Chapter Text
Ryland Grace’s glasses hung by his chin as he squinted into the eye piece. The sample on the slide slowly came into focus as he increased the magnification to 600x, then 1000x, and finally sharpening at 1500x. Blood cells wiggled across his vision.
Yup… it was definitely blood. Now for the fun part.
He grabbed a small plunger of prepped solution and swung the stage free so he could add the liquid to the slide.
There are, of course, many ways to identify human blood. Some ways are more precise than others. But a peripheral smear is low-tech, quick, and most importantly, the most fun.
The slide clicked back into place, and Grace made a few slight adjustments. The solution dyed the entire sample blue, staining one large, white blood cell and the surrounding red blood cells. He could tell right away that this sample was from a mammal. Red blood cells in different animals had different structures, at least the animals from earth did. For example, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds have a nucleus in the center of their red blood cells, making the structures look like tiny, oval eyes. But the red blood cells of mammals (including humans) lack nuclei and other internal structures. They have a biconcave disk shape, with their centers thinner than the periphery. To put it simply, they looked like tiny donuts that hadn’t had their centers properly removed. They were hole-less donut cells.
These cells were typical of those Grace would see if he pricked his own finger and looked at a drop of his blood at a high magnification.
He frowned into the microscope. Human blood. Now that was… concerning.
He glanced up at the familiar clattering of Rocky’s dome and started talking before the Eridian had even entered the room. He knew Rocky could hear him, even if he spoke at a normal volume.
“Your hypothesis was correct! I don’t know how, but this is definitely human blood. It has all the–”
“Interrupt you, Grace. Importance!”
Grace started to protest, but Rocky didn’t let him. He waved two of his arms emphatically, as if he didn’t know how to express himself.
“Strange human is awake!”
—
The last thing Simon remembered was drowning.
The taste of metal on his tongue. The heaviness of his clothes. The way the blood forced its way into his throat, into his eyes, into his lungs. The pain of panic as his muscles seized and fought against the invasion.
It burned its way inside him, and he involuntarily inhaled, choking it deeper.
“Simon!”
Simon felt his heart thump painfully in his chest. His one last act of defiance. A voice was calling him to the surface, but he continued to sink further away from it. His arms were useless lead at his sides. He felt so heavy…
Thump.
The pressure of the blood ocean pushed at him from all sides until there was no sense of up or down. Only burning pain and the wrong-ness of his flesh as he split apart.
Thump. thump. thump…
He had lost. After everything he had done to survive, he still lost.
I’m sorry, mom…
—
“Eye movement detected.”
The sterile voice came from everywhere at once. Loud and robotic.
Simon tried to open his eyes. His lashes fluttered with effort, letting in a fraction of bright light. But they did not open. He would have thought he was dead if it weren’t for the pain. His face seared with it as the muscles of his jaw worked. His tongue sat dry and heavy in his mouth.
His throat was raw, but he managed to swallow. A low groan vibrated his throat.
“What is two plus two?” the robotic voice said.
What the fuck?
The white light stung his eyes as he forced them open, his vision blurring in protest at the sudden sensory overload. He was laying on his back, facing directly up at a whirring, robot claw.
Instinctively, he made to roll to the side, but his body screamed in protest. Something clattered to his right as he managed to swing his arm out. Simon panted, his vision growing dark as he struggled to hang on to consciousness.
The metal arm did not seem phased by the weak attempt at escape. “What is two plus two?” it repeated. Its digits opened and closed in an impatient gesture.
Simon’s heart fluttered like a hare’s. He could feel its desperate, persistent rhythm against his ribcage.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He was alive.
—
Rocky beat Grace to the med bay, the Eridian’s limbs scrabbling along his xenonite tunnel.
“Rocky, wait!” Grace called ahead, fumbling with his glasses. It had been a long time since he had seen Rocky this animated. But not everyone would be glad to wake up on a strange spaceship, face-to-face with an alien rock-spider-thing. Especially in the state they found the stranger in.
Rocky trilled a few notes in response and didn’t slow down.
The dormitory sat between the lab and the med bay. Half of it was a kaleidoscope of clear xenonite glass, the structure part tunnel, part living space for Rocky to store supplies and sleep. It was slightly larger than the makeshift tunnels Rocky had constructed on the Hail Mary, but functioned the same. Rocky had already disappeared into the med bay, his tunnel narrowing and passing through the wall right next to the doorway.
