Chapter Text
The interesting thing about being the only human on an alien planet is that you get very good at lying to children.
"It is a structural biological optimization," I told the class. “A completely natural process in the evolution and lifecycle of humans."
I was sitting on a small stool at the front of the enclosure near the barrier. The beach was comfortable enough. The dome was comfortable enough. Sixteen degrees Celsius, about a .33 atmosphere of pressure, a nitrogen-oxygen mix that didn't smell like sulfur or rotten eggs, but my knees were currently screaming at me. A deep, grinding ache that didn't go away when I woke up anymore. Maybe it was arthritis. I expected this when deciding to live here. Erid’s 2.12G of gravity is much stronger than Earth's. Of course, aging twice as fast would put a rock in my shoe.
Across the clear viewing barrier, thirty-two juvenile Eridians sat clustered together on the basalt floor. They looked like a bunch of giant, carapace spider-crabs wearing custom-tailored tool belts and knitted accessories like shirts and jewelry. They didn't have eyes, which doesn’t bother me anymore, but thirty-two flat, pentagonal heads were tilted precisely toward me. Are faces still overrated when your students are asking interpersonal questions?
“Evolutionary progress, question?” one of them hums. They was a young engineer-in-training, though I just called him Toby. It isn’t often I come across a multi-colored Pebble, like Spiderman. A very curious one. Always posed questions I struggled to answer.
"Exactly," I said, offering a practiced, easy smile. I reached up and ran a hand through my greying hair. I am glad I haven’t told the students about the words ‘gramps’ or ‘pee-paw’. "In human biology, when a person reaches a certain level of cellular reproduction, the hair follicles stop wasting energy on melanin. That’s the stuff that makes it brown or black or blond. It goes white to signal seniority. It means I’m getting smarter."
A chorus of rapid, high-pitched clicks rippled through the room. Eridian laughter. They liked that. Good.
Through the glass to my left, I caught a sudden, sharp movement.
Rocky was standing in the observation corridor with the Pebbles. He wasn't teaching today; Adrian was handling some new additions to my dome. But Rocky was there, his five clattering claws locked onto the ground. He was quiet today.
He didn't make a sound. He didn't even laugh. But I knew him. I’d known him for six of my human years. When Rocky was relaxed, he swayed slightly from side to side, balancing his weight across his legs. Or when he was thinking, he’d make small grabby motions with his three-pronged appendage. Right now, he was rigid. He was tense.
He was listening to my joints.
He knows, I thought, a sudden spike of guilt hitting my stomach. Eridian sonar didn't just see the outside of things. They naturally heard sounds that humans needed equipment to hear. They mapped simple things like density. He could hear the friction. To Rocky, my left patella probably sounded like nails on a chalkboard every time I shifted my weight. He could probably even hear the slight, erratic flutter in my pulse when Adrian shifts the atmospheric pressure to my liking.
Sometimes I am glad humans can’t do all of that.
"Class dismissed," I said, tapping my desk with an awkward cough. "Now, go study the Inverse Square Law. I am an astronomy teacher, not an anatomy teacher. There will be a surprise quiz on Tuesday for those who forget."
The kids scrambled out, a chaotic flurry of their tiny rocky legs clopping against the ground. I waited until the heavy airlock doors hissed shut behind them before I let the smile drop. I leaned heavily against the desk when I stood, letting out a long, ragged breath that turned into a shallow cough full of phlegm. Maybe I was building up acid reflux too.
The sad truth is that one day, I will be leaving these kids permanently. At least here I could warn them. I still think about my kids on Earth from time to time.
The wall speaker chimed. “Grace,” Rocky’s voice came through. His tone was a complex, multi-layered chord. It’s interesting being able to pick up his vocal tones. Or should I say, instrumental tones? “Your air-mix is seventy-eight percent nitrogen. Correct, question?”
