Chapter Text
you were unsuspected not unwarned
.☆。• *₊°。 ✮°。
Ryland Grace had never been a heavy sleeper. It was hard to sleep in late when you had to be at work at six in the morning to grade papers, not to mention all the extra things you had to do as a teacher, such as lesson planning and tidying up the classroom because God forbid 6th graders clean up after themselves. The amount of Cheeto bags Damien had left under his desk despite the countless times Ryland had asked him to throw them away after he was done … the desk looked like the surface of Mars, and not in a cool way.
Not that Ryland minded. He got to teach science, his favorite topic. Sure, it wasn’t microbiology specifically, but it was science! And he got to shape minds of the future and make learning fun for kids, who historically thought school was lame and a waste of time.
Well, he had gotten to teach science. He wasn’t much of a teacher anymore. He wasn’t much of anything. Being forcibly put on a rocket to save all of humanity and never return kind of ruined your career path. Heck, it turned a lot of your life around. He no longer had to worry about housing, or taxes, or food - well, food was still a problem ( the biggest problem, actually, and one Ryland kept pushing to the back of his brain ) but the other stuff was old news. To some people, this would be a gift from whatever lord they served, but Ryland was still processing it. Even though it had been years since the discovery of Taumoeba and the decision to save Rocky, Ryland still found himself thinking of going home every once in a while. Of seeing his kids again. He had to remind himself every time, and each reminder was like a tiny stab to his heart. He had made the right decision to save Rocky, he knew it, but Ryland Grace was a creature of regret and he needed time.
Just like Ryland Grace was not a creature of sleep. Time was weird on the Hail Mary, but Ryland had gotten into somewhat of a sleep cycle in the past couple years. If you didn’t count the numerous times he would wake up screaming from nightmares - mostly about being hauled to his death - he got a pretty solid six hours, seven if he was lucky. Rocky liked to remind him that Ryland had said humans need eight hours to be properly rested, but Grace had never been one to get those full eight hours of sleep unless something was truly wrong. At the moment, he was just waking up, having not yet called to let Rocky know he was awake. The pair usually met up for “breakfast” so that they could have a debrief about what Ryland had missed when he was asleep. Most of the time, it was nothing, but Ryland was never out for very long. He suspected that it was more so for Rocky, who a) was typically asleep longer than Ryland and therefore had more to catch up on when he woke up and b) missed Ryland when he was asleep. However, before Ryland had opened his eyes, a small alarm started to go off, which had Ryland on his feet in an instant.
“What? What is that? What’s happening?” He scrambled off the cot, tripping over blankets and landing face first on the floor, only to scramble up again. He was practically running for the ladder up to the cockpit.
Grace no worry. Small warning. We hit planet in 3 hours.
“What!?” Well, now he was worried. “What do you mean no worry? We can’t hit a planet, Rocky, we don’t have shields!”
He was over half way to his destination by now, and could see his best friend sitting beside the pilot's chair in his xenonite tubes. For an alien life form who was anxious about so much, Rocky seemed to be the picture of calm, cool, and collected when giving Ryland the information. Ryland had seen the Eridian nearly shit his pants ( or the Eridian equivalent of shitting his pants ) when the ship skated a little too close to an asteroid belt one time. He had spent the rest of the day berating Ryland for being a “crazy human” who “takes too much risk.” Mind, asteroid belts aren’t a huge issue - most asteroids are over 60,000 miles apart, which was pretty easy for a ship to get through, even one as big as the Hail Mary. They had never been in any danger. This - this was real danger! Rocky scuttled over to be closer to the ladder, tilting his carapace like he was confused.
Why we hit planet, question?
“Because we’re set on the course to hit a planet, you just said!”
Grace not remember how to fly ship, question?
Oh. Well, that made sense as to why Rocky wasn’t freaking out. Even if Ryland hadn’t heard the alarm, he would have woken up with enough time to course correct the ship. Not to mention a larger, more urgent alarm would have probably gone off the closer they got to the planet, and that would have definitely alerted Ryland. They weren’t in any danger.
“Oh. Right. Yeah, I knew that. I, uh … I was just -”
Sleep make Grace more stupid. Human problem. Squishy space blob problem.
Ryland pouted and climbed into the pilot chair. “I don’t need this, I just woke up.” He sighed and took a look at the readings.
