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Eva Stratt stepped across the threshold of the small trailer, closing the door behind her with a soft click. With it, the noise of the Baikonur Research Center quieted to a dull thrum, accompanied by only the hum of the trailer's heating and the beat of her heart in her ears.
It had been three hours and twenty-nine minutes since Ryland Grace had been put into an induced coma under her orders. As she stepped into the small room, the test crews of the Hail Mary were gathering Dr. DuBois’ belongings in preparation for them to be taken back down to Earth with them.
Which meant that the belongings of Dr. Grace needed to be packed, checked, weighed and measured, and prepared to be sent aboard with the crew as they boarded for their final journey.
She shouldn’t be here. She had a never-ending task list to complete before the launch, people who constantly sought her out to answer their questions; decisions to make, metaphorical fires to put out. She even had a small list of volunteers who had offered to come and pack Grace’s personal belongings, people who had liked him, who had cast their eyes to the heavens and cried when she had announced that Dr. Grace had chosen to become the Hail Mary’s science officer.
And yet, here she stood, in the small trailer that had housed Dr. Grace during their time here. Standing in the silence, examining the belongings that made the man.
That makes the man. She already thought of him in the past tense. It seemed rather morbid.
She shouldn’t be here; all logic said she had more important matters to attend. And yet she felt in her chest, somewhere in the vicinity of her heart, that she needed to do this. As something of an apology, an explanation. A tribute to the man she had sent to die.
The small bed was unmade and rumpled from his last sleep, a fact that did not surprise her as she set the packing cube she had brought onto the bed. Then, turning to the small dresser, she set to work.
The top drawer contained shirts stacked in neat piles, a fact she was certain was only the case because the laundry service employed at the center would return them neatly folded — she was certain the man who owned the shirts folded little besides the occasional paper airplane, an activity she had seen him do once in a courtroom, during the third court case against her that had soon been dismissed. That had been the last time she had been summoned to court; though that, she was certain, was soon to change.
The shirt at the top of the pile was one of the numerous graphic t-shirts he insisted on wearing, the one printed in bold lettering “I had potential” across the chest. She found the shirt distasteful. That a man who indeed had great potential could be so blasé about the fact — yes, she understood the humor of the shirt, the clever wordplay of the scientific principle, and yet she could not understand how the shirt did not distress Dr. Grace. But she had seen him wear the shirt for five days in a row once, when the cables for the Hail Mary’s centrifugal system had failed their stress test nearly fifty percent earlier than expected, and it had been all hands trying to troubleshoot, research, and solve the problem, many of the scientists spending their nights in the test lab.
That had been when he learned how she liked her coffee — black, a dash of cream when it was available — and she his — three cream, three sugar. They had taken turns fetching coffee for one another during that week, a tradition that had continued on ever since. One that she would miss in the coming times, the predictability of it. The sentiment of caring to bring someone coffee, and them caring to bring some back to you.
She hoped the shirt would bring him comfort on his voyage, she thought as she placed it at the bottom of the packing cube. Perhaps he found it comfortable; perhaps the joke would make him laugh. If he could find his laugh, once he woke up.
Stratt huffed air out through her nose, bundling her latest thought into a corner and locking it away. There would be time later to contemplate such things.
She sorted through his shirts — joke, joke, graphic print, joke, the San Francisco one that inexplicably had a cat on the bridge that she still found ridiculous, albeit fitting, and, should she think about it too long, charming. She sorted until she had fifteen of his more commonly seen shirts, stacking them neatly in the cube along with the first. They could be sorted further if his personal item weight needed to be reduced.
The next drawer of the dresser contained trousers, which she found easier, as he didn’t have as many. She chose five pairs out of sensibility and two items of sleepwear for comfort. The mission jumpsuits she had ordered to be made for him would supplement any additional clothing he might require.
Next to the trousers sat a variety of pullovers and jackets. She pulled them all out, setting them across the bed — which ones had she seen him wear the most often? Which of them would feel like a hug to him, a message of hope from Earth, when he stood, eleven point nine light years away, looking back towards home?
He has sported a pullover when he had run, when he had to be tackled to the ground and forcefully drugged. Perhaps that was not one to send, then. She resolved to tell the medical team to toss it, and decided on two pullovers, one jacket, and several undershirts, and set them in the cube.
The final drawer contained his socks and undergarments, which after a quick look, she decided against packing. The undergarments meant for Dr. DuBois, new and NASA issued, would serve him just as well. She did however, dig through to the bottom of the drawer, in case the saying Americans had about hiding secrets in the sock drawer had a root in reality, and Grace kept a long treasured memento stashed there. She however, found nothing; a man who wore his heart on his sleeve would not hide such treasures away in the dark, it seemed.
