Chapter Text
And where they find me
A star is shining,
Burning my shadow's shape
In the concrete
Grace nearly jumps out of his skin when Rocky comes crashing into his class. It’s the middle of the day, what could possibly be going on?
“Woah, Rocky!” Grace exclaims, his students all looking up to see what the commotion is. Rocky, in a xenonite suit on Grace’s side of the classroom, ignores him and starts trying to push Grace out of the setting.
“Rocky need talk with Grace now now now!” Rocky insists, still trying to herd Grace like a sheepdog.
“Wh– now now? I’m in the middle of class!” Looking apologetically up at his students, Grace throws his arms up and shrugs. Some of his students shrug back, though if it’s out of shared confusion or for the sake of mimicking his human mannerisms, he’s got no clue.
“Yes ‘now now’, Eridian scientists need Grace! Scientists find something in Erid orbit, cannot wait until later!” Rocky, stubborn as ever, continues pushing Grace to move. “Grace move move move!!”
“I–” he looks down at Rocky, then to his students, then back at Rocky. “Okay, okay, I’m going! Class, um– just do your assignments and behave…please.”
Hoping that leaving his Eridian students unattended won’t have the same end result as leaving his human students, Grace follows Rocky out the door.
“What does Grace think, question?” Rocky asks, gently rapping his claw against his xenonite suit. Grace holds the picture tablet, trying not to let the weight of what he’s seeing send him falling through the floor.
What he’s holding is a textured photograph printed on an Eridian metal alloy; significant lines and shapes are raised textures for the Eridians to read, and the overall picture is printed in colors so Grace can understand the image as well. Just because he can see it clearly doesn’t mean he’s comprehending what he’s looking at, though.
It is indeed a photo of an object stuck in Erid’s orbit, but the object itself doesn’t make sense. For starters, it’s not even a spacecraft, it’s a submarine, and a poorly made one, at that. From what Grace can see, it looks cobbled together with mismatched metal and spare parts, like some guy built it in his garage with the lights off. It’s rusted to heck and back, too, some parts completely indistinguishable through the thick layers of dirt and grime. It’s nothing like any technology the Eridians would make, and the shoddy nature of it isn’t the only tell.
It’s faint, almost imperceivable at a first glance, but Grace is holding the image as close to his face as he can get it. He has to be sure his eyes aren’t playing tricks on him, and they aren’t. Written on the side of the submarine is SM-13. Human language.
“There’s no way,” Grace whispers, awestruck. “How– what is an Earth submarine doing all the way out here!?”
“Unknown word, translation, question?” Rocky asks, creeping closer.
“Submarine, it’s like a spaceship but for exploring underwater, in oceans. How the heck did this one end up in outer space!? In a completely different solar system! This just doesn’t make sense–”
“But is real.”
“Well yes,” Grace gestures wildly with one hand, then runs it over his face and through his hair, his glasses now hanging precariously off the side of his forehead. “Has anyone gone up to investigate it?”
“No not yet, wanted to get Grace opinion on what it was, first,” Rocky shakes his carapace back and forth. “Actually, scientists were wondering if–”
“Tell them to bring the Hail Mary out of orbit, I’ll take it up there,” Grace interrupts, eyes locked on the picture.
“Grace rude, interrupt Rocky. Was going to ask anyway.” Huffing, Rocky hunches his “shoulders”. “But yes, Eridians already getting Hail Mary. Assumed you would want to go. Grace very predictable.”
Shaking his head, Grace smiles as he runs his thumb over the raised texture of the submarine, or the SM-13, as it was probably called. “A submarine…” he whispers. “From Earth.”
He’d been very clear about his feelings on going back to Earth during and after the restoration of the Hail Mary. Erid was his home, and he was happy to stay here, at least for now. It would be a long time before he seriously considered attempting the trip back to Earth. Despite this, the Eridians insisted on maintaining his ship, keeping it stocked, fueled, and in orbit in case Grace ever changed his mind. Now he’s grateful they went through the trouble, unsure if he could have stood waiting for more than a few days for the ship to be ready.
He presses his lips into a fine line. No, he wasn’t looking to go back to Earth just yet. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t still curious about what they sent his way. The faint letters and numbers SM-13 wink up at him, and Grace feels butterflies in his stomach.
