Chapter Text
Grace wasn’t going to stop. He had four years of good food and coma food he could space out during the trip. maybe even longer if he intentionally starves himself. Drawing out one meal for several hours, days even. It was just enough to make it to Erid, maybe even a few more weeks after the arrival, if he’s lucky.
There wasn’t a single thing that could deter him from finding his best friend, not even when Mary alerted him to Blip-E, a small floating ball in space. Okay, well, not deter but definitely distract. There was no orbit to the small mass, and using the Petrovascope, Grace noticed it looked more like a cylinder of thick liquid.
He paced up and down the hall. He could see the liquid outside through the airlock window. It kept a constant cylindrical shape, but he couldn’t see anything that could be holding it together. It should have dispersed in different directions if it really was a liquid.
Maybe it was the Erids? Or a different species entirely, another life form came to the same conclusion about Tau Ceti. If that’s the case, Grace would be more than happy to give them a Taumoeba breeding farm, but then that would mean he would have to make first contact. He's been floating around them long enough that they should have noticed him. If not by Hail Mary's size, then the Blip-E sensors should definitely be going off, but there was no movement from or around the liquid.
Blip-E showed no signs of life, and when scanned with the Petrovascope, there were no signs of Astrophage. Which meant Blip-E didn’t require it as fuel, or maybe it did. It wasn’t moving and made no signs that it could. Maybe they ran out of fuel. It was small, too small to carry tanks suitable for Astrophage.
Or maybe it was native to this solar system, native to Adrian. With Blip-A and Hail Mary flying around their orbit, Blip-E saw their signatures and sent a ship to investigate. But then why didn’t they approach the Hail Mary, or Rocky when he was orbiting Tau Ceti for all those years? That's not even mentioning how far he was from Adrian. If Grace wanted answers, he wasn’t going to get any with just floating around. Was it even a ship?
He needed a device to reach out and collect the sample. Grace thought back to the predator collector Rocky had made for them when they went fishing in Adrian’s atmosphere. It was simple enough to recreate that. He pulled off a panel from the sampler they used to collect the Astrophage in Tau Ceti Petrova line and a shallow plastic bin. Grace then cut a hole in the side and slotted the panel. On the bottom, he cut strips along the sides to make a makeshift vent. He completed his sampler by using duct tape to stick it onto a long stick.
Now he could collect the sample. Theoretically, it would catch on the panel, and any extra would float out through the vents. All he needed to do now was use it.
Which meant an EVA walk.
God, he wishes Rocky were here. He would have a better plan than just ‘going out there and poking it with a stick’. a very scientific stick, Grace reminded himself, but a stick nonetheless. Rocky would have been able to look through Blip-E and determine what it was without leaving the safety of his ball.
Grace floated in the airlock, holding his sampler close to his chest. He had already depressurized the room, but he took a few extra moments to build up his courage. Grace has done dozens of EVA walks. None that involved him flying out away from Hail Mary like now. He always stuck close to the hull, never out into space. When Rocky made first contact with him, he still had the safety of the tunnel Rocky constructed. He double checked his line, making sure it was clipped to him before giving himself one strong push forward. He stayed mindful, staring straight ahead, grabbing his line taut just a few feet from Blip-E.
It looked familiar. He reached out with the sampler and brushed the side. A sudden jolt ran down his arm and spine as he felt something hard buried beneath it. Okay, so Blip-E was a solid, but it had a layer of liquid only about three inches deep. Grace scraped the edge of the sampler against the solid. It felt like metal, almost rough like xenonite. When he disturbed the liquid, it started to break away. So nothing was holding it together, but it was staying together. Why?
His heart dropped in his chest. An awful feeling flooded his system as he stared at the liquid; it was bright red. He remembered that color back in his classroom. A student was messing with her desk and ran her fingers on the underside. Her fingers caught on an exposed screw. She had cut herself deep, but was afraid of getting in trouble, so she let it bleed.
Grace almost let go of his sampler as he grabbed his lead and yanked himself back. It was blood. How could he have missed that? Rocky would have been able to figure that out instantly, comparing the Blip-E to the blood density in Grace's veins. There was a giant blob of blood, human blood, just floating 11.9 light-years from Earth.
He pulled his knees in close as the blood flew past him. The sudden jerk of his legs spun him around as he floated, giving him a view of the emptiness of space. He sputtered and twisted his leash around his arm and yanked again, sending him flying towards the airlock. He hit the side of the Hail Mary and grabbed onto the railing, his sampler smack against the hull.
The chain reaction that was ripping through the surface of the Blip-E settled. Grace wished he had his glasses on, but in his haste to get outside, he left them floating somewhere in the control room. Something was happening to the Blip-E, but he couldn't make anything out. He needed to stop wishing Rocky was there every time he didn't understand something, but it was hard not to; he needed someone on the ship helping him with EVA walks.
He tucked the long handle of his sampler between his thighs before grabbing onto the EVA leash with one hand and the side of the ship with his other before making his way back to the airlock. There was one way to be sure what the liquid actually was, and that was back in his lab. He crawled back inside the airlock, pulling his leash in behind him before closing the door. He pulled his sampler in front of him and peeked inside the panel, trying to make out the liquid while the airlock repressurized.
Bright blood leaked out from the sampler. Grace gagged and reeled back as it floated outward before he swiped it back into the sample and closed the small hatch. He needed gravity to test the blood, and he wanted to do it quickly. There was a core inside the Blip-E that begged to be tested.
A new type of asteroid, maybe. If Grace had to turn the gravity back on, he would rather be further away from Blip-E, but he also didn’t want to fly away. In case there was life inside Blip-E, and his sudden departure would make them panic.