Sure enough, the current Hail Mary course was set to hit a small planet in just under three hours. The planet wasn’t named, but that wasn’t surprising. Ryland was far past what the Earth had named and put in the Hail Mary system. It had a little tag on it labeling it as Blip H. It seemed small - really, really small. It almost seemed like it wasn’t a planet at all. Maybe a dwarf planet or maybe -
“Rocky, is that a moon?”
Rocky pointed his screen reading device at the map, and did his version of a shrug. Seem small. Maybe moon. Maybe on screen. Not know what moon look like.
That was fair. Eridians never really looked up at the sky, what with not being able to see anything there. Most probably didn't even know what a moon was. Ryland leaned in to look at the dot more closely. It didn’t orbit anything that Ryland could see, but it could be that the Hail Mary hadn’t picked up on anything yet. If it was by itself, then maybe it wasn’t a moon at all. Maybe it was just a thing in space. Things were in space all the time, it was called space debris. Then again, usually space debris was in a cluster of more than one thing, and it was entirely man-made. This little guy was a long way from Earth.
Grace science face. What Grace think, question?
“Nothing, nothing. It’s just been awhile since we’ve come into contact with anything but Adrian or Tau Ceti. I’m guessing we didn’t magically travel to Erid in under half the time?”
No. Would kill Grace and Rocky. Why, question?
“I’m just curious, that’s all. I’m a scientist by nature, and there is a big thing in the middle of nowhere with nothing surrounding it in the middle of space, famously a vacuum of nothing. And no one has any plans to look into what’s on it any time soon, since as far as we know, we’re the only two planets that have life. So I’m curious about what, if anything, is on it.”
Understood. Grace need to know things that are unimportant.
“It’s not unimportant! It could be housing life or the cure for all diseases or some interesting rock based formation left behind by a civilization older than we are that can solve some ancient mystery we haven’t even unlocked yet and yeah now that I’m saying it out loud it’s - I just want to go look at a cool new planet slash moon slash rock in space.” Ryland wasn’t an astronaut, he stood by that statement, and he hated putting on the EVA suit more than he hated eating coma slurry. However, the scientist in him preened at the thought that he had been the first to discover intelligent alien life and that he had been in the atmosphere of another planet before any other human. What could he say, it made his ego feel good. The idea that there could be more discovery on this new rock made his skin tingle - okay, he should probably find a better way to phrase that. It made him excited - nope, that was worse. Whatever, he’d workshop it.
Rocky made a tittering noise, what Ryland had come to understand was his version of laughter. Sad not possible to stop. No science for Grace.
Rocky was right. The ship couldn’t land on a planet more than once, not with its current fuel and definitely not when it had no means of being launched again. They’d set foot on the big ball and be stranded there until - well, until forever, probably. There was so little out here that it might be longer than both of their lifespans combined before another spaceship happened upon them. It was a bad idea on multiple fronts, and Ryland knew that.
“No science for Grace.”
And yet …
And yet, even as he turned on the ship's manual pilot features, his eyes kept drifting to that red dot. He told himself it was just to make sure he piloted the Mary a good distance away.
And yet, even as he brushed his teeth and dressed for the day, he kept glancing at that red dot on the screen. They slowly approached it, inch by inch, and he watched every line disappear with hunger.
And yet, even though it would probably do nothing, Ryland found himself in the lab approximately three hours after he had woken up, turning on some of the scanners that the Hail Mary had and pointing them at the object. A few scans couldn’t hurt. Really, what was the worst that could happen? He wasn’t leaving the ship, he wasn’t slowing them down by any means. He’d run a few tests in the time it took them to pass the object by, it would probably turn out to just be boring, non-sentient rock that asteroids were made of and then he could go back to playing Go Fish! With Rocky every day for the next several years slowly becoming numb to any meaning beyond matching hearts with other hearts -
The reader dinged that it was complete and Ryland shot to his feet, reading the output. He read it once, then again, and again for a third measure because this had to be wrong. There was no way this reading was correct. Maybe he hadn’t aimed the sensors right, or maybe they were broken - the ship had been through so much it wouldn’t surprise him if that were the case. He decided to try again, making sure the sensors were pointed directly at the rock this time. He also watched the scan happen in real time, so he could rule out a scan malfunction. Everything worked as it should, and the output was the same.
The unidentified moon had no atmosphere.