A wave of unease washes over Grace as he stares out the window at the SM-13. It’s not very big in person, much smaller than he was expecting it to be. It looks big enough for only one person to fit inside, and even then it was probably incredibly cramped. But its size is not where this sudden dread is coming from.
Something is…wrong. With this whole situation. Why hadn’t Grace thought critically about this before he agreed to go back into space to get up close and personal with this thing!?
Uncanny. Was that the word he was looking for? He couldn't decide. Absurd, maybe? But that word had a connotation for humor. Nothing is funny about this. Grace certainly isn't laughing.
His eyes flit to Rocky, standing next to him, his carapace leaning forward as if he’s listening to something. Grace forces his gaze back to the SM-13.
It looked filthy before, but now that he's closer to it, Grace isn’t so sure that the gunk covering the entire capsule is actually rust. It's too dark, more red than reddish-brown. It must be something else, but trying to think about what it could be makes his head hurt.
Another strange detail Grace noticed was the lack of an entrance. There was a ladder with missing rungs crawling up one side, but it led to nowhere, the path sealed off by a thick sheet of metal and clumsy welding. There was only a small porthole window at the front of the sub, but it was shuttered. What a lonely existence. Grace shivered at the thought of being trapped inside, surrounded by cold metal walls, the only view of the outside world through that tiny window, if it was ever open.
Well, that wasn’t true, the window wasn’t the only view out. There is a camera mounted on the front, he notes. A large lens tinted red stares back at him, unblinking. It looks complex, like it doesn’t function like any ordinary camera. That makes sense, it’s made for taking pictures underwater, perhaps under high pressure, but there’s something else about it that Grace can’t put his finger on.
These observations are all puzzle pieces, but attempting to fit them together forms knots in Grace's stomach. Why did he feel this way? What’s going to happen when they open that submarine?
Rocky’s voice pulls him from his circling thoughts, but what he says sends him spiraling into new, worse ones.
“Can hear heartbeat inside. Very very slow, but is heartbeat.”
A heartbeat. A heartbeat.
“What?” Grace says dumbly. “What!? How can there– that’s not–”
“Rocky hears it. Thought it was ship at first. But listen carefully, is human heartbeat. Inside submarine.” Rocky puffs himself up, looking determinedly at the vessel. “Grace Rocky must save human trapped inside.”
Trapped. That word strikes through Grace’s entire body like cold lightning.
There’s someone alive in there, and they’re trapped inside that metal coffin. They're dying in there.
“I’ll fly us closer, you–”
“Rocky will build tunnel, like when we met first time,” Rocky reads his mind, already scuttling off to the air lock. “Align airlock with side of submarine, we cut in through there.”
“On it,” Grace calls over his shoulder, already running to the controls. They were going to do this. They had to.
You won’t be all alone out here, Grace promises whoever is stuck in there. And neither will I.
While it may look scary to whoever is inside the sub, wearing the EVA suit makes Grace feel much safer. As much as he’d love to dive right in hands first, he has no idea what they’re heading into. Rocky has his xenonite suit to protect him, it only makes sense for Grace to use the EVA suit as his layer of protection. He hopes this is just a precaution, that he won’t actually need it.
Rocky is almost done cutting through the front of the sub. The metal is surprisingly thick, reinforcing the idea that the SM-13 was made for deep sea diving. Though, this only makes the fact that it’s found its way into another planet’s atmosphere even more strange.
Grace had offered to help, but Rocky denied him, claiming he’d only get in the way. There’s no one else with them on the ship; Grace and Rocky were a perfect duo, and the Eridians had no desire to fix what wasn’t broken. There was, of course, a way to communicate with the Eridian scientists who sent them up here so they could update them on what they found or if they needed help. Grace hoped they wouldn’t need to call them about the latter.
“Rocky almost done, get ready,” he warns. Grace plants his feet and runs his hands over his tool belt, making sure everything is there. Since he’s not actually going into space and using the suit as more of a glorified hazmat suit, there’s no concern for his tools flying off into space, so he brought the good stuff with him. Test tubes, a pocket tool, flashlight, a Geiger counter, the awesome heated cutting knife Rocky made for him– he brought a little bit of everything with the hope of only needing to use some of it.
