Chapter Text
"And for that reason, capitalism is unnecessary. Are there any questions?" asked Grace in his pebble class, as one of the children, a small red Erid, raised his arms.
"Ah yes, Ruby?" he called on the little pebble.
"Is Grace missing the earth, question?"
Grace chuckled a bit.
"Definitely not capitalism," he replied to her, and saw as a blue pebble excitedly raised its hand. "Yes, Achat?"
"Does Grace miss other Graces Question?,"
"Well, first of all, Grace is my last name," he explained to them. "I belong to the species of humans."
"So Grace misses other people?" The pebbles looked at him excitedly while Grace looked around uncertainly and pressed a button.
"Oh, school is over," he said as a bell rang.
"It was fun, remember to turn in your essay in two days," he said to the little ones, who then crawled away. Sighing, Grace watched the little ones go and then headed to the beach, watching the waves.
"Does Grace miss the other Graces?" This question was harder for Ryland than he had thought.
He was not alone on this planet. He had Rocky and Adrian who visited him daily. He had his students and could also talk to other inhabitants of the planet without any problems. But when he was alone in his little world, it was that he missed human company. Not of a sexual nature, that didn't matter to him, but talking to a person, discussing without having to explain how people work, that was something he missed.
He then looked up at the artificial sky and noticed something. At first, he didn't think much about it, but the more he thot about it, the less he could ignore it. //Weren't a few stars missing here? //, he went into his house and asked the Hail Mary computer.
"Hey Mary, please give me an accurate record of the stars," he said, to which the computer showed him a star map. Everything was unremarkable, all the stars in the star system were there.
"Okay, how does the Milky Way look?" he asked, to which the computer displayed a blank map. Ryland blinked several times. "Um, Mary, is something wrong with the system?"
"The system is functioning correctly," he heard the familiar voice of the computer say.
"Then show me a current image of the planets of the known solar system, where are Mars and Saturn?"
"Saturn not found," the computer replied matter-of-factly.
"Then from Jupiter, then," he said, confused, and began to check the star system.
"Jupiter not found"
Now Grace became nervous. His heart raced, and he almost didn't dare to ask the question. "Mary... where is Earth?" he asked, a queasy feeling in his stomach.
"Earth not found." "Solar system no longer exists"
This answer made Ryland's legs tremble. "P... "Please repeat," came trembling from him as he sat down in his chair.
"The solar system no longer exists," the computer repeated, causing Grace's throat to constrict.
//There must be an error//, he had only noticed that a star was missing, namely Mars. Yesterday he had still seen it. He knew the stars were disappearing and looking at the sky wasn't the most current thing, but that was not possible.
He ran his fingers thru his hair, his glasses askew on his face, and a strange thot came to him. //How long have I been gone already?// Grace had used a calendar less and less since he had been here. He had gotten used to the sunny hours. But they were artificial.
He stayed awake all nite and went thru the computer's system. Everything was running perfectly, then he looked at the computer's update list. The last update was.
//That can't possibly be true//, he thougth as he sipped his coffee. He knew that a satellite transmitted updates. With a certain delay, of course, after all, he was now in another star system, but the last update was 20 years ago according to the Earth calendar.
Almost panicking, he ran into his bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked the same as always, or had he gotten more gray hair or wrinkles? No, he looked the same as always. But why?
Breathing heavily, he held onto the sink and tried to understand how it all fit together. The vanished solar system, his not aging.
He went down to the living room and poured himself a glass of whiskey. He had only been able to synthesize alcohol of this quality for a few years, thanks to Adrian and his team. He also had a good selection of fruits and vegetables (garlic was still missing,
it was somehow very difficult to synthesize) and his meat menu was planned out from burgers to sushi. He had even been able to make vegan desserts thanks to Adrin, because it was still a bit difficult, but by now he liked oat milk.
//Wait a minute//, he thought to himself and looked at his drink. He took it and went to the lab to analyze it. Carefully, he poured the contents into his analysis device.
"Mary, analyze this," he said, pacing back and forth tensely while running his fingers thru his hair repeatedly. His paranoia had taken over. He went thru the report and looked over the usual substances. Hardly anything unusual, alcohol, a few substances for flavor, but one substance was strange. He read it thru again. Unknown.
He took the leftover cheesecake from today's brunch with Rocky out of his fridge and had that checked as well. Again, there was that substance.
He decided to analyze it more closely. The substance was a combination of vitamin D and omega-3. //Not bad in itself, wait, are those stem cells? //, now he recognized upon closer inspection what this was. They were stem cells, stem cells that had been improved.
Skeptically, he grimaced and pondered. Adrian provided him with enhanced stem cells. But why? He calculated how long he had been here now. He didn't like celebrating his birthday. Why celebrate when he was a complete failure on Earth? While he continued to rack his brain, there was a knock at his door and he turned on the door camera.
