Chapter Text
Blip-D detected.
For a moment, I don’t even register Mary’s alert. I’ve been engrossed in my most recent taumoeba project for…a while, if the ache in my back is any indication. But then the words hit me and I snap bolt-upright. “Repeat, Mary?”
Blip-D detected.
Blip-D? As in, unidentified object somewhere in our vicinity? What could possibly be out there?
“Rocky?” I call out, already on my feet and making a beeline for the cockpit ladder. “Rocky, you hear me bud?”
“Rocky always hear Grace. Hear Mary too. What is Blip-D, question?”
I have no idea where he is on the ship right now, but his synthesized voice carries pretty well. I’ve been getting pretty good at understanding him even without the text-to-speech to help out, but sometimes I turn it on anyway just to hear another voice besides my own or something from a screen. I’m glad that I did today. “No idea. It’s Mary-speak for something’s out there. Unexpected. I’m gonna check it out. Probably gonna have to pull us out of traveling speed for a sec.”
“Rocky come too. A moment, will be there soon.” I can hear distant scuttling and thumps from wherever he had been working in his tunnels. He’s looking for his ball, I can tell just from the sounds. The thought brings a small smile to my face as I reach the ladder and start climbing.
“Knock yourself out, Rock, but it’s probably nothing. I don’t want you to get into your ball for nothing if you’re in the middle of something important.”
“Do not understand word. Meaning, question?” The scuttling and bumping doesn’t stop. Alright, so he’s definitely coming with.
It takes me a second to realize what’s confusing him, though, and I huff out a laugh when it registers. “Oh, knock yourself out? It means you’re welcome to do it if you want to. It’s a casual human phrase.” I’m halfway to the cockpit now.
“Ah, understand. Have Eridian equivalent, ♬♩♫♩♪♪♬♫.” I make a mental note to program that in later, after we figure out this whole Blip-D thing. “Am still coming,” he continues. “Rocky only doing busywork, as Grace say. Not important experiment. Blip-D much more interesting.”
I laugh again. “Agreed. Alright, I’ll see you in a few.”
It’s gotta be some sort of malfunction in Mary, I decide as I reach the top rung. I’ve already ruled out the Blip-D being a wayward asteroid or something similar because we’ve definitely passed those before and Mary didn’t make a peep, and I really can’t think of anything else that would trigger her like this. So, there must be a problem with her. The thought of her glitching out makes me sad, for some reason. We’ve put her through a lot, and I’d hate for some lasting damage to already be starting to wear on her. But it makes the most logical sense. There shouldn’t be anything out there, especially not this far into our journey to Erid.
Hopefully I won't have to get too far into her guts to figure out what’s going on. I’m not a rocket scientist, I’m just a scientist in a rocket. At least this might give me something new to do to pass the time.
~~~
There’s something out there.
It shouldn’t be possible, but my eyes aren’t lying to me right now. I don’t think, anyways.
There’s an actual Blip-freaking-D right out there. Floating in space. Menacingly.
Mary isn’t glitching. I feel like I might be sick.
“Rocky, please tell me that you’re seeing this.”
“Rocky cannot see, do not have eyes like human. How Grace forget, question? How long since last sleep, question?”
I groan and slide my hands up under my glasses, probably knocking them askew. “You know what I mean, Rock. You…you can sense that too, right? I’m not going crazy, there's actually something out there? There’s really a Blip-D right now?”
He clicks rapidly, chitters, even uses his crystal wand and screen to point out the domed window of the cabin in the direction of the possibly-actually-real Blip-D. His vents are cycling evenly, but they pause as he takes in the raised image populating his little screen. “Yes, Rocky sense real Blip-D. Grace not crazy. Strange strange strange.”
Blip-D detected.
I wave my arm a little. “Yes, yes, Mary, we can see that. Thank you.”
You’re welcome, Dr. Grace.
Rocky does his little peeping laugh, and I groan again.
“Does not match Eridian design,” Rocky continues, continuing to click and point his crystal out the window. “Too small, very ugly. Is human ship?” I ignore the obvious subtextual dig at my species’ eye for aesthetics and get closer to the domed window myself.
Rocky’s right, as he usually is (but I’d never tell him that, it would go straight to his head). This Blip-D is extraordinarily small for something made for space travel, and pretty boxy too. No windows that I can see. It also doesn’t have any visible propulsion mechanics, so I have no idea how it moves– but then again, I couldn’t exactly work out the Blip-A’s mechanics by sight either, so that might not mean much. We’re still a ways off from it so I can’t make out much more in terms of details, but it’s definitely an odd little contraption. It also doesn’t seem to notice us, and gives no indication that it wants to–or can–make contact. Strange strange strange indeed.
