Chapter Text
When Grace woke up, the first thing his delayed mind could register was how he felt like he had been hit by a semi truck in his sleep. He felt sore, sluggish, and a little cold. The second was that he was butt naked, face down on the floor, and someone was talking to him.
"Full-body motion detected," came a disembodied voice from somewhere above him.
Grace slapped a hand down on the cool floor and attempted to pull himself upward to figure out where on Earth he was. He felt utterly exhausted yet simultaneously jittery, like being on the tail end of a triple espresso. Prying his eyes fully open, the blinding lights settled to just-a-little-too bright. He blinked a few times as his vision adjusted, but he struggled to make sense of anything he was seeing.
Some white room? A room with no windows or any real furniture. Just some beds coming out the wall. There were speckles of… something, but it was hard to keep his focus on them. The only other remarkable feature of the room was the large robot arm hovering above his bed that seemed to be tracking his movements. Very high tech, but why it was needed, he couldn't say.
There were clumps of hair or maybe fur scattered around (coincidentally the exact same shade as his hair), but when he lifted his hand up to move his overly shaggy hair from his face, Grace noticed something on his hands.
Holy heck, was this blood?!
He flung both of his arms out in front of him and looked himself up and down. God, there were dried flakes of blood everywhere. All over him, the floor, and some on what he assumed was his bed.
He wasn't hurt, was he? Grace patted himself down but couldn't find any wounds.
Maybe he was sick and coughing up blood? Maybe he was in a hospital and quarantined. He was separated from the tubes and wires decorating his bed, but wouldn't a doctor come running if he was disconnected? No alarms or beeping were going off, unless he just couldn't hear them.
—
"Eat."
Eh? He sluggishly looked up as a robot arm swung towards him holding a pouch of… food? Goodness, now that he thought about it he was starving. No, ravenous. Grace reached up to swipe what the robot arm held out for him, and hurriedly squeezed it into his mouth. Whatever was in the tube tasted incredible. The best thing he's had since… he doesn't know.
All the goop was out of the tube and down his throat faster than he could register what it was even made of. It was definitely not solid though. Makes sense, considering how much context was missing in his brain, he wouldn't trust him with solids either.
He faced the robot arm-thingy and held up his pouch. "More food?"
"Meal complete."
"More food! Another pouch!" He nearly threw the first one.
"Meal complete."
Argh! Fine, whatever was what Grace wanted to say, but instead of anything close to resembling human speech, an animalistic growl reverberated around the room.
He froze slack-jawed at what seemed to come from his chest. For a few seconds, it was so silent you could hear a pin drop.
Holy mother, did that come from him? Grace placed the pouch down, afraid that if the contents were laced with some drug that would make him hallucinate strange behavior. Hangry was not a good look on him.
It was at that moment Grace became violently aware of the corpses in the beds in front of him.
"Jeez!" He nearly had a heart attack. Again.
The hand that flew to his nose really wasn't doing much, but maybe that explained the blood? Grace got closer to the bodies, and gave them both the world's quickest pat-downs. Thankfully the blood didn't seem to be theirs either, but something told him he already knew that. Strangely enough, he could smell that it wasn't theirs, but his.
Okay, apparently he had hyperactive smell or something. Actually, now that he's focused on it, he could smell everything—his drying blood, the vague animal smell, the chemicals that treated the linens, and worst of all the withered husks in front of him.
Ugh, he was going to be sick.
Were these people sick too? Is the disease so bad they can't move the bodies?
Maybe he should cover up. He couldn't find any obvious clothing storage, which was strange considering he was naked. What was he wearing before? His eyes trailed to what was presumably his bed and just settled on tying a toga from the sheets.
He would have to figure out the bathing situation later, though that didn't stop him from trying to scrub away as much as possible with his makeshift garment.
The whole situation was too bizarre, and his memory was a giant, gaping question mark. Gosh, these poor people. His skin was going to get irritated at the pressure he was using, but he didn't care. As flakes of dried blood floated to the floor like demented snow, a wave of vertigo hit him.