"Yeah, buddy. Roughly," I said, grabbing my cane. I hated the cane. It was stupid and insulting, but gravity is a harsh mistress when you're pushing fifty on a planet that makes you feel like you’re eighty. At least Adrian decorated it with little stones of aqua-like tones. I do appreciate how considerate Rocky’s partner is.
“Grace sound bad. Bad bad,” Rocky shot back. Oh yeah, I taught him all about human anatomy. Well, I didn’t. I let him have access to a digital file pertaining to all things human biology. I guess the biology infatuation was mutual in the end. His claws did a furious, syncopated dance against the barrier. “Voice sound very disgust. Sound leaky.”
"I'm not leaking, Rocky. I'm just getting old. We talked about time dilution already. I am just…yeah, getting older."
“Old is bad engineering,” he hissed sharply. “Bad programming. We fix. Adrian and I find solution. We are smart.”
"You can't engineer your way out of DNA degradation, buddy," I said softly, walking up to the glass. I pressed my hand flat against the cold surface. On the other side, Rocky immediately brought his primary claw up, aligning his tip with my palm. “It’s like…I don’t know. Saying that you don’t like the way Erid rotates. You can’t change that. I’m sorry.”
He stayed there for a long time, his body emitting a low, rhythmic vibration that I could feel buzzing through the glass. It was the Eridian equivalent of a sigh. I hated seeing him like that.
“We find solution,” he repeated, his voice dropping into a quiet, somber register. “Grace no stop moving. Grace continue teaching.”
"I'm not going anywhere yet," I promised.
But as I watched him turn and scuttle down the corridor, I looked down at my hand still against the glass. It was trembling, just a little.
The truth was that I was really fucking terrified.
The atmosphere of Erid wasn't getting inside my dome, which was good, but the planet itself burdened me with this heavy weight I can’t ignore. Getting up was harder. Hiking was harder. Doing anything was harder. Unsurprising for a planet that has twice the gravitational pull as Earth. Of course, I’d weigh more. The high radiation outside, the sheer psychological dread of being the only mammal within four light-years that looked like me. It was eating me alive, piece by piece. Admitting that to Rocky would break both of us.
—
It turned out "fixing it" didn't mean a better exercise routine or more vitamins. It meant a suspicious black crate.
Three days after my classroom breakdown, I found myself sitting at my table trying to swallow a bowl of rehydrated oatmeal. Sometimes it's nice eating some of the ship's old rations. A temporary fix.
I heard a knock on the door. I knew it was Adrian. I could always tell the difference. Adrian was more pragmatic, the same set of knocks each time. Rocky was less so. Much less. It was haphazard, messy. I opened the door, sighing as I did so.
A box. It wasn't a standard delivery. Adrian usually handled most of the logistics stuff. They were a meticulous one, always fixated on ensuring the seals on my weekly meals never degraded, but today, both they and Rocky were standing in front of me, shoving a xenonite-insulated container into my living space.
Great.
"What's this, guys?" I asked, tapping the box. It wasn't scalding. "If this is more joint braces, I already told you, they chafe. I'm still trying to heal from the last-"
“Not brace,” Rocky chirped. “Better. Medical-companion-interactive unit. Adrian design chassis. I design matrix. Grace no alone.” A little to my left, Adrian let out a resonant, mid-toned hum, the kind they used when they were proud. I liked hearing Adrian hum.
I sighed with an appreciative smile, I hit the release valve on the crate. The heavy lid pressurized and swung open, venting a small cloud of chilled, sterile nitrogen and oxygen. I leaned forward, expecting a complex piece of medical machinery or maybe a futuristic chair to help me with the gravity.
Instead, a thing stood up.
My stomach did a violent, sickening flip. It was a human body. Or rather, a horrifying, plasticized caricature of one. It looked to be about six feet tall, constructed from a seamless, pale synthetic polymer that looked like skin but didn't catch the light quite right. It had a face. Kinda. A completely symmetrical, featureless face with two glass-bead eyes that didn't have pupils. It didn't have hair, it didn't have ears, and it stood with a rigid, unnatural posture, its arms hanging down like heavy weights. It looked like something straight out of I, Robot.