One thing is for sure: it can’t be human. Tau Ceti is over 11 light-years from Earth, and we are well past Tau Ceti’s solar neighborhood by now. For anything man-made to be out this far into space, it would have had to have been sent before Project Hail Mary had even been a twinkle in Eva Stratt’s eye (even a passing thought of her sends a twinge through my chest, so I push it aside). Some sort of technological advancement in spaceflight then, a craft deployed after Mary launched but fast enough to get here before us? I don’t find that likely either, just given its design. It almost looks…primitive. It would have been physically impossible to get here in time either way, so…
“No, it can’t be human. Maybe it’s…some other intelligent species? Like you and me were, on a mission to save their own star?” I’m a little surprised by how easy it is for me to propose, but hey. I’m only here right now because of an unlikely alien partnership with a super-intelligent rock spider from a star system over 16 light years away from my old stomping grounds. Maybe I’m well on my way to having two nickels. Hello, second contact?
Something starts nagging at me, though– the location. Right now, we really aren’t even in any established star system, especially not one with planets that could have a strong likelihood of supporting multicellular intelligent life. I mean, after orbiting Adrian in Tau Ceti and learning about the taumoeba and even I guess learning about astrophage in the first place I’m loathe to claim any possible planet as being devoid of life when those single-celled little buggers exist, but obviously anything larger than that is a million times more complicated, and there’s no clear candidate for another homeworld for ages–
I stop my internal spinning on a hamster wheel with a firm shake of my head. The specifics and hypotheticals don’t matter. “Either way, you’re a long way from home,” I murmur to no one in particular, fixated on the mysterious Blip-D. It gives me no answer.
“If not human ship, why human letters on side, question?” Rocky asks suddenly, and my blood goes cold.
“What.”
“Blip-D has human letter shapes on hull. Can sense from here, but very hard to understand. Not clear. Why Grace say not human ship if have human language, question?”
It’s suddenly very hard to breathe, like all of the oxygen in the room has been replaced with Rocky’s ammonia atmosphere. My body even feels like it's on fire– has Rocky’s ball sprung a leak? Am I about to die a very painful, very smelly death?
Letters. Human letters.
A human ship?
“That’s not possible,” I say. “Literally not possible.”
“Why, question?”
I scramble to try and articulate my thoughts through the mild panic attack I think I’m suffering through right now. “Rocky, there is nothing on the planet Earth that could move at the speeds needed to get a ship here before us. Mary is the fastest interstellar ship humanity ever created, at least when I left Earth. This Blip-D would have had to have been launched before Mary to get all the way out here before us, and there's absolutely no way that happened because it would have been global news.”
“Human language stupid. So many same word so close, confusing. Why have had have had had–”
“NOT THE POINT!” I screech. This is why I’m a science teacher, not an English teacher! “The point is that there can’t be another human ship all the way out here. It is not possible.”
“But, it there.”
“It there” indeed. My brain short circuits again, and I stare at the Blip-D. I press right up against the glass of the window, staring straight at the ship’s hull, scouring for the letters that Rocky sensed. It’s difficult, between the distance and the size and how the Blip-D is rotating slightly, but I do catch a glimpse of what does look a little like writing on its side. From this distance, it’s impossible to tell anything more than that the sides are marked up. But…Rocky says letters. Rocky sees letters.
There’s only one way to find out.
“We have to get closer. Buckle up.” He’s already buckled. I don’t correct myself.
Slowly, gently, I nudge Mary closer to the Blip-D. One baby-scoot at a time, we approach the vessel, and the closer we get the more my brow furrows. Whatever this thing is, it is not a spaceship. It looks like a heap of scrap metal, jigsawed together by someone drunk, insane, desperate, or all three all at once. It’s like if an oil drum were the size of a small bus, stretched out and buoyed on two smaller, thinner metal cylinders.
It…kinda looks like a submarine, actually. A really awful one, but the resemblance is definitely there.
And there, stenciled on the side in fading white, are indeed the human letters Rocky was talking about. Letters and numbers, actually: SM-13. Not a word, but a name. A categorization, even, clear as day. My jaw drops. “Cheese and crackers, Rock, you were right.” A human ship. A HUMAN SHIP?
