#breachlight

Sometimes Sol wasn’t there, but more often he was. More present and solid than before. He was becoming the physical version of the illusion he had made for me. Now when he took a breath it seemed to matter – his shoulders would relax with the rush of oxygen. I would catch his eyelids fluttering at the end of a long day, as though he could tire. But still, how could I be sure that the human attributes I prescribed were real? Isolation is a powerful hallucinogen. No matter how human he seemed, the Vigilant bent around him, time bent around him, and increasingly, so did I.

Something was shifting in me, too. More than my mirrored organs and my time loss... the space I took up in the universe seemed constantly in flux, air and gravity beginning to warp around me just like it did for Sol. Matter moved to match my intent, shortening distances under my stride and removing barriers from my reach - sparing me from physical effort.

Perhaps it was necessary - the change - to be able to survive him...

✧ ✹ ✧

I could see Sol out of the corner of my eye. He was leaning on a tabletop and there was a distinct crease in his jumpsuit where his thigh met metal – he hadn’t had such physicality even just a few days ago.

I shouldn’t have been able to see him from where I was sitting at the recording console. He should have been almost directly behind me. But the room bent around me, and around him, so that almost the entire space was visible to me. I didn’t think he knew that I could see him though, because without my full attention on him, his expression was completely blank. I tried not to look too closely, and to instead focus on my log.

“Cycle 237, Day 25. Eidon A is behaving strangely – beyond modelling and predicted margin for error. Between yesterday’s entry and a few minutes ago it remained entirely stable, with no flaring and no measurable change in mass – all orbiting planets showed tidal and atmospheric readings comparable to those taken before the Eidon project even began construction. Current readings show dramatically increased flares and other indicators of accelerated collapse – beyond what has been seen over the past week. The Vigilant’s systems do appear to be functioning correctly when recalibrated against neighbouring systems, so my current hypothesis is that collapse is simply less steady than we predicted.”

Behind me, Sol’s mouth twitched in a smile, no doubt enjoying the irony of ‘my kind’ trying to predict the unpredictable. Or perhaps I had just given away that he was in view.

“Note for Paz: I recommend that we continue to take more regular manual readings and set up automated measurements to take place overnight – I will be doing so for the next five days until handover.”

I ended the log and spun my chair around to face him, but immediately regretted it. In motion, I could feel my organs sliding over one another, twisting and untwisting as a sickening sloshing sound echoed around my head. I held my breath and screwed my eyes shut as I waited for them to re-find their places, resisting the urge to look down where I knew from experience that I would see my stomach distending and pushing against the hold of my jumpsuit.

In a moment I felt warmth surrounding me, and although I could still feel movement, it felt right, for my body to be coming undone this way. When I opened my eyes Sol was squatting right in front of me, looking up through long jet-black lashes, hand on the arm of the chair as though steadying it would steady me.

I let out a heavy breath. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure, Aniara.” Graceful as a cat he stood, offering me his hand which I took gratefully. “I have not heard you leave a note for your crew before.”

“I didn’t feel like I needed to before now. Or that they would believe the things I wanted to tell them...” I wrinkled my nose and gave him a pointed look, which he charitably ignored.

“But you believe the star’s changes are now significant enough to mention?”

“Yes. And-” I twirled a lock of hair around my finger as we walked, “it’s not long until Paz wakes up. I’m looking forward to seeing them, and I don’t want them to be lonely once I go back into stasis.”

He hesitated in his stride, just enough to put us out of step for a moment, and smiled at me, I thought a little sadly. “Tell me about them. All of them.”

So I did. We settled into place on a bunk, me curled into a corner and him stretched across the rest of the mattress, long and elegant and bent just slightly beyond how human joints should bend.

For a moment, I couldn’t look away from him, even as it was all I wanted to do, like passing an accident on the motorway. His limbs draped so casually, but the geometry was wrong. Whoever had constructed him had done it from a checklist, without a reference. Not quite grotesque, but almost.

My own joints felt just as stretched, and I couldn’t tell if I was just unsettled from looking at him, or if I too was twisted into unnatural shapes. I shuffled where I sat, trying to rid myself of the sensation, and all at once he settled into place. Comfortable, and safe. I felt my fear melt away under his warmth.

I told him about Rowan’s brusque, secretly-caring attitude, how he’d passed every physical and mental test with a quiet self-assuredness that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around – and how that drove me crazy at times. I described Paz ‘s vivid eyes and doodles in every margin, how they made every space they entered feel alive, and about our many horticultural projects over the years, both on Earth and here on the Vigilant. I hesitated when he asked about Lena. What might he do, if he knew them all? Should I keep a piece of them to myself? I still felt sure that he would leave, without me here, but I had always been a wishful thinker...

As always, he didn’t push, just watched me quietly, tucking the blanket over my feet as I mulled over what to do. And as always, in the end, I told him all about Lena. About how she had steadied me in training, and ever since. How she was always neat, and composed, and could step off a 30-hour observation shift and still exude warmth. How in a lot of ways, she was like him. Or he was like her...

“Paz will wake up in just a few days... The handovers are my favourite time, when I can tell them all about how the star has changed. I think they’re the only people who’ve ever really known me. They’re my family,” I gnawed on my lip, “at least, the family I still have...”

He stilled, breath halting in a sharp reminder that it wasn’t needed. His eyes softened like he knew what I was admitting. “You left your family to be here.” It wasn’t a question.

“My parents, yeah... Eidon A was all I ever wanted. I told them, told myself if I'm being honest, that it was for the future of humanity, whatever that means. But it wasn’t. It was for me. To see my star, up close. I think they knew it, too.” I tilted my head back, staring at an unnatural dark spot in the corner of my ceiling. “They’re dead, now.”

Somewhere out there my star was flickering, on its way to join them in whatever came after. I wasn’t sure whether it was my warped vision, or my imagination, or an after-image of Sol’s swirling starlight-eyes, but I could see Eidon A there, in the corner, as though I had turned the many layers of steel to glass.

When at last I looked down, Sol was right before me. I hadn’t felt him move on the mattress, but his face was only inches from mine. He looked intently into my eyes, unblinking, and I was held captive looking back. The air seemed to thicken around me – inside me – pressing at my ribs, my limbs, my throat, like great hands were holding me still. I couldn’t move a muscle even if I wanted to. I didn’t think that I did though - want to.

“You dreamed of the star your whole life, and now you are here.” His voice was thick as the air, heavy with intensity, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, “Is it everything you wanted?”

His question cut like a knife, and I believed it was meant to. Was the sacrifice worth it? I had avoided the question even as it hung in my mind every waking moment, afraid of what my answer made me.

“Yes.”

A shiver ran through him, so quick he seemed to blur at the edges, and like that the pressure was gone. He reclined back, a lazy smile playing on his plush lips, eyes half closed and heavy lidded, curls in casual disarray. He looked as though he had just been kissed, and I was mesmerised. I slumped back myself, the wall turning soft where my bruised head hit it, preventing further damage.

We stayed like that for I don't know how long, at either end of the bed, only breaking eye contact to blink.

