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I know it’s impossible.
Rocky’s never slept longer than eight hours before, but from the moment I realize what’s happened, how badly hurt he’d been dragging me out from the chair, I suspect this time it will be more.
I stay with him. I keep close to the tunnel, talking to him and hoping, until it becomes clear that he isn’t going to wake up any time soon. He might be asleep for days, weeks, whilst he heals. If he heals.
There’s no way that I can watch him sleep the whole time.
I try anyway.
I know that eventually I will fall asleep, but I tell myself I’ll go as long as possible without it. It’s a bargain with myself – if I can stay awake ten more minutes, Rocky will live. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, an hour. Two hours, three hours, four.
Of course, I do eventually give in – without anyone to keep me physically awake, my brain switches itself off before I even realize it’s doing it. But it’s only a short sleep, little more than a nap with a few bad dreams. That’s good. If I sleep lightly, I’ll be sure to wake up if anything happens. I’ll be able to protect Rocky, when he can’t protect himself.
No danger comes, of course. The ship is working pretty well considering what we put it through, trundling silently through space. That doesn’t matter. I’ll be ready all the same.
I work, I eat, and – as much as possible – I stay awake. In fact, I start getting pretty good at it. You’d think the lack of sleep would accumulate, but I just get more and more used to it. I was never a consistent sleeper to start with, especially when I’ve got a task to complete, and the Taumeba and watching Rocky are some of the most important tasks I’m ever likely to have. The pain in my arm helps, too – it’s hard to get comfortable when you feel like your skin is on fire. Pretty soon, I’m able to go a couple of days without even feeling too tired.
The first time I manage to stretch my wakefulness into the third day, I look at Rocky hopefully – I kept my end of the bargain. But he’s still asleep, still unmoving.
Perhaps he’s dead already.
No. I won’t let myself think that. I keep making more bargains with myself, pushing my body. I know, deep down, that it isn’t doing me any good, but that doesn’t matter. Rocky matters.
Three days. If I can make it to four, perhaps he’ll wake up.
After thirty-six hours, my work starts to suffer. I drift in a sort of fog, wandering aimlessly, never able to concentrate on one thing for more than a few moments. My lips are cracked. Noises are too loud, making my heart jump and thunder. I’m jittery, craving sugar. I drink a cup of coffee, and then another, and another. My hands shake. Stomach acid rises into my mouth at regular intervals, making me cough. My wounds aren’t healing as fast as they should, the cuts on my face and nose still horribly tender where they had smashed against the computer screen. I’m not seeing very well, even when I have my glasses on, never quite sure if the lights in the ship are at full power.
Forty-eight hours. My head keeps nodding, even standing up – I can’t let myself sit down – and my knees ache. Sleep is a powerful mistress, her command no less strong because I recognize it. Usually, this is where I give in.
I look at Rocky, still and crumpled on his side of the barrier.
Deep down, I know it’s irrational. My world has imploded and I’m reaching for the one thing I can control. I don’t remember much after my head smacked into the screen, but I knew I had to reach for the button – if only I’d tried a little harder Rocky wouldn’t have had to leave his atmosphere, hurt himself so badly he might never wake up.
Well. I can try harder now.
So, instead of folding myself up to sleep, however fitfully, beside the tunnel, I get another coffee – though it doesn’t really take the edge off anymore – and a cup of cold water. I alternate sipping the coffee and the water, letting the changes in temperature make my teeth ache. I pinch myself, first on my legs, and then my bruised cheek and finally – a last resort as my head falls forward and I nearly nod off – my injured arm. The pain is exquisite; it makes my eyes water. It works.
I force myself to complete complex equations. I put loud music on my headphones, blast it until my head screams. I pace. I drink another coffee.
I lose track of time.
I bump into things, drop things. I can no longer seem to see where objects are – or rather, I can see them, but what I see doesn’t quite correspond to reality. My emotions go haywire. I bounce between bursts of euphoria so intense they make me sweat, tears that won’t stop, and a fizzing anger which I take out on a pillow, kicking it against the wall repeatedly. All of it helps. You can’t fall asleep if you’re so anxious you feel like the skin is crawling off your back.
I start to hear things. Some of them feel real – emergency alarms, the crack of the ship’s hull – but they aren’t, because the computer tells me every time that nothing is wrong. Others I know can’t be real. I hear Stratt saying something sharp and witty and, somehow, sad, so close it’s as if she’s whispering in my ear. A kid asks me what the speed of sound is, and I tell them, only to find I’m alone again. I reach out to catch a beanbag and my hand closes on nothing; the edges of my fingers look as if they’re melting, spreading out like a Dali painting. My tongue is twice the size it should be in my head.
