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Grace slumps over his keyboard, lackadaisically clicking his mouse on Minesweeper cells. He’s waiting for this next batch of astrophage to hurry up and breed. Carl stands stoically a few yards away, and Narender works quietly at his bench across the lab. Suddenly Grace sits up, adjusts his posture, and clicks over to his ELN dashboard. Carl hears footsteps, voices.
“We’ll need instruments to analyze the astrophage at Tau Ceti,” Dr. Lokken is saying. Grace scoots his chair forward so the two women can pass behind him. Stratt pats his shoulder and says hello to him and Carl.
“But we can’t just send up what we have already, since none of this will work at zero gravity,” Lokken continues.
“So we’ll have a team develop versions that can work at zero g,” Stratt says with a shrug.
“That will take years, and we have months,” Lokken replies. Stratt hums in response and nods her head in agreement.
“We’ll have to use what we already have, but create our own gravity when the time comes to use the machines,” Lokken says thoughtfully. Grace had perked up when he heard the phrase “zero gravity” and now he leans back in his chair to look at the two women.
“How?” Stratt asks.
“Centrifuge?” Grace says from his perch. Dr. Lokken nods in agreement and points in his direction.
“Centrifuge.”
“They used it to make butter during the Civil War, fun fact,” Grace says. His sentence starts strong, but tapers off at the end as he realizes what he’s said. He thumps his head down on his desk and groans. Carl has to hold back a giggle. The two women walk away to speak with Narender and Grace’s computer beeps to let him know his samples are ready. Grace drags himself to stand, puts on a pair of gloves, and enters the breeding room. Carl continues to stand with his back to the wall, surveilling the doors that lead in and out of the lab.
Grace reemerges after a few minutes and snaps his gloves off, throws them in the waste basket near the door. He has a scowl on his face, his brow is wrinkled as he frowns and his blue eyes are downcast.
“‘Fun fact,’ what the hell was I thinking? These aren’t my kids. Who cares what they used to make butter 200 years ago?” he grumbles to himself.
“And now I’ve messed it all up, too, cos I went and turned the IR light up too high and instead of multiplying, the astrophage have gone and shriveled up.”
Grace flops back down hard into his office chair and rolls a little to the left.
“Jiminy Cricket,” he says under his breath with a huff. “Can’t even sit down right.” Grace scoots himself back into the right position and logs into his computer, pounding the keys like they’re the ones who have done him wrong. He angrily clicks on his mouse, aggressively types some more. Carl clears his throat.
“Dr. Grace?” he says.
“What?” Grace snaps, not looking up. Carl stifles another laugh. He thinks Grace is cute when he’s so mad. Like an angry chihuahua. Only he knows that Grace is a little more dangerous than such a tiny dog.
“I’d like to hear more about how they used centrifuge to make butter during the Civil War. Want to go grab lunch and tell me?” Carl asks. He tries to sound nonchalant, like he’s not trying to cheer Ryland up and like he’s not trying to spend unsanctioned time with the scientist.
“I am a little hungry,” Grace says. He’s a lot hungry, but he’s also trying to play it cool in front of Carl. He already feels like an idiot around the security guard, what with his handsome face and his beautiful eyes that look deep into your soul like they’ve known each other for thousands of years already and his gorgeous smile that could glow in the dark if the sun really does die and could keep Ryland alive just by being near. His broad shoulders, his strong hands Ryland craves to hold but knows it would be frowned upon for the sake of the mission. Stratt doesn’t need her lead scientist losing focus for a crush. A what? Grace shakes his head and tries to banish the thoughts he’d just spiraled down in case Carl can read his mind. He nods, after, to make sure that if Carl really can read his mind, he knows the shake wasn’t to reject him.
“What am I doing?” Grace mutters to himself and raises his hands in defeat. He pushes away from his desk and stands up.
“Yes, let’s go,” he says to Carl. Carl opens the door and motions Grace through.
“Thank you,” Grace says as he exits the lab. They make their way down to the aircraft carrier’s cafeteria and Carl makes sure Grace finishes eating before he raises his eyebrows.
“So?” Carl prompts. Grace wipes his mouth on a napkin and takes a sip of water. Then he clears his throat.
“So you know how a centrifuge works, right?” he asks his companion. Carl nods.
“Sure, I’ve been around enough of your experiments to have a guess. It’s the thing that goes—” Carl spins his index finger around. Grace nods.
“Basically,” he approves. Carl sits back in his chair and puts his hands behind his head. The movement makes his button down shift up and threaten to become untucked. Grace has never seen him look so relaxed in public before. In private, sure, when it’s just the two of them in the lab and it’s late at night. When Carl refuses to go to bed if Grace is staying up to work. Usually, in those instances, Carl has untucked his shirt altogether. The tease of the movement in the cafeteria makes Grace lose his train of thought for a second. Carl clears his throat.
“My eyes are up here, buddy,” he says with a grin. Grace scowls.
“Anyway,” Grace says and rolls his eyes. Carl flashes him an even wider grin.
“Artificial gravity, cellular biology aside,” he continues. “The Civil War happened alongside a few technological developments including large-scale butter manufacturing. Before that, people had to make their own. You know those old timey churns that look like a bucket with a broomstick sticking out of it?” Grace says. Carl nods. “That didn’t meet the expectations of the moment. People wanted and needed more butter, faster. So industrialists had to get creative. Have you ever seen one of those vats that polishes rocks?”
“What about me makes you think I’ve ever seen rocks being polished?” Carl asks, raising his eyebrows.
“Touche,” Grace submits. “Anyway. When rocks are polished, they get put into a small vat that rotates them so they clank together and get shiny. Don’t ask me for more details because I don’t know them.”
Carl gasps.
“What?!” he says in mock disbelief as he lets his hands fall from behind his head and land on the table. Then he leans forward toward Grace.
“You don’t know the entire process for polishing rocks?” Carl teases. “Could have fooled me, Dr. Grace,” he says with a wink. Grace pretends to ignore him.
“Imagine a small vat, laid on its side, and instead of rocks it’s full of cream,” he continues. Carl nods encouragingly for him to say more.
“They couldn’t plug it in yet, obviously, but they added a hand crank to the side and put the vat on a stand. Then they’d turn the handle at a steady pace for however long it took, and that created the necessary force for the buttermilk to separate from the butterfat. Once it was done they’d open the vat and voila, a big chunk of butter,” Grace finishes. Carl hums thoughtfully.
“If only a butter centrifuge could save us from our impending doom,” he says wistfully.
“I’d be sending Kerrygold on a run for their money,” Grace replies seriously, making Carl choke on the coffee he had just tried to swallow.
“Sorry,” Grace says with a small chuckle.
“Do you need mouth to mouth?” he asks, trying to look concerned.
“Not here,” Carl admonishes and Grace puts both his hands up in surrender.
“Wait until we’re alone in the lab later, then you’ll admit my butter facts turned you on,” Grace says sagely. His eyes twinkle mischievously as Carl puts his mug of coffee down before he risks taking another sip.
“You know, after you help save the entire planet from a slow cold death I might just be forced to kill you,” Carl grumbles. Grace grins widely. Getting such a rise out of Carl is rare, but always satisfying.
“I’ll understand,” Grace replies.