Chapter Text
Grace and I are hanging out on the Hail Mary playing different games. Grace is kind and sweet and modified the cards in a way that I can hear the differences between them. He added a raised texture to signal the suit, the rank and the “color”. He has not yet realized that just because the textured side of the card is facing him, it doesn’t mean I can’t hear his cards just as well as my own.
I haven’t told him. He talks all the time about how human children need to experience consequences before they learn. Grace is going to learn. I am going to win.
Mary rings out with a sudden announcement. “Captain Doctor Grace. Your Alarm Has Gone Off.”
“Alarm? When did I set an alarm?” Grace puts his Straight Flush face down and looks up at Mary.
“You set alarm while Rocky sleep? I not remember Grace set alarm, and I remember everything that happen on ship. Unlike you forget full ass.”
Grace stands up with an audible grunt. “I will remove the cuss words from the translator if you continue to misuse them.”
“Not misuse. Use perfectly. Stupid-Ass.”
Grace reads the alarm and is quiet. Whatever he reads he doesn’t like. He’s having an adrenaline response. Blood leaves his extremities and moves to the core. Muscles tense. Stomach clenching. That doesn’t mean things are bad per se. Grace has an adrenaline response to the strangest things.
“Grace. What wrong, question?”
“No, its ok. Nothings wrong.” He sighs, and sits back down with me. “When I turned back for you” When he had to sacrifice himself to save me. “I had a lot of free time. I calculated when the Beetles would hit earth and set a reminder for it. I forgot I did that. If everything went well, the Beetles are arriving on earth right around now. “
“Beetles reach earth already, Question? Great news!” It's only been five Earth years since Grace sent them! We’ve talked about Earth often on the trip. Sometimes after he lays down, but before he falls asleep, he tells me about the prognosis for Earth. It’s not good. By his estimation, from when we met, there were only fourteen years before most of humanity was dead. At the absolute quickest, it would take eleven years for the Beetles to reach Earth with their Taumeba payload. Many days, he wakes up from “dreams” that the Beetles reach Earth, but there is no one left who can release them into Venus’s atmosphere. When he wakes from those dreams, I hold him, and sing to him. We don’t talk after. We don’t need to.
Grace puts on a voice similar to his happy voice. It’s the voice he uses to pretend he is happy, when he is very very unhappy. He acts like I wouldn’t notice. How couldn’t I? His is the only voice I’ve heard for 51 years. I know every nuance of it, every warble, every shift in tone. “Who’s the forgetful butt now? You didn’t consider relativity. It may have been five years for us, but eleven years have passed on Earth since I’ve released the Beetles.” Twenty-two years since he was sent on this mission against his will.
Grace must be thinking of the horrible things that must be happening on Earth. I got to distract him, cheer him up. Good thing I have been planning for something like this. “Earth get Beetle! Great news! Call for Par Tay!” When I break up the word for party, I wiggle back and forth. It makes Grace giggle, his diaphragm contracting rapidly. A trick I'm able to replicate now.
Grace giggles and looks down towards me. He bares his teeth. “Mission accomplished party!”
I jazz hands up at him. “Mission done party!” Grace has used the word accomplished before, but has never added it to the translator. Unless it’s important, I am happy to keep the words between us simple. The nuance gets lost in some words, definitions shift. Grace is trying to learn Eridian, but I will always have a soft spot for when we talk like this. It’s a language of just the two of us. I scamper to my suit so I can get the party started.
I wiggle my way into my mobility suit. It’s honestly a terrible name for the suit. While better than the ball, the suit does not have the full mobility I need. We are running VERY low on unmixed Xenonite, I only have enough for one shot at this. Three of my arms have next to no fine motor ability. My two remaining arms have flexible gloved ends. Grace has one side of my carapace that he treats like a face. He doesn't think I'm paying attention until I turn that side towards him. The arms on either side of my “face” side is where I put the gloved arms. That way, Grace knows I’m paying attention to him, and showing him the respect he deserves.
Mary’s voice rings out from all of the ship’s speakers. “Please Confirm: Activate Mission Accomplished Protocol?”
Behind the wall, Grace looks up “toward” Mary and makes a face of confusion.. He has such strange rules for where he needs to face. He tilts his head up to talk to Mary, despite her being the ship itself. He tries to face me when he talks to me, no matter where I am in the ship. He said it's a sign of respect for humans to look at them when you talk to them. I think it's cute how much he goes out of his way to show he respects me.