Ryland could feel himself nearly jump with excitement. It was a lot easier to drop by a moon that had no atmosphere than one that did. He didn't have to worry about being killed by pressurization or poisonous chemicals in the air. Sure, gravity was still a problem, but that was something he could figure out. With a long enough chain, maybe a ladder, he could float down to the surface until the gravity was strong enough to take hold. It seemed like there was very little gravity in the first place, some, but not enough that he would be crushed the minute he stepped foot on the crust. Yeah, he could park the Mary briefly, float down with a ladder and, well, he didn’t know. Pick up samples? Take pictures just for him? He didn’t have any more beetles to send back to Earth with new information. Maybe the Eridians could build one, if he explained to them how they worked. Yeah, he could ask the Eridians to make him a new beetle and then he could send his findings back to Earth on this new moon, like its base components being made of sodium and magnesium and … glucose? Well, that wasn’t that strange, comparatively. There had been stranger things in the soil before. But also … was that cortisol? Hemoglobin?
White blood cells?
“Holy fudge…” Ryland kept scrolling through the list of elements the scanner had pulled up, not believing the things he saw. Hydrogen, oxygen, calcium? Potassium?
This could not be real.
They were about an eighth past the moon at this point, the lights from the Hail Mary still shining and reflecting off its surface. Ryland rushed to the porthole window, ignoring surprised tittering from Rocky, and pressed his face to the glass. He craned his neck to get as best a view as he could of the moon. The ship was situated above the planet, cruising past slowly and allowing a good look at its surface, or at least one part of its surface. At first, Ryland could only see the rocky crust of the moon. It looked almost like any other moon he had ever seen, gray and dusty and boring. Ryland started to doubt himself, started to doubt the instruments he used for the test. Maybe they were broken, or maybe a small part of his blood had somehow found its way into the sensors during the numerous times he had been on space walks gone wrong. It made scientific sense. Of course those components couldn’t be on a rock lightyears away from any living species. That would be crazy. That would be so absurd, it would probably fry his poor scientist brain and cause him to have a scientific meltdown. No, it was a glitch. Everything was fine. Ryland closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.
Red light slowly dawned across Ryland’s face, piercing through his eyelids. The scientist felt his stomach drop, knowing full well what he would see if he opened his eyes. Every part of his being screamed at him to keep them closed, to pretend he didn’t care about what was on the moon anymore. He could let the Hail Mary pass, laugh about his delusions with Rocky, and eventually it would be a weird memory that he wouldn’t be sure if he dreamed or not. All he had to do was not open his eyes.
Ryland opened his eyes, staring out of the window into the massive sea of red that swallowed the moon’s surface.
It had to be hundreds of miles wide. Sharp, ragged rocks formed what seemed almost like a fishbowl shape around the surface, and red waves lapped up, splashing like they were extras in a horror film and making the rocks look like irritated teeth. The waves bubbled and popped and sloshed, like any ocean wave would, but the sickening red hue of the water made it look like the inside of an exploded blood drive bus. There wasn’t any walkable surface as far as Ryland could see, nor any life. It was all red ocean, and, what really made his skin tingle, was that it didn’t even seem to be a rotating moon. It sat there, the entrance to the ocean on top, and did not move an inch. Not left or right, up or down - it just sat there, almost like it had been placed. The water stretched out far beyond, open and calling. It was beckoning him into its crimson depths. It looked like a wasteland of evil, like nothing on that moon had ever existed except for red, red, red.
Well, it wasn’t red water though, was it?
Grace! Grace okay, question? Grace not want to play fishing, question? Rocky was behind him now, and he wasn’t sure if his friend had been talking to him the whole time or if he had only just arrived. Grace scare Rocky. What wrong?
“It’s blood.”
No understand. Use words.
“Rocky, the moon. The moon is full of blood.”
That was what the instruments were reading. It wasn’t a fluke and they weren’t broken. The whole moon was an ocean of blood, right up to the surface. It bubbled and sloshed around with the consistency of it, too. Ryland had done enough microbiology research in grad school to know blood when he saw it, and it was definitely, definitely blood.
But how? It made no sense. Not just that it was blood, but it seemed to be human blood. He wouldn’t be able to tell until he looked at a cell structure, but what were the chances that alien blood looked exactly like human blood, down to its components? The moon was covered in Earth human blood, and it looked like an entire continent had been drained for it. But how?
What moon? What moon covered in blood? What Grace mean?