Grace wrapped duct tape around the box, sealing the vents up and trapping the excess blood inside. He then tapped the sampler to the wall and pulled himself through the ship. He needed a new plan. As much as he wanted to test the blood, he needed to figure out what was inside. In the back of his mind, he reminded himself how much easier it would be if he had Rocky there helping him figure out the next step to his plan.
He propelled himself through the Hail Mary up towards the control room, back up to her sensors. There, he settled into his chair and asked Mary to scan the Blip-E again to see if his interaction with it changed anything. He searched the control room for his glasses while waiting for Mary to run her scans. They floated by the window, and he slid the chair down and snatched them up, putting them on.
Mary completed the scans, reporting that the surface of the Blip-E has begun to break apart, revealing an iron core underneath. Rocky had given him the genetic makeup of iron when they first started to communicate. If that was the case, then his previous theory was correct, and this was an Erid ship. But then why send a much smaller, poorly built ship to solve Astrophage if your first one was originally meant to house twenty-three Eridans?
Grace leaned back in his chair and scratched the top of his head with the tips of his fingers, digging his nails into his scalp. He needed to find out what the blood was and what was inside the Blip-E. He left the control room and headed down to the storage room, digging through his tools before finding a hammer and chisel. If the core ended up being a mix of xenoite and iron, then this would be completely useless. If he could break off a part of the core, then he could test that as well. Two samples are better than one.
”Alright, Mary,” He called out, “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck, Dr.Grace,” Mary replied as Grace re-entered the airlock. This time, with a different heavy feeling in the chest. He hasn't had anything this interesting happen in a while. Stratt gave the Hail Mary crew pirated media of everything, ever. Video games, movies, shows, music, art, software, you name it, Grace most definitely has it.
But he couldn't sit still for very long to enjoy it; he kept thinking back to Rocky. At least with this, he could take his mind off the intimate peril his friend was in. And hey, if it were something involving Earth, Rocky would be upset if Grace didn't investigate. So, he was taking this detour for Rocky, if you think about it.
Grace placed the chisel and hammer in a pocket on his spacesuit while waiting for the airlock to depressurize. He inhaled a big gulp of air before pushing himself out into space, holding his hands out in front of him.
The liquid surrounding Blip-E was already sending ripples through its surface; all liquid that clung to the core was now flying away in every which way. It revealed bars running across the top and bottom; it reminded Grace of the railing Hail Mary had for his EVA leash.
The EVA suit had two leashes: the main one, which allowed him to float around the outer shell of the Hail Mary, and the shorter one, which was used to secure him to a new bar so he could safely transfer himself throughout the hull of his ship. Grace grabbed onto the top rail and used the shorter leash to secure himself to the Blip-E.
Running his fingers down the side, he could feel seams between the panels; whoever welded these together did a rushed job. It was imperfect, and blood leaked out from the gaps. He ran his knuckles on the side; it felt hollow. He knocked a little harder, feeling the emptiness behind the metal as he shimmied down the side of the Blip-Es hull. He tested several spots on the ship.
Blip-E was, in fact, a ship, filled with blood. A glop of blood hit his visor, forcing Grace to wipe it off with his sleeve. A sudden knocking yanked a scream from his throat as he flailed his arms to stop himself from floating away. For a second, Grace thought something had hit the side of the Blip-E, but the knocking came from the inside of the ship. Whatever or whoever was in there seemed to realize Grace was on their hull. His knocking must have alerted them.
Grace knocked back. Once, twice, three times, and then waited. He was given three knocks in return. Grace pushed his visor against the metal hull.
“Hello?” He shouted, “Hey, is anybody in there?” He didn't expect to get an answer, but he still tried.
The knocking became frantic banging. Grace could see a dent forming on one of the seams; it split at the abuse, and fresh blood gushed out.
“You want out?” Grace asked. He bit his bottom lip and searched around the Blip-E. There was nothing that looked like a sensor or window. Whoever was in there had to know they were in space, right? “You- you want out, yes? Do you have a space suit on?”
The banging stopped for a second. Grace hoped they heard him, but when he leaned in closer to listen, the banging continued. “Okay- Alright. I can help you. Just step back, okay?”
He reached for his chisel and hammer, hooking his feet between the bar running across the lower Hull of the ship, and waited for the banging to stop. But it didn't. He called out a few more times, warning them to step back, but his shouting didn’t make it through the hull. He gave up and wedged the chisel between the seam where the dent had already made a sizable gap. He angled it downwards and reeled his hand back, swinging the hammer down on the chisel's handle.
Grace missed the handle by a few centimeters and slammed the hammer down on his fingers. He yelped and pulled his hand back, shaking it in the air, trying to disperse the pain. “Holy moly,” he hissed. “That hurt like a buttcheek on a stick.”
The person inside the Blip-E had hit the side of the hull again, unaware of Grace's attempts to help, and dislodged the chisel from its place. Grace scrambled to grab the hammer and chisel before they were lost to space. Thankfully, the hammer floated nearby, and the chisel clung to the hole in the Blip-E.
Grace tried again, this time, he swung the hammer only a foot or two above the chisel handle so he could have better control over where it would actually hit. He hammered down on it a few times, and blood spat out at him as he worked. He was making significant damage before his last swing snapped the Chisel, breaking the handle off.
Grace was covered in blood at this point, but the gap in the hull was now four feet long. Hopefully, that was big enough for whoever was in the Blip-E to get out.