Rocky steps back suddenly, the jagged outline he cut through the hull big enough for both of them to fit through single file. All that was left to do was to push the cut out inwards, and they’d be inside. There was really no way for them to pull the piece out towards them, so they just had to hope and pray whoever was inside wasn’t near the incision.
“Alright, do it,” Grace nods, somehow able to keep his voice steady. It doesn’t matter if he’s afraid, he reminds himself. Whoever is in there is probably ten times more scared than he is, and if they’re going to save them, Grace has to be brave.
“Pushing in now.” Rocky heaves his body against the cut, the sound of scraping metal filling the tunnel. It creaks and groans like it’s alive, its agony filling the air, and Grace wishes he could cover his ears.
Finally, it gives way and collapses inwards with a thunderous clang, followed by a thudding splash! Is there water inside? Curious, Grace steps closer, peering in, and–
Hell. He’s looking into hell.
Blood covers the entire interior of the SM-13. It’s dripping from the walls, splattered over the controls, crusted on the pipes, flooding the entire floor.
And there’s not just blood, either. Amalgams of flesh and gore are growing on every available surface, purple veins and yellow boils bulging from their slimy exteriors. Some look like approximations of human organs, others are sprouting teeth and spikes of keratin, and others are just clumps of plain old meat. Regardless of their differences in form, everything is pulsating in a steady, even rhythm, like it’s breathing. Like it’s alive.
Even the disgusting smell is powerful enough to penetrate through the EVA suit. It’s metallic and rotten and raw, and for a moment Grace thinks he’s going to throw up. He forces the sensation down until the feeling passes, and he’s instead left with a desensitized numbness that’s somehow even worse than active disgust. What he’s looking at is so much, this must be his body’s way of protecting itself.
“Jesus Christ…” he whimpers, legs stiff beneath him. He can't move. Rocky doesn’t move either, doesn’t speak. What can they say? How are they supposed to react to this? How in the world could there be someone alive in there–
But there is. There could be.
Grace takes a shaky breath. He has to keep going.
He steps into the sub.
“Grace–”
“It’s fine,” He says too quickly. “Wait there, okay? I’ll let you know if it’s, um. Safe.”
“It no look safe,” Rocky insists. “Bad bad bad thing happen here.”
Now standing inside the SM-13, wading in ankle deep blood, Grace looks around for the source of that human heartbeat. As much as he wants to investigate the less disgusting parts of the sub first, finding whoever's in here is his top priority.
He takes a step forward and immediately feels something squelch beneath his boot. A full-body shudder passes over him, and he has to physically shake off the feeling before he can continue on, now much more careful about where he steps.
It's so dark, and everything is so red, it's almost impossible to tell apart his surroundings, even with the light coming from the tunnel. He turns his flashlight on and swivels his head around, trying not to look too closely at the viscera clinging to the walls. There's a binder flipped open on top of the busted control panel, papers stained red taped to the wall, and– oh, god, was that an arm!?
Grace crouches down, against his better judgment, and yes. It is a human arm, appearing to have been ripped painfully from its owner. Something wrapped around the wrist reflects his light back at him, and before he can decide if he wants to pick it up, he hears a low groan from the back of the sub. He looks up, choking on the vile air at the sight before him.
Cocooned in what can only be described as an enormous teratoma is a man, his body red and curled in on himself. His long hair is plastered to his face and neck, dried in mats of blood. Where his left arm should be is empty, facing out to the open air, the tear rough and gangrenous. The cocoon of flesh embracing the man breathes around him.
Practically tripping over himself, Grace hurries over, slotting his flashlight back in his belt.
“Are you– oh, my god…” Grace mutters, stopping himself from asking “Are you alright?”. A useless question with an obvious answer. His hands hover over the person, unsure what to do. He leans over his shoulder and shouts, “Rocky, I found him!”
“Good good! New human is okay, question?” Rocky’s bright voice sings in response.
“No, no he’s–” Grace looks back down at the stranger, blood glistening on his skin. The man's eyes are tightly shut, like he’s in pain, and he must be. There are gnarled gashes, burns, and boils covering almost his entire body, infection turning his injuries dark red and purple. No matter what Grace does, it will hurt. But he has to do something.
“He’s stuck in…in… I-I don't even know. I’m gonna get him out! Just– wait there!” Grace shouts.
“Rocky can help.” He protests, and Grace hears him coming closer.