I quickly grab my secret surprise, and come back into the room. Grace sees me and his face morphs into a face of pure, real joy. “Sure, whatever, sounds good Mary!” He runs up to me and drops down to my level (a human sign of great respect). In my hand I am holding a ration pack. It’s still 3 days before he is meant to have another one.Grace reaches for it, but he hesitates and pulls his hand back. “Is this from my ration pile or my give to the scientists pile?”
Grace swings between terrified to take an extra meal, and terrifyingly desperate to take extra meals. Thankfully it has been years since the worst of it, when the size of his stomach was first adjusting. He’s since apologized, and asked that we never talk about the things he said when he got angry and hungry. I agreed immediately.
“It's from the holiday pile.” We have three scheduled Holidays per year. Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Grace’s birthday, November 12th. I argued that we should spread them out more, but he told me those are the three days he would be saddest without a meal. I let him win that fight.
Grace’s voice waivers. “That’s alright! I guess we can decide which one to skip when we get closer to it.”
I don’t hold back the urge to tip tap my arms in a barely controlled rhythm. I don't get to give him good news much anymore. “Rocky keep big secret. Grace bad at count. Grace count 548 ration. Rocky count again after Grace. Grace miss some. Take ration Grace miss for secret surprise holiday.”
Grace is shocked. “What!? I have extras? And you never told me?”
“Grace would have demand ration past. Grace logic know need more food toward end of trip, not beginning. Grace hungry not know.” Grace doesn't trust himself with the food, hasn't for years.
“This is amazing Rocky, I love this surprise. How many extra holidays will I have?”
“Two.” I lie. I have six more ration bags.
Grace enjoys his meal while I set up the rest of the party. Grace has trained me to be ok around him eating. It's always such a positive event for him, filled with joy. Still won't focus on it if I can help it. It's SO weird.
I go to the computer and run two programs Grace and I worked on together. I turn on “Party Lights” and hope they turn on. I then light up the room with my “party sounds” program. Grace has shown dozens of songs, but this is my favorite. The rhythm bounces around the room, illuminating it in a beautiful rhythm. This song will become a hit when we get on Erid.
Grace grimaces at me. “Oh great. Cbat again. Yay.” This is not Grace’s favorite song. That’s fine. Most things we do are a compromise, a combination of cultures.
For parties, we agree on a couple of things. We have fancy lights, dance songs, and we each give each other a gift. There is a big variety in what counts as a gift. Last Christmas, Grace gave me a recording of as many phonemes as he could make. It's what I've been asking for all year! It will be an important linguistic guide and historical record for my people. Also, I can now record Grace saying silly things.
I made him a puzzle. Grace loves puzzles. It's so strange to see the levels of puzzles he finds enjoyable. Math puzzles need to be at the level of a pebbles still being schooled by their home cluster, unless he can use Mary to “cheat”. Then I give him the impossible puzzles. A famous series of ten puzzles, that if solved, would advance Erid’s understanding of the universe. He's solved 4 so far, and was annoyed that 2 of them were already solved famous problems on Earth. When we get to Erid, I will have to set up a schedule so scientists can visit him without overwhelming him.
This is a mechanical puzzle, meant to test his 3D processing and shape recognition. It’s made for nestlings, but Grace’s shape recognition is so underdeveloped, he struggles with it immensely. Perfect.
Grace has a present for me as well. It can't be a physical item, I would have heard it by now. He’s a bit bashful when he shows me, on my thinking machine. He describes it as a play list. It’s a curated selection of songs that he says reminds him of us. Its hard to hold myself back from cooing, and tucking him underneath me like a precious tiny pebble. Instead, I bob my carapace in a nod, thank him, and tell him how excited I am to listen.
After the gift exchange. Grace takes the time to show me some of the culturally significant dances from his culture. The first one is complex, and he tells me how it’s traditionally danced at important family gatherings. The Cotton Eye Joe. It’s a beautiful combination of moves that is difficult to transfer to a five limb being but I try. It’s important that Grace be able to do this when he is dancing with our family.
By the end of just one song, Grace is exhausted. Lungs constrict and contract quickly. Blood pools close to the surface of his skin. His pants sound just like an overheated pebble, the poor thing. I shepherd him to sit at the table, as he rants about his “old knees”. I have to hold back a giggle.
“I'd like to see you dance in 1.5x your normal gravity!” He shouts unnecessarily after me as I go grab him a glass of water.
“Never will. If in 1.5x Rocky gravity, Grace flat on floor. So sad.” He sticks his tongue out at me after finishing his water. I bring the cup back to its place.
By the time I get back, Grace’s heart still hasn’t normalized. His breath is still coming deep and fast.
“Grace ok?” I check in.