With his clothing done, she looked to his personal effects, ignoring the trembling in her belly at the thought of deciding what would go, and what would stay; what meant the most to this man, that he would want surrounding him when he died; what she would learn of the man who intrigued her, frustrated her, entertained her. Charmed her.
She stood from her crouch slowly, the aching of her knees and her… well, everything, slowing her as she moved from the dresser. She would need more ibuprofen soon, or something stronger from the med bay. They had offered it to her after the explosion, her bruises already darkening to an ugly purple, but she had refused, needing to remain sharp and in control. But perhaps tonight, she would want the “something stronger”, something to dull not only the pain of her body but the pain of the day, of the memories of his sobs and screams, of his begging, pleading, his wish not to die.
She did not wish to die, either — it was evolutionarily preferable not to want to die, and as much as humanity tried to kill itself off throughout the ages, humans by themselves showed a great penchant for self preservation. But she envied Grace’s mode of death, really. Either in his coma induced sleep on their journey to Tau Ceti — or by… well, nitrogen asphyxiation, as he would have to use DuBois’ method of death. Either way, it would be peaceful, painless. Without starvation, without cold, without the horrors humanity would bring to life in the next thirty years. To die in peace, possibly with the knowledge that one had found the answer to Earth’s salvation, she thought there could be no easier death.
Then again, she was not a coward. And Ryland Grace, for all his virtues, was one.
Little pricks of pain came to her eyes and she blinked once, banishing them. Personal items. That was her focus.
The top of the dresser contained scattered folders, pens and sharpies, crumpled pieces of paper that had some indignancy of hers wanting to unfold them and see what was so unimportant that he would crumple it so haphazardly. Instead she picked up the hat that sat atop it all, the Project Hail Mary caps that she had bought, had flown into Stratt’s Vat, yes, she did know what people had called it, for the so called “weird” party. Because it was human nature to enjoy branded souvenirs for projects they worked on, particularly when they were proud to have worked on a project, a mission. Underneath it, like a miniature head, sat a small plastic basketball that she had watched Grace on numerous occasions throw against the wall of a lab, over and over again while he walked through some thought experiment. More often than not, he would come to some conclusion in mid throw, and send himself wheeling across the lab to test the thought, leaving the ball to bounce across the floor and roll into a corner. Still, it had always ended up back with him, something she found to be a minor miracle, with how careless he could be with his belongings.
She tossed them both into the packing cube — why not. A man with a childlike enjoyment of life deserved to have some toys in space.
Back on the dresser, she looked for photos, mementos of the people in his life, and found… none. No parents, no pets, no pictures of friends from a night at a pub long, long ago. She had said to him he had no one, “you don’t even have a dog”, and yet to see it so plainly, so intimately…
Perhaps there was too much of herself she could see in the space, suddenly seeming so barren even with all its clutter without any photos, and that’s what she found disconcerting. She had always moved too much, stayed in too many places to bog herself down with unessential photos, she had told herself. Her memory was sharp, detailed, long-lasting; anyone or anything worth remembering was already painted into a perfect picture in her mind, retrievable in a moment’s notice, should she need to look back on it. But now, the thought of sending him without a single photo, a single reminder of the ones on Earth he had loved…
Stratt spotted a corner sticking from one of the folder, glossy photo paper facing up so that it caught the light. She grabbed it gingerly, pulling it from the folder, and angled it towards herself to look.
It was a photo of her and Grace, surrounded by the primary and secondary Hail Mary crews. It had been taken the day they had announced to the world the names of the people who would travel out into deep space to save humanity. Reporters from all over the world had gathered, the din of the large, aluminum warehouse deafening with the clamoring, the sound of shutters snapping closed as they captured the light from the crews in perpetuity, took down their likenesses to be passed on for the remainder of humanity, however long that was. First it had only been the crews, and then it had been requested that her and Grace join them, as the Director and the Second in Command, the spearheads of the project. She had wanted to object, wanted the attention to be only on those who would give their lives for all the sins of humanity, but it had been simpler to step into the limelight, to pull Grace with her when he stood, dumbfounded, and let themselves be arranged by the photographers.