“I know, I know you can, I just– I need to focus, please.” Logically, having Rocky come help is the right call. But Grace is so overwhelmed by everything he’s seeing right now, he’s worried he’ll start freaking out if Rocky comes in, despite his good intentions. “I’ll let you know if I need help, I promise, just…I gotta figure this out, okay?”
Rocky is quiet for a breath, but Grace hears him back away. “Rocky trust Grace, statement. Grace stay calm.”
He nods and repeats after Rocky. “Grace stay calm.”
The man beneath him makes a tragic noise in the back of his throat, the corners of his lips twitching. Grace carefully puts his hand above the bloody stump of his shoulder, a gesture he hopes is comforting.
“I'm so sorry, it's going to be okay.” Hoping he isn't making an empty promise, Grace begins digging the man out of his nest of carnage. He takes handfuls of flesh and tries to pry the man from their grip, but to no avail. There are countless veins and fatty strings of meat clinging to the man’s skin, stubbornly holding on as Grace desperately tries to pull him free. Not one to give up so easily, Grace takes out his pocket tool and brandishes the serrated knife. He saws through the threads holding the man down with little resistance, the veins shriveling up as they’re severed before going completely limp.
When the feelers are mostly gone, Grace finds there are thick clumps of muscle hugging the man’s body closer to the flesh cocoon, its pulsing getting quicker. Almost as if it's panicking. For whatever reason, it wants to keep this stranger right where he is, entombed in this living nightmare. Grace refuses to give up.
He cuts deep, ignoring the churning in his gut every time his blade sinks impossibly farther and farther into the flesh, until he's up to his wrist in the thing's guts. Blood squirts out every time he makes an incision, and the flesh writhes and squelches dramatically in turn. Like he’s killing it. Good. A dark part of Grace feels good about this, takes some small amount of pleasure in killing this parasite holding the stranger hostage. He isn't sure if that's the correct emotion to be feeling.
After an eternity of carving and shucking flesh, the man is freed. Grace pockets his tool and carefully lifts the stranger into a bridal carry, his limp head thudding softly against the front of his suit. Despite everything, Grace finds it in himself to smile down at the man, the weight in his arms a well earned reward. His smile fades as his gaze travels up, back to the teratoma. Something has changed.
All of the flesh has stopped moving. No more pulsing, no more breathing. Everything is as still as death.
Terrified, Grace looks back down at the stranger in his arms and observes him carefully. The man gurgles brokenly, but more importantly, he’s breathing. Thank god Grace didn’t accidentally kill him. Relieved, he emerges from the sub and addresses Rocky.
“Okay, I've got him, he’s still alive! I’m gonna go put him in a bed, thank god we brought the nanny bot,” he heaves. Even missing an arm, this guy is heavy. Rocky nods and approaches the opening of the sub, and a pit forms in Grace's stomach.
“Be…be careful.”
“Rocky always careful. Grace go go go!”
Grace nods once and runs off, clutching the mystery man close to his chest. He pushes any worries for Rocky’s safety out of his mind. Rocky is very strong and is wearing a nearly impenetrable suit of armor. He'll be fine. He'll be fine.
He moves as quickly and as carefully as he possibly can, having to switch his hold on the man to make it down the ladder to the dorms. As soon as Grace deposits him onto a bed, the robot arms come out and immediately get to work. He steps back, knowing he doesn't have to be here for this next part, but he can't help but linger for longer than he should. It's been so long since he's seen a living person. Grace had no idea he missed humanity this badly until this moment, his aching heart pulling him towards the dying stranger.
He has a nice nose. What? Of all the things to be thinking about, why was that his first thought? Grace shakes his head, watching as the machine begins cutting through torn and bloody clothes to properly scan the body. He shouldn’t look, he knows. It's an invasion of privacy, and seeing the extent of this guy's injuries might be mentally scarring, but like seeing a car crash, he can't bring himself to look away.
The arms peel off the man's textile collage of a shirt, and it already looks really, really bad. This poor stranger is burned terribly, yellow boils clustered over his raw skin like puss-filled soap bubbles. Those will take a long, painful time to heal, Grace is sure.
It's hard to make out the rest of the stranger's injuries. He’s so covered in blood and meaty bits from the flesh cocoon, everything just looks like a gory red blob. At least the nanny bot will be able to tell everything apart.
