Chapter Text
Dr. Ryland Grace leaned against the xenonite walls of his biosphere, thrumming his fingers against the surface of airlock. Waiting.
A tree.
Rocky told him that the latest expedition had found a tree.
In space.
He couldn’t even fathom how that was possible.
Rocky had stayed by Grace for the better part of a year while he recovered from an extended diet of taumoeba sludge. That lent him plenty of time with the human thinking machine, most of which he spent studying the earth, to make the biosphere that much more cozy. He took a keen interest in plants specifically, and about threw Grace off the planet when he wanted a beachfront property, with basically no plants after his extended study. If anyone was going to be recognizing a tree, it would be Rocky, but… telling if this thing was some kind of actual-factual from earth tree? Probably not.
He heard the hissing clicks of the airlock equalizing to the dome’s environment, and he just about launched himself off the wall in anticipation. Eventually, the wall lifted, the many legged clicking of a small swarm of Eridians sounded, and he got the subtle whiff of ammonia. In first, was the Eridian he was most familiar with. “Hello Grace. Eridians bring tree. Tree do well in earth environment, Grace new project to work on with .” The piping tones rushed out of Rocky, excited.
“Oh-”
He blinked.
The Eridians carried in, for all intents and purposes, looked like a tree. Probably not quite 7 feet tall, hoisted on the backs of the crew, in its own clear xenonite box. The thing looked sturdy. A thick trunk, considering how short it was, branching up into four arms; all of which sported pale, drooping leaves. It looked unwell.
“Are we- are we even sure that it’s.. It’s safe for me to be around?” Sure, it would be great to have a tree. They had gotten a little garden going, and if this thing had some kind of edible fruits, then it was one more thing to add to his diet. But he had been doing some research into types of trees, hoping to be able to identify it, if it happened to be from earth. It’s leaves looked maple-ish, but the trunk was wrong for all the types he was familiar with.
“All tree cell look most like normal earth tree. Tree leaf cells have chloroplast. Need earth sunlight spectrum for growth. Biosphere have light spectrum. Tree go in Grace Biosphere.”
…
Apparently, the Eridians that helped him maintain the garden were thrilled to have a new kind of plant, and had convinced Rocky that Grace would be ecstatic to have a tree. And he was, to a point. The botanists had determined that the structures were so similar to earth trees, it had to be safe (and totally weren’t biased to these findings), so that was about where the debate ended.
It didn’t take long for a whole chunk of sand in the backmost corner to be replaced by soil, and the tree planted firmly in the middle of it. Grace went back to check on it every day, and after only a few, it seemed that the leaves had made a decent comeback. Most of them at least. Some had started to develop blister-like pockets; galls. He had called in the botany team to report on the change. He had to help pluck some samples for the team to do tests on to check his theory, handing off the leaves to the Eridians scuttling around. Grace squinted at a leaf of his own, rubbing his finger over the bulbous textures. They were uncomfortably warm to the touch through his glove.
He glanced up to the tree, idly fingering the leaf as his mind wandered. In his few days with the tree, he had determined it probably wasn’t an earth tree. None of the pieces lined up. Maple leaves, but a thick, corded looking trunk reminiscent of a musclewood, but more pronounced. Grace felt his face run cold as he suppressed a shiver. It was almost uncanny, he could imagine the crossing of muscles and tendons just below the bark.
Something in his hand popped, warmth splashed on his arm. Grace looked down. He was fidgeting with the leaf, and must have pressed too hard. It had burst in his hand leaving a small streak of red spraying down his palm. It passed the edge and landed on the skin just below his glove. It was viscous, a deep red that stuck in the fine textures of his skin as he idly wiped it off with his other thumb.
He didn’t think of it much until later that night, until he idly scratched at the burning sensation left on his wrist, and he saw the blistering rash, reminiscent of poison ivy. It didn’t take long after reporting it for the Eridians to swarm him. Poking and prodding to make sure that he didn’t do some kind of long-term damage to himself. Rocky’s admonishments came in threes, just to really drive the point home.
