was this necessary?” she said.

“It’s to drive the point home,” Madeline said, amused.

“What did forests ever do to you?” Danielle muttered, touching one of the stacks. “I’ve organized it as you requested. I’ve got him in the conference room now.”

Madeline stood, picking up a book she’d specifically brought in for this moment. “Perfect. I’ll be right there.”

Danielle had been unusually tight-lipped about this meeting.

Normally, she gave him a primer on what to expect, whether it was another medical appointment, a meeting with Eric, or an appointment with his mortal enemy, Dr. Forrest. It helped him. He’d forgotten some of the finer nuances to, well, being human and a member of society, and she would quietly remind him that yes, he did need to greet that person or shake that hand. Or that the open door wouldn’t kill him. So, it was a little strange when she shuttled him to a random gray building on the Space Center campus with a promise to return soon. He fiddled nervously with his phone, noting that he had a message from Lokken he needed to respond to.

It’d been a shock to see her.

He knew, within reason, that she’d experienced more time than he had. But Lokken, in his mind, had been a brilliant and fiery young woman who knew everything there was to know about the Hail Mary and seemed to have a special talent for finding reasons to pick a fight with him. The elderly woman wheeled in by her granddaughter forced him to recalibrate his universe, but one look into those sharp green eyes and he knew that there was no one else she could be.

They talked for hours. Her granddaughter, Ella, swung by with cooling coffee and apologies about getting lost. She’d then been subject to Grace’s prodding about her grandmother and mother until she excused herself to free herself from the fire, and get them some dinner. Danielle took pity on her and gave her a private tour of JSC as their conversation continued into the evening.

He was glad that there was still some remnant of his old life, a connection.

They still fought a little. She thought his panspermia theory was stupid, and while there was no real bite behind her words, they still found ways to rile each other up. Old habits died hard, it seemed.

“You’re an idiot, Grace,” she’d said.

“An idiot assumes they know everything about the universe,” he’d countered.

It’d been nice, in the end, to have a reminder that some things stayed constant.

There was a knock and the door creaked open.

“Dr. Grace,” a woman greeted—Longwood, if he remembered correctly. The NASA Administrator. “It’s good to see you again.”

He stood, remembering his manners after a beat (they were coming back, albeit slowly). He shook her hand. Behind her, Danielle carted in…a bunch of papers? His confusion must have shown, because Longwood chuckled.

“I’ll explain in a moment. How are you faring?”

“I’m feeling better,” he said. And it was true. The aches and pains that’d plagued him on the Blip-Mary had dulled, and his steps no longer sent shooting pain through his hips and back. The dialysis machine they’d installed a few days ago quietly whirred, and he had far more energy and focus than he had in years.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “You’ll be relieved to know that you are almost cleared. You’ll need to keep up your appointments, but you can come and rejoin society.”

That was news to him.

Rejoin society? Cleared? It felt equally like no time had passed and a lot of time had gone by since he'd landed. God, he barely knew anything about this strange and foreign Earth he’d returned to. A world that’d moved on without him. That'd changed under the weight of the Astrophage crisis and the dimming sun and had recovered and healed and grown.

“I am?” he said, hoping his panic didn’t show.

“Almost,” she said. “Which is why I am here today.” She turned and picked up a stack of papers from the cart and dropped them to the table with a loud THUMP, shaking him from his thoughts.

“Dr. Grace, since your arrival, we have received about a hundred job offers from different companies around the world who want a piece of your expertise.” A few papers fluttered to the floor. His eyes bugged out. “I have offers here from premier universities around the world, companies like Boeing and Phoenix Enterprises, and—in what I think is a rather bold movie—some rival space agencies.”

He looked at the stack with surprise. Tentatively, he reached towards a paper, upon which Harvard made its case. His eyes widened.

“Is that number the salary they want to pay me?!”

“Dr. Grace, once we figure out how to compensate you for saving the planet, you will be a very well-off man,” she said. “While I cannot force you to make a decision one way or another, I would be remiss if I did not add NASA’s offer to the pile.” She took the file tucked under her arm and handed it to him.

