Chapter Text
[Journey to Earth will take 4 years, 2 months and 11 days.]
Ryland looked to his right, at the empty space—what used to be occupied by Rocky, the xenonite frame of his containment still remained, a souvenir to bring back home to Earth. He thought about the quietness that began to creep inside the Hail Mary again. The hum of the engine. The vacuum of space. It used to be like this, until he met Rocky. Now he was left with his own mind as a companion, again, as always.
“4 years, huh.”
[Would you like to be in an induced coma for the journey, Dr. Grace?]
“No, thank you, I think… I’ve had enough of a coma,” Ryland looked to his left, at the vast darkness of space. “For now.”
[Would you like to be in cryostasis for the journey, instead?]
Ryland blinked. Then frowned. Frowned hard.
“Cryostasis? What do you mean cryostasis—wait, do we have a cryo chamber all this time? Is that even possible?”
He began looking around the layout plan of the ship, checking at all the labels and swearing to himself that he had checked all of these before, countless of times, pretty sure something as insane as a cryo chamber would catch his eyes.
“Where is this cryo chamber, Mary?”
[The cryostasis chamber is located at the Medical bay.]
Ryland took a deep breath to stop himself from cursing. He unstrapped himself from the pilot seat and scrambled to the Medical bay area. It couldn’t be here, but it must be here, where else would a goddamn cryo chamber be, anyway? In front of the toilet? Surely not.
“No, yeah, I know it’ll be in the Medical bay, but where exactly is it—”
[The cryostasis chamber is located inside bed chamber number 2.]
“What?”
Ryland searched around for the bunk in the middle, Ilyukhina’s. He had cleaned everything, tidied it, fairly sure there wasn’t anything like a refrigeration mechanism in it. That was until he saw the discreet blue light at the inside of the chamber and the word Cryo written on it.
“Why did they….huh.”
Dr. Ryland Grace was never a spaceship engineer, he didn’t attend the ship design meetings, anyway. Why would he know or not know that there was a Cryostasis chamber inside Hail Mary. Why was it even included in the ship—on a second thought, he could think of many things that would benefit with a functioning cryostasis chamber. Why was it hidden in such a place? Maybe it wasn’t fully completed? Was it a scrapped idea that didn’t get fully scrapped?
“You said this could be used?” Ryland asked to the room.
[The cryostasis chamber is currently unavailable for use due to full capacity.]
His eyes balked out and his voice turned a shrill. “Full capacity—What the he–ck does that even mean—”
Ryland backed away, searching for any sort of information display for the cryostasis chamber. He found no display of what’s inside the chamber. However, he found the label ‘In-use’ next to some buttons. One of the buttons said ‘Unfreeze’.
He hated this.
“What happens if I press this button,”
[The cryostasis chamber will begin the unfreezing process.]
“That was a rheto–… nevermind.”
He took a deep breath, backed away again to sit on the floor, and thought. Stalled.
“What’s inside the chamber?”
[Adult human male. 1.]
Ryland’s heart stopped for a beat.
A person.
Another person was inside this goddamn ship all this time.
Ryland stood up from the floor, crawling inside the chamber again to see at the side of it. The cryostasis chamber seemed to be stored at the space in-between the beds, within the wallframes. It used the same entry as bed number 2.
“Who is this, Mary?” He squinted at the linings. No visible glass or anything to see what’s inside.
[Identity: Unknown.]
Something sank in his stomach.
If he was about 70% on pressing that ‘unfreeze’ button before, now he was 42% going to press that button. And the more he looked at the lining of the wallframes, the more that percentage dropped.
Why would they send someone with the Hail Mary, outside of the three of them? Who is this person? Are they even alive?
Ryland voiced that last question.
[Vital signs of the current occupant could not be identified due to the cryogenic process within the cryostasis chamber.]
He absolutely hated this.
Here he was, just an hour ago, feeling brave and happy, dare he said, at what he had accomplished with Rocky. Happy at the prospect to return home, though there was confliction within, but he was still unpacking that. Happy for Rocky, of course, very much so. Sad to say goodbye to his friend, even more so. But ultimately, Ryland was content, at peace.
What kind of sick joke of a situation is this?
