Interstellar

“You once told me that when you came back we might be the same age… and today I’m the same age you were when you left.” Her eyes glistened as tears started to form.

“So it’d be a real good time for you to come back,” she said.

Then she switched off the camera.

Again, Cooper stared at the empty screen.

Happy birthday, Murph, he thought, stunned.

What have I done?

TWENTY-ONE

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” a voice said softly, as Murph wiped her tears. She turned and found Professor Brand there. She hadn’t heard his wheelchair approach.

“I’ve never seen you in here before,” he said.

Murph stood up.

“I’ve never been in here before,” she said. Without really thinking, she took the handles on the back of the wheelchair and began to conduct him into the corridor.

She’d thought he would never surrender to the chair—he’d tried to make do with canes and crutches at first, which led to more falls, one of them life-threatening. At some point she had managed to make him see that he could do what was really important to him sitting down, as well as standing—probably better.

“I talk to Amelia all of the time,” the professor said. “It helps. I’m glad you’ve started.”

“I haven’t,” Murph replied. “I just had something I wanted to get out.”

If he’d asked her, she might have gone further, but she might not have. And he didn’t ask—she knew he wouldn’t. Professor Brand had been part of her life for a long time. He’d pulled her out of school, brought her here to be educated, taken her under his wing. Given her something real to do.

Her father had been around for ten years of her life. The professor had been an everyday part of her existence for almost three times that long. She loved him, in a way, and he would probably say the same thing about her. But he respected the hard, secret core of her. He never tried to push into the thoughts and feelings onto which she put the strongest guards, and she in turn respected his silences, as well.

He spoke of Amelia often enough that Murph almost felt she knew her, even though they had only met the once, long ago. But as often as the professor brought her up, there was something he never admitted. Something Murph knew intuitively.

He believed he would never see his daughter again.

With that, she could empathize. It was a bond that held them together, this unspoken fear.

They reached the professor’s office a few moments later. He wheeled himself behind his desk.

“I know they’re still out there,” he said.

“I know,” Murph replied. She wasn’t so sure herself, but the professor needed her encouragement.

“There are so many reasons their communications might not be getting through.”

“I know, Professor,” she said.

“I’m not sure which I’m more afraid of,” he went on. “They never come back, or they come back to find we’ve failed.”

“Then let’s succeed,” Murph said.

He’s looking old, she thought. Weary. And—something else. Something she couldn’t place.

The professor pressed his lips together and nodded. He pointed at the formula that filled much of his office.

“So,” he began, “back from the fourth iteration, let’s run it with a finite set.”

Murph paused as she picked up her notebook.

Really?

“With respect, Professor,” she said, “we’ve tried that a hundred times.”

“And it only has to work once, Murph,” he replied.

She shrugged, and reluctantly began following his instructions.

* * *

Later, they sat on a walkway eating sandwiches and watching the continuing construction on the big ship. As his eyes wandered over the gigantic cylinder, she saw the pride on Professor Brand’s face, and it felt like old times, like when he’d first brought her here after her father left. When she’d first begun to learn about the mission, and to believe. To understand the purpose of her life.

“Every rivet they drive in could have been a bullet,” he said. “We’ve done well for the world, here. Whether or not we crack the equation before I kick—”

“Don’t be morbid, Professor,” Murph chided. She did it lightly, but the fact was that the professor’s death was something she really didn’t want to think about. Almost everyone important to her was dead, or might as well be. There were only Professor Brand and Tom, and she and Tom—well, there was something broken there.

“I’m not afraid of death, Murph,” the professor told her. “I’m an old physicist. I’m afraid of time.”

That tickled something in the back of her brain, but it wasn’t until after lunch, when they were back in his office, that it went from tickle to scratch, then to an epiphanic whack on the head.

“Time,” she said. “You’re afraid of time…”

She was sure, now.

“Professor,” she said, “the equation…?”

He looked up from his work. She took a deep breath, and plunged on.