The med bay was one of the few parts of the ship that still had an air-tight lock (or, “boundary” as Rocky called it). A feature Grace had insisted on, in case of any emergencies that required the med bay to be quarantined from the rest of the ship.
He pushed the med bay door inward and was immediately met with a confused ♪♫ from Rocky.
It looked like the man had tried to get up and failed. A small med tray beside the bed had scattered across the floor, spilling a small cup of water. NannyBot twitched as it followed the stranger’s movements, ready to assist if necessary. He had propped himself on an elbow and was leaning away from the side of the room where Rocky stood in his glass tunnel.
“Strange human is friend, question?” Rocky trilled nervously.
“I don’t know yet, bud,” Grace said. “I’m going to need you to be patient.”
The man whipped his head around at the sound of Grace’s voice. The moment they locked eyes, Grace saw the panic take hold of him. The stranger scrabbled back, feet kicking in an attempt to put space between them. NannyBot beeped in protest as he hit the floor hard and his IV tore free.
A thin red line splashed onto the floor. The sound that ripped from his throat was animalistic and raw.
Rocky let out an alarmed chirp and Grace stumbled forward. “Hey, hey! Stop!”
The stranger pressed against the far wall, curling in on himself. His chest heaved. Bandages covered most of the left side of his face, partially obscuring one eye. A wolf in a foxtrap, teeth bared and ready to snap.
Grace froze with his arms half-raised, palms out. “Stop– It’s okay! You’re okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
When they first found the man, he was unconscious and partially submerged in what looked like an ungodly amount of blood. Definitely more blood than one human body could contain. (Which Grace guessed was an average of 5.6 liters for a man his size.) Some of it had coagulated, but most sloshed inside the hull, threatening to drown the man. The rest had stiffened what was left of his clothes and dried his hair in a matted helmet against his skull. He had suffered injuries mostly to his left side, the flesh horrifically torn across the side of his jaw and his left arm completely lost at the midpoint of his bicep. He had been barely recognizable as human at all.
At least now, Grace was seeing the stranger’s features clearly for the first time. Nannybot had cleaned him up best it could in the thirty-two hours since they brought him onto the ship. Only a small trace of rust-colored blood still clung to his temples and darkened some of his bandages. His dark hair hung in loose waves to his shoulders and bandages wrapped around his chest and amputation. He looked strong – much stronger than Grace. He would be nervous if the man didn’t look like he was on the verge of passing out.
“I’m just going to sit, so we can talk,” Grace said, slowly reaching for the back of a chair and lowering himself into it. The man’s right eye tracked Grace as he sat in it backwards, hands on the back support.
“You are aboard the Hail Mary, or technically, the Hail Mary 2. We’re still debating whether or not we should call it the second Hail Mary, since so much of its structure remains the same from the original–”
“Not important, Grace.”
“Uh, right.” Grace rubbed his face in his hands. “The point is, you are on our ship. We are currently in the Sirius star system, where we discovered your vessel. The SM-13? That’s what it said on the side of your… ship.”
Grace watched the man, hoping for some sign of recognition. The vessel they had pulled him from looked more like a crude submersible than something designed for space travel, but Grace was feeling polite. From his brief look inside the structure, he knew it had a rudimentary navigation system, but the whole thing had been beaten to hell and completely sealed from the outside. Rocky had to cut through the solid iron exterior with a sawblade just to get to the man.
“H– how…?” The man on the floor spoke for the first time, his voice cracking with the effort to get a single syllable out.
Grace’s eyebrows raised slightly. Good, he speaks English. That’s one major bridge we wouldn’t have to cross.
On the other side of his barrier, Rocky tapped his limbs on the glass eagerly. “Rocky save strange human. Rocky hear heartbeat.”
Grace sighed and gestured to Rocky. “The Hail Mary picked up a faint radio signal and we diverted our route to see what it was. Rocky heard your vitals as we approached and operated your extraction himself. It’s really him you have to thank. It was a risky operation.” That last sentence was purposefully pointed, and his tone was not lost on the Eridian.
“Worth it, statement.”
Grace ignored him. “My name is Dr. Ryland Grace, but you can call me Grace. Everyone does.”
The man’s eyes fluttered as he fought to maintain consciousness. His remaining arm, which had been holding him slightly upright, gave out, and he fell back against the wall.
“Simon.”