Ryland took a big breath, tearing himself away from the glass to face Rocky. “I was curious, alright? I wanted to know more about the object we were passing because Lord knows it’s so dead out here in space and all we do is play cards and it was a chance for something new and exciting! So, I pointed the scanners and ran some tests, just tests, mind you, and first off, Rock, you’re not going to believe this - there’s no atmosphere on that moon. None. I’m assuming there’s gravity, especially with an entire blood ocean on it, like how is it keeping that much liquid tapped down, but there’s no atmosphere! Which, I know what you’re going to say, a lot of things in space don’t have an atmosphere that’s not that surprising, but that leads to my second and most important fact, it literally just seems to be a moon or a planet or something that is full of blood. Human blood, specifically, or Earth animal blood. I haven’t tested Eridian blood, but I know yours comes out silver and that is a whole lot of red, and it has all the components of human blood which is, really, so fascinating because we are so far away from where all the humans are so how did it get here and how did so much of it get here? What I’m trying to say, Rocky, is that this is a brand new discovery, something that not only has no one seen before but that makes no scientific sense and I’m quite literally terrified out of my brain thinking about it too much but every cell in my body is telling me I need to go down onto that moon and I need to get a sample of that blood.”
There was a long pause, longer than Ryland anticipated, until Rocky finally spoke. No.
Ryland was taken aback. “No? What do you mean, no?”
Grace no go to blood moon. Bad bad bad.
Ryland put his hands on his hips, feeling slightly irritated. “I don’t think you just get to veto this, Rocky. I think we can have a discussion, but I get a say in it.”
Rocky tapped one of his feet impatiently. No. Grace no risk life. Grace get to go home. Rocky make sure.
“I wouldn’t be risking my life - okay like, slightly, but it would be for a good cause! It would be for science!”
Stupid science.
Ryland frowned. “Science isn’t stupid.”
Science stupid when risk life for no reason.
“Okay, this isn’t like you.” Ryland crouched down to Rocky’s level, staring at the Eridian’s flat surface like it could help him read his friend’s emotions. “Why don’t you want me to go down there?”
Rocky rolled back and forth, like he was trying to come up with his phrasing. Grace said stability good for humans. Grace said routine important.
Ryland’s frown deepened. He had said that, back when they first started the journey home. He had wanted to make sure he wouldn’t go crazy with only Rocky for company on a very long trip to Erid. After all, that was why the original crew of the Hail Mary was put into induced comas, or it was at least one of the reasons. This many years of no one else to talk to and very little things to do could literally drive a person mad. He and Rocky had established a set routine so that Ryland could simultaneously not lose his mind and also not murder his best friend on the way to his home planet. It involved a combination of exercise, surprise Taumoeba eating times, set hours of hanging out and set hours of alone time. He wasn’t sure why Rocky was bringing it up now, in relation to going to the blood moon.
“Yeah, I said that. Why does it matter?”
Rocky tapped the cards on the floor. Ryland hadn’t noticed that, in his running to see the moon out of the window, Rocky had dropped all the cards and they were scattered across the floor. Grace say Grace need routine to not die in space. Rocky and Grace make routine. Grace say Grace want to see blood moon. Dangerous. Crazy. Not routine.
Oh. He got it now. Rocky thought he was losing it because he wanted to deviate from their set routine. The thought crushed Ryland a little bit. How did one explain the need for variety to a sentient rock alien who lived for hundreds of years and ate the same thing every day? Rocky was good, precise, exact - everything humans weren’t. Ryland was always going to want something different from their routine. It was inevitable. He was starting to think he should have mentioned that.
“Ah, yeah, um … it’s a human thing, Rock. I’m not losing it, I swear, I’m just … bored?” Ryland sighed when Rocky showed no hint of understanding. “Okay, look, you, you live for hundreds of years. You have such a long life, whereas I can only get to about like, a hundred and that’s if I’m lucky.”
Rocky whistled in a low tone. Human life so short. Bad bad bad.
Ryland snorted. “I would disagree, but fair. However, it’s because I have such a short life that I get bored so easily. I feel like I’m wasting my time staring at the inside of a space ship instead of, you know, exploring space. We’ve been playing Go Fish! everyday at this exact time for years, and today I have an option to do something different. Something fun and exciting. Well, mildly terrifying and deeply horrifying, but at this point in our lives that’s basically the same thing.”
The Eridian seemed to take the information in, chewing it over. Grace need dangerous space so Grace stay alive.
“Yeah, you got it.”
Rocky was silent for a bit, then seemed to shrink in on himself. Rocky not fail Grace, question?