There are so many questions Grace wants to ask this man, the most pressing being “who's blood is all over you and the ship?”, because while he's sure most of it is the stranger's blood, there's no way it's all his. The floor of the SM-13 is practically a blood filled kiddie wading pool, and wow, what a morbid comparison that was.
Grace frowns, standing over the mystery man, the nanny bot's whirrs and beeps barely audible over the sounds of his racing thoughts.
He really hoped he was going to be okay.
He also really shouldn't be standing here, watching the nanny bot work on this naked stranger anymore. He was entering creeper territory.
Face a little pink from embarrassment, Grace turns around and goes back to the air lock. Rocky is still inside, inspecting the teratoma-adjacent clump of meat Grace extracted the man from. He steps inside, the sights and smells just as awful as he remembers them being.
“...new human alive, question?” Rocky tentatively asks, like he’s afraid of a bad answer.
“Yeah, for now,” Grace sighs. “We won’t really know until the nanny bot finishes figuring out what’s wrong with him. I hope we weren’t too late.” Grace frowns. He has to stop thinking like that. Everything will be okay, he has to believe that. The alternative is too painful to consider. Rocky hums a few notes, nothing understandable, just an acknowledgement.
“New human must live,” Rocky decides after a moment of silence. “Be companion for Grace. Make Grace happy.”
He can't help but smile at the thought. Human companionship was something he'd thought he could accept living without, and he was doing fine without it, at least he thought he was. However, the thought of having another human with him on Erid almost makes Grace forget he's standing in a space submarine literally flooded with blood.
“That…would be nice.” Grace smiles, wondering what kind of person the stranger would be when he woke up. “Let's finish up here, then we'll check on him together, okay?”
Rocky chirps harmoniously in response, and Grace gets to work.
He starts with the two pieces of paper he recalls seeing taped to one of the walls here. Though both sheets are blood soaked, he raises his flashlight to it and squints, attempting to read through the stains with little success. There’s crude drawings of paths and rocks– it must be a map of some kind. Even without the obstructive splotches of blood, the markings are smudged horribly. It almost looks like this was written with charcoal instead of graphite or ink. The only legible words are “WEIRD ALIEN SHIT” and “BUNCHA ROCKS”. Not…especially informative.
On the opposite wall, there’s a large rectangular button with white tape hanging uselessly below it in an X shape. Did he tape the button down? For what purpose?
“Hey Rocky, you know what that button does?”
“No idea, shouldn’t press it until know.” Rocky says, giving Grace the sternest look he can muster while not having a face.
“Hey, I wasn’t gonna press it!” Grace exclaims, wading over to the controls. Jeez, this blood is thick, like there’s little bits of meat floating around in it. It almost kind of feels like trying to walk through jelly. Oh, gag, bad thought, disgusting thought. Thank goodness the Eridians haven’t tried making jelly for him, otherwise he’d have to stop eating it.
In an attempt to distract himself, Grace picks up the binder on top and flips through its pages. It’s all printed in English, thankfully, but most of its text is unfortunately obscured by blood, go figure. Most of it is dried and crusted too darkly over the pages to read anything, heck, most of the pages are even stuck together. Trying to gently peel them apart with his thick gloves would only make things worse. Just when he's about to move on, he finally finds a page with at least some legible text. From what he can read, it seems to be in regards to the camera. With one hand, he holds the binder as close to his helmet as he can reasonably get it and uses the other hand to hold his flashlight. Man, this font is small. Grace strains his eyes to read as much as he can, and–
Oh. Ohhh no.
“Rocky, get out.”
“What, why, question?”
“It’s not a normal camera. It’s an x-ray.” Paling, Grace looks back to the button, to the tape that was once holding it down. “There could still be radiation in here. Go down to storage and stand near the fuel tanks, the astrophage should absorb the radiation before it makes you sick.” Rocky’s engineer status and being near the astrophage tanks was what saved him way back when, and it was going to save him again now.
Rocky doesn’t argue and runs out of the submarine. Even with the xenonite suit, Grace doesn’t want to take any chances, and it seems neither does Rocky. Any radiation he may have absorbed will be taken care of by the astrophage.
Wondering just how much radiation there is, Grace pulls out his Geiger counter and starts it up. Honestly, he didn't expect to need this at all; he only brought it because it was small and he had the room.