He looked at the documents in disbelief. He let out a choked laugh. “You know, when I was fired from the lab, it took me months to find a job. I only ended up as a teacher because a friend knew someone at the school. This—” he gestured to the pile “—is insane to me.”

“You are very in demand, Dr. Grace.” She pulled out a chair and sat. “I’ll be frank. With Eridians circling above us, we need someone who has intimate knowledge of their language, culture, and idiosyncrasies. We’ve done our best with what you sent from Tau Ceti, but you have spent years with them. You know more about them than any other human on this planet.”

“So, what would you have me do?”

“You would lead the Eridani team. We would ask you to interface with them and build a broader team to support the Eridani delegation. You’d work closely with Eric on building out his translation tools, and we’d ask for your help ensuring their safety and comfort.” He glanced down the sheet, which included a job description, a salary, benefits… Longwood took a breath. “And you’d be the face of Eridani public relations.”

He paused. “Public relations?” She met his eyes.

“Grace, I have personally held off the media circus for as long as I can. But we need you out there,” she explained. “You have incredible public favor, and your word on the Eridani people will go a long way in ensuring that public opinion remains in their favor.”

Grace thought back to Rocky, the way he’d fought with his (metaphorical and maybe sometimes literal) claws on behalf of Grace. And that was only what he’d seen. He’d long suspected that there was much more he’d done behind the scenes that Grace didn’t and probably wouldn’t ever know. It hadn’t been easy for him, Rocky was a person who preferred to shy away from the limelight, who’d rather work quietly and let others do the talking. But their arrival to Erid had forced him to shed that, and what kind of friend would Grace be if he didn’t do the same for Rocky?

“Yeah,” he said, after a beat. It would suck. He’d hate it. But he had to do it. “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

Longwood paused, not expecting his immediate agreement. She cleared her throat to finish her pitch. “I’ll be honest Dr. Grace, we can’t offer you some of the salaries that these companies are offering. We’re a government agency, and that means that you’ll be subject to certain restrictions that you would not be in a private setting. But we’re prepared to offer you something none of these other companies will.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And what’s that?”

“Some years ago, NASA established a student outreach program. Throughout the year, a selection of our staff visit school districts across the country to teach kids about science, space, and our programs. I think you would make a fine expert giving lectures on Erid and other solar systems.” She looked up at him. “I know you love teaching, and I’m sure that if you truly wanted it, any school district worth their salt would hire you in an instant. But we need you, Dr. Grace. So, I offer a compromise. You help us out, and you still get the opportunity to do what you love.”

He laughed and she settled back. “I’ll do it,” he said easily, looking up at her.

“Are you sure, Dr. Grace? You have a lot of offers he—”

“I’ll do it,” he repeated, firmly. “I haven’t known what I was going to do with myself when I got to Earth for a while now. But this—this I can do.” She smiled. “I do have one ask, though.”

“And what would that be?”

“You have to call me Ryland.”

She smiled. “Alright, Ryland. We’re glad to have you on board.” They shook hands, and a feeling of certainty settled within him. “I’ll have the paperwork drawn up for you in the next few days. Until then, I do have some questions for you.”

Longwood reached for a large spiral-bound document. Its edges were worn, the cover faded, and some pages barely hung onto the binding. As he read the title, his heart skipped a beat.

With only a moment of hesitation, he reached for it, ignoring the pain in his chest that the names of his dead friends sent through him.

“Dr. Gra—Ryland. We have allowed you to adjust and heal these past few weeks,” she said. “But as I once said to you, we have questions, and I think it’s time we start getting answers.” He flipped to the first page, his eyes landing on a handwritten dedication. Who were these names? “This is the official Hail Mary mission report. It took four years of crawling every byte of black box data to understand what happened out there. Your logs were very helpful, in that regard.”

“I’m glad to have been of service,” he said dryly. He flipped to a random page. This one had mock-ups of the Hail Mary’s life support systems, it appeared to register the presence of ammonia in the ship. He paused. Black boxes. What black boxes? “Black boxes?” he questioned.

She faltered. “The ones on the beetles?” Oh. Huh. Quietly, she said, “You didn’t know.”

