Chapter Text
There is a red line in his blurry vision.
It’s vibrant against a gray backdrop, just hanging about, the color like a cut in his eyes, emitting something eerie. Like when you know space is loud, but you cannot actually hear it because there’s nothing to carry those sounds.
It looks just like the Petrova-line. Only this one doesn’t connect a bright star to its carbon dioxide planet, it hangs between his fragile teeth and the drain.
He spits out is his own saliva, and red specks cover the small sink; just like how Astrophage feeds on CO2. But if it was Astrophage, his vision wouldn’t be able to pick up the red glow without the petrovascope to translate the frequency. His gums are bleeding again. It’s bad, this time. The metallic taste fills his mouth, his spit viscous under his tongue. He drops the red toothbrush, and it clatters to the floor of the cramped bathroom. There’s no point in brushing his teeth, it’s just a force of habit. He ran out of toothpaste a couple years ago… Years? Oh, yeah. As Erid’s rings are getting brighter, he’s began getting accustomed to Eridian units and the hexadecimal number system.
His new home. The closer he gets to it, the more distant the meaning of said word feels.
“Grace? You okay, question?” Rocky’s musical notes come from somewhere the control room. Of course he heard him drop the toothbrush. He probably hears the tiniest of hitch in his breathing.
Just as Grace had learned the tiniest of tonal changes in his musical tones, his Eridian companion had picked up the tiniest of changes in his breathing. If personal space was at a premium before, it is pretty much nonexistent now.
“I’m just clumsy,” he dismisses, and gargles with some water to get rid of the taste. (He cannot fully get rid of it, of course, it’s been like that for a while now.)
“You’re always clumsy,” comes the nitpicky reply, to which he rolls his eyes. “No eye-rolling, you know I’m right.”
“Can you mute your hearing for once?” Grace groans into his hands.
“Cannot. Human body is loud. Wet and squishy. I think I have it worse, FYI.”
Ugh, Grace should not have taught him that. “You seriously gonna weaponize my own language?”
“You finished with the morning routine, question?” Rocky responds, outright ignoring him.
“You’re always in a hurry!”
“Grace.”
“Okay-okay, I’m coming, bud.”
He takes one last glance at the sink, and opens the tap. The red is gone, just like how the Petrova-line will be once they deliver the Taumoeba. Rocky cannot see colors. He doesn’t need to know.
The journey to Erid has been long, but they’ve been making use of the time. When you encounter an alien species equally as adventurous and curious as you, there is no place for boredom. There is space however, for incessant learning and silly shenanigans to not drive each other up the wall. But when you’re forced to fool your brain into thinking a cramped spaceship accelerating at one and a half g is your own living room… there’s so much the Don’t go insane room can do for your psyche.
And yet, they still found a way to get accommodated.
Grace’s pale, sunken face and protruding bones, however? They’ve been skirting around that. For good reason.
Grace finds the Eridian perched at the window of the control room. The cramped space is bathed with the yellowish hue of the control panels, and the brightness pouring steadily from the central star of the 40 Eridanisystem. Rocky’s home planet is closest to its central star, and is already visible to the naked eye, as is the system’s third planet, Threeworld, the other end of the Astrophage feeding tube.
Rocky might look like a pile of rocks assembled in a funny way, but he is anything but still. His limbs keep twitching in what Grace learned to be excitement, the radiator pieces at the top of his carapace moving up and down in a melodic rhythm. He is no longer inside his xenonite ball; not too long ago he developed and tested a new, special body suit, designed to sit on his frame, allowing him more dexterity and movement around the Hail Mary.
They have been aboard a ship built to sustain a suicide mission (emphasis on the one way trip part), so lately the computer has been especially loud (and rather annoying) about maintenance work needed either inside the ship or outside on the hull. Small fixes Grace was more than capable of performing on his own via Rocky’s guidance, however, lately, with the more and more strict rationing, the loss of significant muscle mass and his newly developing scurvy, he’s been unable to finish physically taxing tasks.
This new suit had been in development for a while, and with Grace’s condition deteriorating, Rocky needed to push forward the project as much as he could. Grace expressed concern over the haste several times (and was blatantly ignored), but so far the new body suit is working exceptionally well, and it allows Rocky to take most of the load off his companion. (Of course the suit is perfect, Rocky is a genius engineer, he never allows mistakes to slip through, ever.)