From within the blood, Grace could see movement now between the gap. It was, whatever it was, pushing up against the side. It wanted the exit wider. Grace could help with that. He used the back claws of the hammer and hooked it onto the opposite side, and then he shimmied away from the hole. He then pulled, and a loud aching groan came from the Blip-E as he pulled it apart. His arms burned in pain at this point, and Grace felt the strain in his muscles, but he kept pulling. He gave one more yank before the metal bolts and welded panels broke apart.
Once he couldn't get a strong grip with the hammer, he unhooked his feet and maneuvered back in front of the hole. He hoped that was big enough for them. If Grace squeezed his shoulders together, he would be able to fit through, but he would rather not go in and search for them.
“You can come out now, it's alright. I won't hurt you. I'm friendly, I helped you, it's okay.” Grace shouted, slotting the hammer back into his suit pocket. It was covered in blood, but then again, so was he. He was trying to keep his to-do list strictly to priorities and hoped Mary or Armando would be able to clean it for him.
At one point, they had stopped pushing up against the hull and were letting Grace do all the work, but during his effort to help, he didn't notice when they stopped reacting. Grace hoped they were letting him widen the hole by himself and not the alternative. An alternative was exposing whatever was in the Blip-E to the vacuum of space.
Grace’s body shook with tremors faster than he realized what had happened. A hand, a real human hand, reached out and grabbed onto Grace's suit, pulling him away from his thinking. He wanted to scream; he was screaming. Grace was screaming and flailing around, hitting the arm with his fists. It let go of his chest and gripped onto Grace's wrist instead. He gasped as it squeezed his wrist, its nails digging into the suit. It was pulling back.
Grace had to stick his feet out and catch them on the sides of the ship. He could see what looked like the top of a head sticking out from the blood. It was trying to pull itself out, Grace grabbed the arm with little thinking and yanked back, using his feet against the hull as leverage.
Grace's heartbeat was in his ears, a loud ringing filled his senses as he yanked. He could feel the grip on his wrist loosen as he pulled the body out of the Blip-E. He was talking, grunting, maybe even screaming again. Grace was sure of it, but he couldn't hear himself. He acted on pure panic and adrenaline. For all his memory problems, Grace never forgot a moment after he woke up from his coma, but he would be lying if he said he remembered how he got from the Blip-E to his med bay. He recalls Mary warning that his blood pressure was too high, and he was inching close to an anxiety attack.
Grace clung to Rocky's dome as Armando's arms grabbed onto him. Trying to maneuver him into something, Grace wasn't sure what. He looked down at himself. Armando had stripped off his EVA suit and undergarments. He was covered in blood when he arrived. Armando's scans weren't showing any injury to explain it, so he resorted to dedicating one arm to checking over Grace. Armando held onto him tightly so he wouldn't float away, arms repeating several scans. Armando threw a medical gown over Grace and tried to inject an IV into his arm, but Grace pulled back.
He wanted Armando’s attention on the man he pulled from the Blip-E. Grace could do nothing but watch as Armando peeled the bloodied clothes off and ran a sponge down its body to clean the blood off. A compulsion made Grace watch in horror. Tears flooded his eyes and ran down his cheeks in hot streaks.
“Warning, Dr. Grace's blood pressure spiked 20 mmHg. Please engage in stress-relieving activities to reduce the chance of an anxiety attack. Inhale for 4, hold for 7, and exhale- Warning,” Mary cut herself off. “Medical services are unable to complete treatment for patient-E. Please turn on the main centrifuge for further treatment.”
Grace, moving faster than his brain could catch up, propelled himself up toward the control room. He heard Armando's medical whirling, a distant protest that he was leaving the med bay from below as he flicked the switches and pulled down the lever. He didn't wait for the centrifuge to finish as he raced back to the med bay. He stumbled and tripped on the sudden gravity change, falling face-first into the room. Armando’s gears screamed, and he grabbed him, pulling him to his feet.
Grace stumbled forward, grabbing the side of Rocky's dome, trying to steady himself. Armando had cleaned most of the blood up from the man. He was a great multitasker and even better doctor. During his time trying to solve their Astrophase problems, Grace kept getting reports from Armando about his bad habits. Anything that threatened his health was closely monitored by Armando and reported back to him. He assumed it was supposed to go to Yáo, but since Grace was the only person left, it defaulted to him.
“I'm okay. I'm okay.” Grace gasped, pushing Armando away. “Help him! Please help him. Oh God, please don't let him die.”
It was impossible to tell how much blood came from the man (patient-E, as Mary called them). Grace tried to help by searching for any gashes on the skin. That's when he noticed Armando had dedicated the main on Patients-E's left side. He was missing his entire arm; it had been ripped off at the forearm.
Bits and chunks of flesh were hanging off the shoulder. Armando was cutting off pieces as it shaped the shoulder into a stump. He watched in horror as it cut through the bone that was jutting out. Mary spoke up again, warning Grace of his full-on panic attack. He stumbled back onto Yáo’s bed, swallowing his own vomit as it crawled back into his throat. He listened to Mary now, inhaling for 4, holding for 7, and exhaling for 8.
It didn't help. His breath caught in his throat, choking him. Mary tried giving him more tips, but Grace was so lost in his own panic. He pulled his knees up to his chest and tried to look for Rocky behind his glass.
Rocky wasn't there. Grace could see straight through to the other human.
Rocky would be here at any moment. He must have been working upstairs and heard Grace freaking out. Grace pulls on his hair violently with shaking fingers. Rocky would be able to calm him down.
Grace opens his mouth to call out for his friend, but only pathetic sobs escape his lips. This went on until Armando was finished with amputating patient-E's shoulder. Armando reached over with one of its arms and pricked Grace's neck with a needle. The other arms started pulling Grace out of the fetal position he curled himself into, and placed an IV in his arm and a breathing mask over his nose and mouth.