Ryland let out an unintentional gasp, reaching out to place a hand on the xenonite separating himself from Rocky. “No, not at all, pal. Like I said, this is a human thing. And, also, I would probably never forgive myself if I let us sail past a scientific wonder and didn’t try and solve it at least a little bit. I’d probably have to fork over my scientist license. It has nothing to do with you.”
Rocky didn’t move for a moment, then slowly reached out to place his claw against Ryland’s hand. He may not have fully believed Ryland, but he was willing to drop the subject for now. Do not understand word after scientist. But understand - human thing.
Ryland broke out into a grin. “Human thing. Now, are you going to be my eyes and ears when I go down there?”
Rocky backed up in his tube, sitting down hard. Rocky still no want Grace to go. Risk. Dangerous. Crazy stupid science. Ryland waited in silence for the other shoe to drop, and it did. But, if make Grace not crazy, will help. Eyes and ears.
Ryland clapped his hands together in excitement, leaning over to give Rocky a noogie on the outside of the tubes. “That’s it, pal! I knew you’d come around.”
The Eridian still didn’t seem very pleased, but at least he wasn’t out right denying the expedition anymore. He skittered off, mumbling in low tones Ryland didn’t understand fully, while the scientist himself turned back to look out at the blood moon. Part of him had expected it to have disappeared in the time he had talked to Rocky. That would have been his luck. But no, it was still there, casting a red glow throughout the ship and beyond. Now that Rocky was on board, he just had to get down there and get a sample. Then he could test it, dissect it further than the sensor scanners could see. He wanted to know what kind of blood this was, where it had come from, and why it was here now. He needed to know how this scientific miracle had come to be, and what the consequences of it existing were. He had to know. He just had to.
.☆。• *₊°。 ✮°。
Ryland stood in the airlock, leaning his head out to look down at the blood moon. The plan was simple enough - Ryland would jump out of the airlock and aim to grab the ladder at its base. He would then use the gravity of the moon to land, pulling the end of the ladder with him. It was a lot like their fishing experiment, with less chances of catching on fire this time since there was no atmosphere. Ryland would have at most a couple minutes to grab a sample of the blood with the dozens of test tubes he had taped to his thighs. Then, he would climb back up the ladder, and as soon as he was in zero gravity once more, he would cut the xenonite ladder where he was and they would fly off. It seemed pretty cut and dry, if you took out the multiple ways it could go very, very wrong.
It had taken Rocky the better part of the day to make the ladder, with Ryland asking numerous times for an update, so much so Rocky had threatened to roll out of his enclosure and burn himself again if Ryland asked one more time. The scientist had stopped asking after that and tried to sleep, but he was just too damn excited. Now, it was time.
“All systems go?”
All systems go. Grace be stupid now.
“Thank you so much for your words of encouragement.”
Were not words of encouragement.
“Yeah, I know.”
Ah. Sarcasm.
Ryland took a large breath, looking down at the floating rings of xenonite. From here, it almost looked like the tail of a great creature cresting through the blood ocean, slipping through the dark in serpentine like patterns. It was now or never. Ryland tensed up, and pushed himself off the side of the Mary.
A lot of astronauts described floating in space as surreal and exhilarating, but Ryland thought that was false. For him, it always felt terrifying. If he closed his eyes, he couldn’t tell the difference between being on a spacewalk and that brief moment when you’re in an airplane and the plane levels out once it reaches soaring altitude. He had gotten better at navigating his body through zero gravity, but it still gave him that weightless feeling in his stomach whenever he started floating, which in turn made him feel sick. Going out into space made it worse - faced with nothing but the dark sky and a handful of dotted stars millions of miles away, he had a hard time convincing his brain that this was real life and he wasn’t just a mindless particle of space dust, bouncing through the universe. Even after months of regularly putting on the suit, he still wasn’t used to it, and he wondered if he ever would be.
Ryland took several deep breaths as he soared through the inky blackness, the only light coming from the bulbs on the Hail Mary which were pointed his way. The ladder glinted slightly ahead of him, waving as if to beckon him further into the void. He hadn’t pushed off too hard, thankfully, and it was steady as he drifted toward the moon below him. He was concentrating hard on reaching the ladder, but something snagged his eye - there were a couple of stars out. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, but he was almost certain that off to his left, a very far off way, there was a large blot in the sky, blocking out several stars. He squinted toward it, tilting his head, until he heard Rocky shout his name over the headset intercom.
Grace! Grace pay attention!