“No, but I wasn’t involved in the ship’s construction,” he said. “It seems like something Stratt would’ve ordered.” He flipped to another page, which detailed the ship’s engine flares and repositioning. The trip to Adrian. “What’s the dedication at the front?”

“That was from my supervisor and NASA administrator at the time,” she said. “I mostly managed administrative stuff on Project Eridani, though my pride and joy was the probe we sent to Erid.”

He looked up at her, surprised. The probe? The one that’d turned into a reason to come back?

“You worked on the probe?”

“I did,” she confirmed with a nod. “I coordinated the transmitting message.” There was a pause and she shifted. “My husband and I also captured the beetles.”

“Wow,” he said, reeling. He hadn’t even considered that there might be people on this planet who’d been responsible for his return, albeit indirectly. It was a stupid thought. Of course someone created the probe. Of course someone developed the repeating message upon it. Of course someone translated it.

And the beetles. The same beetles he’d launched just outside Tau Ceti. The same beetles that somehow puttered their way across space and into the hands of another human. For all the time he’d thought about how far humanity was from him, there’d been little tendrils of connection that he’d never considered.

Longwood, oblivious to the sudden change in his thoughts, continued, “The reason I came here, Ryland, is because of that last page there.”

He flipped to the end, backtracking a bit to get through all the acknowledgements. And then he found it.

The Hail Mary is considered lost in space. We may never know what kept the ship from returning to Earth, but experts believe a Taumoeba outbreak may have consumed ship’s fuel.

Grace looked up at her and she met his eyes. “What happened out there?”

He closed the book.

“How much time do you have?”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 4, 2089

Ryland Grace to Lead NASA’s Eridani Team

The former astronaut will serve as Eridani ambassador and language lead

They were celebrities now.

Well, they’d always been a fascination (being aliens to a planet tended to do that), but it turned out that humans really liked ‘videos.’ A stream of human astronauts now visited them on a regular basis with questions and science proposals. They actually needed Krylov to step in and assign someone to keep a schedule and manage the visitors. The tiny bulbs in the Hail Mary were becoming an irritation, as they'd never been designed as visiting platforms.

And, well, Rocky was working on correcting that. Without Grace there, it was just wasted space.

As his claws tinkered with a bit of xenonite, his thoughts wandered. It’d been just a few days since Krylov floated into their ship with tight vocal cords and bad news, “The structures on Earth failed.”

What followed was a long conversation about what happened and how they could help (there’d been some complaints afterward about how it would be so much easier if humans could thrum). The Eridian engineering team offered a few ideas of how they could help, including a few structure recommendations. In the end, humans thanked them for their ideas and requested a sample of the compound they used to attach xenonite panels together. Rocky was interested to see if they could reverse-engineer and produce it. He wished he were down on Earth to watch it all come together himself.

Rocky swore as he lost grip on his cutting device, causing an imperfection on the edge of the panel. The saw floated away from him as he observed the damage. It wasn’t impossible to fix, but he’d need to readjust the closest panel to it.

The ache of Grace’s absence had waned.

Yet, as he looked out into the empty ship, he wondered when the panging in his heart would settle. It was hard to look at the empty captain’s chair and not remember the years they’d spent together talking about the future. The lab lost its soul as humans came and took the samples Grace collected. To say nothing of the dormitory and the empty nest that Grace slept in for so long.

It would get better, he reminded himself as he set the xenonite pane aside. It would…

His radio beeped and he hurtled towards it, grasping it eagerly.

“Hi, Rocky!”  

“Hello, Grace. Are you well?”

“Yeah, things on Earth are good,” he said. “I’m starting to sleep better.”

It was funny, in some ways, to see how a human adjusted to Eridian customs. Grace sheepishly explained a few weeks ago that he struggled to sleep without someone watching over him. Of course, given that humans both tended to sleep their lives away and were slaves to their circadian rhythm, it would be hard to find someone to watch him. If he was sleeping better, then he was adjusting back to human customs.

“Good. You need it.”

“How are things up there?”

“We’re building out more damn platforms on the ship,” Rocky said, shaking his carapace in a mix of irritation and sadness. “A lot of humans want to see us now, and we can’t fit many Eridians in here.” Grace laughed.

