Interstellar

“I’m afraid you’re it, sir,” Romilly said.

Mann looked a little stunned.

“So far, surely?” Mann said hopefully.

“With our situation,” Cooper told him, “there’s not much hope of any other rescue.”

It was almost as if Cooper had punched him. Mann looked down at his tea, dazed by grief. They let him have his moment of silence.

“Dr. Mann,” Brand said, after a bit, “tell us about your world.”

“My world,” he said softly. “Yes. Our world, we hope. Our world is cold, stark, but undeniably beautiful…”

* * *

“The days are sixty-seven cold hours,” Mann told them. “The nights are sixty-seven far colder hours…”

He turned and led them back toward the shelter of his landing craft.

“The gravity is a very pleasant eighty percent of Earth’s,” he said. “Up here, where I landed, the ‘water’ is alkali and the ‘air’ has too much ammonia in it to breathe for more than a few minutes. But down on the surface—and there is a surface—the ammonia gives way to crystalline hydrocarbons and breathable air. To organics. Possibly even to life. Yes, we may be sharing this world.”

Brand began checking Mann’s data, and the more she read, the more she seemed positively giddy. Finally she looked up from the screen.

“These readings are from the surface?” she asked, as if it didn’t seem real.

“Over the years I’ve dropped various probes,” Mann confirmed.

“How far have you explored?” Cooper asked.

“I’ve mounted several major expeditions,” Mann said. “But with oxygen in limited supply, Kipp there had to do most of the legwork.” He indicated the machine that could have been a brother to Tars or Case, except that it was lying about in various pieces.

“What’s wrong with him?” Tars asked.

“Degeneration,” Mann replied. “He misidentified the first organics we found as ammonia crystals. We struggled on for a time, but ultimately I decommissioned him and used his power source to keep the mission going.” He shook his head sadly. “I thought I was alone before I shut him down.”

“Would you like me to look at him?” Tars asked.

“No,” Mann said. “He needs a human touch.”

Tars didn’t reply. Instead he turned abruptly to Brand.

“Dr. Brand,” he said, “Case is relaying a message for you from the comm station.”

She nodded, and Tars began the playback on his data screen.

Cooper’s stomach clenched as the face of a woman appeared. It took a moment for him to recognize it as the face of his daughter.

Murph!

But she wasn’t calling him, she was calling Brand, and worse, Murph was delivering the news that Brand’s father was dead. He couldn’t tell which of the two women seemed more upset at the news, but it looked as if it was Murph.

“He had no pain and was… at peace,” she was saying. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Is that Murph?” Brand asked in an abstract voice.

Cooper nodded and tried to think of something to say as he watched Murph reach to turn the camera off.

“She’s become a—” Brand began, but she didn’t finish, because Murph didn’t turn off the camera. She pulled her hand back, and a strange look came over her. Anger, instant and intense.

“Did you know, Brand?” Murph demanded furiously. “Did he tell you? That plan A was a sham? You knew, didn’t you? You left us here. To die.

“Never coming back…”

Stunned, Cooper stared at Brand’s face, watched the shock run across it. He wanted to ask what the hell she was talking about, but couldn’t find the words.

“You left us here to set up your colony,” Murph went on, tears starting down her cheeks. He stared aghast as she struggled with her next words, and he knew. He knew what she was going to ask.

As quickly as it had appeared, the anger was gone, and her voice became very small.

“Did my father know?” she asked. “Dad…?”

And somehow, over impossible distance and through strange, twisted time, she was looking straight into his eyes.

“Did you leave me here to die?”

Then the screen did go dark, and he felt the whole of himself ache and he knew it was true, that he should have known. Should always have known.

Suddenly he realized that Brand was staring at him.

“Cooper,” she said, “my father devoted his whole life to plan A. I have no idea what she means—”

“I do,” Mann said quietly. Cooper turned to find him looking at them with an expression of gentle compassion. But before he could continue, Cooper found his voice.

“He never even hoped to get people off Earth,” he said. He felt husked out, like a stalk of corn rotted by the blight. Empty for the moment, although he was certain the pain would come.

“No,” Mann confirmed.

“But he’s been trying to solve the gravity equation for forty years!” Brand protested.

Mann stepped closer and regarded her empathetically.

“Amelia,” he said, “your father solved his equation before I even left.”

“Then why wouldn’t he use it?” she asked, in a tortured voice.

“The equation couldn’t reconcile relativity with quantum mechanics,” he told her. “You need more.”

“More what?” Cooper demanded.

“More data,” he replied. “You need to see inside a black hole. And the laws of nature prohibit a naked singularity.”