✧ ✹ ✧

I dreamt of being outside the ship again, close enough to touch Eidon A.

It was beautiful, of course. A field of stars spread out endlessly beneath my bare feet, the light bending around me like soft earth, and above them all, my star. I could see the collapse now, how the bursts of colour fell inwards instead of reaching out, long-fingered and desperate. Like it had accepted its death, and become all the more beautiful for it, diamond-refracting the remaining sparks of its life.

I reached down, brushing my fingers through the stars like dandelion seeds, and like those delicate seeds, they collapsed under my touch. One by one, they began to melt, light dripping in molten rivers around my ankles, until it began to reach up my legs.

My skin gave way like wax, sloughing off me in sheets that glowed the same gold and violet as Eidon A, and my eyes slid our of place, rolling down my body like teardrops. I tried to move my legs, to run from the stars that burnt my flesh, but I was stuck fast. My fingers too had become soft, webbing together, collapsing. I could feel a scream building, tearing at my throat and lungs, but somehow I couldn't get it out.

Somewhere in the distance the light parted. Or something blocked it. Tall, unnaturally angular, its edges weeping darkness into it's surroundings, looming ever closer.

I wrenched awake, tangled in damp sheets, reeking of ozone and burnt hair. The air was crackling faintly, like as red-hot poker plunged into water. In the far corner, exactly where the shadows met, stood that same silhouette dripping black. Its edges shimmered as though painted in oil, it's darkness spreading, eating into my space and my air, a single bead of night sliding in reverse up the wall.

I tried to scream, but when I opened my mouth it folded back into me, air collapsing suffocatingly, down my throat. I needed to get it out, out, out out out! The shape tilted its head as though listening to the sound I couldn't make. I opened my mouth wider, pressure building and darkness growing until I was sure I was about to burst -

- and then Sol was there.

In the same corner of the room, just watching. The black figure was gone, or swallowed into him, or waiting behind him, blocked by his dark radiance.

The scream finally choked out of me in a gasping, ragged sob, and then he was beside me, all gentleness, all comfort. The lights began to rise in a soft sunrise-glow. My breath stuttered shallow, and the warm air rolled down my throat like a balm for the claw marks my scream had left.

His voice was tender with concern, "Aniara."

I buried my face in my knees to hide the fat tears rolling down my cheeks, and didn't answer.

✧ ✹ ✧

Hydrophonics was the only place aboard that didn't smell of ozone, now. It wasn't a bad smell, but it set my teeth on edge - a constant reminder of how very close I was to the vacuum of space.

I took a deep inhale of the green, damp air as we entered, relief washing over me once again. I told Sol I needed to check on the vats, but I really just wanted to get away from the smell. It seemed I hadn't needed to check them at all since I first brought him here. In fact, re-growth had surged, almost back to 95% of optimal levels, though I hadn't changed anything in the way I was treating them.

I jotted a few notes on the board, finding the pen conveniently already in my hand, and scooped some of the most developed algae into the mulcher for processing, with Sol watching carefully from where he stood, his hand hovering centimetres over one of the vats. The algae seemed to strain after his long fingers as he made tender stroking motions in the air above it.

"How much of this sustains your life, Aniara, and how much sustains the rest of the crew?"

My eyes were on him like a shot, and I spat hotly, "There's no reason for you to know that, since we're all here and we all need air."

His voice was infuriatingly calm when he replied, "I meant no harm, I am simply curious about the effects of their stasis. I already told you, as long as these sustain you, they will be safe."

"And what about the crew? Paz, Rowan, Lena, they all sustain me too." My voice still felt harsh, even as I took a step towards him.

Something in his eyes flickered and his hand stilled over the algae. "Do they?"

"Yes," I said, almost in a whisper. "Of course they do. People aren't meant to be alone."

We stayed in a heavy silence the rest of the day, like the air had thickened once more. I wasn't sure if I was waiting for his contradiction, or affirmation, but neither came.

✧ ✹ ✧

I sat at the recording desk, shoulders heavy and thigh throbbing from a long run.

"Cycle 237, entry fourteen. Eidon A's collapse is becoming more erratic. The impact on Eidon Ab, c, and h's tides has increased along with it, but b still appears within habitable conditions. Provided the theoretical infrastructure is tsunami ready... Sixteen days remaining in this cycle, our current predictions point to Eidon A's full collapse in cycle 241. My next turn awake, if you all let me wake up again, after this. I can still feel the presence. I have not made contact... I won't."

With a sharp click I ended the recording. Entry fourteen... fourteen. That wasn't right... I had made this recording before, hadn't I? I should only have a few days left, not sixteen.

I was sure...

But there was the case of daily vitamins I kept by the recording desk to make sure I took them each morning, only half empty…

I looked up at the clock over the door. It flickered for a moment, numbers tumbling over one another like raindrops. My stomach lurched as they flipped between the past and an impossible future: Cycle 237, day fourteen; Cycle 237, day two; Cycle 237, day eighty-three, Cycle 237, day fourteen; before stilling. Cycle 237, day twenty-seven.

Of course it was day twenty-seven, I had just been telling Sol about how the handover process would go in a few days.

Something was slipping through my fingers. Had I been in a different day? Like sand, I couldn't hold onto idea.

Why was I confused, again?

✧ ✹ ✧

Sol found me on the floor. I wasn't sure how long I had been there. He said he wasn't either, but I didn't know if I could believe him - even when he's not with me, I know he's not really gone.

I must have fallen getting out of the shower. My leg was twisted under me at an unnatural angle, and later when I tried to test standing my quad under the old bruise seemed incapable of supporting my weight. I felt as though someone had flayed away the muscle, and taken a chisel to the bone of my hip where it twisted. I lay on the floor, towel barely covering me, and looked up at him through kaleidoscopic tear-blurred vision, too scared to move without knowing how bad the damage was.

He was on his knees in a moment, hands hesitating to touch just above my damp skin.

"Can I?"

He held so still while he waited for me to reply, but I couldn't make the words come. Instead I just nodded my head limply, jaw quivering, and waited for the pain of being moved.

But it didn’t come.

He moved with inhuman carefulness as though he thought I might shatter, cradling me behind my shoulders and under the crook of my knees. When he stood I could feel bone grinding on bone, muscle tearing further and filling with dark blood, and I knew it should have been agony – that I should have been screaming - but all I could feel was his touch. His fingertips seared my skin until the contact was all I could think of.

He laid me down gently on the mattress, scooping a pillow under my head and adjusting the covers so that they supported my injured leg, but he didn’t withdraw. One hand remained pressed against my side, as though poised to pull away the towel. The other held my wrist lightly, and I could feel my pulse flickering, mirrored in the pad of his thumb.

I should have pulled away, but I didn’t.

Instead I stared at him: at the way his lashes were fluttering, refracting light in shades of blue and violet; at his lips, parted just slightly, as though about to let out a breath; at his thumb making feather-light circles over the thin skin over my purple veins. And at last, at his eyes, at the starlight and galaxies and kaleidoscopes of colour held in them.