Grace reaches Rocky, and hates how he is already out of breath. He just hopes his friend is too enamored by the sight of 40 Eridani to notice. (Even though he knows Eridians are the epitome of multitasking.)
Maybe Rocky is feeling a bit more lenient today because he keeps any remarks he more than likely has to himself, and taps on the window with barely contained joy, “Look!”
The central star is so bright now that it is hard to gaze at through the tinted glass. Grace lifts a pale (and a bit shaky, but he refuses to acknowledge that) hand to the window to block most of the light, and that’s when he picks it up; a bluish hue near the star, its rings stretching far out, a beacon on the all-black canvas. It’s incredibly small; they are still three Earth months away from docking, but it’s significant enough that even Rocky’s texture board picks it up. A tiny bulge in the sand. Home.
In three weeks time they will be within range to send their first radio transmission to Erid. Eridians are way behind humans when it comes to space travel, and even though Rocky suspects their technology have advanced rapidly in the many years of his absence to be able to receive the Hail Mary’s broadcast, he doesn’t want to spook his fellow space engineers with an ambiguous alien signal.
“I want to make sure they will understand my intentions so they can prepare for our arrival adequately,” he argued. He’s always had zero tolerance for mistakes, and ever since the prominent deterioration of Grace’s health, he’s not taking anything at face value, and not just because he has no face to begin with.
A smile pulls at Grace’s dry lips, momentarily erasing his worries and pumping hope into his veins. He starts tapping on the glass playfully; it elicits a sound not unlike the xenonite barrier. Rocky copies the motion, his suit making a louder thump, almost like musical notes.
“Remember when we first met and you started tapping on the barrier to coax me to turn around?” Grace reminisces.
“Of course I remember,” says Rocky, huffish. “You were a really slow-witted human. Still are.”
A genuine laugh tears its way from Grace’s mouth. If he tastes the copper again, he attributes it to the lack of spices in his empty-calorie breakfast.
“Spent forty-six human years alone, and I was ready to turn the Blip-A around,” Rocky continues, his gloating and joy evident in his undulating musical tones.
“Cut a dying man some slack, Rock!” Grace huffs out a laugh, but Rocky tenses, and now he does look like a pile of rocks.
The constant hum of the Hail Mary is loud. The central star of 40 Eridani too bright. The thrust of several thousand kilograms of Astrophage fuel too taxing on Grace’s fragile body.
“Don’t say that.” Rocky’s musical tones too rattling. “Don’t ever say that.”
“I’m sorry—”
“We’re almost there. You hold on. You promised to hold on. We arrive. Eridian scientists find a fix.”
Grace turns his head away. He should take a peek at the monitors. Is their acceleration going according to plan? The gravity feels off. Where is his calculator? He should check. He is good with numbers. He is not good at handling this new kind of barrier that’s been forming between him and his best friend. They already have a wall they can never tear down. Grace cannot bear another. Not now.
Funny. He used to build these walls himself.
He needs to wet his lips before he continues, “My gums are bleeding again.” Rocky’s carapace turns towards him, a slight tremor running up his limbs. “It’s… I’m no medical expert, but I just feel… Something’s off. I’m sure I’ll survive the trip to Erid, but how long before your scientists find a way to feed me? I’m an alien life form from a completely different star system. I know we have our panspermia theory, but even if they succeed, it will still take time. Time I’m not sure I have. Ignoring it won’t nullify the risk, Rock.”
“I’m not ignoring it!” Rocky stomps two of his limbs, and it rattles his entire body. “But if I linger on it, that’ll just freeze me. I won’t find a solution if I spend every waking hour worrying over something fixable!”
“Bud—”
“No! You’re actually worsening it for yourself with this attitude. It’s dumb dumb dumb! Had we let doubt dictate our actions, we would’ve never found Taumoeba!”
“I know, but—”
“You know I’m right.”
“Yes, but—”
“So how is this any different, question?”
Grace doesn’t have an answer to that. Actually, he does have one, but he opts to keep it to himself. Admitting it won’t help either of them. He admires Rocky for his resilience and persistence, and he really wishes to absorb his endless optimism, but when he takes a look at it, it’s so clearly fraying at the edges. Is it really optimism, or some kind of defense mechanism?