She didn’t know Grace had received a copy of the photo, or one of them. It was a good one, with her in the center with the primary crew to her side, and him a half step behind her, the secondary crew to his side. He stood there, looking as serious as he ever could, a soft smile on his lips, looking somehow disheveled even though he stood straight, his clothing neat for once. She thought it was his hair, always sticking up at odd angles, looking to be a perfect spot for her fingers to thread through, tangle up in the strands and pull when he—
And that was enough. She tucked the photo back into the folder as neatly as she closed the book on that fantasy in her mind. The photo contained herself alongside Grace — she doubted that was something he would want with him, in the end. She would ask the staff instead, if they had any photos of Dr. Grace to send with him.
She turned her attention to the small bedside table that sat next to the bed, lowering herself slowly to sit on the edge of the bed. She was struck again with that feeling of intimacy, something that didn’t sit well with the fantasy she had just closed up in her mind, but pushed the feeling aside, as something to examine later.
What was there even to examine, she thought, and knew she was overtired by the way she was arguing with herself. She was a grown woman with sexual desires and needs, who experienced attraction just as many others did. Of course her mind would supply her with fantasies to fill in the gaps of human touch and interaction she lacked. That Ryland Grace was one of those fantasies, that was… well, it didn’t matter now. It didn’t ever matter.
She pulled the drawer of the bedside table open with a single finger, aware of what could be by the bed of a single man with a stressful job who—
And she found it filled with food.
A small smile grew on her lips as she looked through the pile — sour Skittles, Twizzlers, gummi bears and jelly beans, and a note with Stay out Carl!! scrawled across the paper.
“Child,” she murmured under her breath, and started to gather up the candy, tossing it into the cube. She doubted the food selection aboard the Hail Mary could be altered so close to launch, but she would see what her engineers could do. Perhaps it could be retooled slightly to Grace’s preferences. His coffee order certainly could be.
As she gathered the last packet of candy, she saw the end of a shoelace peeking out from underneath the bed. She lowered herself to the floor, biting back a groan, and peered underneath, seeing two pairs kicked carelessly underneath of the style he was so fond of, though they looked terribly unsupportive to her. One pair looked relatively new, so she grabbed them, placing them next to the cube. The second pair looked stained, slouched, like the fabric itself had given way, and she decided to leave them where they were. The mission uniform included shoes for when the ship had gravity, and pairs of his size would be sent up with him.
She sat back on her haunches, gathering herself to stand, and saw… it.
On the back of the metal chair, tucked underneath the card table that could technically serve as a dining room table, was the fox cardigan he was so fond of. The one he had been wearing when he first asked to join the project, when she first saw that scrap of determination and bravery he had, one she thought could grow into a blaze, under the right conditions. The one he had worn the night of the party, when he had convinced her to sing. The one he had been wearing when he brought her coffee for the last time, and what he had been wearing when he had asked her what her plan was for the next twenty years, and God damn her if that hadn’t sounded like a line, and damn her further if she hadn’t wanted to say that whatever it was, she only hoped he would be in it.
What he had been wearing when the facility had exploded. When Grace had officially been taken away from the world, from her.
Perhaps God had already damned her. She wouldn’t be surprised.
She had felt something akin to dread when she had walked to his trailer, at the thought of finding this here. It had become synonymous with him in her mind — soft and warm, eclectic, something you could sink into, someone you could forget about everything with for a while. She thought she had probably blocked the sight of it from herself when she had first walked in here, not ready to face it. But now, there it was, and she had no other choice.
She reached forward, snagging it off of the back of the chair before sitting back against the bed, pulling her knees up towards her chest, the cardigan laid across them like a blanket.
This was far too sentimental, she thought, burying her fingers into the large knit of the garment. There was no point in dwelling on an article of clothing. She was not even dwelling over the man himself, where he lay in his hospital bed, where she could instead sit by his side and offer her watch over his dreams like the offering of wine at an altar. Instead she sat on the floor, draped in his cardigan, memories coming like visions.
She had been thinking about death when he had found her on the deck of the aircraft carrier, watching the sun sink into the sea. It was a common topic in her mind, ever since the first climate models had been presented to her and she saw their future in disturbing clarity. But then he had stood before her, alive, alive, bathed in the last light of the day, and for a moment she had thought instead of life. How self deprecating the man had been in that moment, wrapped in this cardigan, so sure that he was a bother to her that he just about apologized for it. And she had needed so badly for him to know that he wasn't, that his company did not bother her, that the words had tumbled from her mouth fast, rushed, almost unbidden. He looked as if he almost didn't believe her — she couldn't understand why he thought her mysterious, when she always said exactly as she thought when it was prudent, and it was the Americans that minced their words.