Time folded around us, and still we didn’t move.

Hours passed. It was dark, then light, then both and neither. I wasn’t sure when he had laid me down, or how long I had stared at him. I only knew that neither of us had stirred, not even to take a breath, since. But my vision remained unclouded, my lungs didn’t ache or clench for air. I simply didn’t need to breathe, right now. Maybe I had never needed to breathe. I wasn’t sure I could, even if I had wanted to.

Panic came too late. I did need to breathe. I had always needed to breathe. But I didn’t know how. How to make myself do something that had always been unthinking?

I opened my mouth and waited for instinct to kick in, but nothing came. My ribs were locked tight, my chest still. But now my vision was blurring, dizzying black in my periphery, a deep red tinge the telltale sign of bursting blood vessels - and still I couldn’t take a breath.

Sol tilted his head and watched me for a moment, studying me like a butterfly with crushed wings cradled in his hands. And then he pressed a palm flat against my sternum.

More searing heat. Pressure. A strange liquid sensation, as though my skin were melting around fingers reaching inside of me and curling around my organs. He squeezed, and my lungs finally convulsed like startled animals.

Air rushed in with violent life, electric against oxygen-starved alveoli. I twisted onto my side, pain from my hip finally shooting through my body as I coughed and choked and sucked in air like it might vanish again at any moment.

After a long while I was able to return my focus to the warmth of his hand, still resting on my chest. I looked up at him, a vengeful god, a forgiving god, and met his eyes once more.

“So quickly, you forgot. But of course, you persist in holding your shape...” His gaze flickered through concern, hunger, reverence, and back again. “I am sorry Aniara, I promise I will not allow that to happen again.”

He folded into being half-stooped over where I had clung to the floor, a crease of worry between his brows. The Vigilant, too, seemed concerned. Her walls curved in new directions, warping around us - me or him I wasn't sure. A lingering effect of my concussion, I hoped...

"Aniara, are you well?"

"I'm fine." My sweat prickling as it cooled on my brow made the lie obvious, but he straightened, expression smoothing into something mild. He'd allow me to keep up the ruse.

"I just thought that since you're here," I said, as nonchalantly as I could manage, "and apparently haven't left, I should try to be a more hospitable host."

Sol's answering chuckle rolled over me like sunshine over a frost, and I had to stop myself from leaning in. "You are very far from home, to play host to me. I think, perhaps, it is I who should be welcoming you."

I felt emboldened by his laughter. "Oh? And what exactly does your hospitality entail? Warm air and headaches?"

"I could give you more than warm air, and without the headaches, if you would let me."

My breath caught for a moment, instincts telling me it was an offering, logic that it was a threat. It didn't mater, though. The conversation was running away with me, and I needed to get it back.

"You're on my ship," I said, "let me give you the tour."

His head tilted curiously, smiling, and gestured graciously down the hall, "Please, I would like nothing more."

"Great," I said, and then stopped. The sight of my blurred reflection in the glass of the console screen outside hydrophonics was startling: hair plastered to my forehead, sweat dampening my collar, old t-shirt exposing far too much of the planet-sized bruise blooming on my thigh.

"Actually..." I forced my own smile and met his eyes, "I will need a few minutes"

He arched an eyebrow like he might protest, but instead just folded his arms and leaned lightly against the wall over my mattress, galaxy-gaze levelled on me.

In the showers I scrubbed my face until my skin was red, pulled on a clean jumpsuit, and plaited my hair with shaking fingers. Professional. Comfortable. Me. I repeated the mantra.

When I emerged his gaze flicked over me in a single sweep, expression unreadable, only perceptible because of the way his lashes fluttered.

"Better?"

"Much." I brushed past him, heat creeping up my neck.

He didn't follow immediately, and I could feel his eyes on my back. I was bare to him, like my skin was exposed and muscles and ribs and lungs underneath, roiling over one another under his stare. When I reached the doorway I looked back to keep from squirming.

"Sol?"

Just like before, he was there. He had been leaning against the wall, I said his name, and he was next to me.

"You're getting quicker at that," I said, trying to sound wry instead of unnerved.

"I simply am where I need to be, as quick as I need to be."

"That's not-" I dug fingernails into my palm, "-that's not usually how physics work."

"Physics," he looked down at me, smiling faintly, "are a set of manners your kind insists the universe should keep. Consider that I am not so well mannered."

I looked incredulously at him. I wasn't sure which was more ridiculous: the implication that he could bend physics, or that he wasn't well mannered. He was disturbingly well mannered. The perfect lure. As if to illustrate his point, he moved ahead of me into the mess, no longer waiting for me to lead.

Sol's stride was long and easy, and the fabric of his jumpsuit pulled taught over his broad back. One dark curl caught on his collar, scattering light like a raven's feather. For just a moment while I focused on the dancing colour of his hair, he seemed to blur at the edges like he used to. But then, as though he could feel the weight of my gaze, he rolled his shoulders and came solid once more.

"Right..." I muttered and made towards him. The tour didn't need to get so far off course. He didn't need to make me wonder, and he didn't need to know me. But I needed to know him, at least enough to understand what he was.

The mess was just as I'd left it - half tidied after my last meal - except that the corner table had shifted a few degrees. Angled perfectly towards the prep counter. It should have been welded to the floor. My chair, with it's bright green cushion, was tucked under it within newly-easy reaching distance of the meagre spice cabinet.

"You've been rearranging my furniture?" I asked Sol, my voice high with indignence.

"Not I," he said, running his hand gently along the back of my chair before looking up and around the room "She likes to make you comfortable."

"She can't like anything, much less change her structure."

"She can now."

Another half answer and another subversion. I rushed on before the thought could stick, moving through the mess and pointing out where he could get food, water, medical supplies. He stayed quietly bemused, holding back a smile as though it was obvious he wouldn't need those things. I directed us towards wall console and without knowing how, my next footfall landed right in front of it. I'd crossed the space in a single step.

It had been as easy as breathing, just to be where I wanted to be. I shook my head no when he asked if there was a problem, but I couldn't help thinking it was just like how he had moved before. In one place, then in the next. Matter and gravity bent to his will. What did it mean if it now bent to mine?

"So, Sol..." I looked at him. He was walking a little closer to me than before my trip through space. "You were never really gone, were you, those few days that I was alone? Why did you stay aboard?"

"I think you know the answer to both of those questions, Aniara."

I shrugged, "There are better places to haunt than the Vigilant, surely."

"Perhaps..."

We left the mess, but the texture of the floor in the spine corridor was all wrong. It was uneven, where it should have been perfectly smooth. It reminded me of the give underfoot as I walked over the helm in my dreams, like my mass was great enough to meld the thick metal underneath me. Only here, waking, it was unpredictable, and each time metal bent under my step my stomach lurched, feeling I was about to slip right through. I tried to pull myself back together.

"What do you want to know then? My schedule? The mission parameters? Access codes?"

He smiled knowingly, "I don't require any codes, and I would rather you didn't change your schedule on my account."

"What, then?"

"Just this, like I said before. To know you."