His last few conscious moments were spent searching the room for Rocky on the ceiling and upper walls. Time dilation was weird in space. It felt like he was waiting for Rocky for almost two hours, but nothing would keep his friend away when he so desperately needed him.
When Grace woke up, his body ached. A groan escaped his lips as Mary dutifully pointed out his eye movements. She asked him to solve 2+2, and as soon as he mustered up enough strength to pull the breathing mask off his face, he grunted out “Four.”
She greeted him with a good morning, followed by his vitals and how long he had been asleep.
Mary was very helpful, but at times very annoying. His head was pounding, and yesterday's events slowly slipped their way back to him. According to Mary, he slept for seven hours and 22 minutes. Not really body aching, head pounding hours. He should feel refreshed, with a mental numbness and tightened chest. Grace was definitely not in the mood to think about it. He briefly thought about just going back to bed and trying again in the morning. He pulled himself up and glanced over to Rocky's bed.
That's when yesterday's event came flooding back to him.
Grace almost fell out of bed as he shouted. “Our patient, how is he?!” ‘Almost’ was a nice way to put it since he definitely would have fallen if Armando hadn't been there to catch him.
“Patient-E is stable. Emergency amputation performed on Patient-E’s left shoulder nine hours and 25 minutes ago. Patient-E was given and prescribed Opioids, Intravenous Antibiotics, and Tetanus Toxoid. Additionally, Patient-E has four broken ribs, a fractured sternum, lacerations on the arm, back, chest, stomach, legs, neck, and face. Including signs of multiple accounts of head trauma.”
Grace inhaled a quick breath through his teeth. Ouch, whatever this man has gone through, he didn't go down quietly. Opioids weren't a shock, but the ship actually being supplied and programmed for amputation definitely made Grace pause. Stratt really did prepare for everything.
“Any signs of waking up? Do we know who he is?”
“Patient-E has shown signs of brief consciousness. No cognitive functions recorded.”
Grace dug his nails into his scalp. That wasn't good. It was stupid of Grace to pull him out of the Blip-E, stupid, stupid, stupid. If the vacuum didn't kill him, the lack of oxygen it took Grace to get to the Hail Mary from Blip-E gave him permanent brain damage.
Stupid stupid stupid.
“Keep me updated, alright? Let me know the second you detect eye movement.” Grace swallowed a dry lump in his throat. He rubbed his fingers over his neck. “Can I get some coffee?”
Armando reached up into his inner carousel and returned a few minutes later with a hot cup of coffee. Grace had pulled out his IV and wires while Armando was distracted. He leaned back against Rocky's dome and watched the other human sleep. It was a little creepy, but after watching Rocky sleep for so many days, it felt like the right thing to do while Armando was busy.
He was completely scratched up everywhere, just like Mary had said. His face, arms, legs, stomach, and neck had been patched up and wrapped in gauze. Armando covered all the skin surface cuts with some ointment. One of the most notable gashes ran from his cheek, across his nose, and over his eye.
The man himself seemed peaceful. It was probably the drugs in his system, Grace reminded himself, but bits and flashes from the way Patient-E looked not even nine hours ago dragged itself through Grace's head. It wracked in his skull. It was haunting. Patient-E was awake for parts of it, Grace remembers him twitching from underneath Armando before the robot could get the IV hooked up. He just hopes he doesn't remember it when he finally wakes up.
As much as Grace wanted to stay, he had a sample he needed to test. And probably a mess as well, he glanced around the room. Armando already cleaned up the blood here.
“Send me regular reports on his condition, please.”
He stepped over the blood trail. He remembered the halls being more gruesome. Most of it must have peeled off when he was rushing back to the Hail Mary. While extracting patient-E from the Blip-E, Grace didn't collect a sample of the hull. As frustrated as he was, he also very much did not want to go out again.
Grace took in how dirty the Hail Mary was and decided to test the samples first. He changed out of his gown and into a random science-pun shirt and jumpsuit. He would have to ask Mary about his spacesuit later, with any hope she had a program that knew how to clean them if they ever got covered in a dangerous substance.
He pulled on a lab coat, slid on gloves, and took the sampler from the wall in the airlock. He quickly ran through the regular testing with the microscope, and it all looked normal. After a quick read of the hematology analyzer handbook, he readied the machine to count the blood cells.
He wasn’t hoping for much. The blood was taken from a floating mass in space, which Grace found by accident. Anything could have contaminated the sample and the result. It was still worth a shot, even if he wasn’t hoping for much. Grace checked the hormone levels, HDL and LDL levels, and enzyme markers. He even tested the BMP and looked for any Vitamin deficiency that might be apparent.
Mary's computer was running scans on everything. He wanted multiple scans to be done on the sample. Additionally, Grace also tested the blood for radiation and any diseases.
His computer pinged with an updated version of Patients-E’s chart. He sat up on his stool, pausing from spinning around mindlessly before sighing and sitting up. He couldn't help but stare down the hall towards the med bay.
He got up and stretched. There was still time before the test was complete, and he needed to clean up the blood in the hall. Hopefully, the scrubbing would help take his mind off of patient-E. Mary had sent him a document of things to do when facing high anxiety and stress. He skimmed through it; it was simple enough, focusing mainly on breathing exercises.
Not that Grace would do any of it, sitting around and focusing on himself just made him feel messy. He wanted to continue going after Rocky, but he just needed the other to wake up. Was he willing to risk adding a few extra days to his journey to Rocky? Yes, if that meant he didn't have to swim around in a floating ball of blood.