"What..." My voice caught in my throat. "What is that?" I half pointed at the thing.
The machine turned its head toward me. I flinched. The movement was entirely silent, whirring, no hissing. Just a terrifying, fluid rotation. Its jaw dropped open, revealing a molded, tongue-less cavity. It didn't even have lips to move.
“G-R-A-C-E,” it spelled. The voice wasn't synthesized text-to-speech. It was Rocky’s exact tone from the translator on the ship. But wrong. It sounded like an accordion being dragged through a gravel pit with the way it rasped in my direction. “STATUS REPORT. HELLO. I AM A NEW DESIGN, A MCIU, ALSO KNOWN AS YOUR PERSONAL MEDICAL COMPANION INTERACTIVE UNIT-"
"Turn it off," I whispered, taking a step back. My cane slipped, clattering against the floor. I didn't bother to pick it up. Not much use a cane will be if this thing decides to go full Terminator on me.
“Grace?” Rocky tilted his carapace in confusion.“Chassis functional. Synthetic skin look real to Rocky. It has sensors to monitor your lungs from inside the habitat. Adrian work four days on joints-”
"It's wrong, Rocky," I said, my heart hammering against my ribs. I couldn't look away from the thing. It stood perfectly still, not moving a millimeter. It's not breathing. Its blank glass eyes stared straight through my forehead like it was looking past me. To someone like Rocky or Adrian, a body that doesn't move is just efficient. To a human, a body that doesn't move, but is standing up, means predator or corpse. "It's uncanny. It's... it makes me feel completely unsafe."
“Not alone.” Adrian’s tone cut in as-a-matter-of-factly. “It has system like human mind.”
“I-ARE-SMART,” the plastic mouth rasped in that horrible, broken cadence. “DO-NOT-LEAK-GRACE.”
"I said turn it off!" I shouted, my voice cracking as the existential weight of the last six years suddenly caught up to me. I wasn't just old; I was willingly trapped in a fish bowl surrounded by well-meaning animals who thought they could solve my mortality crisis with a puppet. With something straight out of an analog horror. This was worse than finding out the artificial meat I had to eat was made of me.
The android froze, its jaw remaining half-open. Adrian’s carapace sagged, their top three legs bowing under their weight. They didn't understand. They couldn't. To them, they had built a masterpiece of robotics engineering. To me, they had just put a ghost in my kitchen.
Once again, I feel guilt. They were only trying to help.
The silence in the dome was deafening, broken only by the ragged, wheezing sound of my own failing lungs.
The silence lasted for three days.
For seventy-two Eridian hours, I didn’t leave my home. I didn’t look toward the observation corridor where they usually stood with other Eridians to watch me like a fish in a tank. When Adrian slid my nutrient refills through my automated cargo airlock, I waited until the outer seals cleared before pulling the tray inside without looking up.
I knew it was petty. I knew they were only trying to save my life...with their horrifying plastic puppet, but the raw, claustrophobic terror of seeing that fucking thing in my kitchen had broken something fragile inside me that I didn't even know was there. I needed a shower. A cold one too. I needed to be alone for awhile. Really, truly alone, even if it meant feeling the crushing weight of guilt because I knew my friends were only trying to help. Fuck.
—
Thank the universe that Eridians understood the concept of a weekend.
A few mornings later, my knees were still screaming from the stupid gravity, but the routine of the classroom was the only thing keeping me sane. I sat back on my stool, my cane leaning against the desk, and I faced the thirty-two juvenile Eridians waiting behind the barrier.
"Today," I said, my voice still carrying a bit of that thick, phlegmy rasp, "we are taking a break from the space talk. We need to discuss a concept unique to humanity. Fiction versus nonfiction."