Then he had turned away from her after his salute, foxes grinning on his back, and the camaraderie she had dismissed for herself suddenly seemed… nice. Or perhaps she had simply wanted to send a message to her people, her crew, to him.
And so when she saw him sitting alone amongst the crowd, an island in an ocean, she’d made up her mind, grabbing the microphone and queuing up the song that felt most fitting.
She sang to tell the crew she understood, they had pulled a hard lot in life, to be the humans living through the apocalypse. But she sang to them too to bolster them, strengthen them in what they must do to survive — to comfort them that goodbyes were not endings.
And that fleeting moment where she had looked at him, met his eyes, saw the awe, the admiration, the wonder, the love in his expression, and everything else around her had disappeared, well… well, that had been a new experience for her.
She had wanted to explore that moment, lean into it. Find him after and see what could happen. But to be in her role meant to give up what it was to be human. To give up love for any one being in exchange for love for a whole, a love for humanity that humanity could not give to itself.
And so, when she sang about how everything would be alright, she looked to him, only at him. And when she sang how they could meet again, in another life, another world, a different circumstance, she could only hope he would understand, and forgive her.
The first tear fell from her eyes, quick, silent, and she dashed it away, retangling her fingers in the cardigan. How foolish she was, thinking for a moment he could forgive her. When she had always meant for him to end up here.
She had never wanted it, had privately raged against the decision, the more prepared she had made him. And like a lamb to the slaughter, he had followed her every order, every command, had become the perfect replacement science officer. It had always been her intention, that should the primary and secondary science officers show any sign they were not fit for the journey — not ready, not knowledgeable enough, or should something happen to both of them, Dr. Ryland Grace would be their replacement. How could she not? A microbiology PhD with an emphasis in astrobiology, who was the world’s leading expert on astrophage reproduction, who had the coma resistant genes, and who had been involved in Project Hail Mary nearly from its inception.
She had the perfect science officer on her hands. And she was not one to waste a tool at her disposal.
The closer the day of the launch had drawn, the more she had begun to tentatively hope that his secret preparations to be science officer wouldn’t be needed. Drs. DuBois and Shapiro had become the perfect crew members, both exemplary members of their field, both strong astronauts. It had started to seem like all her planning, her preparations for Grace had been nothing more than paranoia, brought on by the years she had been overdosing on caffeine.
But then the explosion happened. Yesterday — God, had it only been yesterday — when she had stood, watching the launch tower be erected, when he had come up behind her, coffee for them in hand, his cardigan wrapped around him like a prayer. When he had asked her what her plan was for the future, and in that moment, her ever approaching prison sentence didn’t matter, food scarcity didn’t weigh on her soul, and the looming ice age didn’t seem as terrifying. For that fleeting moment, they had gazed at each other, studied each other, and a quick, sharp, rising feeling of happiness in her belly had made her smile faster and wider than she had in years, and she wondered is maybe, just maybe, they could find that different life for themselves, together.
For the first time in years, she had hope for her own future.
And then the world had erupted in blinding white and orange, and she had been sent tumbling end over end, her eardrums throbbing and the hope in her chest had died a quiet, aching death.
Stratt let out a soft, shuddering sob, pulling her knees up until she could bury her head in them, face pressed into the soft knit of the cardigan in her lap. She hadn’t yet taken the time to cry, to mourn those who died and the one who would die. Too much to do, too many hard decisions to make, but now in the silence of the trailer that would never again see its inhabitant, she couldn’t stop the wave of emotion if she wanted to.
People thought her cold and unfeeling at worst, or in perfect, unyielding control of her emotions at best. But the reality was her emotion struck deep in her chest — she had simply learned to delay the pain of them until the time was right.
Or, in this case, just until she was alone.
His cardigan caught her tears as she tried to catch her breath, the fiber smelling like the laundry soap the base used, and faintly like something she thought must just be him, clean and human. It felt peculiar to know such a thing about him now. Like a secret she shouldn’t have been privy to; like knowledge stolen through closed doors and missed opportunities.
She sat up sharply, breathing slowly and wiping her tears away roughly. She didn’t have time for this, and there was no use for her tears. What was done was done. She had made the right decision, and there was no regret.
But there was room in her chest for bitterness.
Humanity would always be the same. It was why she woke each and every day with a bone chilling, soul crushing fear, for history had taught her what humanity was capable of when stressed. And they had never known stress as they were soon to know. That fear is what gave her the strength to play whipping boy, scapegoat, ecoterrorist, Oppenheimer. She could be the villain the world needed, if it meant their own salvation was still possible.