Grace searched on his computer for the list of cleaning supplies onboard, and after a quick search through his storage, he got to work. Cleaning it off the walls and floor took hours, only because he kept having to stop multiple times when the metallic smell got too strong. Grace wouldn't call himself squeamish, but he's dealt with a lot of gore in the last 15 hours.
He tried to make his breaks meaningful and productive just in case Mary somehow gained sentience and scolded him for slacking off. He checked on the breeding farms, recalculated the math for the Blip-A (accounting for his stop at the Blip-E). He brought his laptop to the med bay and sat on his bed, searching his computers for any information on Tau Ceti space travel. All information about it was pages talking about the Hail Mary and Astrophage, and the three astronauts' selfless act of heroism. That page got closed quickly.
He sat up and walked around to Patient-E. Wires were attached to almost every limb and body part. Armando inserted an IV as well as a Foley catheter and a Fecal catheter.
Poor guy, Grace felt sympathy for that.
He knew firsthand just how uncomfortable those could be (especially when ripped out), but he just hoped the man had enough sense not to jump out of bed. No one should go through that pain. It made Grace shiver just thinking about it.
“What are you doing here?” Grace whispered. He walked to Yáo's bed and pulled off a quilt. He cleared his throat and spoke a little louder as he settled it over the man, running his hand down the side to smooth out any creases. He traced his finger over the man's damaged knuckles. “You gotta wake up. I already went through this with Rocky, and I don't think I can take this tension again.”
Grace was met with silence, but he expected as much. He leaned back and pulled up the Project Hail Mary article, scrolling down to the personnel section. He went through everyone involved in the mission, but no one matched his guest. Grace didn't recognize him, but after all the people he saw during the meetings, demonstrations, and experiments, it was worth a try.
He went back to cleaning. Once he finished with the blood trail, Grace noticed the state of the rest of the ship. Objects that weren't tied for or magnetic had floated out of place and dropped when the gravity turned back on. Grace soon found himself back with their guest. He watched Armando change out their bandages, only looking away when Armando unwrapped the amputated arm.
“It looks like you got this covered.” Grace grinned, covering his eyes with his hand, nodded towards patient-E, and walked out. The blood samples completed their testing. Finally! Grace desperately needed something to do besides worrying.
Aaand they were inconclusive. Perfect, awesome. Exactly what Grace needed right now.
Grace would now have to repeat the test, which would take even more time. Grace wanted to break something, but he was only pulled from his thoughts when Mary alerted him to eye movements coming from Patient-E. He grabbed his laptop before he scrambled off to the med bay.
Patient-E was struggling with the air mask. He shot up, staggering to stay upright. After he pulled the mask off, he inhaled big gulps of breath. They sounded painful, and he choked on it, twisting his body and doubled over himself as he vomited onto the ground. More blood splattered onto the ground as he expelled the contents from his lungs and stomach. If Grace saw any more blood in his lifetime, it would be too soon.
Mary kept asking him to answer 2+2, but Grace answered for the man to make her shut up. He stood by the edge of the wall. He was worried that if he got any closer, Armando would grab at him to try to calm him down, and he wanted Armando's full attention on patient-E. Armando kept him upright and in bed, something he probably learned to do when Grace first woke up and rolled off, trying to escape.
The man panted, his arm reached up and grabbed at Armando's arm, holding his shoulder, but was too weak to push him away.
"Wa.. wh" the man panted out in sobs, every breath was met with a dry cough. "Wat.."
"Armando, water, please,” Grace spoke up for the other, assuming that's what they were desperately asking for. That was a big mistake. The man flinched and reeled back, fighting against Armando.
"Who- w" he coughed out a small bit of blood. It dripped down his chin. "Where…”
"It's alright, I'm Grace. You're safe now." Grace raised his hands in front of him, "I pulled you out of the Blip-E."
Armando offered an unlabeled bottle. He took it hesitantly, taking a small sip, testing it out, his eyes widened before he tried chugging it down. He instantly coughed it back up. There was blood in the man's backwash, and Grace really hoped that was just residue and not internal bleeding.
"You have to drink it slowly." Grace tried. He stepped closer, making the other man kick his feet out and scramble back.
"Stay back!" Lips trembled as he wailed.
"Sorry sorry sorry." Grace said quickly.
The man looked around, his whole body tense and shaking.
"You need to take it slow, you've been-"
"Shut up," the other shook his head, "just shut the fuck up. Where's the black box?"
Black box? When Grace stared in confusion.
He held the water bottle close to his chest, afraid Armando would take it away. "The black box. Did you guys get it?”
Grace doubts the Hail Mary had a black box, and he's not very keen on giving it away to a stranger. To the Eridians, if they asked, it could be used to learn more about Earth and the mission. When Grace didn't reply, the other man gave a frustrated groan.
"The thing you guys sent me to die for." He was screaming now, or his version of screaming. With his throat dry and torn up. "The black box, where the fuck is it?”
“I don't…” Grace trailed off.
“Warning, patient-E vial spike, please remain calm.”
The man flinched at Mary talking. His eyes darted around the room for the new voice. He wasn't calming down, and if he worked himself up any more, Grace was nervous that Armando would give him something to make him relax and sleep.
"Hey, you need to take a moment. You've been through a lot and-"
"You have no fucking idea what I've been through." The man snapped back. His breathing rapid and shallow as tears began to form. "If you don't have the black box, that is your fault. I am not going back down there. You're better off just killing me.*
"I'm not sending you anywhere, and I'm not hurting you in any way. " Grace defended, "Listen, your ship is destroyed. Partially my fault, but you seemed pretty desperate to get out. I don't know how you're even alive!”
The man was only partially listening to Grace now. He didn't believe Grace, and he really couldn't blame him.
