Chapter Text
Stratt’s office is the only room in the facility that doesn’t feel like it’s packing down ready for the end of the world. It’s not littered in screens, there’s no ominous countdown, it’s just an ordinary desk, two chairs and a single potted plant that is fighting to see at least some kind of sunlight. Isn’t that what got us into this whole mess in the first place?
She doesn’t look up when you come in. “Sit.” she says, and you do. She finishes whatever she’s reading, signs it, sets it aside and then gives you her full attention, the way it happens all at once is a bit unsettling, like a spotlight.
“You volunteered,” she says, a statement not a question. “Before the others were even confirmed. You put your name forward knowing what it was. A one way trip, no return leg, you understood that.”
“I still do.” You say, it comes across a bit defensive.
“Most people need persuading. Incentives. Their families taken care of, their debts cleared, their names on something back home.” She studies you. “You asked for none of it. Why?”
You’ve answered versions of this before, for psych evals, for committees. But Stratt isn’t a committee, and you have the distinct sense she’d know a rehearsed answer the way a dog knows fear. “There’s no one it would hurt,” you say. “My parents are gone, I’ve got no siblings. I’ve got friends but they’ve got their own families to distract themselves with. No…” You stop for a moment, saying out like the things you’ve been internalising. “No one whose life falls apart if I don’t come back. It seemed like the most useful thing a person like me could do with that.”
Stratt nods slowly, like you’ve confirmed something she already knew. “That’s why I chose you, in part,” she says. “Not the credentials, plenty have the credentials. It was that you’ve got nothing tethering you. No anchor dragging your attention back toward Earth.” You can tell by her tone she doesn’t mean to be hurtful, she means to be right. “A clean break. Clean breaks save missions. Sentiment kills them.”
Something in your stomach tightens. “You say that like sentiment’s a disease.”
“On a mission like this? It’s a liability.” She leans back. “I’ve watched it happen. People up there alone, light years out, and the thing that breaks them is never the cold or the dark or the maths. It’s that they left someone behind they couldn’t stop thinking about. The grief eats the focus. The focus is the only thing keeping them alive.” She holds your eye. “I need my crew thinking about the stars, the mission. Not about home, not about a face, the ones who do best are the ones with the least to miss.”
You keep your face very still as it dawns on you what Stratt is really saying. What all the warnings have been circling, the comments about you spending far too much time with a certain middle school teacher, in the middle of a suicide mission you willingly signed up for. And though you're both making the effort to stay away from each other, you know that she knows it's already too late. The damage is done. She just needs to be sure it isn't going to cost her the mission. Stratt watches you a moment longer than is comfortable.
“Is there something I should know?” she says, mild but lethal.
“No.”
“Because if there were an attachment forming. Here. Now. This close to launch.” She lets it sit. “It would be my job to manage it. For your sake as much as the mission’s.”
“There’s nothing to manage,” you say, and it comes out steadier than you feel.
“Good.” She says it like she doesn’t believe you and has decided, for now, to let you have it. “Because there are options, you understand. For crew, before the coma. Things we can do to make the leaving transition…easier.” She hands you a form that you take timidly. “It’s all voluntary, of course. But the offer stands, it always stands. Right up until you go under.”
The words shouldn’t mean anything. This is just a bit of administrative reassurance, like standard pre-flight care or something. But the words linger, you push them aside, choosing to have a crisis about it later.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” you say.
“Do.” She picks up her next document, the spotlight clicks off as suddenly as it came on. “That’s all. Get some sleep, you have the look of someone who isn’t.”
You smile gently at her, trying for a moment not to feel the guttering sadness that's been sitting in you lately. You stand. You're almost at the door when she speaks again, not looking up.
“For what it’s worth.” Her voice doesn’t soften exactly, Stratt doesn’t soften, but something in it goes quieter that gives that impression. “I don’t take any pleasure in it. Choosing the ones with nothing to lose, because they’re the easiest to spend. It’s a grim way to build a crew.” She takes a deep breath while you stand in the doorway, just looking at her. You’d expect it to hurt, knowing you’re expendable, but it doesn’t. Maybe it would have a few months ago, but this close to the mission you’re just completely numb. “But it’s the right way. The only way that works. I made my peace with being the person who does the necessary thing a long time ago, so that the rest of you don’t have to.” You’re not sure what to say to that. “Most people in my position would tell you it gets easier,” she adds, finally glancing up. “It doesn’t. You just get better at carrying it. Same as you will, out there.” She turns back to the document. “Close the door on your way out.”
And you let yourself out into the bright cold corridor, turning over a single sentence you can't quite put down. Things we can do to make the leaving easier. You hold the sheet she gave you in your hand, taking another look, it resembles a contract. You shake your head, fold it, and stuff it in your back pocket for now. The corridor is long, over lit and empty, until it isn’t.
Ryland's walks out of a door at the far end, a folder tucked under one arm, clearly headed somewhere in a hurry with that distracted gait of a man whose mind is three problems ahead of his feet. He sees you the same moment you see him. You both slow, not quite stopping, just registering. There’s a version of this where one of you says something. Hi. How’d it go. You look like I feel….I really fucking miss you it’s tearing me apart. The corridor is wide enough for it. There’s time.
But neither of you takes it.