He snapped back to his task and realized he was several inches too far from his target. Ryland reached out with his hand, trying to aim himself to grab it. He could feel his heart leaping in his throat, pounding repeatedly against his ribcage. He felt himself stretch, and stretch, and stretch until he was certain his arm had grown an extra inch.
He missed. Ryland’s hand reached and reached, and his fingers skimmed the xenonite, but didn’t catch.
Panic rose up, the pounding that was once in his chest now closing his throat, making his breaths shallower. The edges of his vision blurred in response, causing Ryland to let out a small, strangled cry. He flailed again, reaching for the next rung, but it, too, was out of reach.
Grace!
Rocky’s voice came through the headset, and Ryland felt his nerves steel. He could do this. It wasn’t that hard to grab a freaking ladder rung. He was still moving at a reasonable pace, not zooming past, so if he rolled a little to the right and reached out …
His fingers snagged on the second to last rung. A large, heavy breath Ryland didn’t know he had been holding escaped his lungs, followed by a bewildered chuckle. “I got it! I got it!”
He could hear Rocky’s version of a sigh over the intercom. Grace too risky. Grace come back to ship.
Ryland shook his head, even though he knew his friend couldn’t see him. “I’m fine. I can do this. Just, keep watching.”
Ryland was still drifting toward the planet, and it wasn’t long before he could feel the effects of gravity on him. It wasn’t a lot of gravity - it honestly felt close to Earth’s gravity, actually - but it was enough that he was falling a bit faster than he had anticipated, and was having trouble angling himself to land feet first. He tried twisting one way, but it didn’t work with him gripping onto the ladder. He got mostly tangled up, and then when he tried to flip the opposite way, his shoulder twinged. The surface rushed at him faster and faster, and before he knew it, the scientist very gracefully and very bravely landed on his shoulder heavily and with a small cry and a lot of censored swearing.
“Oh son of a mother hubbard cheese and crackers fudging fudge ohhhh okay, okay, ow …”
Grace okay, question?
“I’m fine just … yowch! That’s going to sting.” It would do worse than sting, probably bruise, but Ryland was not going back on that ship until he got his samples. If Rocky knew he had been injured, the Eridian would personally come down himself and drag Ryland back to the ship. It wasn’t as if his arm or shoulder were broken. Ryland sat in a crouch for a minute, breathing in and out slowly and trying to compartmentalize the throbbing that coursed through his body. After an almost full minute, it still didn’t feel any better, and he only had a couple minutes left before he needed to head back to the Hail Mary. Okay, maybe it was more injured than he thought. Whatever, he could do this. He was doing this - there was no turning back now.
Ryland stood, still cradling the painfilled side of his body, and looked out over the blood ocean. It was more … surreal up close. The blood slosh seemed more violent now, less like a wave on the beach and more like arms trying to swallow Ryland whole and drag him down to whatever awaited him at the bottom of this red grave. He was perched vicariously on one of the peaks, the thought that there hadn’t really been room to walk on this surface turned out to be a lot truer than he thought it was. There was quite literally no flat surface surrounding the edge of the ocean. It was entirely sharp stalagmites all around, looking even more like teeth waiting to bite down. Ryland was suddenly very aware of how much it looked like a mouth - a very bloody mouth, waiting to snap shut on any unsuspecting meals as a venus flytrap would. He became very aware of his size, how small he was on this moon, and how much he fit the description of an unsuspecting meal.
He swallowed, letting go of his injured side and only wincing slightly as he made his way down the slope next to one of the massive sharp rocks. He kept tethering himself to bits of the rock, jamming a cable in to lower himself down more and more until he was being held like an acrobat across a small corner of rock that hovered over the blood.
Ryland positioned himself so that he could lean forward instead of relying on the crevasse to hold him up from the back. He reached for one batch of tubes on the outside of his left leg and found - nothing. He craned his neck to try and see, but it only made the catch in the rock shift, causing rubble to roll down and drop in the blood with soft splashes. He gripped the ropes once more in panic, taking deep breaths to steady himself. Okay, it was fine. He had also taped some vials to his right thigh. If he could just reach down that way … nope, those were gone too. Where had they gone? Had his tumble sent them flying, or had they flown off somewhere in space and he hadn’t noticed? How do twelve hard plastic test tubes just vanish from someone's thighs?
“Rocky? Are you there?” He could tell his voice was wobbly, and he tried to straighten it out.
Rocky here. Grace okay, question?
“Uh, sure. Though, we have hit a problem.”