“I know you’d be popular,” he said. “I’ve got good news.” Rocky’s carapace perked up slightly.

“What’s that?”

“They’ve given me a job.” Rocky hummed. It was good, Grace got too antsy when he was bored, and if their previous conversations were any indication, he’d been pretty bored. He’d raided the books they’d left in his home and complained that the new shows on his ‘television’ made no sense. “And I’ll get to see you once you’re down on Earth.” There was a tremble in his voice that meant he was excited.

“What is your job?” Rocky asked, fiddling with the saw.

“I’ll be the primary liaison between the Eridians and Earthlings. I’m leading Project Eridani.” Project Eridani, a fitting name. Rocky knew that Grace would make it everyone’s problem if humans tried to separate them. “They want me to take a more public role.”

“Like a spokesperson,” Rocky concluded. He knew that life very well. When they’d returned from Tau Ceti, it’d been nothing but questions, demands, thrums, and hums to get the world to listen to him. He was an engineer. A person who was built to stay behind the scenes. He was never meant for the leading role. But he’d done it for Grace, because he knew no one else would.

“Yeah,” Grace said. “I’m…I’m not sure if I’m ready. I’ve never been the face of something before.”

Rocky immediately found the flaw in Grace’s words. “You were the face of humanity, Grace. Now you have to be the human face for Erid.”

Grace went silent. “That—that’s different!”

“Is it?” Rocky replied with a doubtful hum. Grace always underestimated himself with these sorts of things. For someone who’d done well as a teacher to a classroom full of alien children, he could be oddly shy at times. It cycled back to his fear of humans, Rocky assumed. Still, Grace was an Earthling, and they needed the good will of Earthlings while they were down there. “Grace, it is scary. I was scared when we came back to Erid, but I put myself out there for you. Now it’s time for you to put yourself out there for us.” Rocky added an extra encouraging note. “We will need your help down there, so don’t mess it up.”

Grace paused and sighed. “Alright. Just for you, buddy.”

There were times that Grace thought he was doing well.

He didn’t (immediately) panic at the sight of an open door anymore—though he would confess that his heart rate did jump every time he saw one. He’d even become used to the strange biotechnology that seemed to have become common in the future. Dr. Forrest had been quite pleased to hear that he’d accepted a job, noting that it would give him purpose in this brave new world. They were even going to unlock his phone next week!

The cafeteria was still a struggle—Eridian customs had become engrained in his brain, and even when he tucked himself away in the corner, he couldn’t help the curl of embarrassment he felt whenever he ate in front of another person.

It was a shame, because he really craved diner food.

After one particularly (grudgingly) helpful session with Dr. Forrest, he decided that it was time that he left the confines of the building and explored the grounds around him. He was in Johnson Space Center! And he’d barely left his room!

The walk was a mistake.

For all the moments he felt like he was doing well, there were moments like these when the enormity of the problems that sunk beneath his skin weighed him down.

It started off fine. He’d even gotten to the vestibule, and it took him only a minute to remember that he didn’t have to cycle an airlock before stepping outside. The people of the Space Center granted him a wide berth, whether it was because he was famous or because he couldn’t move very fast, he wasn’t sure. He really was an old man now, he pondered.

He’d found a small green area tucked between the gray buildings. A park with a few benches, picnic tables, and trees. God, he missed trees. And that’s when his eyes went up, and the terrifying possibility of the sky met him.

He admired it from his room every day. The welcoming pink of the sunrise, the bright blue of a Texas summer, the golden aura of the sunset. He could spend all day at the window just looking a view that most humans would find unremarkable. But here, under its imposing blanket, he wanted to turn and hide.

Grace didn’t think he’d find it so difficult. He was meant to be on this planet. He was meant to look up at the sky without worry. But the more that he walked without cover, the more his heart beat and head pounded. Get to safety, his body told him, even as the logical part of his brain countered, You are safe.

He found safety on a bench under a tree. It provided just enough cover to make his body shut up and had the bonus of providing solace for his aching knees. He clutched his cane and looked up at the sunlit leaves. God, what was he going to do with himself?

