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“How long humans live, question?”
Ryland looks up.
He’s busy, but that’s a given, considering. There’s so so much fudging wrong with the Hail Mary that if he were pressed to go through every problem, it would take up a whole hour of just listing. Maybe even two.
Turns out, when you keep a ship in space for far far longer than it was expected to stay in space, things go wrong. Emphasis on wrong, maybe even capital W Wrong. The ship is quite literally falling apart. Everything coming loose. Vital systems failing. Lots of beeps. Endless beeps. Ryland is sick of the beeps.
Today’s agenda is a whole lot of trying to fix things, and probably messing up. He’s not an astronaut. Or an engineer. Or anything at all really but a man lost in the offshore washing waves of space and time.
Today’s agenda may just be a whole lot of trying to fix things and then begging Rocky to fix the things he’s failed to fix.
Rocky has just been following him around, offering ‘helpful’ advice on what he could be doing differently – Grace so stupid. Why would you do that, question. Rocky take over now – and little else. Certainly not posing big, scary questions like how long will you be alive for, questions Ryland doesn’t want to answer right now or ever.
He knows Rocky’s species lives for a long, long time. He doesn’t have an exact lifespan; he’s only been able to figure out a guess based on context clues (Grace mate question?) but if there’s one thing he knows about himself, it’s that he’s dang good at correct hypotheses. His guess is somewhere around 500 years; he thinks he could be off by a hundred, but 500 seems about right to him.
Humans don’t live for 500 years. Rocky doesn’t know that. Rocky probably presumes he isn’t going to live as long, but Ryland doubts he knows just how little humans get in comparison to Eridians.
If he was alive for 500 years – he would probably go insane. He doesn’t know how Eridians are comfortable with that, with things just dragging and dragging, no end in sight. But Eridians probably don’t have taxes or governments to worry about.
A question was asked. As much as he doesn’t want to answer it, he’s going to. “What was that, buddy?”
“How long do humans live for question. Rocky want to know.”
Rocky stamps his claw impatiently on the flat surface of his xenonite ball as he asks, a skittery, jittery movement that rattles in Ryland’s ears.
He sighs. Rubs at his temples. Thinks about how to answer this as diplomatically as physically possible, as at ease as physically possible.
It’s not that he cares much about the fact he’ll be dead long long before Rocky. He doesn’t care about that. He’s probably going to die a whole lot sooner than your average human, anyway, considering his diet of coma-slurry and Taumoeba and little else. Besides, he’s been in space for longer than anybody has been in the history of ever. That’s sure to do messed-up things to his bones and joints and mass and everything. But it doesn’t matter. He’s made peace with that. For-real made peace, because any time more is a thousand times over what he thought he’d get.
What does matter is that Rocky has no idea that there’s probably only about fifty years left in his tank. What does matter is that he doesn’t know how Rocky is going to react to that, how he could possibly comprehend that, somebody who lived for centuries. Rocky might’ve seen the foundation of modern-day America, might’ve been around for the Industrial Revolution, had he lived on Earth. The concept of somebody dying before 100 – on Erid, that must be the fate of a very unlucky few.
Ryland clears his throat. “It depends,” he starts. “In some parts of the world, the average life expectancy is lower. And some parts it’s higher. And it depends on your diet – what you eat, you know, so I don’t think my diet is doing me any favours – and – genetics, which means your family and when they died, and –”
“Grace avoiding question,” says Rocky, and presses his carpace right against the flat expanse of the ball, pressed as close to Ryland as he can get, rolls closer still, bumps against Ryland’s hip again and again. Thud thud thud. Ryland winces. “What is average life expectancy for humans question.”
Ryland shrugs. “About eighty years,” he says. “Give or take.”
“Eighty Earth-years?”
“Yeah, pal.”
“Ohhh. Oh no no no. Grace die soon.”
Ryland holds his hands up. Rocky is skittering about in his ball, not completely panicked yet, but Ryland knows him well enough to know that he’s on the way there. Back and forth, over trash Ryland needs to pick up and discarded t-shirts and socks. He flings his arms in the air, back down again, rocks back and forth some more. Bump, bump. “Rocky–”
“Grace die in – forty years! No time. No time at all. Tomorrow.”
“Not tomorrow,” says Ryland, though he knows it probably feels that way to Rocky, who spent over forty years up in the bleak blank expanse of space alone. “Calm down.”