Grace opened his mouth to speak, but Armando reached over to the IV and injected something into the tube.
“What was that?!” The man screeched, clawing at the IV. The rapid tranquillisation hit him instantly, his eyelids drooping. “What the fuuu….” He slumped against the wall, and Armando pulled him back into a lying position. The water bottle the man was protecting fell off the bed and rolled underneath Rocky's dome, falling into the storage built into the floor.
Grace paced up and down the small room. He scratched his head with both hands. “That could have gone better, Mary. Let's not do that again.”
“Patient-E shows signs of distress. Additional risk of further damage to injuries if behaviors continue.”
“Right. I understand. But let's not knock him out.”
“Understand, Dr.Grace.”
“Did we happen to get his name?” Grace asked, hoping Mary heard something he didn't.
“unknown.”
He needed a better approach. He really didn't expect that. But then again, he had no clue what he was expecting. He tried doing research, and there was a black box in the ship, somewhere in the hull. Mary gave him instructions on how to get there, but it would require him to pull out some side panels.
Now that Grace had a somewhat coherent conversation with him, it was weird calling him ‘Patient-E’. Grace looked through the log of people registered to Mary. It turns out the crew was assigned as patients A, B, C, D, and E. Yáo, Ilyukhina, Grace, Rocky, and now his guest, respectively.
DuBois and Shapiro, along with the backups for Yáo and Ilyukhina, were on the list but weren't given a title. Adrian was logged as well, Mary was listening more than Grace, and Rocky realized.
Ugh, Mark was listed as an unknown user. Grace thought about deleting him briefly; it wouldn't actually do anything, but it would make him feel better, as stupid as it sounded.
He could have added one of the unlisted names to patient-Es' file, but that felt wrong. The language barrier between Rocky and Grace made it easy to create names for things (if you ignored Taumoeba). Rocky would say something in Erdian, and Grace just picked something he thought would fit.
Choosing Rocky and Adrian was easy; it was classic Cinema. Plus, Rocky liked the movie. Grace always imagined Rocky going home to his mate and showing them the movie on the laptop.
‘Look, look. That's us. I’m the Rocky to your Adrian.’
Grace thought back to his first spacewalk to collect the sample of Blip-E before he realized patient-E, or his guest, was in there. It had been human blood. The tests were inconclusive. The sample tested positive for every blood type, disease, and mutation.
Grace should test himself for AIDS and HIV. He didn't have any open cuts, and he didn't ingest any, but the idea that he was cleaning the blood trail to the med bay all day made his skin crawl. He was smart enough to wear gloves when cleaning and handling it in the lab. Realistically, there's no reason to test for it. But he's going to.
He had the materials and tools, so why not? While he's at it, he should test- oh right. He tried to figure out a name to call him.
Maybe Karl? Or Watson, Franklin?
Wilkins. Grace liked that name. Alright, Grace was going to test himself and Wilkins for HIV. Grace cringed. That sounded suggestive.
Little too suggestive for his liking, he'd work on that. With Rocky, he didn't have to worry about things sounding inappropriate because Rocky didn't care. If Grace had said that out loud in front of other humans, he'd definitely be stammering to try to explain himself. Even if he never really understood sexual innuendo, others definitely did, and he's been around enough to want to avoid the confusion.
Back on Earth, Grace spent a lot of time with Stratt, which caused less-than-welcoming rumors about the two. Stratt didn't care; she had better things to worry about. To Grace, Stratt was (or what Grace had assumed before her betrayal) one of his closest friends. But it got in the way, and it made him nervous to act casual, even friendly toward her. Thankfully, his self-conscious feeling went away almost as fast as Grace heard the rumor when he actually thought about it.
He didn't want a repeat of that, especially not with Wilkins. The first meeting failed, and now Wilkins had every reason to remain hostile towards Grace.
Grace headed back to the med bay. He gathered everything he needed to collect a blood sample from Wilkins when a problem arose. The man Grace pulled out of the Blip-E and carried to the med bay did not look like a Wilkins. That bothered Grace a lot.
This second contact had to be better than the first. He was the only other human 11.8 light-years away, and did he really want to be roommates with someone named Wilkins? It was Grace's responsibility to keep him safe while he was unconscious. Just like Rocky did while he slept, and in turn, Grace did for him.
A full blood panel was needed; if the blood from the Blip-E carried AIDS, then it would, by definition, have every single disease.
Grace facepalmed, just like the test results had said. Why did he jump straight to sexually transmitted diseases? Well, that's something Grace would have to unpack another day.
In his effort to find a perfect name, he dozed off in the silence. Sitting on the floor in front of the patient. He had only woken up when he heard someone shouting.
“Thank god you're finally awake. Where am I? Where's the C.O.I and-” the man pushed up against Armando, who held him upright “Why won't this thing let me out of bed?”
Grace perked up. He was more coherent now. Grace mulled over his questions, he's never heard of the C.O.I and when he searched it up, an article about Certificate of Insurance popped up.
“Okay, okay, wait, let me get a document open. Can you tell me your name? What's the C.O.I? Is that the name of your ship?”
The man blinked as he processed what Grace said. He still has Opioids and traces of a tranquilizer in his system, but Grace didn't care. He could be patient. The man's eyebrows pulled together. Grace's questions made him upset, but he had no clue why.
“Who are you?” His tone was a little more accusatory than Grace liked.
“I'm Dr. Ryland Grace, but you can call me Grace. What's your name?”
The man bit his lip, glancing around nervously. “Simon.”
Grace smiled, suddenly really glad he didn't stick with Wilkins. Simon was a much better name. he quickly updated his systems. “Nice to meet you, Simon. Can you tell me about C.O.I?”