What problem, question?
“I lost all my tubes. I can’t get a sample of the blood.”
There was a long pause, and when the Eridian spoke again, he sounded almost bewildered and relieved at the same time. Where tubes, question?
“I don’t know! I might have crushed them, or they might have flown off when I jumped? That doesn’t make any sense, really, but I can’t think of anything else that would have happened.” Ryland sighed. “I don’t know what to do, I can’t get a sample of the blood.”
Rocky paused again, then came over the intercom once more. Could come back to ship. No blood.
Ryland made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. The issue was - Rocky had a point. This whole thing had turned into a mess. Ryland had no test tubes, no way of collecting a sample, and currently he was backed into a literal corner, haphazardly fixed between a couple of very dangerous rocks that looked like teeth. He still needed to get back up the rocks ( the answer to that was unclear ), climb the ladder back up ( the answer was more clear there ), and only had about two minutes left until it became a danger zone for the Mary. He had gotten incredibly worked up over this moon, but nothing was shaking out the way he had wanted it to, and frankly he felt like a bit of a jerk for making Rocky agree to the mission when it was turning out this way. What had he been thinking? Not only was he putting himself at risk, but he was putting Rocky and Rocky’s future at risk. With all these thoughts racing through his head, Ryland had a sudden realization - he was scared. Why hadn’t he thought about all of this before? He was risking his life - for what? For a science experiment? Was he really that bored of playing Go Fish!? He was being an idiot, was what he was doing. This was all dumb and pointless, and if he made it back to the ship, he was never going to stop the ship for a random, off the cuff science experiment again.
“I think you’re right. I’m coming back.”
There was excited tittering from over the intercom. Yes, yes, Grace come back to ship. Grace come home.
Ryland shifted in his makeshift harness, placing a foot a bit higher up than it had been to get leverage. Slowly, he unhooked one of the grappling claws, moving it up higher as well. It clicked into a section of rock, and when he gave it a tug, it held fast. Ryland shifted his weight then, moving his other foot higher and reaching for the other grappling claw. Just as he reached for it, the first one cracked and fell, and with it, Ryland’s support. He felt the slack on his side, just before he felt himself fall. This was a different feeling than falling in space. There was something waiting for him when he fell, and it wasn’t something he wanted to touch. With a yelp, Ryland caught himself on the bottom half of the rock, fingers raking themselves to the point where he could feel his nails break under the gloves. His arm, still hurting from his earlier tumble, yanked hard from the force of his falling, causing him to cry out in even more pain. The hand not holding on for dear life dipped into the blood, up to his forearm, and Ryland quickly pulled it out.
It didn’t feel cold, like Ryland thought it would. It felt … warm. Hot, even. Like it was heated blood, blood that had sat under a lamp in a lab for just a little too long. He brought his hand up to his face to examine it, and noticed how it ran down his arm slowly. It took its time, tiny droplets racing their way down, down, until they hit Ryland’s elbow and dropped back into the sea from whence they came. There was something … off, yet familiar about the blood, the way it reacted. Almost as if the blood were taking in the sights of being on Ryland’s arm. As if it were scoping him out, testing the waters, testing their limits. The blood was watching him, analyzing him, and waiting for his next move.
Okay, he needed to get off this moon, now.
Ryland let his hand sink back into the blood, trying to figure out the best way to get himself upright.
Grace!? Grace die!? Rocky had been in his ear the whole time, Ryland realized. Peanuts.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m no! No die. I’m okay, I just slipped and-”
He didn’t get to finish his thought as something from under the blood grabbed his wrist and pulled. Ryland yelled out, in surprise and in pain, as he was dragged further and further toward the blood ocean.
“Rocky! Rocky, help, something’s got me!”
He heard several musical notes that were not words added into their shared vocabulary. What do?! What do?!
All Ryland could do was scream in response. There wasn’t anything Rocky could do. The Eridian was stuck in a pressurized ball of ammonia up in space, unable to get out or come down in fear of not only losing the ship but being lost to space as well. As much as it scared Ryland, the man was on his own and it was from his own mistakes. No one could come and save him.
That didn’t stop him from yelling.
“Rocky!”
Grace!