Grace has only used this thing once or twice, but even just holding it up to the walls and dead flesh, he can already tell these readings are high. He knows the EVA suit offers some protection from radiation, but not enough if the way the readings won't stop climbing is anything to go by. He’ll have to wrap up quickly here.
Grace figures he might as well collect some blood in a test tube or two. Why not. Regrettably, he also uses his pocket tool to cut off a few chunks of meat and puts them in each of their own test tubes, too. It might yield important results, he tells himself. He tries not to think about it and keeps exploring.
There’s a nook in the back of the sub with an old looking computer, but the screen is busted and it doesn’t appear to turn on. The open panel next to it is a mess of wires and blood that Grace doesn’t even want to bother with. He’s about to look somewhere else when he spots something odd: a life jacket, floating quietly amidst the blood. And wearing the life jacket with a knife holster securing it in place is not a person, but a black box.
Literally, it’s a black box. It makes sense for there to be one here, most submarines and even airplanes have them, in case of emergency. But typically, black boxes are actually not black at all; they're made a bright color, like red or orange, so as to be more visible amongst wreckage and debris. Well, Grace thinks, being a bright red might not have been much of an advantage in this situation. If not for the life jacket, he probably would have looked it over entirely.
At least there will be some information hidden in this. He can figure out how to get it open when he’s back home. Grace picks up the device and carries it under his arm, considering his search finished. He wants nothing more than to leave this god forsaken sub behind. Not only because this place is genuinely horrifying, but he also really wants to check on Rocky and the human. He feels anxious not having either in his immediate line of sight. It makes sense he feels that way about Rocky, but for him to feel that way about a stranger? That could be unpacked later. Right now, he needs to get the heck out of here.
However, before he can get to the opening, his flashlight catches something reflective. He stops and looks down. It’s the arm. Right, he was looking at this earlier, wasn’t he? There was something around the wrist.
Grace sets the black box down and crouches in front of the arm. He feels sick as he does, but a terrible curiosity is gnawing at him, and he knows he can’t leave this stone unturned. He reaches out to the hand, brushing past unfeeling fingers as he investigates.
Wrapped around the wrist several times over is a strip of leather. He reels the cord in, and finds something attached to it: a cracked glass pendant with what looks like a genuine sprouting seed preserved inside, perhaps a sapling of some kind? The sight enchants Grace, and for a moment, he forgets his urgency. It’s been so long since he’s seen a tree. In person, that is. The Eridians couldn’t recreate them, so the next best thing were the nature recordings uploaded to some of the ship's computers, but those couldn’t compare to this tiny little sapling’s beauty. Even with the damage on the pendant, Grace was sure the sapling could still be viable.
“Grace still there, question?”
Rocky’s voice coming in through the radio in his EVA suit startles him out of his trance. Radiation. Leaving. Right.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m still here. I’m leaving the sub now,” Grace assures him. He quickly unwinds the necklace from the wrist, cringing when he touches the dismembered limb and immediately feeling bad about his reaction. Once it's free, he slips the pendant into a pouch on his belt and stands up, hoisting the black box back under his arm as he does. “I’ve got the important looking stuff, we can detach whenever you’re ready.”
“Good good. Rocky radio Eridians, tell them about what we find. They worry for us, but I tell them we okay. Rocky wait by fuel tanks for three hundred more seconds before remove tunnel.”
Grace nods. “Sounds good to me. I’m reentering the ship now.”
When Grace has both feet back in the Hail Mary, a flood of relief crashes over him. The hard part is over. Or at least, the gross part. He truly doesn't know what lies ahead with another human on board, but knowing he doesn’t have to go back into the sub is comforting.
As that reassurance settles through him, Grace suddenly feels very sick. He doesn't want to throw up in his helmet while he's still wearing it and hurries to take off his suit. Once he has the helmet off, then he throws up into it.
Flashes of gore and blood flicker through his mind as he heaves over his helmet, hands shaking and vision blurring. Wetness rolls down his cheeks, and for a moment, he thinks he's bleeding. Icy fear shivers through him before he realizes, no, you idiot. You're crying.
And how could he not? He thinks of that half-dead man, trapped, isolated, suffering untold horrors, and he can't help but weep for him. What if no one ever found him? What if Grace and Rocky and Erid hadn't been there to save him? What fate was waiting for him in that iron tomb? Grace sniffles and ducks his head, looking into his own vomit sloshing around in the EVA helmet.
