Chapter Text
It was the middle of the night when Ryland Grace was awoken by a series of harsh and rapid knocks at his front door.
Well, simulated night.
Grace had discovered pretty early on that the planet of 40 Eridani A did not have the traditional day/night cycle that Earth was so comfortable with. In fact, they really only had one time of day...daytime. Their sun was up...all the time. It didn't bother him early on, considering many of his days were spent being in and out of consciousness as he struggled to stay alive while his body ate itself alive, but by the time he was strong enough to live in his biodome on his own he got very suspicious when it had been daytime for 36 straight hours.
For a species that essentially has no eyes and can run around for days before it needs a break, the concept of a bedtime, or even the concept of night, had been a foreign one. It had taken a lot of explanation, puppet shows, and trail and errors before Grace's home was fitted with a 24 hour day/night cycle. And since sleep was extremely important for human health, the Eridians had given him a strict sleep schedule, which he was more than happy to follow.
People were right about that whole 8 hours thing, he hadn't felt this good in years.
So one could forgive Grace for being just a little bit out of it when he opened his front door at 12:30am.
His vision was bleary, and it took a couple seconds for him to process what was in front of him. A small, brown, spider rock...thing was bouncing around his front door, emitting a series of high pitched shrieks and cries. By the time his brain had begun to translate the Eridian language to human English, he was only able to catch the very last of what his friend was saying.
"-GENCY. I do not know what to do and you are the only one with expertise on this so we need to go now! Urgent statement! We move NOW. Move fleshy stick legs!" And suddenly Grace, donned only in a pair of boxers and a light robe, was being forcefully pushed into the chill night air.
"Rock, Rock, Rock! Slow down bud. What are you talking about, what happened?" Grace asked, rubbing his eyes. He dug his feet into the sand as Rocky continued to push against his legs.
"Rocky just told you! Was Grace not paying attention? Grace getting dumber in new biodome? DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING TO YOU??!?" Rocky stamped his little feet at the end of each word, and Grace felt a headache blooming. He winced as the shrill tones penetrated his eardrums.
"Rocky, we do not have to raise our voices. I'm sorry, but remember human brains need a minute to warm up after sleep. Calm down, and start from the beginning. You have my undivided attention." Grace clasped his hands in front of his face, staring his friend down
Rocky let out a small huff before taking a second to compose himself. "We need your help. A...something has appeared on Erid. We are not sure what it is. It is big and we do not know how to proceed! We need to go now!"
"Why do you need me?" Grace frowned. He knew Erid had their own team of researchers and scientist who were qualified to deal with this kind of thing, and he wasn't exactly the leading expert on alien artifacts.
"We found heartbeat inside object. Similar to yours. We think there is another human inside and need to get it out. We need Grace help."
Grace froze. "What?"
"OH MY STARS ARE EARS NOT FUNCTIONING?" Rocky asked, raising his body in a circular motion that looked very suspiciously like he was rolling his eyes. He rose his voice to a higher octave. "WE HAVE FOUND AN UNDENTIFIED MAYBE HUMAN IN-"
Grace put his hands over his ears. "Ow, ow! My ears are fine, you gotta lower your voice buddy. I meant what do you mean you found a human?"
"We are not sure, but in big mysterious...thing that has appeared on Erid we heard heartbeat similar to Grace inside. Could hear blood flowing and breathing like Grace does. But heartbeat is slow, much slower than Grace currently. Similar to when Grace first arrive on Erid and in...not great shape. Human may be hurt and needs help now!
That snapped Grace out of it.
He had a million questions but now there was a time limit. He could get filled in on the way. "Okay, give me like 5 minutes tops. I'll throw some clothes on and suit up and meet you at the entrance." Rocky nodded and scurried off.
Grace grabbed an old shirt and pants from his laundry pile and began to get ready. His mind was going a million miles a minute and he tried to organize his thoughts.
This makes no sense, he thought, there's no way there could be another human anywhere near here.
If there were he would have run into them by now right? Did the Earth miraculously invent interstellar travel in the time he had been away. They would have sent for him right? They would have remembered he was out here. Or was this even a human? If rock like beings were a thing then surly there had to be other species with the same characteristics as humans.
Grace shook his head and he tried to focus. Now was not the time for thinking, it was the time for action. Whoever was out there was probably hurt and needed help, and Grace was not about to abandon them.