Simon stared at him for a moment, “How do you not know about the C.O.I, Ryland?”
Simon threw his first name at him, saying it like it was some sort of insult. Grace chose to ignore that.
Grace had to think of his response, then carefully he said. “I'm not from around here…?”
Simon accepted that answer, though it seemed as though Grace already irritated him. “Consolidation of Iron.”
“Consolidation? What companies merged? Was it the space programs that built Mary?”
Simon exploded, reeled back in a huff of frustration as he pounded a fist on the bed. “Who the fuck are you?! Ryland Grace? What kind of doctor doesn't know about C.O.I.”
“I'm going to stand up,” Grace told him. He waited a few seconds, but when Simon gave no retaliation, he stood. He kept close to the wall. “I found you floating in a ship in the middle of space, and by all accounts, you should be dead if not by the injuries alone, then the lack of oxygen- And if not the oxygen, then the vacuum of space, and that's not even bringing radiation into the equation. But you're not, and I'm trying to figure out why, and asking questions, even if they seem redundant, is the fastest way to do so.”
Simon was silent, his lips pulled back as he bared his teeth. He watched Grace, who stood as still as possible. He pulled his arm back to rest against his chest as his face fell into a controlled dullness. “You're right. I'm sorry, it's just what I've been through down there… It's eating at me.”
Grace swallowed a lump in his throat. “Speaking of, your ship. Was it just you?”
Simon let out a small laugh under his breath, like the question itself was laughable. “You mean the M-13? Yeah, I was the only one trapped inside.”
Grace replaced Blip-E with M-13 before looking up. The weight of that sentence caught up to him. “Wait, trapped?”
Simon nodded, his hand running over his face. “I had to be welded inside. Can you ask something else?”
“Okay, um,” Grace looked down at his notes. He decided to avoid asking about the M-13 for right now. It was a sensitive topic, and Grace really wanted to get as much as he could before Simon shut down. “The blood, is that alright? Do you know where it came from? Or really, who?”
Simon gritted sighed, clearly agitated. “The blood ocean, on the moon.”
“Which moon?”
“I don't fucking-” he inhaled sharply. The action sent a shot of pain down his broken ribs. He gasped and grabbed his chest. “Sorry, sorry. I don't know which moon, does it matter?”
Grace typed something into his computer, “Do you know which star system you're in?”
Simon grunted. He poked his side and squinted his eyes shut as the pain washed over him.
Grace watched him try to manage the pain, “How are you feeling? Are the pain meds working? Do you feel like you need more?”
“What pain meds?”
“Opioids.”
“Shit, really? You guys gave me Opioids!?”
The surprise in Simon's voice made Grace go wide-eyed in panic. “Oh no, were you an addict?”
Simon shook his head, not taking any offense at the question. “No, not like that. Just you guys have opioids- and you gave them to me?”
Grace pulled up his medical files. “We gave you Opioids, Intravenous Antibiotics, and Tetanus Toxoid. For the arm.”
Simon slid his arm across his chest and grabbed onto his shoulder, hugging himself. “And earlier? What did the robot give me?”
“Well, Armando was worried you'd pop open your stitching and overwork yourself in your distress, so uh, he gave you rapid tranquilization. I told them not to do that again, though.”
“Oh.” Simon said, “Thanks.”
A long pause grew between them; it settled uncomfortably around Grace. He really wasn't sure how to proceed. He wanted to comfort Simon but didn't know how. The man was pushed as far back as he could as he hugged himself. It was hard for Grace not to feel bad for putting the man in that position.
“ Ryland, can I ask you something? Please?” Simon asked, breaking the silence.
Grace nodded. Simon went from angry to afraid, and the more they talked, the faster he’d feel safe. “Yes, of course.”
“The black box,” Simon stated, “please tell me you got it?”
Grace scratched his head, “I don't have it, sorry. But maybe the C.O.I does.”
“Maybe,” Simon muttered.
Grace got a notification from Armando, it was Simon's updated medical files. It wanted Simon to go back to bed, appearing to be tracking how long Simon was up.
“I want to ask you one more thing before I let you go back to bed.”
“What?”
“Is there anything you need from the M-13? It's filled with blood, and I don't want to go back in there. I'm on a tight schedule, but I just didn't want to leave before knowing nothing else was inside.”
“I just care about the black box, but I tied it around a life jacket so it would float to the top- And a pendant, I had a pendant with me. I wrapped it around my wrist… my left wrist.” Simon swallowed hard, looking at the space where his left arm would lie against him.
“Armando took care of all your stuff,” Grace said, as he typed on his computer, trying to find where it was logged. “But I'll have Mary look. Is there anything else?”
“No.” Simon sighed, pulling in on himself as much as his ribs and catheters would let him. “Just those two.”
“Alright, then I'll continue forward. Get some rest, we can talk more later.” Grace turned away. He had a lot to think about. “Oh, the gravity might get weird for a few minutes, just try to relax. It's just me turning off the centrifuge so we can go.”
“Wait, wait,” Simon called, sitting back up. Armando made a mechanical whirling sound, upset at Simon, who wasn’t resting. “Where are we going? You owe me that much.”
Grace looked back, and he watched Simon struggle to push Armando away. “We're going to save my friend. He's in trouble and needs my help.”
“Is there anything you can do about this stupid robot?”
“Hey,” Grace frowned. There wasn't a reason to be rude to Armando. “He's just trying to help you, look.” Grace pulled up Simon's medical chart.
Grace took one step closer, and when Simon didn't react, besides the nervous glance at his foot placement, he slowly approached the side of the bed. “This is your chart, see look it marks all your injuries.”
