Chapter Text
"Someone else on the ship, question?" Rocky tapped on the xenonite glass ball, he finally stopped rampaging around the ship for five minutes. I pause, there was no one else on the ship. I sent out Commander Yao and Ilyukhina a week and a half before our ships were even connected. Did Rocky mean Mary, the automated voice of the ship? There's no physical body of Mary, so that wouldn't make much sense. Rocky's seen, or heard, Armando, so he knows it's not the robot caretaker.
"No, Rocky, I'm the only survivor out of the three that were sent here. Just like how you are the only survivor out of twenty-three." Rocky shakes his carapace, he's disagreeing with me, he just rolled through my ship, like a complete maniac, and he's giving me attitude that I'm wrong. Rocky points down, before tapping against the floor.
"Slow, Quiet, Heartbeat coming from below, someone else on ship. Grace not only human here." I just stared at Rocky, there can't be a fourth person on the ship, can there? Rocky isn't lying, he can hear everything on the ship. But where would that fourth person be? There's not a fourth bed, there's not even room for anyone to stay for four years in a coma, not where Armando can reach them. Especially to turn them over to avoid bedsores and even to feed them, where would the feeding tube and waste tube go? "Another human on ship."
I hastily run to the ladder, tripping over the leftover ropes I hung up in zero g. I fell into the opening, tumbling my way down to the dormitory, I groan out in pain, I'm going to be having some new bruises soon because of that fall, least it wasn't in 1.5 g like the first time. "Rocky!" I shout up the ladder, "Where are they?!" I dart my head around, no place to really have someone, not out in the open. Why would they put another person on here? There was only supposed to be three. A scientist, an engineer, and a pilot, just who else would they need to send?
"In compartment, next, below Armando." Rocky was telling me that the person was just underneath Armando, of course, we haven't really established that kind of wording in the translator just yet. It'll have to do for now, tweaking that is the least of my priorities right now. I duck underneath Armando, there is a compartment here! It's long, definitely could fit a person in there, I pull on the handle, it pops out, so I pull up. It doesn't budge. I look down, there's another handle. Of course there's two handles. I reach for the other one, pull up, and it pops out. Something releases, and I'm able to lift up the metal hatch. Someone's inside. Still being fed, still being turned, and still having his waste removed from his body. Best part was, he's alive.
I don't want to do anything rash, but I do end up reaching for him, Armando reaches in, pushing me back. "Uh. Hey?! There's a living person in there! Mary! There's a person in there!" I flail against Armando's push, but a Robot arm is much stronger than a human person could possibly be. I get pushed back as far as Armando could reach, I slid against the floor as I was let go. Armando recedes back, tending to whoever he was in there, rolling him over a few times, then closing the hatch shut. Sealing it shut away from prying eyes, which was only me, Rocky could already see who was in there, I was the one who had to actually find him.
"Unidentified Personnel is not to be disturbed for 3 more days. Please steer clear from Unidentified Personnel until set date." Unidentified personnel? Was he not supposed to even be on the ship? Mary would've said his name. She says 'Dr. Grace' to me, and she already knew that. Why doesn't she know his name? Is it secretive? I'm starting to get uneasy, is this person dangerous? They shouldn't be. Everyone, well, the original crew of three, were all specialists working to save our sun from dying. Those were the only specialists we could have aboard, the only specialists we had room for, 3, not 4.
"Is Other human okay, question?!" I could faintly hear Rocky's translated voice from here, but his musical cords were able to reach the dormitory, much louder than I've ever heard him. Rocky's cords were deeper, being able to resonate my heart underneath my rib cage. "Why other human not allowed to wake up for 259200 seconds, question?!" I guess this is what Rocky sounds like when in distress. No one knew about this.. other person. It feels wrong to call him that, but I don't have any idea of what to call him, not even Mary knows of him. He's personnel, but he's unidentified, no one here, knows him, he doesn't even look vaguely familiar. He's been in a longer sleep then me, even just by a week or so.