I narrowed my eyes. "You're studying me?"

"Studying a cold word, I'd prefer understanding."

"And how could you possibly understand me?"

"Let's say I'm not entirely new to your company."

"You've been watching me?"

"Understanding," he corrected again. "It's not the same."

I crossed my arms, coming to a halt. "It feels the same from where I'm standing"

"Only if you don’t care about the difference between knowing someone’s habits… and knowing who they are. I do care."

"Well I know neither about you," I shot back. "So you first. What are you?"

His smile widened just enough to be infuriating, patronising, and mesmerising. "I am what you see."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you'd believe."

I kept walking, but I could still feel him smiling by my shoulder, just a pace behind me.

✧ ✹ ✧

He nodded along patiently as I described some of the daily checks I did in the engineering bay. As we passed, the panels gleamed spotless and new for a breath, then the next row appeared dull and flecked with rust. I thought I could see my own silhouette through the walls, the way I had in my dreams - like the hull was nothing but a thin veil - but in a blink it was solid again. If Sol saw me look, he didn't comment. Neither did I.

Halfway through a step the floor seemed to tilt - I was too heavy, sinking straight through it unable to stop. Just as suddenly I was light again, propelled forward like a bubble held too long underwater. As I stumbled forward his hand found my elbow, steadying me without a word. He cradled it for a moment, waiting for me to right myself. His fingers were so warm. The kind that burns and you can't tell whether it's hot or cold but you're pretty sure it's going to do damage either way. Only it didn't hurt. I felt like I was blooming under his touch, at once in control again and somehow, blissfully, not.

When we reached the narrow entrance to the sensor nest, I paused. "This is my favourite place on the ship," I admitted softly.

"Why?"

"The camera feed has the best view of the star we're here to monitor." I squeezed myself into the small space and gestured for him to follow, "Sometimes, when then lens flares just right, it's like it's blinking... It feels like it's looking back at me. Silly, isn't it..."

He folded himself into the gap beside me, moving so fluidly. He was much too tall to be comfortable, but he poured himself into the space without complaint, our elbows and knees knocking against each other. The layers of both our jumpsuit weren't enough to keep his warmth from seeping into me where we pressed together.

"It's not silly," he said so gently it was almost a whisper. After a long pause, he added, "Why are you monitoring it?"

I looked back towards the dancing colours of the star on the screen. "It's dying... Becoming a black hole, if our predictions are correct. We're watching to see what happens to all the planets in its orbit. What we'll need to do to preserve Earth, when our Sun dies."

"And Earth needs preserving?"

"Of course! It's our home."

"And what happens when you arrive home, and find it has already changed? What happens to what you have preserved when everything it belongs to has come undone?

I thought for a moment. We had considered questions like this in training - if a system, a protocol, an action done by rote couldn't be completed in the exact correct way, what should we do?

"You try to match the original conditions as closely as you can. Restore the system, and protect its integrity better going forwards."

He let out a thoughtful hmm, "And I would say... is change always bad? Growth need not be a failure of preservation, it should be the purpose."

"Sounds like you're not one for protocols."

"There is so much more than your protocols."

✧ ✹ ✧

We made our way in newly-comfortable silence to the observation deck, so I could begin my far-too-late logs. He probed about why I didn't include him in my recordings, and we shared laughter when I explained that the Vigilant didn't let me. After I told him, he stroked a finger over the console, and from then the echo in the playback was gone.

After all my checks were complete, and logs saved, I showed him the holo-deck where we drew direct comparisons between Eidon's habitable planets and Earth. I played a cycle showing Earth as it had been thousands upon thousands of years ago, blue and green and lush, changing slowly and then quickly into something arid and full of artificial light.

"What do you miss most from Earth?" he asked.

"Good coffee."

"Mm-hm," like he knew it wasn't the truth. "And after that?"

"Company..."

Another admission teased out of me. Another intimacy of mine shared, and I was still floundering, at a loss for what he was or why he was really here.

When the image eventually returned to the forested haven, I sighed, content to continue on the dangerous path. "I would have loved to have seen Earth, before, when she was as full as life as that."

"Yes, you would have. She was beautiful." He leaned his chin on his hand, but didn't seem to let it actually rest, like being at ease didn't come naturally to him. It reminded me of a cat pretending to wash itself after a particularly embarrassing fall - performative. But as I watched him, watching Earth turn green in cycles, what he said dawned on me.

"You say that like you know..."

I almost held my breath, sure he would deflect rather than reveal anything of himself to me. But instead, he smiled, closed his eyes, and told me how he had watched Earth become what it was now. Not in statistics or factoids that he might recall from a report, but like he was describing the life of a lover. My pulse slowed to match the pace of his words, as if I could see centuries in a heartbeat.

He spoke of a small speck, so far away, so inconsequential: stone and water; bare and quiet, with the hints of green creeping in at the edges. It wasn't special - there were many planets like it - but for some reason it caught his interest. So he watched as plants bloomed over the bones of a single continent; rivers split the mass like veins to the ocean's heart; and when the land broke apart it didn't die, it thrived.

He told me how life had spilled across her in waves, until people came. Civilisations flared like crude imitations of constellations in the night sky, and eventually the green thinned, the oceans dulled: she became brown and grey and neon.

I knew then, his technology - his very being - was even further beyond my comprehension than I had thought. To be able to travel across the galaxy and observe Earth as a passing fancy, like it was nothing.

To be old enough to see so much...

"You have to understand," he said eventually, without my prompting, "time does not pass for my kind as it does for yours."

I thought of the days I’d lost without feeling them go, so I nodded like I understood. I I could see his pulse feathering by his jaw and it was all I could do not to push his collar down for a better look at that proof of life. To see him as human, in spite of what he was telling me.

I blinked away the urge and it took a beat to long to find myself back in the room. The observation deck seemed zoomed out, like someone had turned the focus ring on my eyes and I could see in new depth, new colour. I shook my head, and when I looked back at Sol it was to find him now staring at me, the stars in his eyes blazing like diamonds. Perhaps it was that I could see them more clearly, or perhaps it was the intensity of his gaze.

✧ ✹ ✧

As the lights began to dim towards their night-cycle, we finally drifted back towards hydrophonics, his stride easy, mine still unsure of whether it was mine to control. I didn't decide until the last moment whether I would show him what was inside. The vats held my life inside, so precious, and so dangerous to share. But he peered with interest at the small window, so I pushed the door open.

A rush of relief hit me when I entered, just as it now did every time I felt the wall of damp air. Tiny racks of beans Paz and I grew to hold onto home added a rich earthy scent to all the green. Then, Sol breached the doorway, and something shifted. A few needle-thin filaments of beans bent, not towards the artificial sun lamps as they had been, but towards him. They were straining against their own shallow roots, as if they could sense him there. The algae too, now seemed denser on the near side of their vats. On unsteady legs I walked to the racks, stroking a finger so lightly along one of the twisting vines.

"You see it, don't you?" His voice was low, amused,

My head snapped back to him, a look of shock still fixed on my face, pulse climbing "I don't know what I'm seeing."