Δ
"That's lava."
"No, it's not." The woman, who introduced herself as Eva Stratt, put the hacky sack in her coat and brought out something he was fine with never seeing again. His mouth twisted into a mild grimace.
"'An Analysis of Water-Based Assumptions and Recalibration of Expectations for Evolutionary Models.’ Interesting paper, no?"
Grace shook his head, trying to clear whatever Stratt's perfume scent was from assaulting his nose. He had a "no strong perfumes" rule in the classroom for a reason. It was annoying enough that she had invaded the space with a noxious cloud of perfume, but to also present his PhD dissertation? His mood was quickly turning dour.
…
"So this—this 'Petrova Task Force' or whoever sent you to get the help of a middle school teacher because of a paper that the whole of academia rejected?"
"Yes," Stratt said.
Grace stared for a few seconds, then scooted his chair back. He picked up his bag. "That's a funny prank, but if you'll excuse me—"
Stratt stopped him with an arm to the chest. "Do you stand by what you wrote?"
A wave of her scent hit Grace's nose, dizzying him for a second. Rosy perfume. Mild sweat. Lingering rain. Something citrusy. Grace took one giant step past her and closer to the door. Today of all days.
"Of course. There's nothing special about hydrogen and oxygen," he mumbled.
"Then you'll follow me, Dr. Grace. Unless you have somewhere else to be tonight?"
He was not a fan of the strange, knowing way she asked that last question, like she already knew the answer. Grace looked back at her, then continued out the door with Eva Stratt close on his heels.
Δ
Whoa, okay! He was a middle school teacher! And his name is Ryland Grace! Dr. Ryland Grace! And also… Grace really wished he could remember all of their names because there were only three people here, but he felt he really knew them. They were like family for sure, the man was stoic. The woman was hilarious and a partier to boot.
Grace didn't even realize he had been crying until he raised his hand to the wetness on his face.
He couldn't allow himself to properly grieve whoever these people were to him just yet, he had to clear the scent from this room. He felt like he was going to genuinely explode, now knowing what or who that smell belonged to.
So he's got some… condition? Grace figured there could be something seriously wrong with him! Though… he felt a bit gross but not like he was close to death or anything. No stuffy nose or casts on any limbs, he was pretty mobile other than some stiffness, so was it actually that bad? For his sanity, he was going to go with super smell for the time being.
Until he can remember more.
Knowing what he does now, he climbed the ladder to the hatch to figure out if he's quarantined or not. It wasn't locked and it looked like it locked from the inside, so either he wasn't constrained to one area or not quarantined at all. Hopefully this wasn't a zombie apocalypse situation. The next room is a lab with some pretty heavy-duty equipment—possibly useful for later. Why a patient would need access to this, he couldn't tell you.
Another mystery to throw in the bag.
Connected to the lab is what he presumes to be some metal tube that controlled something big and complex as there was a chair surrounded by an absurd amount of screens.
He wanted to take a close, long, gosh-darned look at what he was dealing with here. He padded to the chair and squinted at the little labels on the unpowered console. There was something called a "Petrovascope", as well as other names that struck him as uniquely strange.
"…Astrophage?"
Δ
Grace stood still as the memory washed over him, reminding him of their dying star, the new alien life he helped discover, and many, many, many sleepless nights in the lab with Carl trying to produce anything of substance.
Carl was the only one who knew something was up with him, figured out after he was caught sneaking away from a particularly frustrating couple of weeks with no progress. Grace was really pushing it with the timing, but it couldn't be helped. It was hard to tell if it was the fifth inconclusive result of that version of the current experiment, or if he had gotten too little sleep the past couple of days, but he found himself stumbling towards the bathroom.
He walked in on Grace locked in the men's bathroom, drenched in sweat, in the corner curled in a ball, and desperately trying to hold on to his humanity. Ryland's lidded, unfocused eyes flew wild when he noticed Carl was approaching with his hands out.