Reality slowly comes back into focus. He's not done yet, he needs to get up. He has to finish taking off this suit and check on Rocky. He can throw up and cry and scream about this all he wants once he's home, but right now he has to keep pushing. Time and place, he reminds himself.
Grace spits up bile into the helmet, wipes his eyes, and carefully stands up. It was okay. He’s okay. Everything is okay. It's going to be.
Grace closes the airlock, sealing himself away from the SM-13. He removes the rest of his suit and wonders how he's going to wash off the massive stains of blood from when he was carrying the stranger. Whatever, he'd deal with it later. He stands, leaving the suit crumpled on the floor besides the air lock controls, and goes to find Rocky. Behind him, the SM-13 is as still and silent as the grave.
Whenever Grace needs to think, he inevitably finds himself sitting on the beach. It's the calmest spot in the biodome, at least in his opinion. The technology the Eridians invented to simulate ocean waves was just as impressive as it was thoughtful, and he was so thankful for their dedication to little details like that. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine he was a teenager again, back home in San Francisco on his favorite beach. He misses that beach sometimes. He sinks his fingers into damp Erid dirt and smiles sadly. Well, as nostalgic as his beach back home is, it isn’t cool enough to be on an alien planet.
He's been out here for maybe half an hour, staring out past the water and into the horizon of the dome. He promised himself there'd be time for him to cry and freak out later, and later is now.
When they landed, the Eridians were prepared for them. Grace and Rocky kept them updated via radio and waited in orbit until they finished constructing a smaller, temporary dome inside Grace's biodome to quarantine their new friend. Why would they need a quarantine zone? Well, perhaps it has something to do with their new friend being so irradiated that the nanny bot nearly short circuited when it attempted to calculate it.
There isn't exactly a cure to radiation sickness, at least not that Grace is aware of. It's very likely that after everything that man must have gone through, and everything Grace went through to save him, he may still end up dying in the end. He's no doctor, but even he can tell it's not looking good. Eridian doctors and scientists wearing proper protection suits are working tirelessly in the quarantine dome to understand and better diagnose what's wrong with him.
One idea they had to kill the radiation was to fill the quarantine dome with astrophage and hope it “eats” the radiation over time. It’s worth a shot, Grace thinks. Generally speaking this man should be dead several times over, so throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks really can’t hurt at this point.
And that’s not an exaggeration, either. By all means, this man should not be alive. At all. Ignoring the fact that he’s absorbed at least three times the lethal dose of radiation, and the missing arm, he’s suffering from a whole laundry list of other issues. Some highlights include:
- The bends
- Carbon dioxide poisoning
- Dehydration/starvation/general malnutrition
- Isopropyl alcohol poisoning
That's just what they know so far. Out of everything trying to kill the stranger, that last one is the most shocking to him. It just seems so random compared to everything else going on.
Regardless, the fact that man continues to breathe is nothing short of a miracle from god himself. This stranger has to be either the luckiest or the unluckiest man in the entire universe. Or both.
It feels awful being away from him, as strange as that sounds. Grace doesn’t even know his name, he just keeps mentally referring to him as “the man” or “the stranger.” It’s silly for him to feel this way. It’s even sillier for his thoughts to keep drifting back to the memory of holding him in his arms, but he can’t help himself. Human touch wasn't something he got often even before the Petrova problem, and he’d made peace with knowing he may never feel that kind of warmth again. It was fine, he’d thought. He didn’t think he was the kind of person who needed it, and he wasn’t. Until now.
Grace desperately wants the stranger to beat the odds and live. He’s gone through so much already, there’s no way he can die before Grace knows his name.
Is that selfish? A little voice in the back of his head seems to think so, whispering to him whenever his other thoughts get quiet. What if this is a “he was better off dead situation”, where the stranger does eventually wake up, but he’s in constant pain and anguish, wishing he were anywhere but here. What if bringing him back was the worst thing for him? What if his life is worse now? Would he even be happy here, on Erid?