He had a plan at least. A plan that he had some agency in, which was a nice change of pace. He was to start his new job in two weeks, which would be a whole bunch of paperwork, orientations, and trainings (not unlike early 21^st century jobs—at least that was the same). Danielle indicated that he had another month or so of bumming off NASA before he could find his own place to live, and she’d vaguely alluded to some sort of compensation for his work in Tau Ceti, but had no further details to offer.

They wanted him to build a team, and he didn’t even know where to start with that. Last time he’d joined a team was by kidnapping, and he suspected that wouldn’t fly here (technically, it shouldn’t have flown then either, but Stratt could do whatever she wanted). Eric might have some ideas on where to start.

Grace needed an update on the plan for the Eridians. Timelines were still up in the air pending the new tests, but he figured he should be invo—

His thoughts were interrupted by another figure.

“This seat taken?” He held a coffee cup in his hand. He was biologically older than Grace, maybe in his mid-80s? His hair was white and thinning and he had a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. But not the worship Grace saw in everyone else.

“By all means,” Grace said after a beat. He cursed himself—his conversation timing was still off. The neurologist and Forrest were at odds about whether it was a condition or merely a psychological thing. The man grunted as he settled into the seat.

“You’re easy to spot, you know?” the man said. Grace gave him a sidelong glance.

“Did the people giving me a wide berth give it away?”

“Well, your face is plastered over the news, social media, and the TV, for one,” he said with a shrug. “But you’ll find that most other astronauts around here aren’t afraid of that.” He pointed towards the sky. Grace reluctantly looked up. He tapped his cane against the concrete. He swallowed.

“Was I that obvious?”

“I was the same way when I got back,” he said. “I couldn’t stand being out in the open. I kept thinking about the radiation and the air and the pressure, and it took years to set me right.” He took a sip of coffee. “I still avoid it, if I can.”

He was an astronaut then. Or rather, had been an astronaut. The man let the silence hang between them. Grace gripped his cane tighter before confessing. “I spent a few moments looking for the airlock controls before I came out here.” The man snorted.

“Yeah, I did a bit of that too.”

“So, where were you?” Grace asked. “The moon?”

“Mars, actually,” he said. Grace let that tidbit wash over him. He’d heard others talk about the Mars program. It wasn’t just a space station out there anymore; there was a whole Martian base and farms and a host of things he couldn’t even conceive of. Based on the man’s age…

“You must’ve been one of the first few missions out there,” he said.

“Ares 3,” he confirmed. He tapped his index finger against the coffee cup. “You and I are a part of an exclusive club.”

Grace took the bait. “A club?”

“Living astronauts who have a grave here on Earth.” He barked a laugh at his own joke, which Grace did not find particularly funny. He knew Earth had thought him dead, it was the most logical conclusion. He hadn’t exactly realized that they would have ‘buried’ him.

The stranger. The story was starting to come together now. He’d read a bit about space history—there wasn’t much else to do given that television made no sense to him anymore and he didn’t have access to the internet. He’d read the story of Ares 3 with sickened fascination. A man left alone on a planet millions of miles away, relying only on his wits and science to survive.

“You’re Mark Watney,” Grace concluded.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, reaching his hand out. “You beat my record, you know.”

“Record?”

“Longest time spent on another planet,” he said. He paused. “Well, unintentionally spent on another planet. They’ve got folks up there going on about three years now. Beats me why anyone would want to spend that much time on that godforsaken planet.” Watney sipped his coffee.

“Not a fan?”

“Once I came back, I wondered why we ever left Earth.” He must’ve meant for his words to come off like a joke, a sardonic bite, but there was a hint of sincerity at the end of his voice. Watney cleared his throat and recovered. “Here’s the thing, Grace. They’re probably putting you through the wringer with tests and psychologists and the whole rigmarole. And it does help, I promise you that, but it never quite leaves you. You have to figure out what stays with you and what you let go of.”

Grace was not quite sure what to say to that.

“I eventually became okay with planes and cars again, and believe me, that took a long time. I can even go on a picnic or a baseball game without worrying about the sky. But I know exactly how much food I have in my fridge at any given moment, right down to the 14 Taco Bell packets I have shoved in my drawers.”