"P-please leave. You're nnot. Safe," Grace said, white-knuckling the sink pipe.
Carl froze in his approach. "Do you need help?"
"Youcan't," Grace grit out, eyes burning into the other man's.
"What?"
"You can't. Help."
Carl paused thoughtfully. Then, still holding eye contact, he slowly began to back out of the room.
"… I'll be right outside. No one will enter."
Too quiet for Carl to hear, but a tiny "thank you" escaped Grace's lips as the suited man left.
Δ
Everything hit him so hard, Grace nearly fell into the seat, but instead clipped it and scraped his leg on the bottom chair rail.
"Mother—fudger!" Grace writhed on the floor holding his leg.
What… what the heck was his issue?!
Though as quickly as it came, it was gone. His sight must have been playing tricks on him because it almost looked like the scrape on his leg was visibly scabbing right before his eyes. Man, this was all so confusing. Okay, Astrophage, the little engines that could, were dimming the sun, but what did that have to do with where he—
Oh.
Oh God.
He was in space. That's why the gravity felt "off". He's in space. Alone. And something was deeply, deeply wrong with him.
—
It took a while for Grace to stop hyperventilating, and another couple of minutes to prepare himself for what he was going to do next.
He carefully dressed his crew mates in their clothes once he found where everything was stored. It wasn't that difficult, considering he followed the smell, not of rot, but of soft clothes and memorabilia. Moving from room to room helped give him a comparative baseline, so it was easier to separate out the different scents. If he had to have hypersensitive smell, he could at least put it to use.
He took that opportunity to get dressed himself, his possessions significantly less than the other two. He wasn't sure what that meant yet, but he put on his flight suit that was labeled with the mission logo and his name.
"Project Hail Mary"? That must be what the ship looks like too, along with their names along the bottom. Someone also thought to pack some of his personal wardrobe, so he put one of those shirts on too with the flight suit zipped to the waist.
Why not? Since he's alone out here, he is the leading authority on space fashion. Alone out here… Grace tried to dissociate from his wandering thoughts as he wouldn't be able to see where he was going through the tears.
With almost absolute certainty, Grace knew he was on a spaceship somewhere, probably to deal with the "Astrophage" problem. He would process that later, but knowing why the gravity was "weird" helped him figure out what to do with his friends.
Commander Yáo and Olesya Ilyukhina, probably the last people he would see in his life.
They were incredibly light, which makes sense considering how desiccated they were. Still, it was odd that he was able to take both up the ladder in 1.5 gravity when he was still so tired.
Was he freaking Clark Kent?
Regardless, he found the airlock and was able to send his friends off properly, and hopefully that would be enough. Even if he was able to handle the smell (which he wasn't), this ship shouldn't be their final resting place. They sacrificed themselves for a mission they never got the chance to do, so they should be among the stars that they dedicated their lives to.
It was the right thing to do. He just wished he didn't have to grieve alone.
—
After about 10 minutes of silent tears, Grace finally went to rifle through the rest of the stuff the crew left behind. He sorted it into piles of what to add to his stuff. It was a little morbid, but it's not like they would be using their spare clothes anytime soon. From what he could gather, it didn't seem like there was a way to wash clothes on the ship.
Besides, he also learned that Ilyukhina had stashed vodka in an IV bag that he silently thanked her for.
The send off really bummed him out, so Grace was just sulking on the floor against the wall. He'll get to the other mysterious holes in his memory tomorrow.
Or in 10 years.
Too early to call.
Strange thing is, he had been sipping on this bag straight up for the past 30 minutes aaaand squat.
Based on the burning taste there's no way this was replaced or watered down vodka, it just wasn't affecting him in any noticeable way for some reason. Maybe this has something to do with his condition, and he metabolizes alcohol too quickly? It makes no sense for how he had cycled through food at a seemingly normal rate, and if he was intolerant he would feel sick. There was nothing he could think of that would 100% negate the effects, so what
Grace put the bag down, unsure if there was something seriously wrong with the liquid… or him, for that matter. His memory is still shot, but he had a feeling he was never a big drinker anyway.