He holds your eye for a second too long with that look he does, the one that’s always on the verge of becoming words yet never does. You hold it back, because you don’t trust your face to do anything sensible, and because Stratt’s voice is still sitting cold in your ears, the ones who do best are the ones with the least to miss. Then he drops his gaze, adjusts the folder and keeps walking like you’re just another somebody. You keep walking too, and you pass each other in the middle of the corridor close enough to touch, but you don’t. By the time you reach the far door you’re certain he hasn’t looked back, and you don’t look back either. It’s the sensible thing. You’re both getting so good at the sensible thing.
~~~~~~~~~~
You're already moving toward the glass before you've decided to, drawn the way you always are. Ryland's hand catches the back of your suit and pulls you back with a tug. "Hang on. Hang on." He says quiet and tense. "We don't actually know what it wants yet."
"It tapped a disco song back at us, Ryland. It's not going to murder me."
"That's exactly the kind of unexpected thing someone does right before it murders you."
You ignore him and don't stop, you move slowly and hope he won’t notice. But the grip on your suit gets tighter and so is the look on his face, and you've learned that when Ryland goes still and serious like this it's worth at least pretending to take him seriously. The two of you settle a careful foot from the glass, you leaning in, him half a step back with one hand still hovering near your arm, ready to drag you back. He's still doing the protective thing. The annoying one. The one that's annoyingly stopped being annoying.
Behind the window the shape has gone quiet and the tapping stopped, though you can still make out the bulk of it in the shadow. Then it begins to move, small careful movements close to the glass, but it’s still too dark and shadowy to make out the full image of the creature. You feel Ryland tense beside you, and you feel yourself lean in closer, neither of you says anything, stuck been awe and a touch of terror. There's a part of your brain that hasn't caught up yet, that's still standing somewhere a few minutes back going there is a living thing on the other side of that glass and it tapped a killer tune back to me, and you suspect that part of you is going to be standing there, stunned, for awhile.
It lifts something to the window. It’s small, no bigger than a hand, it’s metallic and simple, neatly made and for a second your brain struggles to register it. Then you realise it’s a person, a little figure of a person, one arm flung up over its head.
"Oh," you say, and it comes out softly, you press your gloved hand flat to the glass without thinking.
"Don't-" Ryland starts, and then stops, because nothing happens, the creature just moves the figure, gentle and childlike, making the little raised arm jerk higher and holds it there. You hear the exact moment Ryland forgets to be cautious.
"That's me," he says, and the fear drops out of his voice. "That's, that's when I caught the canister. I had my arm up like a complete idiot." A laugh starts under it, disbelieving. "It made a tiny me. It saw the whole thing, and it went away, and it made a tiny little smug me."
"It got the arm exactly right," you say. "That's the smuggest little arm I've ever seen. That's you to the bone."
"I was triumphant."
"You were insufferable."
You hear a low grinding below the window, a section of wall shudders outward, a shallow translucent drawer easing open toward your side, the figure sitting inside it. You reach for it on reflex. "Wait." His hand's on your wrist before you've got halfway. "Let me."
"It's a drawer, not a bear trap…"
"Humour me." But there's no joke, just that quiet stubborn worry he gets. You let your hand drop and let him crouch in front of you instead, putting himself between you and the open compartment. He reaches in slow and pulls the figure out into the light and the drawer grinds shut behind his hand. He turns it over once, very carefully and admiringly. Behind the glass the limb lifts again. It’s tapping. Ryland brightens and raises his free hand, tapping back. "Hi. Yes, we're listening, go on…" It taps again, sharper and more impatient. "Yes, hi, tapping! Look, I can do it too!" he says, tapping harder, as if the issue is effort. You don't say anything, you just watch, biting back a laugh as he taps and the alien points. He taps harder and the alien points harder, the two of them locked in a conversation where neither is having the same one.
"Why do you keep…" Ryland mutters at the glass, tapping again. "I'm answering you, I'm right here!" The limb sweeps once more past the both of you, toward the airlock. You watch the exact moment it clicks, and its hilarious.
"...Oh," he says. "It's not tapping. It's pointing." He looks at the limb, still aimed steadily down the tunnel. "It wants us to leave."
"Took you a minute," you manage, losing the fight with your laugh.
"You could have said."
"And miss this? No."
The claw gives one more slow, patient sweep toward the airlock, the universal off you go then, and settles back into the dark.
"It built a tunnel onto our house and made me a statue and now it's sending me to my room." Ryland says, faintly wounded, tucking the figure against his chest where, you realise, he is absolutely not going to let you carry it.
"Can’t blame it, we're a lot to take in one sitting." You give the window a small wave, because it seems rude not to, and the shape stays still as the two of you turn and start back up the tunnel.
_____
It's only once you're through the airlock, helmets off, the ordinary hum of the Hail Mary closing warm around you, that it catches up with you properly, the impossibility of what just happened. An hour ago the thing behind that glass was a claw and a jumpscare, now it's something that makes a little model of your friend. Coworker? Cohabiter?
You end up on the floor of the suit room, backs to the lockers, the figure set on the cold metal between you. "You body blocked me from a drawer." you laugh.
"And I would do it again." He picks the figure up, turns it over. Up close it's better than you'd realised, simple but cleanly made, and the arm is perfect, so exactly, smugly right that it makes you want to laugh all over again. "You'd have had your whole hand in there before it even finished opening."
"That's optimism."
"That's how people lose hands." He says pointed but with humour. He sets the figure back down between you so gently like it's something precious, which it is, really.