Interstellar

Frowning, Cooper shook his head.

“What’s your humor setting, Tars?” he asked.

“One hundred percent,” the machine replied.

Wonderful. How many months was it going to be?

“Take it down to seventy-five, please,” he said, then he turned away, glanced around to assure himself that everyone was still strapped in, and started checking the instruments.

* * *

The conjoined Rangers settled into a low orbit, and for a time there was nothing to do but wait.

Nothing wrong with that, he mused. The Ranger had a wide field of vision, giving them all a panoramic view of Earth as it turned below them. Even though he was still strapped into his crash couch, Cooper found himself rubbernecking like a tourist, watching the continents, seas, and clouds—thinking that it all seemed somehow a little unreal. The lift-off, the terrible acceleration, appeared as if long ago and now, as they spent their time in free-fall, everything felt a dream.

The planet—his planet—was as beautiful as it was fragile, and it was the only home humanity had ever known. Viewing it from out here, he found it hard to believe that she didn’t want them anymore.

He noticed that Dr. Brand was also watching the world turn below them, her expression distant.

“We’ll be back,” he told her.

She didn’t show any sign that she’d heard him, didn’t turn away from the view, but continued to stare.

“It’s hard,” he went on. “Leaving everything. My kids, your father…”

“We’re going to be spending a lot of time together,” Brand said, turning her gaze toward him.

Cooper nodded. “We should learn to talk,” he said.

“And when not to,” she replied, looking away again. “Just trying to be honest,” she added.

“Maybe you don’t need to be that honest,” he said, wincing internally. He looked over at Tars. “Tars, what’s your honesty parameter?”

Tars didn’t need a crash couch. He fit into a niche in the center of the control panel, between the manual units.

As Cooper spoke, he unlatched himself and moved toward the rear airlock.

“Ninety percent,” he responded.

“Ninety?” Cooper said. “What kind of robot are you?”

“Absolute honesty isn’t always the most diplomatic—or safe—form of communication with emotional beings,” Tars informed him.

True that, Cooper thought wryly. He turned back to Brand, and shrugged.

“Ninety percent honesty it is, then,” he said.

At first he thought he had bombed again, but then her lips traced a smile on her face. Almost imperceptible, but he was sure it was there.

Progress.

“Sixty seconds out…” The radio crackled.

Cooper decided he’d better quit while he was ahead. Besides, he was about to earn his pay. The first installment, anyway.

So he looked away from the Earth and Brand, and focused his attention on the Endurance, as they approached her. His first impression was of a wedding ring, glittering in the twin lights of the Earth and the sun.

The Rangers were sleek, winged, aerodynamic craft built for landing and taking off from planets that possessed atmospheres. Not so the Endurance—there was nothing aerodynamic about her, and any landing she made on any planet with an atmosphere would be pretty much the same sort of landing as a meteor would make: fast, fiery, and catastrophic.

Yet floating in space—where she had been built—the vessel was a thing of beauty.

She was, indeed, a ring—but only in the most basic sense, and as they drew nearer his original impression faded. He could distinguish that she was formed from a number of boxy, trapezoidal, prism-shaped modules jointed together by curved connectors. The “ring” wasn’t empty either. Access tubes led from the inner surface of the circular body to a central axis where the docking locks lay. Two ships—the landers—were already there. All she needed were the two Rangers. Feeling oddly calm, Cooper maneuvered his Ranger in, matching his velocity to that of the starship.

He’d run through the docking sequence plenty in simulations, but in the back of his mind he’d worried that the real thing would throw him some sort of curve. But he got her lined up with ease, which felt good.

“It’s all you, Doyle,” he said.

Doyle drifted toward the hatch and began the final sequence, which was sort of the tricky part. If he messed this up they would at best lose precious oxygen and at worst—well, he wasn’t sure, but it could be bad. He watched as Doyle lined up a circular array of small grapples and engaged them to bring the two ships together in an airtight seal. Each mechanical claw latched perfectly, as if Doyle had been doing this his whole life.

With that, the Endurance was complete.

* * *

Once Amelia Brand’s primate brain stopped screaming that she was falling and needed to grab on to something, zero gravity turned out to be great fun. The slightest push sent her flying around effortlessly in a way she had never imagined—not even in her dreams.

It was almost too bad it had to end.

* * *