He put his head in his hands. Crying, confused, painfully sober, and alone in space trillions of miles from any human contact.
Δ
Grace was pacing back and forth in the hall, pulling on his hair as he considered what he was yet again being asked to do. Design breeding tanks for Astrophage? Sure. Stay out on the water in a confined space with a bunch of people for the unforeseeable future? No way.
Eva Stratt was his opposite. Still, stoic and hunched with arms crossed on the other side of the hall, holding her coffee to her mouth without taking a sip. Her eyes tiredly tracking Grace as he continued to pace.
He stopped and held out a firm hand towards her. "Okay, I know we solved the breeding problem, but you don't understand. You have to let me off this boat."
"I'm afraid I can't do that. It's not just a security thing, you've been there for every major discovery thus far, and I need to give these people the best shot possible. That means you need to train them, Grace."
"Right, right. A suicide mission, you said that. That's bad enough, but if I stay here I would be putting innocent people in danger."
"How so?"
"—Just… this is a risky plan!" Grace faltered.
Even though Stratt stayed propped on the corner of the door to the conference room, she leaned closer. He started pacing again, with renewed vigor. She tried a different approach.
"Dr. Grace, I know about your condition," Stratt voiced plainly.
Grace stopped so abruptly he almost tripped. "…What? Uh, I have no idea what you're talking about." He awkwardly scratched his head.
"If you accept, I can assure you no one will know unless you inform them, and there is already a high security 'lock-down room' on the carrier that can withstand a nuclear bomb. Only you and I would have access to it." Stratt took a step closer, and only then did he realize she was not wearing any sort of perfume this time. She straightened to her full height, unflinchingly looking up to search his eyes.
"Dr. Ryland Grace, do I have your full dedication to this mission?"
Grace stalled under Stratt's watchful eye, baffled as to how she knew what he was. He locked himself in a dingy rental storage unit once a month, for Pete's sake. He's also a middle school teacher, not exactly a guy worth keeping tabs on. Gosh, his kids would think he was so cool right now, warranting government surveillance…
It would be incredibly reckless and ill-advised, but he did enjoy returning to his passion with a fresh start, outside of academia. Logically, he knew that if he bowed out, Stratt would just bring in the next science expert in line. At least this way, he would be able to make sure they had the maximum amount of time possible to prepare.
He slowly exhaled, knowing she had him beat. "Okay. Yeah, okay. I'm in but… how did you know about my… 'condition'?"
"I did not know for sure. I used to run a government program that researched those afflicted with lycanthropy. The UN incident raised red flags, as well as when we first met. Sure, everyone has their days but I found it interesting how the closer I got to your desk the more agitated you appeared to get."
The tips of Grace's ears went red. "Fudge. March 3rd fell on a full moon, didn't it?"
Stratt gave a faint smile. "Pick any room, I'll show you where the bunker is. Welcome to Project Hail Mary, Dr. Grace."
Δ
A… A lycanthrope?!
Oh God. He's a werewolf? His name is Ryland Grace, he has a PhD in molecular biology. He's alone, in space, on a suicide mission to save humanity from microscopic aliens. Werewolves exist. And he's one of them.
It all made sense now, the "Astrophage" labels in the cockpit, the sun on the screens being from Tau Ceti and not Sol, the weird inhuman phenomena he'd been experiencing. As much as he wanted to pass that memory off as a misplaced hallucination from the coma scattering his brain, Grace knew deep down this was real.
Wait, hold on. If he's… cursed or whatever to turn into a wolf (gosh, that is so hard to go with), why would they send him? Wouldn't the rest of the crew and mission be in danger every full moon? Maybe he was a nice, lazy wolf or something. Grace was never particularly athletic, so he couldn't imagine the hypothetical furrier half of him pulling any crazy feats.