Grace could explain most of Simon's injuries caused while in M-13. He remembered it as poorly built and easy to break open. If Simon was shaken around, then hitting his body against the walls would explain the concussions and scrapes. His arm being ripped off was something else. Maybe he stuck it outside the ship and it was blown off.
“Isn't it impressive?” Grace spoke without thinking.
Simon tensed. “What? That I was thrown around and beaten to shit?”
“No! No- sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I meant the human body, you lost your arm, and our biggest concern was airflow getting cut off from the brain.”
Simon reached out and touched the screen. A sadness washed over him. “Why didn't…” he trailed off. He cleared his throat and let his eyes search around the room before going back to Grace. “Why didn't I die? I remember dying so vividly.”
“I have a theory, but it's not a very good one. There are a lot of plot holes.”
Simon nodded, urging him to continue.
“Well, the blood was red, bright red,” Grace said, and when Simon made no indication that he knew what he meant, Grace continued, “the brighter the blood, the more oxygen it has. Blood is 95% to 100% oxygen. Your stomach and lungs were filled with it. So my theory is that the blood somehow kept you breathing.”
Simon thought for a second, taking in Grace's words. “I don't mean that, I was crushed in the Iron Lung. The monster ate my ship.”
Iron Lung must be a nickname for the M-13, that much Grace pieced together. Everything else left him lost.
The laptop pinged again, and Armando requested Simon to rest. Grace licked his lips and glanced at Armando, his main arm tilted slightly like a dog tilting its head when confused. Grace shut the laptop and slipped it between his arm and side.
He bent down and fished Simon's water bottle from the storage compartment underneath Rocky's dome. It was one that you had to squeeze the sides to get water out. Armando was smart. A screw cap would have been too difficult for Simon.
“What monster?” Grace passed it to Simon, who took it. He downed the entire thing before speaking.
“The C.O.I wanted me to pull out a skeleton from the blood ocean. Turns out it wasn't bone but a huge monster, and it tried to kill me. It could fit the entire M-13 into its mouth. I remember feeling the teeth through the hull. And the pressure I felt was unbearable. It all happened so fast.”
According to Simon, along with an entire Confederation, there was also a huge skeletal monster in space. It wasn't like Grace didn't believe him. He was trying to take in everything Simon says as somewhat relative truth. But he's been through hell, rough enough that he lost an arm. What if, just like Grace, he had memory loss and all of this was confabulation?
“So confederate of Iron. Giant skeletal space monster in a blood ocean, on a moon you don't know.”
“Well, it wasn't just a skeleton, more like an eel or worm. The camera my ship had was actually an X-ray, so I can look through the blood.”
There were no traces of radiation in the blood sample. Grace thought it was a little weird for a blob of blood just floating around in space, but again, there was a literal blob of blood floating in space.
Simon drawled back, sending a glare towards Grace. “You don't believe me.”
“It's just a lot to take in,” Grace said carefully.
Simon scanned Grace fully, noticing for the first time how differently he was dressed. Simon's clothes were mostly a patchwork of different fabrics, while Grace wore clean t-shirts and baggy pants with sleeves tied around his waist. He dragged his tongue over his teeth as he read the joke on Grace’s shirt.
‘You matter unless you multiply yourself by the speed of light then you energy’
Grace talked, trying to explain himself. “I'm far from home, and everything you're saying is, um, it's a cultural shock.”
"You don't know anything about what's going on." Simon says, and it takes Grace a beat to realize he asked a question. The issue with bunking with Rocky for so long is that he's used to hearing 'question' or 'statement' from the other person.
“Ryland, how can you talk so much and be this vague?” Simon spat out.
“Wha- uh, what?” Grace stammered, thrown off by how fast Simon's hostility returned.
“I told you everything I know, and you've given me nothing in return. I don't know where I am, where we're going.”
“Your story has a lot to take in. You have multiple concussions. I'm just trying to figure it out.” Grace defended himself
“It's not a story! It's real, it happened. “ Simon shouted, bawled his fist, and leaned toward. Grace could see tears form in the corner of Simon's eyes. “I did not go to fucking hell and back for you scientists just for you to tell me I'm making this shit up.”
“I'm not calling you a liar! It's just- a confederation? This far from Earth?”
“Yes, you are! None of this is my fault. Filament Station was not my fault!”
“Filament Station?”
“Oh, my god.” Simon backed away. He hunched over and dropped his head in his hand. Grace should be upset that Simon blew up in his face, but he had a point.
Grace hasn't been really helpful, and he was purposely being vague. It wasn't for Simon's sake, but for his, just the thought of talking about Tau Ceti to another human made his chest swell up.
“I believe you, I do. I'm doing a bad job at this, I'm sorry.”
Simon shook his head, still keeping it planted in his hand. Grace stood there letting Simon's emotions stir in him. If Grace tried to explain what he felt happened, he was nervous that it would set Simon off again. He was afraid of further pushing Simon away. The man was stressed, afraid, and somewhat convinced that Grace didn't believe him and would send him back to the blood ocean.
He picked at the laptop, sticking his nail between the shell. He kept forming sentences in his head to try to comfort Simon, but they all fell apart the moment he opened his mouth.
Simon mumbled through his palm, rubbed his face, and shifted in the bed, sitting up just enough so Grace could hear him. “I'm tired.”
A sigh escaped Grace's lips. Simon was kicking him out. “Understand. I'll let you rest.”
Grace left without another word. He escaped to the lab, collapsing into his stool in a huff. He hunched over, drooping his head over the table, and smacked his forehead against the cool metal. Then he did it again, and again, and again.