Chapter Text
2039
I’m packing up my things in my makeshift classroom when Eva Stratt walks back into my life.
Talk about déjà vu.
It’s all eerily similar to the first time I met her, back in my classroom at Grover Cleveland Middle. A lifetime ago, in a school that no longer exists. She looks much the same — older, of course — but nothing about her outward appearance betrays the hell I know she’s been through in the past decade and a half, save for a small tattoo. She’s flanked by two men in nice coats — the trio looks wildly out of place here, in this partitioned school gymnasium that has become so much of my world.
“Stratt—,” I say, surprised. Four years working side by side, and it still feels too informal to call her Eva, what can I say?
I take it from the fact that she’s here in person that something has happened. Something big. It can’t be the Hail Mary — we won’t hear back from them for another decade, if we’re lucky. But maybe something else — some new breakthrough in astrophage research? Whatever it is, I assume there’s a reason that this couldn’t have been an email.
“What happened?” I don’t waste time on pleasantries - I need to know, and I suspect Stratt prefers it this way.
“Six days ago, a beetle came down in the Atlantic Ocean. Roscosmos has recovered it and has transported it to a secure facility in Geneva for analysis.”
“A beetle.” I say, stunned. She can’t mean—
“Yes.”
“One of the Hail Mary’s Beetles.”
“Yes.”
“But—” I quickly do the math, confirming what I already know. The Hail Mary launched fourteen years ago — the trip to Tau Ceti takes 12-13 years. Each way. The earliest we should be hearing back is 2050. Unless the crew were to wake early somehow, and release one—
“The crew—,” I ask.
Her expression tells me everything I need to know.
“The ship’s telemetry indicates that all three members of the crew passed in transit, between six to nine months after launch.”
Yáo. Ilyuhkina. DuBois.
All dead.
Yáo, who had cheerfully sang Rocket Man at our farewell party, knowing full well that there would be no touchdown to bring him back home. Who had walked on board the Soyuz capsule, head held high, proud to give his life for humanity without a second thought. Who had told me once, “you just need to find someone to be brave for.”
Ilyukhina, who had always been quick with a joke or a smile or a hug. Who cussed like a sailor and could fix just about anything. Who talked about her one-way trip to space like it was going to be an epic road trip.
And DuBois. Who spent countless hours in the lab with Shapiro and I, mastering everything there could possibly be to know about astrophage. How it eats, how it reproduces, what makes it tick. He had been blunt, a straight shooter - always told me exactly what was on his mind. I’d liked him. I’d liked all of them.
They were my friends.
And now they were dead.
I realize my face is wet as a second, more horrifying thought enters my mind. The Hail Mary had arrived at Tau Ceti as a ghost ship. The crew died before they ever got a chance to do what they had been sent to do. They woke up before they could gather any data, do any research — they never even got the chance to see each other again. The culmination of a global effort, humanity’s last prayer for salvation, up in smoke fourteen years ago and we never even knew.
I look at Stratt.
“Is that… is that it for us, then? It’s over?”
I let the word “it” do a lot of heavy lifting there. She knows what I mean.
“That depends on what you make of the beetle.”
Right, the beetle.
If the crew is dead, who sent the beetle?
“Who—” I start to ask. The gears whir in my head, then grind to a halt. There’s only one possible explanation here, and possible is stretching it. Quite a bit.
Stratt just looks at me and waits.
“No,” I say. This can't be real. She cannot be telling me what I think she's telling me.
“Yes.” She nods. She's going to make me say it, then.
“Someone at Tau Ceti.”
“Someone at Tau Ceti,” she repeats.
Holy moly.