Thirty-two pentagonal heads perked in unison. On my wall monitor, Toby’s appeared to exhibit confusion. “Nonfiction is truth. Fiction is false. Creation of false data bad?”
"To an Eridian, I suppose so," I nodded, forcing an easy, teacher-like smile. "But humans have a psychological requirement for stories. Nonfiction is history, science, math...all of the many things that actually happened. Fiction is... lies. I guess fiction is a bunch of lies. But they are purposeful lies. Necessary. We invent people and situations to understand our own feelings and to understand hypotheticals beyond our present day."
The room rippled with a chaotic flurry of noises. Eridian skepticism. They didn't like this lesson. They didn't have a concept of movies or made-up stories. To them, a book that wasn't a manual was a waste of perfectly good storage space and knowledge. I suppose I could understand that.
"I let you guys browse my digital library over the weekend," I continued, tapping my desk. "I told you to pick a human media so we could study how the human race percieves fiction. What did you choose?"
Toby and many others chirped loudly. “We select title: The Fault in Our Stars. By John Green-human.”
Oh shit. I forgot NASA sent that movie with me.
My heart did a strange, uncomfortable hitch. Of all the books in my saved data logs, they chose that one. "That's... a heavy choice, Toby," I murmured. "Why that one?"
“Evokes high emotion,” Toby hummed, their tiny rocky legs clopping against the floor in excitement. “It is fiction, question? The Hazel-human and the Augustus-human do not exist in Earth history?”
"No," I said softly, leaning forward. "They don't. But the truth in the book isn't about historical facts. It's about...something some unlucky humans have to deal with. Hazel and Augustus are young human beings whose cellular reproduction has....gone wrong. They have something called cancer. Their lifespans are gradually thinning, and they know how many years they have left. Knowing when your time is up is the worst thing any person could feel."
The classroom went entirely still. The ambient clicking died down to silence.
"The point of the story," I said, my eyes tracking across their faceless faces, "-is that Augustus compares his sickness to something called a grenade. Something explosive that will hurt everyone around him. He wants to leave behind something worth remembering. A monument. A piece of himself. He wants his life to mean something grand before his body dies. But Hazel teaches him that a small, quiet universe shared between two people can be enough. That even the smallest of moments could be someone's entire universe. Even if that universe has...an known expiration date."
Through the glass to my left, a few shadows shifted.
I didn't have to look to know who it was. The distinct, heavy presence of my friends were there. Rocky and Adrian were standing together in the classroom observation corridor. They had been quiet today, but I could feel the invisible weight of their attention washing over me. I knew they were listening to my body, mapping my pulse, tracking the friction in my joints as I spoke about two fictional human juveniles dying from incurable diseases.
I think they know my expiration date. I could be wrong. But I think they know.
“Augustus-human dies before life complete,” Toby whirred, a tone of genuine sorrow underlying the flat synthesis. “Mismatched lifespans. Why do humans write stories where they die, Grace? Big question, statement.”
"Because it's the only truth we have," I whispered, the weight of my emotions pressing down on my chest like a boulder. "We don't get centuries, Toby. We get a few decades, and then poof. We die. All humans die eventually. We write about it because we are terrified, and because we need to know that the love we leave behind matters more than the broken aspects of our bodies."
The lesson ended eventually. Well, the physical lesson. But I think that knowing my time is coming close is a lesson I also need to face. Fuck. Fucking fuck. The selfish side of me wants Rocky to fix everything. Dismember my body and make me anew or something straight out of Frankenstein. Anything but the thing. But I can't run from the inevitable. Maybe I am Augustus. Maybe deep down I want to mean something to these kids, these people. I want to make a difference. As if the differences I have already made aren't enough.
But maybe I am also Hazel.
Maybe the little things like teaching the kids, spending time with Rocky and his mate, and taking long walks on the beach is enough. Maybe it is enough because it is all I may ever get.