Grace paused, an irrelevant thought bursting out of him, “I’m glad Taco Bell survived the future.”

“You’ve got to try the new Baja Blast Guava-Passionfruit,” he said with a chuckle. He clapped his hand on Grace’s shoulder, and he only flinched a little bit at the touch. “I’ll treat you sometime.”

“What did you eat out there?” Grace asked, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the sky. It’d been a part of the story, but he’d glossed over it as the memory of choking down Taumoeba sickened him. “I can’t imagine NASA sent enough food packets for you.”

“Potatoes,” he said. “Grew them myself. And if I see another fucking potato, I will throw up.”

“I would have killed for potatoes,” Grace said, looking up. “At least they have nutrients. There were some months on Erid I was getting my calories through Taumoeba.”

There was a glint of intrigue in Watney's eyes. “Shit. You lived with aliens and you ate them too?”

Grace gave him a dry look and fiddled with his cane. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Right, right,” he said dismissively. “I wish I had some little Martians there.” He wiggled his fingers, as if to suggest that Martians might have crawled out from the sand.

“So why did it take that long for them to find you were there?” Grace asked, the thought nagging at him.  

“Comms was knocked out when we left—the antenna went right through me here—” he gestured towards his torso. “Killed my bio sensor readings. They thought I was dead for a long time. By the time they figured it out, it was impossible to just turn my crews’ ship around.”

“Was it not Astrophage powered?” Grace asked. The man shrugged. “It wouldn’t have been fuel efficient, but it surely would have been—”

“Faster? Sure. Except the ship was designed during the Saharan War, and NASA didn’t want to take any risks on building a multi-billion-dollar ship to run on fuel they weren’t sure they’d be able to get, especially after the US’s Astrophage farms were sabotaged in the Mohave.”

Grace wasn’t sure he heard the man correctly.

Saharan War? Sabotaged Astrophage farms?

He’d been given drips of information about the world he’d left. While it’d been a relief to see that many of the structures and systems that’d been in place when he left had held on, he’d foolishly taken those things for granted. He’d failed to consider the turmoil that’d come in between. The Earth wasn’t the same as it was when he left and he’d only begun to grasp what that had meant. Lokken had referenced mass death, but she’d glossed over the details.

Saharan—there was little doubt in his mind that the Astrophage farms he, Stratt, and the rest of the Project Hail Mary team greenlit were the center of whatever war had come. Experts had warned about the destabilizing geopolitical effect of giving two low-income countries an unprecedented resource like Astrophage. Hell, the Pentagon had called them. But they’d waved those concerns away in favor of the greater good of the Hail Mary.

“Grace?” he prompted. He shook away those rapid thoughts. 

“I’m sorry,” he said instead. It wasn’t like he was to blame for the man’s situation, but there was a trail of decisions that’d contributed to it that he was tied to.

“For what it’s worth, Grace. I’m sorry for what you went through too,” Watney said, totally misinterpreting the apology. Grace didn’t bother to correct him. “It fucking sucks up there, and not a lot of people get that. It’s all science and magic and sci-fi until it gets real.”

Grace digested that. Yeah, he understood the sentiment. The way your entire world depended on a small little tube in the sky. The way those systems could break and end everything in just a blink of an eye. From uncontrolled spins over Adrian to Taumoeba infestations and little dings that turned into big issues later down the road.

But he also thought of Erid. Wasting away over a planet he was sure he’d die for, with Eridians who dedicated themselves to not only helping him survive, but thrive in an environment decidedly against his whole biology. The beauty of Adrian, Saturn’s rings. There might be danger lurking around every inch of space, but there was still something out there for the explorer.

“There’s still some wonder out there, I think,” he said, looking up. “Even among the danger.”

The man sat silently, contemplating Grace’s words. Just as he was about to speak, his watch buzzed.

“Ah, shit, I’m running late,” he said, standing. “Listen, I can’t pretend like we’re at all the same, but I get it, you know? If you ever want to talk—” he produced a business card. “—Hit me up.” He started walking away but stopped for the briefest of moments to add, “And you should watch my movie, it’s better than yours for sure. Pat Nightman played me.”

Grace had no clue who that was.

And there was a movie about him?!