He chuckled then, rumbling and warm, "Living things adapt, do they not? Lean towards what gives them life?"

I was rendered dumb for a moment, unsure whether he meant the plants or me or something else. What did it matter though, if they were all true? "I suppose so... That's why I'm camped outside."

"They are so fragile you must remain nearby?"

"They are now," my throat felt tight, thinking of those lost days, the creeping suffocation of fear entering my chest just like when I first saw the death in the vats. "They provide our oxygen, nutrition, water filtration... I almost let them all die."

His gaze flicked sharply towards me, "As long as these sustain you, no harm will come to them."

The algae seemed to crowd even closer then, and in spite of myself, I leaned towards him too.

✧ ✹ ✧

Later that night, when I lay in bed - still outside hydrophonics despite his assurances - I tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable. The steady throb in my thigh, the dull ache on the back of my skull, both pulsed with every heartbeat so I thought I would never be able to settle. It wasn't until I was finally on the edge of sleep that it struck me: the whole day had passed by and I hadn't noticed them at all.

I suppose I didn't really matter when the first time was, I was seeing something I shouldn't be. But I needed something real. I needed to know how and when and where this started like it was the last thing keeping my fingertips strong as I hung from an impossibly high ledge.

That first time, he had just been the suggestion of a man. Tall, shimmering and blurred at the edges, the colour of flowing oil. Usually, when I blinked, he was gone, and then I still I did my best not to look directly at him. Not to acknowledge him.

But now, I sometimes let myself look. And when I do look, he's something more. I can see the tight collar of a night-dark jumpsuit, a mirror of my own. If I look longer, I can unpick the texture of the woven fabric, the thick piping along where the zip runs close over a broad chest...

When I look again I can see waves of black hair falling over high cheekbones; curling around an angled jaw; feathering over the pulse point of an elegant neck.

I don't have to dig very deep for the word beautiful.

Whenever I stop looking at these things, they pour back into his shape like liquid smoke, like my mind can only process his details with concerted effort. I tell myself that happens because my imagination only cares to form intricate information when I succumb to its paranoia. It isn't worth filling in the gaps when I'm not paying it proper attention, just like how my brain would process any other part of my surroundings.

But the eyes are always there, now... Even when I don't look

There's no adequate metaphor I could use to describe them. I know because I tried to properly convey how they look in my logs. How they feel. They were endless, roiling, impossible colour, folding and unfolding like a nebula seen through broken glass. Incomprehensible to something like me. But I know they see me. Even without a white - without a pupil - to show where he looks, I can feel the weight of his attention. Of the way he perceives me.

I think he has been showing up more often, too...

He hadn't stayed for very long though, maybe a few minutes at most. And it's just as well, because my mind begins to ache when he's there for longer, lurking on the edge of my periphery. Somehow it's better when I look at him... when he has more form. But it still hurts.

Either way, when he went, he always left something behind: a sense of motion where there was none; a change in temperature; a delay in the sensors that resolved when I looked at them. Sweat beading on my temples and my lower back. My humming pulse. Flushed cheeks. Breath caught so tight in my throat.

He has been trying to speak to me again. Not in words, or at least not how I understand speech. Not with a mouth, or lungs, or even phrases shaped for human understanding - and of course it's not; how could he speak as I speak?

It's more like pressure. A thought forming in a room before I enter it, like a memory I didn't make, but once I enter I find it in my mind. Sometimes it's and aching sorrow. Sometimes wonder lighting up my chest. Sometimes a question I don't know how to answer.

I never reply.

I always leave the room.

✧ ✹ ✧

I had started to be able to tell when he was coming, rather than just when he had left. I could feel that familiar weight. The ship bracing, like she knew how to make the right space for him. Like she wanted to. And then he would ripple into being, water finding its shape after being poured into a glass.

Yesterday, or what I thought was yesterday, I found the same log repeated four times. Just the same words, in my voice, with the same intonations, the same breath between sentences. I don't even remember recording it once. Could a system error have duplicated it? Something in my stomach knew that question was nothing more than a comfortable distraction. Another time, I woke up on the floor near the hydroponics bay with algae stains on my hands. The hydraulic-door timestamp said I'd left the room almost an hour ago. I'd only gone in to check the lighting levels were still correct for growth, it shouldn't have taken more than a few minutes.

Usually, when I try to replay security camera footage, there's nothing there. I can see myself, avoiding looking at where I know he was. But there's nothing. Maybe a slight shimmer to the air, but nothing I can't explain with technical faults or normal limitations. Is he fucking with the Vigilant's systems, or can she really not see him, even though she can feel him?

I feel like I'm losing my mind.

I'd started using the stopwatch on my wristband. Sometimes, when I was walking down the spine, my timer told me the full sixty metres took fifty-five seconds, but by the time I got to the other end the clock over the doorway said more than a minute had passed.

Nothing really dangerous had happened. Just gaps. Little slips, like my consciousness was being edited in real-time. Another comfortable lie. The danger of acting without knowing it on the station was untold, and self-evident. If I'd adjusted the wrong dial or left a hatch partially open...

But maybe my mind just gets stuck on trying to figure out what he is. Where he'll be...

Even when he wasn't there, I could feel him inside the ships body. Not physically, the weight is different when I can feel him physically, but like there's some kind of airborne intention to be noticed. I'll reach for a tool and find it a little closer than I expected it to be. Or I'll try to stand to get out of bed after too brief a sleep, and I feel resistance pressing me back into the mattress.

The strangest thing, or what feels like the strangest thing as I slip into unreality, is that he never speaks to me when I look at him directly. He speaks only very little as it is, but never when I'm looking. And though I never speak to him, I do sometimes speak out loud: to the pods, or the log, or just my own reflection. He still doesn't answer, even if I can feel him close. I know it's not because he can't, but he's letting me keep the silence between us.

✧ ✹ ✧

The last time I saw him he didn't move at all. He didn't even look up. Why didn't he look at me?

As I passed I felt a wave of breathless anticipation filled me, but it hadn't come from me. It wasn't quite excitement, and it wasn't quite fear. It was something slower, and more patient. I didn't stop, I didn't speak, and I didn't look.

Once my back was to him, his presence stretched towards me. My mind cracked open like a shell, and that feeling, vast and shuddering, pressed against the raw core of me, like the vibration of humming with your mouth closed. It reverberated through me, rich and deep,

'I will wait. For now.'

The strength fled from my legs and I fell to my knees, clutching my head. It didn't hurt yet, but somehow it was worst than pain. Knowing my mind was bare to him. I was living in an unsettled state of being, on the edge of seasickness as I tried to make sense of him.

My bones felt that he could crush them into stardust, if he wanted to. The bones of the Vigilant could feel it, too. And yet, he didn't.

I was starting to think that his infinite patience was far more dangerous than violence. I knew how to respond to aggression from an unknown threat - my instincts would kick in and I would fight. But he wasn't giving me anything to fight. That, surely, was worse. How do you defend yourself from something that doesn't strike, but waits to be let in?