But there was a certain cruelness of the world — to ask so much of her, to place so many sins on her shoulders, only to ask her to bear one more. To play one final role of Judas.
Though her lips still wanted to tremble, her eyes were dry, so Stratt slowly got to her feet, still clutching the cardigan. She turned back to the cube, and folding the garment carefully, reverently, she placed it inside, like laying a child to sleep.
Like saying a goodbye.
She tried to move through the rest of his belongings with a clinical detachment, though she couldn’t stop the memories when they came. As she tucked the Earth colored ball into the pocket of his cardigan, she thought of the first day she’d met him, an abashed, overqualified school teacher who had practically run away from her and his own paper. Why she had taken the toy, she still wasn’t sure, but the satisfaction of tossing it back to him when she finally cornered him into making a decision was worth it.
When she found his tote full of mementos from his students — artwork, stuffed animals, crude sculptures, a papier mache mask of a fox, the tears wanted to come again, and she needed a moment to breathe, eyes closed tight. She was still so angry with him for using his students as an excuse not to go, to lie to her face about the true reason he refused, and yet the fact that Grace carried these with him even after being moved to the carrier, that he brought this with him everywhere they had moved in the past years, made her lament the loss of a teacher who cared so deeply for his students.
She looked through some of the artwork, noting how much of it must have been sent after he joined Project Hail Mary, with praise and exclamations to “Save the World!”. Setting aside over a dozen pieces of artwork and a few of the stuffed animals, she carefully pressed them in between his layers of clothing, hoping the children’s mementos would remind him why he was there.
When she found a glasses case (but no spare pair of glasses), she thought of how often he hung them off of his ear, a gesture she had never seen another person do, and one that she found endearing and needlessly reckless in equal measure. As she put the glasses case in the cube, she added an item to her to-do list to see if a spare pair of glasses could be made before the launch.
When she thought she was done, thought she had gone through every aspect of his life contained in this trailer, a piece of her rioted, she couldn’t just be done with Ryland Grace. But then she noticed that underneath the packing cube, the blanket on the small bed wasn’t the standard bedding, but a patchwork quilt, containing rainbows, dragons, ladybugs, four leaf clovers — good luck symbols, she realized. Where had he gotten it, she wondered; had he bought it? Had it been made for him?
Perhaps in that other life, in those different circumstances they had been looking for, she could ask him. Perhaps then, she could have the freedom to study him, learn him, know him. Perhaps even love him, God willing.
Good luck, something they all needed more of these days. So, she slowly pulled the blanket from his bed, running the trim through her fingers, folding it precisely until she could lay it at the top of the cube, covering the rest of his belongings like a shroud. Like closure.
Taking a deep breath, she zipped the cube closed. It would be weighed, measured, repacked, but her part of it was done. Ryland Grace would spend the rest of his short life with some of his comforts from home — if this was the only gift she could give to him, she hoped it would be enough.
The nametag on the cube was just a plastic pouch with a blank card. Pulling it out, she found one of the numerous sharpies laying about and wrote his name in bold letters, marking his place. She replaced it, then paused, and reached into her pocket, pulling out the fox figurine she’d bought weeks ago. She had meant to give it to him after the launch as a memento, a private joke, if she knew how to make them; something to open a door for them, maybe for something more — or at least to stay in touch while she went to prison. Something for him to remember her by.
Tucking the figurine behind the name tag, she then reached back into her pocket, and before she could think too long about the decision, pulled the medal of Saint Christopher off of her keychain and added it next to the fox.
Patron saint of travelers. A gift from her father before she had gone to boarding school, the last one he had given to her before he died. She had kept it with her ever since, but now another traveler needed it more. One who needed to be reminded of the man she always knew he could be.
Stratt pulled out her phone, dialing a number that picked up on the first ring. “It’s ready — yeah, in his trailer.”
She hung up, and taking one last look at the small, still cluttered trailer, she stepped back out into the light.
The launch tower was visible from the trailers, a beacon in the sky, its crowning glory the capsule that would bring the crew to the Hail Mary. To their final home.
She turned her head up to the sky, covered in clouds, and yet knowing their ship, their salvation, orbited up there quietly, gently, was a warm comfort in her belly. They had, against all odds, made it this far. Maybe, just maybe, they could make it all the way.
Hail Mary. How many decades would she have to say to atone for what she had done? Could it be called atonement, when she did not feel regret?
Reaching into her pocket once more, she gripped the first bead of her rosary, rolling it between her fingers. She let her eyes slip closed, and taking a breath, let the words fall from her tongue.
“Gegrüßet seist du, Maria, voll der Gnade…”