For an engineer of his talent, he does not know how to manage it.
Grace takes a deep breath. His chest expands with a burning sensation, but this is no longer about him, so he ignores the discomfort. “I think it’s time we address the elephant in the room, buddy.”
“I don’t understand,” Rocky replies with a low hum, annoyed.
“We need to do something about your trauma,” Grace finally lets it out, and he hates how difficult it is to speak. He can breed entire farms of nitrogen resistant Taumoeba, but when it comes to brain chemicals and feelings? This isn’t like Astrophage, he decidedly should not poke it with a stick.
But if they leave it untouched…
“I don’t understand again,” Rocky says, his carapace dipping. Grace thinks he has an inkling, but since he hasn’t cussed him to Erid and back yet, it might be safe to proceed.
“I just want to prepare you for contingencies. You lost your entire crew to something outside of your control, and it hurt you. Maybe even beyond repair. I understand why you’re putting so much effort into preventing it from happening again, but what you’re doing isn’t preparation. It’s avoidance. I know you think you’re protecting yourself from the brunt of it, but… I’m not saying my death is imminent, okay? But it’s still a possibility. I just… I want you to be able to handle it in case it happens.” Grace has to swallow hard around the lump in his throat. The metallic taste arrives tenfold. “I know you by now. You’d blame yourself. You’d drive everyone willing to help away. You might even scare Adrian away. A damaged self can do such a thing, trust me. And… I don’t want you to suffer alone if I’m no longer here, okay? Thumbs up?”
Rocky stays silent, but the tiny radiator pieces on his carapace tremble a little. If he had eyes, he’d be avoiding Grace’s right now.
“I will not prepare for an event that is not a possibility,” he says after a while, musical notes firm, low. “I understand if you don’t trust the Eridian scientists. You’ve never met them. But you should know you can always always always trust me. So why don’t you?”
“What? Rocky, that’s not—”
Rocky stands, the xenonite suit reflecting 40 Eridani’s light source. “I have unfinished work. You rest. Conserve energy. And eat. I maintain Mary.”
Grace is left alone on the cold hard floor, with Erid’s blue dot in the distance, awaiting. There is no twinkle to it when viewed from space. He really, really wants this planet to be home. But his head is getting foggier by the day, his muscles (or what’s left of them) are getting weaker, his motor functions laggier. And something’s still off about the gravity. He wants hope to fuel him like it fuels Rocky.
But he also wants to cushion his friend if there will be no more ground to stop his free fall.
.
The day is officially ruined. Grace can’t stop thinking about their conversation. He cannot stop envisioning Rocky’s dipped carapace, cannot unhear the low, agitated musical notes. And he cannot, for the life of him, hold his coma slurry and Taumoeba cocktail properly in his shaking hands. He takes a miserable sip, and almost throws up all over his shoes. It tastes worse than before. Too metallic.
His gums are bleeding again. Oh, for crying out loud!
He feels faint, more so than usual. His quarrel with Rocky must’ve drained him. Not even impending doom can wear him out, but one argument with his best bud will do the trick. He cannot find his footing. He sits down, and it hurts. He lies down, and it hurts even more.
The ship hums on.
“You find this funny, Mary?” Grace slurs and trips on his own foot. And drops his cocktail. It makes a mess, naturally.
Great. Where is he keeping the mop again? He’s pretty sure he made a human doll out of it when he was alone and amnesiac. Ugh. He wishes his memories were wiped clean again, so he wouldn’t know what that concoction he is trying to force down his throat is.
Memories. Hm. He is pretty sure he is forgetting something. But his mind is mushy, mushier than that mixture on the floor.
When Rocky and him figured out he can consume Astrophage’s predator, they engineered special plastic bottles he could keep his rations in, so the Taumoeba food will not come in contact with anything but the plastic bottle, the hermetically inserted straw, and his own digestive enzymes.
Grace can somewhat hear Rocky’s voice in the back of his head, “You must consume Taumoeba before Taumoeba consumes.”
Funny. Why would his own food want to eat him?
He falls asleep not long after that.
And wakes up in cold sweat several hours later.
The Taumoeba doesn’t consume him, it consumes Astrophage.
He can still see the mess he made on the floor before the lights completely cut off.
He never curses. He curses now.