His contact with the tree was limited for a while, which was just unfair because they were the ones that decided it needed to be here in the first place. It took a few weeks before he was even allowed near the tree again. Which meant it was just that much more apparent that the thing had grown… significantly. At least another two, maybe even three feet in height, thicker around in the trunk. It was apparent even more though, that only one branch of the tree held these leafy blisters. It remained stunted, for lack of a better term, save for a mass in the center of the branch that had formed. Another gall, he would assume... Was it even? How could any of them possibly claim to know that it was some kind of immune response if this tree clearly wasn’t some earth tree. Maybe it was part of the reproductive cycle of this species. They were flying blind here! The team studying the tree were working at a buzz, excitement thrumming through their tones.
Grace had rather quickly decided that if caustic sap was part of this tree’s typical life cycle, or heck, was just infected with the stuff, he probably didn’t want anything to do with it. Leave it to the professionals. So, he went home. Settling down with the textbook he was reading through to write up a syllabus for the coming days. The light faded into the yellows of the evening, when his door swung open, Rocky in the frame.
“Hey Rock, what’s up?” He stomped in, irritation reading in the way he held himself, bringing one of the botanists in with him.
“Grace, explain that Earth tree do not have heartbeat.” One of his arms gestured at the botanist that followed him in. “Does not believe that only animals have heartbeat, stupid stupid stupid, Rocky Earth expert. Tree should not have.” Grace stared at the pair.
What. The. Fudge..?
Up is down, left is right, north is south, trees have heartbeats! And blood, and kidneys and lungs and bones and- well, it had just about enough to sustain a whole living creature. The worst part, is they seemed to be mostly human organs, from what the Eridians could hear. Only after they told him this did they even bother to tell him where they found this tree. In a ship. On a planet. Covered entirely in a thick, red ocean, which they later confirmed to be human blood.
Grace absolutely took it in stride, and didn’t freak out, and didn’t yell a little bit. Not at all!
The Eridians had finally decided that bringing it into the biodome wasn’t a good idea after all, but, since it was already there, and still needed an earth-like environment to grow, they just walled the whole thing off (the botanists still wanted to learn from it, despite that Grace suggesting they launch the thing straight into space). The gall in the dying branch swelled over the week, and Grace decided that he was going to practice some out of sight, out of mind ideology. And it worked for a while. If he just pretended that the Eridians who came through his dome every few days were just attending to the garden, and nothing else. And he just didn't turn his head to face the back corner of the dome, even inside. Because that whole direction just didn’t exist anymore. Because he decided it didn’t. Because nothing was happening back there. It couldn't be.
Grace was up late into the simulated night. He had tried laying down when night first came, but he had tossed and turned and didn't get much further than closing his eyes when he decided to get back up. If he wasn't going to sleep, he might as well do something. So, he curled up on the couch with a warm drink and was reading. Turns out, when you have the entirety of human knowledge uploaded to your ship, it also means you have about an endless amount of movies and books and TV shows. Although, he had to be careful to choose shows that had finished by the time the Hail Mary left earth. He did not want to make that mistake again.
He had been sitting for maybe 15 minutes when there was a sharp CRACK, like lightning stuck down too close for comfort, then a thud. Grace went stock still, eyes wide. What the fudge was that noise? He peeled his quilt off and stood, blinking. He turned in that direction and shivered. The only thing he saw was the corner of his home. His fingers twitched as his wrist ghosted an itch that had faded days ago. “Nope.” The word came out more of a squeak as he turned away, putting his back to the corner of the house. “No, no, no. No no! No. Nope.” He whispered to himself, sitting back down on the couch. He wasn't going to think about it. “I'm not going to freaking go out there.” Grace sat himself down, picking up the tablet with his book.
The Eridian botanists had come just yesterday, so they weren't due back for a day or two, and Grace came to the conclusion that he couldn't keep going if he didn't know what was going on. The night slid into a sleepy blur, reading and re-reading the same section over and over because the words just didn't seem to quite make as much sense as they should. He probably dozed a little bit at some point through the night, but it was all surface haze and nothing close to restorative. The lights had brightened up to an early sunshine, and Grace reached out to Rocky. If something happened, he didn't want to be alone when he found out.
Of course, the rest of the botany team all but demanded to come. Grace was worried about something with the tree? The tree was probably more important to them than Grace was at this point. Rocky and Grace led the way, and the other Eridians behind him fluted and sang in an overlapping chorus, excitement.
He walked up to the barrier they had erected to protect Grace from whatever was happening with the tree, eyes wide. “Holy shiitake mushrooms.” He whispered, raising his hand up to place on the xenonite.