Once or twice, I think I hear Rocky’s musical, grumbling tones. But every time I look, he’s motionless in the tunnel. Dead to the world.
Please don’t be dead.
I push on, staggering more than pacing now, humming, making strange, animal noises. I feel the ship start to spin around me, that terrifying, jaw-crushing centrifugal force. I brace myself against a table, stumble, fall to my knees. I scream. There’ll be no Rocky to save me this time. Rocky’s already dead, perhaps I’m already dead…
Sounds dull. The world is strange and dim; I think I’m being sucked into the soft, cool blackness of space. I lie there, waiting for it to happen. I can’t do anything to fight it. I can’t fight anything anymore.
At some point, I must fall asleep. Pass out is more likely – I wake crumpled on the floor, vertebrae groaning in protest. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep, because I’m not sure how long I was awake, but it’s probably quite a while, because I feel…not better, not really. In fact, I feel like my body’s been put through a blender and turned into coma slurry. But I’m lucid, more than I have been in a while.
My arm stings as I get to my feet. My throat is horribly dry – when did I last drink something that wasn’t coffee? I ask for some water. I’m not hungry, but I make myself eat a small amount. Then I sit down next to Rocky’s tunnel. I’m tired again.
I tip my head back against the xenonite and cry for a long time. Then I get some more water and go back to sleep, pressed close to the tunnel. I wake up, wipe the sticky tear-residue off my face and glasses. I go back to my work, the Taumeba. They’re important as well, too important for me to carry on like I have been. I eat again. I talk to Rocky, pretend he can hear me. I wish that my bargaining had worked, even if I understand why it didn’t, that the universe, the human body, just doesn’t function that way.
The next time sleep beckons, I don’t fight it.
When Rocky wakes up, I’m so happy that I burst into tears. The world begins to feel normal again, as if it had been tilted three inches to the left all this time, and I’ve only just realized it. I feel hope.
The thing is though, Rocky’s smart. He works out pretty quick that something is wrong; that my wounds haven’t healed as they should, that I’m sleeping more than usual – I’m still tired, struggling to catch up – and in the end he asks.
‘Grace sick question?’
I consider lying to him. I could probably get away with it, talk round in circles until he got bored – he’s still weak himself. But I don’t have it in me.
‘No,’ I murmur. ‘Not really. Just…when you were healing, I wasn’t sleeping so well.’
‘Grace dreams question?’
Rocky knows about dreams, good and bad – he’s watched me experience enough of them. ‘Yes, but not like that.’
‘Grace no need to be afraid. Rocky here. Rocky watch now if Grace want.’
‘Thanks, but…’ I hesitate, then decide to get it out. ‘When you were sick, I thought…I know how important it is to have someone watch you. I thought if I could stay awake, that might make you better.’
A long pause. Then…
‘Grace bad logic. Rocky sleep long long long time to heal. Only Grace here. What longest human not sleep?’
‘I dunno.’ I rub a hand over my face. ‘Like, eleven days?’ 950400 seconds. It sounds more, like that. ‘I barely managed a quarter of that.’
‘Bad bad bad. Grace sleep every 57600 seconds not 259200 seconds. Definite not 950400 seconds.’
‘I know. But it was my fault you got hurt in the first place.’
‘Not Grace fault. Holes in fuel, not Grace mistake.’
‘No, but I…’ I stretch my hand out, as if reaching for that button again; see the flashing lights, feel the weight on my chest, the blood clogging my nose. ‘I was so close. If I’d just pressed it, if I’d held on…you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.’
Rocky considers this. ‘Rocky not blame Grace. Grace try. Try hard. Rocky see. Situation bad bad bad.’
I can’t look at him. ‘But if you’d died, because I couldn’t press a simple button…’
‘Rocky not die.’ Rocky lifts up his arms. ‘See? Rocky alive.’
‘But…’
Rocky moves forward in his ball, nudging me. Hard.
‘Hey!’
‘See? Grace feel. Rocky alive. Prove.’
I can’t help it. I laugh, despite myself. ‘Yeah. Proof.’
‘Rocky alive. Grace alive. We do science.’ He nudges me again. ‘Grace stay well. Stay alive when not stupid.’
‘I know. I’m very stupid.’ I wipe my eyes – I’m crying again. ‘Thank you.’
Rocky pushes his head up against the ball. I drape my good arm over it, letting the heat wash over me, and stay there until I fall asleep.