I'd like to wake him up now, but if I did interfere, it could mess with Mary's whole system, especially regarding waking up a person, I could kill him if I wasn't careful. I can wait three days. Just, waiting on sleeping beauty, I can do that. 3 days, or 259200 seconds. It can't be that hard to wait on someone. I finally get up off the floor, my butt is kind of sore now due to Armando dragging me across the floor. I started to climb back up the ladder, I spot Rocky being right by the opening of the hatch. He pattered against his xenonite ball, acting anxious.
"It's a safety precaution, to gradually let him wake up, instead of him rising instantly. It lessens the risk of any complications." I hoist myself up, sitting on the floor next to Rocky. I look at Rocky, he didn't seem very assured about the explanation I gave him. "Giving time for his body to slowly take over from what Armando has been doing for him." Rocky settled down next to me, he wiggled his carapace, giving me a deep thrum of dissatisfaction. He didn't say anything specific, I checked on the translator, just a noise of unhappiness.
"..Why does ship not know other human's name?" This was the first time I've heard a question from Rocky, without the word 'question' at the end, his cords barely picked up, at such a low tone and pitch, the software that I hastily made, struggled a bit. I took a deep breath, I don't know the answer either, I mean, I knew Yao's and Ilyukhina's instantly just by seeing them, even in their withered state. I saw sleeping beauty's face, nothing seemed familiar, and he was healthy for his state, I should be able to recognize him more, not less. He was as healthy as a flower could possibly be, maybe not in bloom, but, he was alive.
"Because, Rocky, he wasn't planned to even be on the ship with us. His name isn't in Mary's database, she was never told it. He was a last second add on, Mary only knows he's personnel, not apart of the crew, but apart of the team that worked on the ship." Mary wasn't given his name because he was never going to Tau Ceti, He didn't have a bed waiting for him, there wasn't any room for him. He was shoved into a cramped compartment, hidden right underneath Armando, no one was made aware of him. He didn't wake up at the same time as me, on purpose, what if Rocky never found him? What if the plan was to never wake him up? He would've laid in there, alone, and wilted away quietly. A Briar Rose, never meant to wake up, never meant to bloom, only wilt. I would have never found out until years later, once he started to… decompose.
I almost heaved thinking of the smell, Yao and Ilyukhina didn't decompose, but that was from Armando knowing that they were sick, knowing that they were unable to survive. He can survive, and he is alive, he's still being fed, being turned, being taken care of. Armando would keep feeding, turning, and moving until eventually, there would be no more coma slurry. And He would Rot. "..Other Human shouldn't be here. Yet was placed." Rocky sounded elegiac in his musical cords, he hasn't even met him. But he was feeling for him. "I will observe." Rocky straightened his limbs, holding his carapace high, he made up his mind. "Place Xenonite structure near other human." He already began making his way near Armando, rolling the hexagonal ball towards the compartment. "Above Grace bed, and above Other human bed." Rocky gestured with his arms, already planning out exactly how he wants his habitat to be. "Hurry! Hurry!" The knocking of two curled up rock fists against the floor of his xenonite ball startled me, but I hurriedly got up.
"You're going to be extremely impossible to work with." I jest, giving a grin, taking up some xenonite panels that were already moved into a corner on the ship, no thanks to Rocky, he only brought it from his side of the tunnel, I had to carry it all the way into the ship. Xenonite is not light! It was a pain in the butt to haul it from that tunnel. I squatted down and picked up a piece of xenonite glass. "Do I start with this one?" It was flat on one side, triangular on another, it was probably going to stick to the wall on the flat side, and have another piece to it. It was like a ginormous 3d puzzle. Something that I was going to be bossed around for 'doing it wrong.'
"No. No. Wrong piece, other piece that look almost same but not same." I groan as I set it down. Picking up another. Rocky shook his carapace at me. "No, other piece that looks almost same." I let the xenonite drop back down to the floor. Rocky curled up his claw into a fist and shook it at me. "How can be so stupid, it clearly the other piece." I just sighed, I have a new roommate, that was Rocky. And in 3 days, I was going to get another. I'm hoping for that the next roommate that shows up, isn't as bossy as my current 'roomie'. I pick up another piece, Rocky finally doesn't get annoyed at me for picking up a 'similar piece but its not the same piece'. "Grace is slow. Hope other human is smarter." I bet that the other human doesn't have a molecular biology degree. —How did I know that I had that. I guess I'm not just a school teacher.