And letting him in was something I almost wanted.

Because the weight that settled against my skin, and around the ship, whenever he was near felt like a comfort instead of a threat. It felt like a harness holding you safely in place atop a cliff, or a duvet wrapped tightly to protect you from the cold. Delicious, suffocating, safety.

✧ ✹ ✧

Before I went to bed, I submitted a last note to the days log, grasping at the desperate hope that this one would stick. That it was real.

"Cycle 237, entry eleven point three. I can still feel him here. Still unclear if psychosomatic, or if this is first contact... I'm not sure which is worse..."

✧ ✹ ✧

I'm getting the stasis dreams again. The ones where my body doesn't know where to end. Where it doesn't know what parts belong where, and I slide over and over myself like meat off the bone; limbs unfolding in the wrong direction, joints bloom where there should only be straight, strong bone.

My eyes are half way down my back. I can't blink. My scream echoes around my ribs because my mouth is somewhere inside of me. I roll inward, collapsing into myself. Bones cracking, spine folding, my organs slipping out one by one like overripe fruit spilling from a split bag. I try to hold them in, but they slip from my hands as my fingers migrate up my arm. The hallway stretches away from the pile of gore behind me, my body smeared on the floor, vivid red and shining wetly.

I try to run but my legs are gone, and the rest of me drags forward, scraping raw elbows and stubs of extra limbs and the sound of flayed flesh slaps against the floor until it's all I can hear - but I have to keep moving, to keep crawling away from the weight in the air behind me.

I do not try to look back.

I don't want to see how far I've come apart.

I don't want to see him, meeting my eyes.

✧ ✹ ✧

I stood under a thin stream of recycled water, letting it soak through my thick hair as I washed off the cold sweat of last nights nightmare. I had woken aching and damp from thrashing, with sheets tangled claustrophobically around my legs. For once I was glad no one else was aboard, because I was sure I had been screaming. The water was lukewarm at best. Not quite hot enough to be comforting, not quite cold enough to complain about. Just right to make you lament the loss of full-function showers on Earth.

The cubicle hissed as the filters struggled to keep up with the amount of ambient water it needed to cycle. I was taking liberties I knew; straining the system a little beyond what it was meant for. Still, I stayed. Eyes closed, palms pressed against the cold tiled wall. Breathing in the dregs of steam like it might anchor me.

I needed to remember where I ended.

When I finally emerged I trimmed my hair, section by section, taking my time to make sure it would fall evenly. At long last. Lena and Paz would be thrilled! Not a dramatic change, just enough to take off the splits and tidy the ends where it brushed against my jumpsuit every day, but a measure of care I had definitely been neglecting.

I used Paz's bright green scissors from their personal stash, a stark contrast against the copper strands that coiled loosely in the sink like discarded electrical wire. I used to hate getting my hair cut, as a kid. Even just combing it was a daily battle. Let it tangle, and mat, and break. Let me be a wild child! My mum used to stand behind me with a brush and a tired voice, telling me to sit still, please, just for a minute. If you do, we can eat ice-cream outside on the roof the next time the sky is clear.

I smiled sadly at the memory, a bittersweet bubble filling my chest, threatening to burst into a laugh, or a sob. I couldn't tell.

After, I stood before the mirror - a useless strip of polished metal in the bunk room, blurred with age - and rubbed cream into my face with my fingertips in upward motions, like I always had on Earth. I even swiped on a long-expired mascara which I wasn't quite sure why I had brought with me. Rowan would have scoffed at that. My reflection was just a smear. A suggestion of a person.

I pulled on a fresh jumpsuit. Zipped it up to my collarbone. Smoothed the fabric over my waist and thighs to mould myself back into a shape that made sense. I had to squint to recognise myself, but I took the time to do it. I felt more like me, now. The version of me who gave up everything to be here.

"This is still me".

As I squeezed most of the water out of my towel, the weight came back. It was rare that he wasn't nearby now, and I hadn't even noticed he had been gone.

I'm not alone anymore. I don't know what he is, but he is here.

Maybe that deserves... not effort, but acknowledgement? Not vanity, but awareness of myself. Being seen and not flinching, and remembering that I am human.

✧ ✹ ✧

I have been dreaming more, but the stasis dreams aren't the only ones.

I'm outside the ship like before. I walk barefoot across the hull, and it bends under me like soft earth. There are fields and fields of stars across the sky, instead of Eidon A. They surround me, and if I reach out I can let them pour through my fingers like sand. Every one I touch burns through me with grief. Then, I'm floating outside the ship, looking in. I can see myself through the hull. Through the metal, as though the Vigilant's thick steel is nothing but a blusher veil, waiting to be lifted at the altar to fully expose me underneath.

I wake up crying, and I don't know why. This isn't just my pain. I think it's his, as well. It feels like being alone, forever.

✧ ✹ ✧

I've been trying to log everything that I know is real. I tried to stay diligent. But sometimes I forgot if I'd spoken out loud, or just held onto the thought of speaking, so that the words are stuck in my head. Some recordings I'm sure I made don't seem to exist, and more often I listen to a recording and hear my own voice saying things I don't remember. Things that don't make sense. Like I'm talking through my nightmares.

Today, there was another log made in the night. I didn't want to know what I said, so I began a fresh log without listening.

"Cycle 237, entry fourteen. Eidon A's collapse is becoming more erratic. The impact on Eidon Ab, c, and h's tides has increased along with it, but b still appears within habitable conditions. Provided the theoretical infrastructure is tsunami ready... Sixteen days remaining in this cycle, our current predictions point to Eidon A's full collapse in cycle 241. My next turn awake, if you all let me wake up again, after this. I can still feel the presence. I have not made contact... I won't."

But I know that's a lie, and my voice was so weak saying it that everyone who listens will know too. I'm afraid of what I'm starting to want. Not an answer. Not even to be safe, though I'm sure I am.

I just want to be seen.

And he does.

He sees all of me.

✧ ✹ ✧

As I sipped a new tea after lunch - Chamomile, not my favourite but supposedly soothing - I wasn't surprised to see him standing by the sink. The air shifted, rippling the steam from my drink before my eyes and fogging my lashes. My fingers tensed around the warm ceramic in anticipation as I waited for a beat. Two. And then he was there, wearing the shape my mind had designed for him. Or he designed for me. It must be one of the two because it was getting harder and harder to look away. His hair fell loosely over skin that almost shimmered like marble. This time, his slender fingers remained grasped gently in front of him, even when I wasn't paying attention to them.

And still, his eyes. Folding in on themselves like galaxies dying and being born over again.

As usual, he didn't move. Didn't speak. He just waited. I rose to my feet, forcing myself to move slowly even though the tension in the air between us could have had me out of my seat in less time than it took my breath to catch.

"I should be afraid," I finally said, my voice practically vibrating: straining from more than just lack of use.

"You are," he spoke aloud for the first time and it hit me like a blow. Like a rush of warm air. It sounded like the dying breath of a loved one, and their first gasp back to life. Like a symphony, it layered many times over, with warmth, with richness, with depth. And even with something like amusement. Not mockery, but a pleasure in understanding, and perhaps in my surrender to his presence.

