Chapter Text
It didn’t make sense.
It didn’t make any flipping sense.
Up is down, left is right, xenon’s a gas, and apparently THERE’S ANOTHER FREAKING SPACESHIP IN TAU-CETI.
“Blip D approaching in 6 hours, 33 minutes, and 23 seconds, traveling at 160 kilometers per second with a current distance of 1.5 million kilometers.” Grace hastily waved Mary off, “Yes, yes, thank you, Mary, what the freak?!” Grace grasped his hair in manic bafflement while whispering the censored expletive under his breath.
It didn’t make any sense.
“Earth send another ship, question?” Rocky wasn’t nearly as taken aback as he was; in fact, Grace thought his notes were more colored in excitement, given his reverberating tones.
Grace could only weakly shake his head, it wasn’t possible, they couldn’t have. Not with, not with the ship looking like that.
“Or Erid send?! Look more, look more Grace! Look! Look! Look!” Rocky eagerly tapped at the xenotite in front of his face and Grace could only weakly obey. It’d make sense that Rocky was the one most excited about this anomaly, he was far far braver than him, and if Grace could just get out the words that this ship did not look human OR Eridian, Rocky would become even more elated. For crying out loud, even if Rocky’s ship was bigger than his, he didn’t even hesitate to think that if the strange small smooth alien spaceship had xenonite kabooming bombs to throw, he’d be dead. Rocky just went right for it. The absolute madman!
And if this ship turned out to be another alien spaceship, ho boy.
But it’s not, it can’t be, because even if it’s definitely not Eridian, and definitely not a ship any human in their right mind would send out into the sky, it certainly looked human-made. Albeit in the crudest way possible.
Although it was more than 1.5 million kilometers away. The petrovascope did a remarkable job at giving him a high resolution view of the absolute abomination coming towards Tau.
The first that stuck out to Grace was that it was rusted. Iron oxidized to all hell in the scratchy dried-blood tinted brown. The second was that it had no engine, and in having no engine, it had propellers instead. Propellers. Like the fan things used for freaking SUBMERSIBLES.
So yeah, no. NO. There is no way in HE DOUBLE HOCKEYSTICKS that this ’ship’ could have ever made it onto land, much less OUTER SPACE. ‘But Mr. Grace! Wind turbines spin very fast and make a lot of air, and a lot of air gets people flying in that cool tube in skyzone, so if the fans on a submarine spin really fast, couldn’t the air lift it up into space?’
‘Oh you sweet summer child.’ Grace thought back to the imaginary voice of one of his students.
‘Now, how to explain this to a child that can’t do algebra yet.’
The way submarine propellers are designed is so they could push against water and create thrust to move. Water may seem smooth and slick, but it actually has a small amount of friction resistance. When you swim and you kick your legs about, you are creating friction against your limbs and the water, allowing you to push yourself forward. Submarines do the same thing but in a much larger scale, completely reliant on the ocean’s friction. Water and air are two completely different mediums. Water is more dense and air is well, air and open. The friction in air is less than the friction in water, by a lot, so there would not be any thrust at all. That’s not even accounting for how the sub would just fall to the floor due to gravity.
So, a submarine is not flying up to space but even if it did, it couldn’t move in space either.
Space has no friction. Space is empty besides the little particles that are too small for their forces to matter. A submarine propeller could spin all it wants in the void, but there won’t be any friction to create the any amount of thrust to move.
So while one small bitter part of Grace wouldn’t put it past Stratt to hide another Hail Mary esq mission from all of them, it just wasn’t possible. The only way this contraption could have made it to space was if it was built there.
And the only way it could be moving, is if a force pushed it. Between Adrian and Tau. At that angle. Specifically.
Which Didn’t. Make. Sense.
Why on Earth would someone 13 years before the Hail Mary launch, launch themselves to Tau-Ceti, build a crude submarine, and then when Grace arrived, push the thing into his direction.
And Rocky would have noticed if there was another presence within the starsystem, so it just- it just spawned!
It quite literally just spawned here and was pushed by something into their direction.
And it’s human-made.
“What Grace see, question?! What Grace see question?!”
Grace’s mouth still hung open uselessly.
“🎶 Stupid human, move! Move so l point device and see what Grace see since Grace shocked silent.”
The snark brought some of Grace’s brain back online and he weakly muttered, “It’s not Eridian but, well, I mean it can’t be-“
“Move!”
“Okay okay jees.” Grace stepped to the side and he watched as Rocky examined the Blip D.
There was a pregnant pause.
“Absolutely not Eridian statement. Eridian no make spaceship so bad bad bad. Rocky no understand how in space?!”