Erid. God. The Eridians are such a kind species, Grace laments, and he hopes to god it isn’t their downfall. Radiation sickness killed Rocky’s entire crew– heck, they didn’t even know what radiation even was before Grace showed up! What if, in their infinite love for Grace and humanity, they all get irradiated and slowly die off? Just because they wanted to help? He imagines his students suffering because of his actions, because he couldn’t be satisfied with the life he had here. His eyes burn, but he’s out of tears to cry.
He can’t deny himself any longer. He wants human companionship, and he feels awful for it. It’s the one thing the kind people of Erid can’t give him. They’ve given him so much already, they’re the only reason he’s alive, and he still wants more? How selfish could he be? Grace pulls his knees against his chest and closes his eyes, trying to quiet all these nosy thoughts. The gentle sounds of simulated ocean waves hum in his ears. He spends quite some time there, curled in a ball and trying to regulate his breathing. Just when he thinks he’s got himself under control, a familiar voice fills the air.
“Grace face leaking again, question?”
Grace lifts his head and finds Rocky perched in front of him, legs folded neatly under and around his body. How long has he been there for?
Unable to suppress a smile at the sight of his best friend, Grace folds his arms over his knees and rests his chin on top. “No, I’m pretty sure I’m all cried out. My eyes just hurt now.”
“Bad design. Humans weird.” Rocky teases. Grace hums noncommittally and ducks his eyes.
A foreboding silence falls over them. Unsatisfied with this, Rocky gets up and changes position, now sitting next to Grace. “Grace thinking about new human, statement.”
Grace shrugs. “How could I not be?”
“Been exciting day, Rocky understand. Rocky think about it too. But Grace need sleep. New human need sleep. Everything better after sleep.”
“I wish I could,” Grace frowns. “But I just…I can’t stop thinking about...”
“About what, question?”
“Everything.”
Rocky taps his claws against each other, his xenonite shell clinking quietly like hard plastic. “Tell Rocky about it, question?”
Chuckling, Grace flops his head to the side, staring at Rocky through blurry eyes. His glasses are hanging around his chin, smudged awfully, he’s sure. “I just feel so…strange. I know we did something good today, but I can’t help worrying about the potential consequences. I mean, we may have saved that guy’s life, but– I mean, what kind of life will he live after he wakes up? If he wakes up?”
“He live with Grace, be companion. Make each other happy.”
Grace puts his head in his hands. “What if I can’t give him that?”
Rocky is quiet for a moment. Then, without saying anything, he moves closer to Grace and brushes against his side. “You can. It may take time, but you can. Grace is best human. Grace is Rocky best friend.”
Grace’s hands fall away, empty palms facing the sky. “Even if you all get radiation sickness because of this? Would I still be your best friend?”
“No one getting sick, statement,” Rocky assures him. “Rocky feel fine, no sick. Other Eridians wearing tested anti-radiation xenonite compound. You help us discover, by the way. Save many many future Eridians. Everyone careful careful careful. No one going to die.”
A calm and steady voice of reason is exactly what Grace needs. His hand rests on top of Rocky’s carapace and rubs it affectionately. “Thanks, Rocky. I needed some sense talked into me.”
Rocky perks up. “Grace not scared anymore, question?”
He laughs. “Oh, no. I’m still terrified of what’s gonna happen next. But less than I was before.”
“Grace stupid because tired. Grace go sleep now. Rocky watch.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m getting up,” Grace sighs, stretching out his arms once he’s standing. “I’ll probably write some letters tomorrow. That usually makes me feel better, surprisingly.”
“Rocky still not understand how writing letters Grace never send helps mental health,” He says, walking beside Grace as they head home.
“It helps me unpack my emotions, I guess. Gets all my thoughts in order. It’s the next best thing I have to a therapist,” Grace shrugs. Since starting his new life on Erid, he’d begun writing letters to people from his past as a way to cope with what happened to him. Mostly Eva and his human students. Like Rocky pointed out, the letters are never sent anywhere, they can’t be. They just sit in a box on Grace’s bookshelf, collecting dust. It’s shockingly therapeutic.
Rocky just shakes his carapace and chitters, "Humans weird weird weird.”
Grace laughs, unable to argue. Sleep is somehow easier with Rocky watching him, and he could really use a good night's rest right about now. The only thing Grace knows for sure right now is that life is going to be much, much different from here on out. He looks over his shoulder at the quarantine dome, an optimistic smile tugging at his lips.
Hopefully, different would be good.