I sucked a breath sharply through my teeth, cool air filling my lungs. Not enough. My fingernails drove into my palms as I lifted my chin, dragging my gaze away from his mouth, up to meet his eyes, and pulled myself back together.

"You should be afraid of me, too."

He tilted his head slightly, and now the faintest hint of a smile played on his lips.

"I am."

I didn't know what to say to that. My body had already betrayed me, leaning slightly towards him, heel lifting in the beginning of a step I hadn't given myself permission to take. I was caught between a jagged spike of terror, and a low, aching pull that thrummed deep inside me. Like gravity.

It would have been so easy to fall into it...

So I did the only thing I could.

You did your life-support systems checks, took the 'morning' readings and logged your findings, you drank your water and ate your nutritional bar. You spoke aloud sometimes to keep your voice alive and to feel as though there was someone to speak to. You certainly didn't think about the fact that if anything critical failed you'd be dead in under eight minutes.

The light flicker hadn't returned, and for forty-five hours everything aboard the Vigilant had been behaving as it should. Including me. With a deep breath through my nose, and a roll of my shoulders, I allowed myself believe what I already knew must be true: it had been a stasis hangover. Neurons misfiring as they tried to catch up with reality and stave off the sense of being alone. The body waking up before he mind could fully translate normal happenings in the station, so far from the life it was evolutionarily designed for. Well, my body was awake now, and untying the knots in my muscles and stomach went hand in hand with believing - no, knowing, - that everything was fine.

I'd successfully sealed the fracture Lena had pointed out to me; manually recalibrated the orbit sensor both internally and, in a moment of weakness for my desire to see Eidon A, externally; and I'd started cleaning between scans and logs. Not that there was much in the way of dirt or mess, but I'd run out of reading materials a few cycles ago, and it felt good to do something mundane.

I even made a meal resembling real food with rehydrated grains, a lightly seared protein cube, and some freeze dried cabbage that wasn't so bad if you treated it like a crisp. Thank god for the infinitely long shelf life of soy sauce. I substituted wine for lemon-flavour drops in my water, and a peppermint for desert. You had to do these things to keep feeling like a person, even if it didn't hold a candle to the fresh cream-cakes in the canteen back in the training centre. I did everything correctly, and everything I should to reacquaint my mind with waking.

I didn't talk to the pods.

Well, only once. Only because I needed someone to hear me speak. Even if they couldn't process it.

✧ ✹ ✧

The feeling of wrongness had returned. I was in the mess, halfway through my lunch, when the ambient white noise hum of the ship deepened, just slightly. I might never have noticed if I had a life outside of the ship, but I was so used to the usual sound that this felt like the first time hearing it all over again. The noise shifted a half tone down, like a breath drawn to low in the lungs. It held for a moment.

Then returned to normal.

I sat frozen, with a half squeezed tube of reconstituted algae still in my mouth, eyes darting around the mess as though there might be physical evidence that the sound really had changed. When nothing showed I checked the systems logs. No fluctuations reported, no errors to speak of. The Vigilant was behaving exactly as she should. Or at least, she thought she was. And really, what did a minor noise disruption like that mean? Anywhere else, it would be nothing. I flagged it with a short typed note added to this morning's log anyway, for my own peace of mind.

Cycle 237, entry 5.1. Unexpected audio distortion in ambient sound. No structural anomalies detected. Possibly psychomatic.

I left the observation deck, pacing the ship to clear my head, fingers twitching at my side desperate to tear at something.

Down the spine corridor, past the bunk rooms, the sensor nest, the airlock, the manual override control alcoves. I counted my steps out loud to hear the rhythm, my steps and voice keeping time with each other. Matching and reliable. The thin rubber coating on the floor dampened the sound slightly, but the gentle clang of the metal below still echoed through.

The hall was sixty metres long, ninety-three steps.

Turn.

Sixty metres back the other way.

Don't worry that I only counted seventy-nine steps on the return journey.

✧ ✹ ✧

That evening, as I was adding my final notes to the day five log before submitting it, I noticed an extra entry.

There should have been one every day - more for Rowan - but I always kept a note open that I could add to, and submitted it as one at the end of the day. Every day. Baseline record keeping, I had never strayed from my method, just as none of the others had strayed from theirs. I opened the file tree, and everything was there but there were two logs from yesterday. It was easy to identify which was the extra, just from the timestamp. It read 03:19. I would never have recorded that early. My sunrise-simulator didn't even start to get bright until 05:50, and I usually didn't get out of my bunk for at least another 30 minutes after that, too comfortable enjoying the sleepy-cosiness of the growing light.

I opened the file, terrified to hear who or what the recording was, and thrilled at the prospect of it being an unfamiliar voice. A disruption to my routine.

"Systems nominal. Eidon A's flare activity is elevated, but nothing abnormal. Crew stasis pods secure."

A pause, and then:

"Something is pressing against the outside of the observation deck. It's nothing mechanical, Vigilant doesn't know it's there. I can feel space moving around its weight though. It passed me, earlier."

I stopped the playback. It was my own voice, and I didn't know if that was better or worse than someone else, because I didn't remember saying it. I couldn't even remember experiencing what I was describing. And yet, it was me. There was no written note to go along with it like I would usually have left, but the tone, the small hitch when I tried to catch my breath because my sinuses were dry. It was me. But I had no memory of recording that log.

✧ ✹ ✧

I slept very badly that night. I dreamt that I walked through the ship barefoot, the deck was soft and warm underfoot. Every breath felt like an effort. The lighting, usually a good imitation of Earth's day-night cycle, had bled to a deep violet, like a fresh bruise on my pale skin. When I went to check on the crew, I saw the stasis pods were open. All of them. The impression of bodies was visible in the gel, but there was no one there. It was just weight, filling the spaces where my crew should be.

When I woke, the sunrise function on my alarm minutes from beginning, I was panting, taking deep gasping breaths with the sheets tangled tight around my legs. Before even brushing my teeth that morning I ran a full diagnostic, first on the ship, then on myself. Everything checked out, all systems and bodily functions nominal according to the many tests, just like the mystery log had said. But I didn't feel normal at all. I felt stretched. Like my body had been pulled thin around the station and put back into shape too quickly to reform.

✧ ✹ ✧

"Cycle 237, entry six. Environmental readouts stable. Pressure seals on maintenance airlock all green. No anomalies in the orbital drift. Eidon A's decay pattern is intensifying, but remains within modelled projections... My scans all read normal, as well. Perfect health"

A lie of omission, but a lie nonetheless. I felt like I was burning hot, clawing at the edges of my gravitational leash just like Eidon A. It didn't matter how I felt, nothing has been detected, so there was nothing to say. I would just need to keep a careful monitor, and perhaps run an additional diagnostic on the medical equipment itself. Again, I paced the ship, unable to sit still with my thoughts, all necessary activities already complete. I tried hard not to look at the frosted glass of Lena's pod each time I passed, but I did anyway.