Rocky and Adrian were here with their two children. "Damn, I didn't sleep all night," he thot to himself and could already imagine what he would have to hear from Rocky and Adrian.
Tired, he went downstairs and opened the door. "Hey, good morning you four," he said with a smile as Ruby and Amathyst excitedly ran to Grace to hug him.
"Hello my Geodes, can't you get thru the weekend without your teacher?" he asked jokingly.
"Not Teacher-Grace today," said Amathyst, a small purple Eridian with some crystals on her elbows. "Today it's Uncle Grace," Ruby squeaked excitedly, and Grace couldn't help but stroke both of their heads.
The blonde man remembered well when the two of them hatched. It had been a very hot day, and they were one of many nests that had hatched in a long time, as it was too cold on Erid due to the Astrophages. The air had been filled for several days with the songs of the adults welcoming their offspring.
"Grace, haven't you slept again, question?" asked Rocky skeptically as he looked up at his human friend.
"Guilty," Grace said calmly, raising her hands.
"Grace should sleep more, should Rocky and family sleep here with Grace, question?"
Excitedly, the pebbles hopped in place and yipped happily. They loved staying over at their uncle's.
Grace sighed. "No, no, I mean I'm not going to die or anything, right Adrian?" he asked the slightly taller blue Eridian, who calmly but slightly nervously shifted his weight.
"I mean, we have all the time in the world now."
"Rocky doesn't understand the wordplay, explanation," said Rocky, looking at Adrian.
"Grace figured it out, question?" came from Adrian nervously, who had a female voice. "Of course Grace figured it out, Grace is smart."
Rocky looked at Adrian and then back at Grace as if he didn't understand what was going on. Likewise, the pebbles.
"What did Adrien do, question?" asked Rocky, even tho the monitor didn't really allow for any emotions, Grace could hear it.
Hesitantly, Adrian raised his hands.
"No, no, you're already speaking in the frequency I can hear," Grace said seriously, as he knew that Rocky and Adrian, when they were arguing or didn't want Grace to hear, spoke in a frequency that was incomprehensible to pebbles and Grace.
"Alright, let's take a walk anyway, Question?" Adrian asked politely, and Grace nodded in agreement while the children happily ran along the beach and played by the water.
"So what did you do to me?" Grace asked seriously, her hands in his fox wool jacket.
The tall Eridian hesitated. "Adrian likes Grace, Grace brought Rocky back and saved Erid," he explained to him. "But Grace is aging quickly, too quickly, so Adrian developed means."
"To slow down my aging process?" Grace asked with an arched eyebrow.
"No, to stop it," Adrian replied proudly, causing Grace to stop in her tracks. "You stopped my aging process?" he said in astonishment. This 1.50-meter-tall Eridan had achieved what humanity had been researching for centuries.
"Human DNA not easey but Adrian und Team Fixed it and now all happy, happy happy!"
"Grace, the great hero, brought Adrian and the team's gift for Rockie home and saved the universe."
Grace didn't know what to say about it. These walking stones didn't just build a home for him so he could stay here, they entrusted their children to him.
"Children love Grace, Erid loves Grace"
The next question made Grace hesitate for a moment. "Well, how long have I actually been with you now?" he asked Adrian. "So, in Earth years"
The blue Eridanian pondered. "Grace has been here for 250 Earth years now," Adrian replied matter-of-factly, while Grace swallowed.
"250 years," Grace repeated this and thot for a moment. His students had long been dead, even their children were already dead. He wondered if the people on Earth remembered him—wait, Earth.
He then looked at Rocky, who had just returned with the pebbles.
"So, Grace and Adrian, is that settled, question?" Rocky asked the two.
Grace nodded with a smile while Rocky cuddled with Adrian. "Now let's move on to my other question: Where has my solar system gone?"
The two rock beings looked up at Grace. "We don't know, statement," said Adrian. "Astrophysicists and soothsayers have already started investigations, but no idea." Want to send a spaceship there
"A spaceship, you want to go there on a one-way ticket like back then with the Astrophages?" Grace asked skeptically, as the unpleasant memory of that time resurfaced and made him feel a bit queasy.
Rocky and Adrian shake their bodies. "This time, I'll secure the round trip," replied Rockie.
"Grace can come along, round-trip travel is secured," Adrian explained to him. "We want to understand what happened." "Prepare in case our solar system is affected." Grace pondered. "You want me to fly into space again?" he asked her with a noticeable discomfort in his voice. He didn't like to admit it, but the thot of flying into space again now that there was no reason like saving the universe was uncomfortable for him.
"Star gazer but strange moon found during research," Adrian explained to him.
"How strange?" Grace asked curiously, while Adrian whistled excitedly and chirped, as the stone creature hopped around and pointed at his arm.
"Wait..." "Adrian, that was too fast, what do you mean by red?" Grace asked, irritated.
"Moons...covered with red liquid, looks like blood, like Grace's blood"