Chapter Text
It had taken Ryland Grace a little over 6,000,000 seconds to accept his imminent death. Again.
The first time around, life had been a little too chaotic to get caught up in the finer details of how and when it would happen. He’d found Ilyukina and Yao’s respective methods fairly early on in his exploration of the Hail Mary, so he’d known for quite a while that he had options for a quick exit when the time came, but those thoughts had never fully taken root. There was too much to do, too much to learn, and of course there was Rocky, and his millions of kilograms of “what’s relativity, question” astrophage that made it easy to set thoughts of death aside in favor of looking homeward.
The second time, however, he understood immediately that he was looking at slow, progressive, painful starvation. Choosing to save Rocky rather than return to Earth was, in many ways, an easy decision to make. It was the only decision he could possibly live with, but it had taken his entire voyage back to the Blip-A to come to terms with the cost. Rocky couldn’t pilot the Hail Mary, so Grace knew he’d have to survive long enough to make it to Erid and ensure Rocky and the Eridians had everything they needed to save their sun. The food rationing would be brutal. He would have enough to keep him alive to accomplish his goal, and no more. Nevertheless, it was a price he was willing to pay.
So when Rocky asked him how many millions of kilos of taumoeba he wanted to stockpile for the trip, something in Grace’s brain had short circuited. There was hope, yes; buoyant, dazzling hope. In the back of his mind, however, he found himself wrestling with unexpected confusion. He’d resigned himself to die—for real this time, and unlike before, he’d made the choice for himself. He’d finally found something worth dying for.
Now, he wasn’t going to die. He should’ve been happy about it. He was happy about it. Still, it was going to be painful, and slow, and there was no longer a guarantee of quick relief at the end. That, in a macabre twist of psychology, was somehow worse than waiting to die on a deadline.
“You can no die,” Rocky had told him, and Grace knew implicitly that the Eridian would rearrange the cosmos to make sure his human friend lived, “I no let you die.”
After the Hail Mary’s food stores were depleted and there was only taumoeba left to fulfill Grace’s every metabolic need, Rocky’s promise began to feel more and more like a threat. Torn between gratefulness and fear, Grace didn’t know how to cope.
“Woah,” he said to no one in particular, grabbing onto one of the zero-g handrails to steady himself after standing from his bed.
“Grace okay, question?” Rocky’s voice echoed through the ship. Even after years, Grace still hadn’t gotten used to being observed at all times. It didn’t matter where Rocky was in the ship, he’d always hear Grace’s every move. Earlier in their time together, Rocky had allowed him the illusion of privacy by keeping his mouth (or vents, rather) shut whenever he did something private, embarrassing, or stupid. As the rations grew thinner, however, Rocky’s concern had turned the Hail Mary into Grace’s personal panopticon. “Grace okay, question??” he asked again.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Grace replied, hoping the Eridian wouldn’t come looking for him. He stayed leaning against the wall, waiting for the darkness to clear from his vision. His head spun, feeling almost detached from his body. He continued on his intended path, one hand hovering over the wall in case the dizziness returned. He pulled on a quarter zip, and then a cardigan over it for good measure.
Losing weight and having to add new holes to his belt had been one thing, but the cold. It was always so gosh-darned cold, no matter where he was, no matter what he was wearing. He knew it was because his body didn’t have enough fuel to keep up the whole “warm-blooded” schtick human biology so rudely demanded. He could’ve given a lecture about the metabolic process in his sleep. He could’ve broken it down to a molecular level, maybe fashion some molecule models out of popsicle sticks and foam balls to help the more visual learners. It didn’t matter. All the knowledge in the world wouldn’t make it any easier to go to bed with cold toes and wake up with equally cold toes every morning.
Once dressed, Ryland took a moment at the door, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. He gently tensed the muscles in his legs and core, hoping it would motivate the blood to return to his brain. He was struck with the sudden memory of being a passenger on a fighter jet, the g-forces pulling all blood from his head and making his guts spin. He’d used every barf bag the U.S. Navy had thought to toss his way, and and then a traffic cone after.
“Puking is not an option,” he whispered to himself, eyes closed, willing zen between himself and everything separating him from the floor, “you’re fine.”
“New word,” Rocky announced. It sounded like he was in the lab. Grace knew he was referring to “puking.”
“Not talking to you, bud,” he replied, eyes still closed.
“Grace talk to self too much,” Rocky griped, “why talk where Rocky can hear if not talk to Rocky,” he hadn’t indicated that this was a question, so Grace assumed he did not expect an answer. It’d taken a while to explain the concept of rhetorical questions, so it was amusing to hear the Eridian incorporate them into his own speech. Grace took another steadying breath, then walked to the lab. Rocky was in the corner of the room they’d allocated for his workshop. It was the largest area in his tunnels aboard the Mary, and housed his life support, tools, materials, and the small airlock where they exchanged items. Today, he was tinkering with panels of what appeared to be Eridian steel.