✧ ✹ ✧

By midday, I had started to feel watched.

I'd had the feeling before, of course; it was a natural side effect of the isolation. Your brain forgets how to occupy itself when there's no one else around and everything stays functionally the same. It invents an audience and I was always especially prone to it, or at least that's what I was told. But this was different than my mind's usual tricks. It wasn't just a general feeling, it was positional.

It felt as though I was being observed by something directly behind me. The hair on my neck prickled and cold sweat beaded on the small of my back.

The feeling was constant; oppressive in its relentlessness. I was choking on a scream trapped at the back of my throat, just waiting for something, anything, to break the tension. I was cleaning the double filtration system in the mess when it became too much. With a heaving sob I spun around fast enough to make myself dizzy. Just to to try to catch it, or to trick myself out of psychosis.

Of course, there was nothing there. Except... the light in the hallway had shifted. There was a darker patch near the doorway into hydrophonics with a pretty purple tint blooming from it. A long, thin shadow stretched across the floor, too thin to be mine. The angle was wrong.

I crept towards it, tasting metal where violent teeth met my soft bottom lip.

The light corrected itself. The shadow vanished.

I didn't mention that in my log, either. I didn't want to admit out loud that I was losing my mind. So close to the end of our mission, and I had broken.

✧ ✹ ✧

I didn't include it the next day either. Now I was embarrassed that I hadn't done it right away. So, rather than accept that my loss of mental faculty put everything and everyone at risk I told myself comfortable stories. It was a power fluctuation. I blinked at the same time a light flickered. It was something mundane, and explainable. Or perhaps it was inexplicable, but in the same way that normal, mundane happenings of life are.

I spent most of the day re-running Lena's tidal readings on Eidon Ac. The fluctuations were small, but definitely odd. It seemed to be being impacted by something more than just Eidon A's collapse. The Vigilant poured over the data modelling alongside me, trying to make sense of it. There was something off, but we couldn't identify what. When I graph-stacked the tidal readings against solar flare activity there were periods of resonance, which made sense. But somehow the pattern was familiar, which didn't. It took me a moment to recognise where from. It looked just like something from our brief stint spent training on basic medical procedure so we could adequately monitor and support our crew-mates if necessary. It looked like a heartbeat.

That was my third omission.

✧ ✹ ✧

That night, I made the tea Lena had left me. Lady Gray. I used the lemon drops, just like she said, and the loneliness felt more comfortable then. Like it was just a break, instead of stretching out in front of me endlessly, and, for a few short hours, it felt like I had privacy.

Back on Earth, I could easily go days and days and days without speaking to another person. I had plenty to keep myself occupied, beyond the mental and physical preparation for this mission, and I valued my independence. But, I always knew that Lena was just a call away. My parents would visit at the drop of a hat. I was one of the lucky few to live within safe walking proximity of real, living, plants in a small community park which I could always visit, and know there would be company. Myself and many others including Paz had poured all our love and free time into to help it thrive, or as close to it as possible in the smoggy, arid atmosphere we'd created through years of abuse. I had actually craved time alone, just so I could sit out on my roof at night and watch for my star, winking at me from lifetimes away.

But there was always the promise of company.

Here on the Vigilant, where I knew precisely the next time I would have the chance to speak with someone, and exactly how long we'd spend together... The loneliness felt like a state of being. Or at least it had before.

Long after the lights had switched to night mode, I sat on my bunk, blanket tucked around my shoulders, legs curled under me like a cat, and tried very hard not to stare at the uncanny darkness in the furthest corner of my room.

✧ ✹ ✧

Thanks to a gruelling workout, my mind was free of ghosts and danger and eternities spent alone. I walked on wobbly legs from the observation deck down the spine to the mess to record some midday findings. Then I saw it.

A dark shape in the hall, though the daylight rotation lit every corner. It was very still, and upright. My mind fumbled over the word humanoid, desperate for another descriptor.

I stopped in my tracks, frozen mid step, and air caught behind my teeth. We had joked about scenarios like this in training; "breaches", we'd called them. Hypothetical events which were impossible to simulate because no one knew what a breach might be. What was out there. Theoretical, and highly improbable, we would have no way to verify what was happening. Usually, we'd conclude that we would have to proceed as if it were a hallucination, because it was impossible to prepare for anything else.

It shimmered like an oil-slick painted up the wall, and I felt as though I was looking at someone from distance through endless heatwaves. It was much more than just a shadow. I tried to force myself not to look directly, still balancing on a knifes edge between hoping that it was real and I was sane but in an impossible situation, or that it was a hallucination and I could begin emergency psych procedures and remove myself from the nightmare. Out of the corner of my eye I couldn't make out any details, but my gaze drifted towards it, like a fish on a hook. Where a hand could have been was the suggestion of fingers, but when my focus shifted they melted into the same dark iridescence as the rest of the shape. A distinction between shoulder and neck developed as my eyes travelled, but faded away when I managed to snap my eyes back to the floor at my feet. Ever so slowly, I exhaled a long-held breath.

It turned its head.

Not all the way. Just a shifting of weight. Like somebody noticing you, noticing them.

I blinked, and it was gone.

I still couldn't move. I just stood there, my pulse pounding in my ears, the gentle background hum of the Vigilant pressing against my mind like static. I wished she would say something, to show me the station was at ease. Or to tell me what I'd seen was real. Anything... But she stayed quiet. Because she wasn't programmed for this, just like I wasn't trained for it. When I finally made myself take a step forward it felt like dragging my feet out of treacle. I hurried back the way I had come, to the sensor nest. I checked the motion logs. Scanned every doorway as I passed, and again on the cameras.

Nothing.

No sign of entry, no shift in heat signatures, no audio anomalies. As I poured over the readings a third time my wristband started to buzz. An alert that some vital measure of self-care was being missed. No doubt my heart-rate was up from the fear - only that wasn't what the warning was for. I had missed lunch.

I'd only eaten breakfast a few hours before, hadn't I? I knew I finished in the gym at 11:13, and even with my thorough checks in the sensor nest, the encounter with the thing couldn't have taken more than thirty minutes. But my watch read 12:57. A cold shiver prickled my spine. I'd lost over an hour.

✧ ✹ ✧

I decided I had to include this in my log now. If it was psychosomatic, and I no longer thought it was, the crew would need to know how best to handle my next rotation. If it wasn't... Well... I wasn't sure what that meant, but governments, media, everyone at home would definitely want to know.

"Cycle 237, entry eight, final addition. No measurable system anomalies. No changes to crew status. Eidon A continuing to decay along expected curve. Eidon Ac showing minor flucuations in expected tidal patterns. Another planet may be exerting gravitational interference. Psychological state: tired. Stress symptoms increased beyond sustainable levels. I saw something today and I'm not sure what it was, but I think it saw me, too.”

✧ ✹ ✧

For the first time, at least the first time that I was conscious of, I woke up in the night. I don't know how long I had slept, but I thought I heard something outside my door. Not the dull sound of footsteps, or even contact with the ship. Just movement... Air finding its shape around something with weight.

He is close.