Feeling vindicated in his confusion, Grace fervently agreed. “Exactly, and you’ve seen how humans build our spaceships.”
“Human build spaceship strange. But could guess how works and how move in space. Blip-D no understand how works or how move! Engines impossible to thrust!”
“Exactly, so something must have pushed it here and unless there has been another spaceship here you’ve neglected to tell me about, it just, appeared.”
“So no human, no Eridian, Blip - D alien spaceship.”
“Not exactly either bud. The thing is, it looks like a submarine, a human invention.”
“No understand 12th word.”
“A submarine is like a spaceship that goes underwater, humans use them to explore our oceans.” And other things. Give you a hint. Starts with w and ends with an r.
“Rocky understand, Erid have too. Eridian word 🎶🎵🎵”
Guess humans were not the only species crazy enough to go into the habitat they evolved out of. Vindicating.
“So Earth submarine but not sent by Earth, question?”
“Yeah, well, before you report that we are bad at submarines this is a bad one, trust me. We know how to make good subs and this barely qualifies. Looks like someone just took a iron cylinder, welded it, slapped life support and instruments on it and called it a day.”
“Yes, very bad.”
Rocky seemed to finally be seeing the enigma we have before us. A human submarine, but not put here by Earth, that just spawned in the system and was not alien.
Grace would have an easier time if it was an alien spaceship. Because then, all human rules go out the window. How did it spawn? Maybe there is just a signature of light or something that he can’t see. How is it moving? Maybe his eyes aren’t seeing the tiny engines in the ship because these species are itty-bitty and he’s really looking at a whole colony.
If it was alien, Grace would accept the impossibilities and focus on figuring out how these aliens see the world, and that perspective would explain to him the impossibilities he sees now.
It’s just interstellar evolution. If fish could question the sea, they would get migraines trying to comprehend how jellyfish move. Both jellyfish and fish figured out how to move in water, but fish with brains and eyes, came up with a solution involving those instruments. Jellyfish don’t have brains, or eyes, so they had a different solution.
So many different solutions to the same problem. And in reverse, so many different perspectives with the same solution. ‘Different families, same solution? That’s convergent evolution!’ He remembers telling his kids.
. . .
Wait.
“Grace face change. Grace realize something, question?”
“There’s no way- I mean the chances!”
At this Rocky skittered in excitement. “Grace realize something! Grace realize something!”
“It might be convergent evolution!”
“Explain fourth word! Explain!”
“Okay, so you know how completely different animal families can look super similar and share the same traits?”
“Yes, environment makes animals need traits to survive so those without die and those with survive and reproduce.”
“Yes, that’s called natural selection! And when unrelated species have the same trait because natural selection made them to, it’s called convergent evolution.”
“Understand! Understand! Eridian word for environment makes animal need traits is 🎶🎶 and for species looking same because of natural selection is 🎵.”
“So Grace think Blip-D look human because of convergent evolution?”
Grace made a hum of consideration.“Yes- well no, well, like in concept. I’m not expecting the alien in there to look anything like me, but it’s possible we have similar environments leading us to come up with similar looking machines.”
“Understand! But still no explain how here without notice or how move.”
Grace frowned. “Yeah, I guess not.”
“But probably alien.”
“Yeah.”
“Here in Tau-Ceti.”
Ah, Grace could see where this is going.
“Yeppers.”
“If alien and here in Tau-Ceti probably same reason as us.”
“Yes.” Grace said, with a weight behind it. A heavy, heavy weight.
“If their sun dying too, we must help.”
“Yeah- yeah we do.” Grace choked. He could barely hold the weight of two planets on his conscience. And now a third? Why was he the one who had to be Atlas three times over?
Grace didn’t want to wish this new alien race didn’t exist. Not at all, but this pressure. He’s not sure if he could take more of it.
But it never really matters what he wants, doesn’t it? Didn’t matter on Earth, and rightfully so. It doesn’t matter if he can or can not take it, he will. He has to.
“Mary, how long until Blip-D flies by Tau and at what distance?”
“Blip-D will fly at a relative altitude above Tau in 6 hours, 26 minutes, and 23 seconds at a distance of 2.7 million kilometers and at a speed of 160 kilometers per second.”
“Thank you, Mary.”
Rocky had pivoted his whole carapace towards Grace, the Eridian equivalent of looking someone dead in the eye.
Ryland leaned down and stared back, a glint of resolve in his eyes. The air in the Hail Mary was suffused with understanding and steadfast determination.
Grace slapped his thighs and straightened.
“Welp, let’s get calculating. Our new friend is already going through the trouble of slogging over here, can’t have them doing interception too.”
“Agree! Agree! Grace Rocky help new friend!”
“Help, new friend.” Grace smiled.