“Whatcha working on?” Grace asked him.
“New container for taumoeba,” the Eridian paused in his welding and held up the steel, which had a pleasing iridescent sheen, unlike most Earthian steel Grace had seen. “Must be strong, but open easily to deposit taumoeba in Threeworld atmosphere. No xenonite.”
“Oh, good thinking,” Grace said, stepping a little closer to get a better look. One half-assembled canister sat near Rocky. It looked similar in design to the breeder tanks Rocky had designed, only these were steel in place of xenonite. After a while, Grace hummed a little approval and went over to where he’d left his laptop the previous evening. He took it under his arm and shuffled back to the bedroom.
“What you working on, question?” Rocky asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Grace lied. “Might find something to read.” Rocky gave a little chirp that Grace had learned meant something along the lines of “cool, bro” and turned back to his welding. Grace climbed back onto his bed and dug his legs under the covers. He opened the laptop and the screen came to life exactly where he’d left off, 19 tabs and 38 PDFs deep, a medical dictionary open in a separate window. He may have been a biologist, but his medical Greek was rusty. Luckily, Stratt really had downloaded everything. He clicked through the tabs like menu options.
Space anemia: hemolysis and reduced hematopoiesis as a result of prolonged exposure to microgravity
He’d been saying for years that the scientific community needed to get better at writing titles (was that why he was so uncreative when naming things?), but at least space anemia had a fun ring to it. Well, not fun, exactly, it being anemia and all, but he appreciated the terminological pizazz. It helped him feel like he was reading out of curiosity and not personal necessity.
He’d been reading a lot lately, especially since the “real” food ran out. Rocky hadn’t had any trouble understanding his explanation of vitamins and minerals since Eridian biology had parallel requirements, but when Rocky had understandably followed up with questions about what vitamin deficiencies actually did to a human, Grace had realized he was surprisingly ignorant on the topic.
He’d taught lessons about vitamins and minerals many, many times, but they tended to gloss over all the terrible details of what could happen in their absence. Sure, he knew a few things. For instance, he knew that a lack of iron (anemia, he hadn't needed to look that one up) could make you prone to passing out (‘syncope’) or almost passing out (‘pre-syncope’. Maybe before they got to Erid he’d be fluent in medical-ese). He knew that vitamin E deficiency could affect how quickly wounds healed. He knew that lack of vitamin C could lead to scurvy, but his knowledge about scurvy was limited to images of pirates and a particular anecdote of how the British Royal Navy’s response to scurvy in the 18th century was how the derogatory term “limey” had been introduced into the English language. He wasn’t sure how that last one had gotten past the amnesia. Apparently he could spare enough neurons for historical maritime trivia, but none for what vitamin B does. Good job, brain.
So he’d started to read. It did not take him long to conclude that his body was hurtling towards what was going to be, in his scientific opinion, a really, really, really bad time. But it was fine. He’d fix it. Were vitamin deficiencies a problem? Of course. But what had the last several years/centuries of his life been? Nothing but a series of problems, and so far his win-loss ratio was pretty stellar, if he did say so himself. Rocky had been a big part of that, of course, but he wasn’t sure Rocky would be able to help him out on this one.
He’d shared some details, but hadn’t delved into the worst of it. He knew he should. As bad things started happening, Rocky would need to understand what was going on, but Grace refused to have that conversation ahead of time. Maybe bad things wouldn’t happen at all, maybe he’d whip up a brilliant solution from the lab’s “who knows what they’ll need” pantry of materials and forget all about scurvy. Maybe taumoeba secretly hoarded essential nutrients in the same way astrophage hoarded energy. Maybe he’d be fine. He clicked through more tabs.
Neurological and ophthalmological impacts of Vitamin E deficiency caused by malabsorption syndromes
Outcomes of acute comorbid hypomagnesemia, hypocalcemia, and hypokalemia in adult populations ages 18–85.
Analyzing patterns of ecchymosis in a case of progressive vitamin k deficiency
He took a slow inhale, resolutely ignoring the knot of dread forming in his stomach, and pulled up the medical dictionary. He wondered if Rocky would be able to learn Greek as quickly as he’d learned English. Eridians seemed to have almost unfathomably good memory, constantly downloading information like their brain was a computer. Given access to a medical dictionary, Grace was sure Rocky would be able read through all his open tabs like it was nothing.
Once he solved the vitamin problem, he’d find a way to help Rocky learn other human languages, just for the heck of it. In the meantime, he was grateful that Rocky couldn’t hear screens.