“Rocky can’t calm down.”
“Rocky, buddy, seriously–” Ryland holds out his hand, places it on top of the ever-moving ball, slows it to a halt. Rocky makes an anxious chittering sound from the inside that Ryland takes to be annoyance (which, justified, probably) and rocks back and forth. Ryland stoops, gets down on Rocky’s level. Ends up on his knees. It’s gross, a little – he’s wearing shorts, and an uncovered knee ends up making direct contact with what he knows to be a dirty dirty sock, but this is more important. “I’m not going to die tomorrow. Forty years, for humans – that’s a long, long time. Eighty years is average, as well. Might be one-hundred.”
“Eridians live for over six-hundred years. Long long long time. Grace die after one hundred.” Rocky pauses, and slowly sinks down, no longer restlessly throwing himself at the surface of the ball. “No time at all. Rocky one hundred when meet mate. One hundred young for Eridian. Not young for Grace.”
Ryland presses his palm to the surface of the ball, and Rocky doesn’t move. “One hundred years is a long time. For me, at the least.”
“Not long for Rocky,” says Rocky. “Only forty years more with Grace. With best friend. Sad. Bad bad bad.”
An indeterminable feeling works through Ryland; starting at his fingertips and inching up to his throat. Briefly, he thinks he might be sick. There’s a certain forcefulness to what Rocky is saying: a definitive edge to the repeated bad bad bad, a low ringing to his tone.
It’s just: to have someone mourn the years they’d spend without him, preemptively, before those years have even happened, to have someone care that they’d be missing him, to have someone think of the time they have left with him as an only, to be someone’s best friend –
It’s. Something.
It’s a lot more than just something, and he’s sure they both know that.
“Then we’ll have a great forty years, okay?” he says. He knew this conversation would be coming, and he’d told himself that he wouldn’t cry, but there are tears pricking the inner corners of his eyes. “I’m not sad. Don’t worry.”
“Why not sad question?”
“Because –” Because in all of his life before this, he’d been lonely. A loneliness you didn’t even realise, didn’t even recognise, because it was so utterly complete. Because all he’d had before this was a classroom and a few beanbags and microwave meals. Because he’d had friends but he hadn’t been loved by them. Because the last person he’d trusted had sent him up to space to die. Because Earth wasn’t his home but somehow here was. “Because before the Hail Mary, life had just been something to get through, you know? I was alive, but I wasn’t really living. Then I met you. And now I can’t be sad, because now I know it was all worth something.”
Horribly, violently vulnerable. He wants to curl up in a tight little ball.
“Do not understand.”
“Don’t worry about it, buddy–”
“Wait. Do understand.” Rocky taps a claw on the glass, right where Ryland’s palm is still pressed. “Life not quite start before meet you too.”
“Oh,” says Ryland.
“Start, but not start. Thought was happy. Thought everything made sense. Was happy to go on mission, knew was best at job. Was happy. But something missing. Now something not missing.”
“Same here. Same – same here.”
“Human word. Puzzle piece. You are missing puzzle piece.” Rocky pulls his claw away, and Ryland wraps one arm around the ball, close to his chest, snug. Rocky rocks against him, making wordless sounds, muttered spurts of Eridian he hadn’t ever heard before.
“What do those words mean?” he asks, when they’ve pulled apart.
“No human meaning.”
“Try me.”
“Is Eridian thing. For someone you love. They match sound. You can’t.” Rocky pauses. “Is okay. Know Grace would if he could.”
“I would,” agrees Ryland.
There’s a blurred line here, and he knows that, a blurred line between them being friends and them being so conceretly tied to each other, bound beyond the stars, but he isn’t going to question that, isn’t going to address it. It doesn’t matter. What matters is what Rocky is giving him.
Ryland only knows that he would give him the universe if asked. That if Rocky wanted all the stars he’d find some way to tie them together and present them gift-wrapped.
“Know this,” agrees Rocky. “Grace. Still sad sad sad you will die. But is okay. Not so soon.”
“Soon is only what we make of it, at the end of the day,” muses Ryland. “But you’re right. Not so soon.”
“Good. Good good good.” Rocky fumbles away in his ball, backing into a corner, then skittering forward again. “Now. Grace need Rocky help with repairs.”
“I can fix this by myself–”
“No, no. Rocky will fix.”
Rocky will fix, agrees Ryland, soft and quiet in the forefront of his mind.