Chapter Text
“Our star is what provides us with warmth, stability, and life,” my mother sang, and pet the top of my carapace. They ran a hand over the Eridani system model that dangled over the top of my bed. The planets chimed, and I squealed and shivered with the beautiful sound.
“Our star is a power beyond,” they carried on, as the notes carried around me, and comfort seeped into my body. With my own tiny claw, I reached up to touch the sphere in the centre of the model. Our beautiful star.
“Our star is big!” I exclaimed, and my mother chuckled. I understood that I interrupted the song and story, but I was just too excited. I couldn’t help it. I loved to learn about our mysterious universe. The unknowable cosmos that laid beyond the thick veil of our atmosphere. Alternate planets were still a brand new phenomenon, and we knew very little about these worlds beyond our own.
It was my Iℓℓℓth birthday. I would much later learn that in Earth years, it was about 25. As a special treat to celebrate the occasion, my mother made a beautiful model decoration to hang up in my room, and sang the matching story.
Bed time stories were a sacred routine in my culture, for extremely young children such as myself. We were only just learning the significance of sleep, and thus, the fear. I was always afraid of going to sleep, it was hard wired in my crystalline brain to be. Even though sometimes my twins would poke fun at me for seemingly being the most afraid of the clutch.
But a bed time song generally helped.
“Our star, unto a special person, might bestow a great gift,” my mama's lovely singing voice continued. “In the coldest of times, in despair and sorrow, when all hope seems to be lost, an entity will be birthed.”
I gasped in excitement. “What kind of entity?”
“Of light and luminance, airy and thin, ethereal in nature. A servant of the stars.”
I hummed, astonished. I did not know of such a creature! “What does it look like?”
Mama laughed softly. “We do not know. We cannot know; we have not met the entity, for we have not entered a time of hopelessness. Surely we do not wish to do so.”
“No!” I cried out, snuggling closer to them. “I do not wish to be hopeless! Hopelessness is scary.”
“Indeed it is. But this is why this entity is formed, you see. For in that time, it will come to you. It will come to you, and you will not be alone. It will come to you, and it will take away all your sorrows. It will come to you, and it will aid with all the hardships that may befall you.”
“Wow…” I breathed. What an incredible creature this must be! “And the entity… is it kind?”
“It is pure and graceful and beautiful. It is very kind indeed.”
“What is it called?”
“♫♬♪♪.”
“Ohh,” I cooed. It was a pretty word.
I wriggled in my bed closer to mama. They were big and warm and strong, and I knew they could protect me from any harm. Mama gently drapes an arm over my tiny round body. My body which had only just begun to grow, and lacked any of the cracks, decals, or gems of an adult. Lacked any trauma or injury. Smooth, innocent, and pure.
“But you won’t be in need of an ♫♬♪♪,” mama reassured. “You are safe and loved, and you always will be.”
I purred happily, nuzzling in closer. I was very very sleepy, but I was not afraid. Mama was here, and they would watch me.
-
222 years later.
-
I am not religious anymore. I do not believe in salvation. Salvation is a hope that I have completely run out of.
But I do not know what else to do.
My crew are dead. My ship is silent. My planet is on the brink of extinction. Our mission has fallen onto my shoulders. The weight of the world is a burden that I alone now carry.
I can’t do it.
I have tried absolutely everything I could think of. I’ve invented and constructed every possible device I could use for sampling the Astrophage. None of them have succeeded. But even with a sample of Astrophage, I would not know what to do.
I am an engineer, not a scientist. The scientists are dead and decaying and crumbling into dust, locked away in the common room. It is shameful of me to not prepare some sort of eulogy. A group funeral to honour their lives, or whatever. But it doesn’t matter.
This vessel is no longer a place of honour.
“T-Tau Ceti…” I whisper. My vocal chords ache. They have not been used in a while. “You are not my star.”
The star sits on the monitor in front of me. Unchanging.
“B-But I need a favour,” I warble, my plea falling on nothing more than dead ears. “Please.”
The star makes no motion to ask of my favour. It does not respond. It might not even know that I am here.
It probably does not care.
“I need help,” I sob. I begin to tremble. It was the first time I had admitted this aloud. Any shred of confidence I held onto, being the only one to make it to this star system alive, has vanished.
Never in my life have I felt so small. So utterly meaningless.
If only my coworkers back home could see me now. My fellow skilled engineers always used to gripe and complain of my unyielding certainty. My strong faith and assurance in my own skills were considered ‘cocky’, and ‘arrogant’. I was given the title as ‘egotistical’ sometimes. I would laugh it off, because I knew that I was a brilliant engineer. One of the best that Erid has ever had.
I do not know that anymore.
I am not eligible to hold that title anymore. I am utterly nothing.
No. That is not quite true.
I am something.
I am a failure.
An absolute, utter, failure.
A failure of an engineer, a crewmate, a friend, a mate, a citizen of Erid. I have failed at everything I’ve ever hoped for, at everything that ever mattered.
My crew are dead. I could not fix it. My engines mysteriously malfunctioned on the way here. I could not fix it. The critical Astrophage collector device broke off during the trip. I could not fix it. I’ve created several projects to try and replicate it. Not a single one has succeeded.
My entire life's purpose in this moment, is to fix and invent. Fix and invent. But if I cannot even do that, then what am I? I have no purpose, no path forward. I have no name anymore because no one speaks to me. I have no title. I have no friends. And my mate…
Oh, my dear, dear Adrian.
“Please!” I beg. I grovel before the monitor, clicking my hands together in prayer. “I cannot do this alone!”
Tau Ceti is silent.