Grace stood up from the floor, wobbling.
The fur and the blood prove that something fishy happened well into the trip, if he went off of the blood scent from earlier. It seemed old, but not decayed yet.
Also, it wasn't lost on him that all his senses seemed to be in overdrive all the time, except for the actual quality of his vision. Photosensitive, yes, but as far as he could tell, he still needed his glasses.
It was all so absurd, he nearly cackled like he truly went insane.
Maybe he did.
No seriously, wait. Can there be a full moon with no moon? It can't be every 30 days because then the phases would never line up. Also, does it depend on Earth's moon? Or any moon? As far as he was aware, the planet (or planets) orbiting Tau Ceti lacked any moons, but what if there was one? What if there were multiple and he was stuck as some wolf thing that couldn't—
Grace slumped back to the floor of the lab with a dull thud, his hands grabbing at his chest as tears blurred his vision. At this rate, he'd become dehydrated. At least his water didn't seem rationed.
God, it was all too much. Too impossible. Impossibly bright lights. The oppressive loneliness, the lingering death hanging in the air, the fate of the world, the smell of his own panic sweat. His heart beating out his chest, which was so so so loud. He could hear it supernaturally well, which reminded him of his nature, bringing him back to square one. It was like the world's cruelest feedback loop.
He was unsure how long he had been curled up sobbing on the floor, but long enough for his breakdown to be loudly interrupted by his growling stomach.
Base survival instincts can overpower almost anything, especially wallowing.
The robot arm, that he decided to call Armando, picked that moment to give him another food pouch.
Okay. He ate a modicum slower this time.
Food is "done," even if he was still starving. Huh, he really hoped that if what he was changed his metabolism, they accounted for it. Now, time to try to figure out how long ago whatever happened… happened.
If this thing's on a timer, it would be better to know how much time he has left even if there's a different mechanism involved.
Grace wandered around for a while looking for a place where he would go to change on the spaceship, but try as he might he couldn't fathom any area would be reserved for the purpose of "containing" him. Not that it took long to look, as spaceships tend not to have large excess space devoid of important instruments. Considering at least two people he could remember on the project knew what he was, he doubted they didn't think of this before liftoff.
Maybe he would just have to trust that without a moon, there would be nothing to trigger him to transform. That'd be convenient. And if push came to shove, he could just close himself into the dormitory.
Does he keep his memory when he transforms? He can't remember anything right now, so that seems like a tall order.
Granted, there was some sensitive infrastructure down there, but if at some point he really did "wolf out" in his sleep (hence the fur and blood everywhere), nothing was obviously damaged as he could see.
He liked the non-destructive wolf theory a lot more than the… alternative. Hopefully it isn't painful or he'd have a warning for when it was about to happen.
If it was even going to happen.
To be honest, he could use a shower. Or the closest thing to one.
He remembered from earlier trying to find the storage where the sanitation station might've been. Looking back, the screens seemed to be ticking down in velocity, meaning he was approaching his destination. That tracks, to allow the crew some time to acclimate after waking.
Even though it was just him now.
After he scrubbed his body of the remaining dried blood, his mood improved marginally. It took awhile, he wanted to make sure he couldn't smell anything lingering because it really messes with his nose. Grace also took time to clean the blood from the dorm surfaces with some water and his used sheets, electing to figure out laundry on the way.
After getting everything situated, Grace returned to the screens in the cockpit to see how long until he reached orbit insertion. With a bit of math, he figured the trip would be about 5 more days.
There was also some sort of security cam system around the inside of the Mary. Unfortunately, when he figured out how to check it, it hadn't been activated yet, so he couldn't go back to see how his biological matter got everywhere. Figures. Why waste years of storage recording nothing happening?
Grace really hoped that with no moon, there would be no wolf. His anxiety would really appreciate it.
He went back down the dorm hatch to attempt to relax and see if any other memories resurfaced, and also to strategize on how to spend the next few days.