He began to put on his EVA suit, which the Eridian scientists (mainly Adrian) had souped up to allow Grace to leave the confines of his enclosure. It wasn't perfect, he couldn't just take a stroll down the road whenever he felt like it. The EVA suit itself was extremely uncomfortable, especially when gravity was a thing again, and it had to be constantly fine tuned to make sure it could keep Grace's Earth atmosphere inside, but it was nice to be able to get out every once in a while. It made him feel less like a zoo animal.
By the time Grace had the suit on and was walking out his front door, Rocky was practically vibrating. "Yes! Grace all good? Suit is working well?"
"Yeah buddy, the suit's working fine. Let's head out.
Rocky and Grace approached the entrance of the biodome and were greeted by around a dozen Eridians milling about. Many of them were familiar to Grace, as they were scientists and medical personal that he become quite friendly with while he was being nursed back to health, and there were a few faces he had never seen before. Erid was a surprisingly populated planet, and Grace was sure he had only met a fraction of them.
He waved as he approached, and Rocky quickly walked away to join his team and help prepare the supplies.
"Ah Grace, greetings! We are glad you will be joining us." An Eridian appeared from the crowd with several strange instruments in his hands. He (Grace asked each Eridian what pronoun they preferred before assigning one for convenience sake) was taller and skinnier than Rocky, a deep blue color with gold flecks along his limbs.
Grace had also decided that earth rocks were better naming devices than movies, so he used his infinite wisdom (by which he means the few clips he had seen of a children's tv show about space gems) to assign better, cooler sounding names.
This guy was named Lapis, and he was one of Erid's top researchers. He had also recently become the expert on human male anatomy (besides Rocky), and it was to Lapis that Grace owed his life. He had been the one in charge of Grace when he arrived on Erid, and with the help of both Rocky and the laptop, had thoroughly studied human biology to help Grace get back to full strength. He was pretty sure Lapis had seen more his body than Grace ever had, and was extremely grateful for the life saving measures he performed for him. Several strange instruments were in his claws as he approached.
"We have been investigating the being inside the new object, and we almost positive it is a human. We can hear many of the same functions that Grace has, including breathing and a heartbeat. It has not moved since we have discovered it, and while it seems stable now we are not sure how long it will last. I will update you on the rest as we travel, it is not far from here." Lapis then motioned to his coworkers to follow, and the team began the trek to the site.
"Alright." Grace said, following behind, "Lay it down for me. What exactly happened? Rocky had mentioned some things but he wasn't really heavy on the details."
"Understood, I will start from the beginning." Lapis said, following the walking convoy.
"About 1 Earth hours ago, some of our citizens has reported seeing a large shape just outside of our city. It seemed to have appeared from nothing. Our researchers examined it and found what looks like large...container...or something similar. It is very large, and is sealed up with no visible openings on any side. We were about to try and puncture it so we could look inside when we detected a faint heartbeat coming from inside. It was difficult to ascertain, because both the outside and inside of the object are covered with a thick and viscous liquid. We have not run any tests yet, but it seems to be exactly like the blood in Grace's body."
"Wait, wait...this thing is covered in blood?" Grace asked, making sure he heard properly.
"We assume, again we have not run any tests but it seems to match the way your blood sounds. It is also reacting violently to Erid's atmosphere, which is exactly what Grace's blood did when we ran tests. We assume the ammonia in the air is causing the liquid to become caustic, so we do not advise touching anything without proper equipment."
"And the guy inside?" Grace asked, mentally writing this information down in his head.
"We assume it to be a human or closely related to a human. We have tried making contact with it but it has not moved or made any sound since it arrived. It's heartbeat is slow but stable, and we can't be sure how long it will last, since the container is sealed and we know humans need fresh air to breath."
"It could have some kind of machine inside to regulate oxygen, but you're right, we don't want to just leave him in there. Its best to get him out, especially if he's hurt."
"The blood makes it hard to hear into the ship, but we think we have the approximate location where the body is. Once we get to the site and you are able to have a look, we can begin the extraction process."
As they approached the site, Grace mulled over the information he had been given.
So a mysterious container had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, it was covered in blood or a blood like substance, and there was potentially a human trapped inside. Grace wished he could be more bewildered by the strange turn of events, but after everything he's been through, this is pretty much another Tuesday afternoon.
"Well, this isn't exactly normal for humans to come across, but if I can help in any way I can."
"Good. We have arrived"