“Rocky always right, but thank Grace for noticing.” Aaaaaand this is why I don’t tell him. I’m about to snap back with something totally cutting, witty, and biting, but just then I’m scared out of my skin by a short, blared alarm. I yelp and spasm in the pilot’s chair, and I’m not the only one– Rocky's bleat of surprise is just barely in my hearing register and he stiffens in his seat.
Local data terminal discovered. Point of origin: Blip-D. Dr. Grace, please advise.
Um, what?
“Grace, what Mary mean? Mary repeat statement!” Rocky orders, and despite my brain leaking out of my ears and my heart jackhammering in my chest, I can’t help but be endeared at him ordering Mary around in a mirror image of how I do sometimes. We really are picking up on each other’s habits, huh?
Of course, Rocky. Local data terminal discovered. Point of origin: Blip-D. Dr. Grace, please advise.
“There's data on that ship,” I find myself saying, shock still making my thoughts feel sharp and impossible. “Information stored in a system that, somehow, Mary can connect to.”
“Information, question? What type of information, question?” Rocky urges, excitement bleeding into his tone. “Contact from Earth? Question?”
I doubt it, but I don’t want to take anything off the table now that apparently the impossible is becoming very real right in front of me. “I have absolutely no idea. Mary, can you connect to this…local data terminal on the Blip-D remotely?” There’s a short delay as Mary processes my question, almost as if she’s thinking. I hold my breath. I’m so glad she isn’t glitching.
Yes, Dr. Grace. Remote connection to local data terminal is possible.
“Okay um. Do that, please. Right now.”
Understood. Connecting, please stand by. Downloading available data to Hail Mary files.
There’s a beat of silence, and I only have a second to panic-wonder if I’ve screwed up and accidentally given the okay for Mary to download some kind of nuclear-bomb-level virus before the console ahead of me lights up with a flurry of flashing entries as whatever is on that ship hits the Hail Mary computer system. It seems to be a jumbled mixture of .DCM images and audio files, and a lot of them– each scrambled picture is only on screen for a fraction of a second before it’s replaced, and it sounds like every single audio file starts playing at once in a jarring cacophony before they all cut out simultaneously. Every muscle in my body is tense from my head to my toes and every single hair on the back of my neck is standing on its end. A bead of sweat rolls down my spine, and I feel like I’ve just done something irreversible.
Finally, after a solid 10 or so seconds, the flashing images stop and the pop-up window closes itself. There's another second of silence before Mary’s voice chimes in again.
Remote local data terminal download complete. Current operation status of Blip-D, also known as the SM-13 burner submarine, has been identified. Oxygen– critical. Fuel– fail. Engine– fail. Pressure– critical. Hull– critical. Camera– fail. Battery– low.
My head is spinning again, but apparently Mary isn’t finished dropping bombshells on me.
Live audio feed available. Dr. Grace, please advise.
Rocky starts to trill into another question, but I beat him to the punch. “Mary, what? Are you saying that you can play us what’s happening inside Blip-D right now?”
That is correct.
I turn back to look at Rocky. He might not have a face, but I can tell he’s staring back at me as much as his Eridian biology will allow him to. He rapidly tilts his carapace in a facsimile of a nod– he’s as curious as I am. “Do it,” I command. We’re in this now. No going back.
Understood. Patching through to Blip-D, the SM-13 burner submarine.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but crackly silence isn’t it. That’s all that comes through the speakers though, eerie and unnerving. That, and a deep, low groaning that seems to be coming from the metal hull of the ship itself. My stomach twists in knots. A submarine in space. A burner submarine, in the vacuum of space. A silent, expendable vessel nowhere near where it should reasonably be, not equipped for its current task of surviving under more pressure than it’s ever felt in its life.
Something horrible happened here. This ship isn’t supposed to be here. I no longer want to be in this. We need to go, now.
My fist tightens around the piloting joystick and I’m about to high-tail it out of here on adrenaline alone when Rocky lets out a short, confused whistle. “Hear something. Grace…Rocky hear heartbeat.”
I startle like I’ve been shot, or electrocuted. My glasses slide off my face. “You what?”
“Rocky hear heartbeat,” he says again, and my own heart stops. “Sound quality poor, hard to hear through bad bad speakers. Very very quiet in background, could just be buzz of static. But…hear rhythm that sound like Grace. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum.”
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “There’s something still alive in there.”