“I beg of you!” I scream. “You’ve taken everything else from me! My life! My friends! My entire planet is going to die because you won’t fucking tell me the answer!”
I slam my fists onto the wall behind me. I scream and punch it, over and over and over again until my finger splits and I begin to bleed silver.
“I need someone here with me. I need it,” I claw at the wall, leaving scratch marks along the otherwise smooth surface. “I need an ♫♬♪♪,” I say, because why the hell not. If there is anything that hears my call, surely it has the power to respond.
I curl into a ball, tucking my arms under my carapace. I sob. It’s pointless and doesn’t get me any closer to accomplishing my goal, but I can’t seem to stop. I cry like a child.
I’m so lonely it hurts. It feels like my carapace is being chipped off, one chunk at a time, until I crumble into dust and decay. Like my crew will.
Adrian… I miss my Adrian. I miss my home and my workshop in the backyard. I miss my books, my music, my life. I want to go home. I’ve never wanted anything more.
There’s still plenty of fuel in the engines. I could turn around. I could go home. Back to my warm house, and crawl into the loving, tender arms of my mate, never to leave them again.
Probably soon afterwards, I would ostracize myself from society. Because that means I single handedly failed my entire species. I return home, but then what? There is no hope for Erid. No hope for the innocent plants, animals, all the children who would never grow up. No hope for Adrian and I to have any.
I scream some more. I scream for what feels like hours because it doesn’t matter. No one is around to hear me. I scream until all of my vocal chords tear, and I physically cannot anymore.
Fatigue pulls at me, so I go back to crying. It’s exhausting. I haven’t eaten in a while. I’ve been holding off on sleep for as long as possible. I figured that I would eventually get used to sleeping alone, but I don’t. It doesn’t get any bit less terrifying. So I begin my sad bedtime routine.
I trudge into my workshop. I could really use some company, and this is the best that I’ve got.
“Hi, Mick,” I whisper.
Mickey is tucked on one of the walls of my workshop, their arms looped through bands of fabric so they don’t drift away. It probably isn’t the most mentally sound thing to cuddle with your best friend's corpse before falling asleep… but I lack any capacity to care.
Maybe if I ever get to go home, I’ll become an interesting topic for psychologists to talk about. Or if anyone in the distant future finds the remnants of my ship, they’ll tell horror stories about the last surviving Eridian, who desecrated a dead body just so he could feel the tiniest bit of comfort.
I take Mickey’s hand into mine. It’s cold and limp and lighter than it should be, but if I pretend hard enough, Mickey’s just fast asleep. I pull their arm up over top of me, and squeeze in as close to their body as I can.
“You grew up in Arcpolis so I don’t know if you ever knew of this children's story,” I explain.
I was born in a small town along the coast of the Equatorial Mountain Range— practically on the other side of the world from Arcpolis, which is along the Northern Strip. Still, Mickey and I became great friends despite our cultural differences.
“But supposedly, in times of great sorrow and desperation, you can make a wish and a star might hear.”
Mickey is silent.
“I know, you probably think it’s ‘ludicrous’, and that ‘stars can't hear’, but it’s just a fable for kids. But as I was saying. The star will send an ♫♬♪♪, which is akin to some kind of deity, and it will magically solve all your problems.”
“Wow, what an interesting concept! Do you reckon it’s possible?” I ask, emulating Mickey’s voice.
“That’s the thing, Mick. I’m getting…” I laugh, “desperate. So I really hope that somehow, it is.”
“You needn’t worry, Rocky. You’re smart, you’ll figure it out.”
I wave a claw, bashfully. “Oh stop it, you. You wouldn’t want to stroke my ego anymore than I already do.”
“You could use an ego boost right now, if you’re asking me.”
I hum in agreement. “Certainly. But don’t let Carter back home hear you say that.”
“Ha-ha. But it’s true, Rocky. You’re very strong. You have a will of xenonite. You’re… you’re being very brave. And I’m sure… I’m sure that everyone back home is… proud of you. And misses you. And will be so excited to see you again—” my voice cracks, and I begin to rock back and forth.
“But I… I can’t do it without help,” I warble. “So can— can you please, send me an ♫♬♪♪ to help me? Please?”
Tau Ceti burns brightly outside the ship.
“Please…”
But Tau Ceti cannot answer the plea. It does not have what the voyager needs.
But Sol might.
-
11.9 light years away.
-
“AUUUGHHH FUCK!” A woman shrieks, and uses all of her might to give another push.
Her husband squeezes her hand in reassurance. “You’ve got this, babe, he’s almost here!”
“AAGHHNNN!” she groans in reply. And finally, after nearly a full day of labour, her baby arrives on this Earth. She gasps and sinks back onto the bed, her body spent.
He wipes beads of sweat from her brow and kisses her temple. “Good, good, you did so good,” he praises.
“Ghh… gimme m’baby,” she garbles, reaching her arms out and making a grabby motion at the nurse.
The nurse smiles behind her mask, and holds up a chubby, wet, slightly purple, wriggling little human. She wipes off some of the fluids, and hands him over to the new mother. “He’s beautiful,” she says.
The mother begins to sob, hormones and emotions and exhaustion raging through her body all at once, as her son is laid onto her bare chest.
“Oh my God,” the father whispers, prodding at the tiny hand. “He’s so little.”
“Didn’t feel so little comin’ out of me,” she jokes, tiredly, and cradles her newborn baby.
“You’ve got a name for him yet?” asks the nurse as she delivers an injection of Picotin.
The mother looks up at her husband and smiles. “Yeah.”
She runs a hand over his tiny head. “Hi, Ryland.”
Ryland burbles and begins to wail.