“Yeah, just tired. I think my dancing days are done for a while bud. Only one dance, and I'm already out of breath.” The lack of food affects Grace in so many ways. Every day is another thing taken from him. Grace takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of nose. I pat his knee.
Grace sags into his seat and smiles down at me. “Thanks bud. I really appreciate you throwing this party. “
“Great new holiday. Day Earth Saved. Many, many people on Earth party today.”
“Yeah. We hope.” Grace puts his head down and rests it on his folded arms on the table.
No. I wanted him out of this mind set. “We know.” Hmm. I hate to remind him of this, but it's important. “Grace never supposed to go back. Beetles always plan. Earth prepared.”
Grace keeps his head down and doesn't respond. Damn it, I hurt his feelings again. It’s very easy to do.
“No think about that. Think about par tay.” I wiggle back and forth.
Grace still doesn't respond. I click a couple times. His eye coverings are closed, and he’s breathing deeply. He's … asleep??
I shake him awake. “Grace last sleep eight hour ago! Grace find more vodka? Grace stupid?”
“What? No. Drank it all.” He puts his head back down. “Can we make some more on Erid? I can be a drunk tiger in a zoo, all the tourists laugh.”
I don’t know most of those words, but I still know that sentence made no sense. His breath slows. He's falling asleep again. Something is very wrong.
“Grace!! Wake up!! Armando, now!” I shake him violently.
“I'm just tired, Rock. Give me 15 minutes.” He tries to wave me away.
Ok, big guns. I scream a note just at the top of his hearing range, and just soft enough not to cause ear damage. It’s part of a game I made called alarm clock. Grace hates it.
“Ok! Ok! Jiminy Christmas, Im going.” Grace gets up and leans a lot of his body weight on me, as I lead him out of the room. He moves down the hall to medical.
We aren’t even far from the hallway before Grace wakes up more. “Ok that was a good call. I'm already feeling better. What was that?”
I don’t know. Was anything different about today? “Grace sure not eat vodka, question? Rocky not mad if so.” Grace shakes his head at me. “Food become vodka?” Grace has explained how fermentation works. Did I store his holiday food improperly? Did it ferment?
“No, trust me, I would taste it if my food fermented.” Grace lies down on the medical table, and talks up to the ship. “Armando, please run a scan. I just felt light headed, drowsy, and had a headache. The symptoms are better now, but I want to know what that was.”
Normally, when Grace asks Armando to run a scan, he will pull out different sensing devices, and explain what he is doing. This time, Armando loads a vial of medicine into its system, loads a syringe with the liquid in the vial, and moves it towards Grace. Grace Hates needles, and we specifically changed Armando’s programs to make the experience better for Grace. Armando is acting wrong.
I jump on the table, and physically block Armando’s arm from injecting the syringe. Grace sees this and rolls off the table away from Armando. He backs away placing his back to the far wall, putting his hands in front of him.
“WHOA WHOA WHOA! Hey! We talked about this! We announce what we are injecting someone with before we inject it, remember?”
Armando doesn't move, needle still ready.
“Armando?” Asks Grace hesitatingly. “Ok I really don't like this. Rocky, can you disable Armando please, before I move back into stabbing range?”
I think that’s a really good idea. I remove the syringe from Armando’s hand. I go into the machine itself and remove the vial of the medicine it intended to inject. I roll it over to Grace to inspect. He picks it up, and his jaw hangs open.
“Morphine? Why the heck would Armando try to inject me with Morphine?!” Morphine is the pain drug. Is Grace about to be in a lot of pain? I don’t know how to help. “Rocky. How much liquid is in that syringe?”
“Syringe full. Grace, what going on, question?” I try not to feel frantic.
Grace paces back and forth on the far side of the room. “Armando just tried to give me enough morphine to kill an elephant. It’s almost as if he’s trying to-” Grace sucks a deep breath of air in and stares towards the wall. He’s still for a moment, before he picks up a wrench and throws it at Armando, missing me by inches.
“Grace! Stop!” I know he’s stressed, I am too, but we can’t make it worse right now.
Grace drops down, curls into a ball, and tugs on his hair. “Oh I am SUCH an idiot! Mary asked if I wanted to run the “Mission Accomplished Protocol” earlier. I just confirmed, I didn’t even think about it." Grace tilts his head up to focus on me. “What would Mary do if she thought the mission was complete?”
I want to throw something back at him. This isn’t the time for rhetorical questions- Oh. Oh no. I understand. Everything that happened so far wasn’t an accident, it’s not because of a system failure.
The Hail Mary is actively trying to kill Grace.