“If I were to press this button, how long would the unfreezing process be?”
[Unfreezing process will take 2 hours to reach consciousness.]
2 hours to decide what to do with this guy before they wake up. 2 hours to decide if he’ll be having a companion or kill a man in space.
Ryland Grace pressed the button.
[Cryostasis Chamber activated. Initiating the unfreezing process.]
It took roughly 10 minutes for the system to boot up the process. He thought the individual would be brought out right away, but it took another 45 minutes for the thawing process to commence inside the chamber. After an hour, the chamber was finally pushed out from the hole to a very stressed Ryland.
The chamber was made of vacuum double glazed glass, it was fogged and had ice crystals inside that obscured the individual. But Ryland could clearly see what’s inside.
Or rather, who’s inside.
A man. Hair trimmed neatly with a matching set of neatly trimmed beard. Looked as if they were fresh from Earth, not like how he was when he woke up from the induced coma. The cryostasis process had succeeded, if the biological function of this man recovered, he’d be the first man alive to successfully go through the cryostasis process, in history.
Ryland tried to focus on that scientific fact, and not at how the sight of the man’s face made his head hurt insanely. He dropped to the floor, cradling his head. The man’s face was familiar. Too familiar. And it hurt like a motherfudger as well.
It was watching his memories flooding all over again, but this time it was harder. Too vague, all that he felt was that he knew this person—should know.
And above all, something ached within his chest cavity.
Ryland was so occupied with his own pain of remembering that he barely registered the hiss of the hydraulics opening the glass chamber.
[Eye movement detected.]
Ryland looked up, wobbling to stand up to reach the opened chamber. Cold freezing air still seeping out of it, hitting his skin with a very clear ‘This is some bullshit territory’ kind of surreal. And that’s a lot, coming from someone who had spent the past couple months with an extraterrestrial sentient rock invading his personal space whom he had the pleasure to call friend.
His eyes glued to the man’s face and his chest ached even more.
[Eye movement detected.]
There was a grunt.
Ryland saw the chest moving. Of eyeballs turning around behind those closed lids, the scrunch of a face waking up for the first time in God knows how long.
He waited in bated breath.
He also cursed himself silently for not preparing with any sort of weapon—just in case.
[All vital signs are stable.]
“Wh…”
Rough, was the first impression of that sound.
A gray pair of orbs squinted around in a trained manner. They landed on him who stood right next to it.
Those eyes locked on him immediately, opened wide awake.
“You’re…”
“Dr. Grace.”
Ryland whipped his head around to find Eva Stratt approaching him with a set of personnels behind her.
“I’d like you to meet Agent Six. Dr. Grace, Six. Six, Dr. Grace.” Both nodded at each other during the introduction, one that was brief and the other more on the confused side.
A man, slightly taller than himself, dressed in a gray suit with a black shirt underneath. Dirty blond hair that looked almost brown. Neatly trimmed beard. Stood perfectly on Stratt’s left side
“Agent Six will be your new bodyguard. He’ll be guarding you 24/7 from now on during your work at Project Hail Mary.”
“I-I thought Carl was my bodyguard…” Ryland glanced at Carl, who stood on Stratt’s right side, with a confused frown and unsure blinks behind his glasses.
“No, I just let you borrow him.” Ryland nodded a quiet ‘I see’. “Agent Six here is your new bodyguard. He worked for the CIA.”
“What’s that, like, you do government and espionage kind of stuff?” Ryland put his hands inside his cardigan’s pockets, darting his face to the addressed man.
“You could say that.”
Deep. A sense of aloofness and not much of anything else. Ryland was going to really miss Carl.
“Right. Dr. Grace, Six.” Eva Stratt nodded again to them and left with Carl in tow.
A whole minute passed between them just, sort of staring at each other. As if challenging which one of them will be the one who made the first move or noise.
It was Ryland, of course. He’d never win this kind of contest.
“So, what exactly do you do at the CIA?”
“Government stuff.”
“Public or secret ops?”
“Secret ops.”
Ryland tilted his head a bit while Agent Six remained stationary, no break in his expression nor posture.
That’s fine. He could work with this. He made Astrophage babies with Carl, anyway. He could definitely make more with a CIA operative.