Ryland felt his fight or flight kick in, pulling his arm back so hard it felt like it was being pulled off of his body. Every muscle in the arm screamed, twisted, pushed, pulled, until he felt his arm rise, more and more. With rough pulling, he was able to see his forearm, and then his wrist. He was squinting through the pain at this point, but if he fixated on his wrist, he could see fingers attached to it. They were gripping him tightly, so tightly their nails were digging into his glove, and Ryland was scared they would pierce his suit. The fingers were coated with thick, slimy blood that dripped in chunks back into the ocean. Ryland continued to pull with all his might, and found the fingers attached to a hand, then an arm, until finally there was a head.
The body in front of him gasped for air, and faintly Ryland remembered there was none for it to take. It was muscular and thick, stretching against the clothes it was draped in, though draped was giving those clothes far too much credit. They were tattered, shredded, and had all the coverage of a loose blanket. It was hard to see any defining features on the figure’s face through the excessive blood that coated the figure, except for the slop of red that hung down, presumably hair covered in blood. All Ryland could see was red, falling off in every angle, every consistency as if it were moving and changing with each run down the foreign body.
Ryland felt himself lose all strength in his arm almost as suddenly as he had gained it. The figure went plunging back into the ocean, taking even more of the scientist's arm with it, still not letting go. It seemed the only way Ryland was getting out of this was the climb up the rocks with one arm and a heavy … probably a body attached to him, or to swim through the blood ocean and try and find a place to climb out onto the rocks. Not only did the climbing seem like the smartest bet, but it also was the one Ryland would have chosen no matter what. Something in his gut told him he did not want to be putting his whole body in that blood. He was already concerned for his hand.
Lifting his head up, he managed to link one of his legs over the rope provided by the grappling hook stationed in the crevasse. Using it as leverage, Ryland did probably the best and most impressive sit up of his life, reaching for the rock with his injured arm and pulling the figure from the ocean with all his might. It came up once more, this time not gasping for breath. Part of Ryland worried putting it back in the ocean had killed it, but he couldn’t think about that right now. One thing at a time, Grace. Step by step.
Now that he was sitting upright, it was easier for him to see how to get to the top. Ryland moved one of his feet to press against the side wall, then tried to stand on the grappling wire he had used to pull himself up on. The minute he put his full weight on it, the claw buckled and fell into the blood ocean. Well, so much for that piece of equipment. Looking around quickly, he spotted a divot in the rock formation and crammed his other foot in it. Okay, now he had somewhat solid ground. Ryland’s eyes drifted back to where his arm was attached to the figure he was dragging. There was no way he was going to be able to climb this with one hand. There was only one option … well, there were two, but one of them would make him a real asshole at this point.
Tapping into as much strength as he could, Ryland pulled the figure up further and further, until he couldn’t anymore. At that point, the body could be draped across the mismatch of cords, which would allow Ryland to free his hand for at least a brief moment. He attempted to lay the figure down, but more rubble sprouted from where the claws met the rocks, and Ryland froze, scared to continue in case everything crumbled. However, he didn’t have much of a choice. It was lay the figure down and try to be quick about it, or drop it back in the ocean, and at this point he was refusing that as an option. He moved his body so that his injured shoulder rested hard against the rocks, and quick as he could, laid the figure down, let go, and then reached for it again to scoop it onto his shoulders like a sack of flour. It weighed a lot more than Ryland thought it would, but now he had both his hands free. The rest of the climb up was a lot easier after that, and it took no time at all for him to reach the top of the rocks and throw the figure down beside himself as he panted and wheezed.
The figure rolled a couple times before landing what was presumably face down, unmoving. Ryland really hoped he hadn’t killed it by dipping it back in the blood. He couldn’t lay down for long - he was already over the amount of time he had told Rocky he would be on the moon. Now that he was thinking about it, he hadn’t heard from his friend since the figure had grabbed hold of him. Given that the last thing he had said to Rocky was a scream for help, he was concerned that his friend wasn’t more concerned.
Ryland stood up, taping his helmet briefly. All of a sudden, loud musical notes with a couple words of concern entered his ear drums, startling him. The figure must have somehow messed with his intercom when he was pulled out of the blood ocean, or maybe Ryland turned it off himself? That was unlikely, but weirder things had happened in the last couple minutes.
“Rocky! Rocky it’s okay, I’m okay. I’m climbing back up the ladder now.” He bent down again to pull the figure back up over his shoulder, wincing heavily as more pain shot through his body. Rocky gave a shrill howl, probably having some very choice words for Ryland, but there was also a lot of relief in those words.
What happen?! Why Grace no answer?! There was a pause then, and the question that followed was laced with vague disgust. What Grace have, question?
Ryland shifted the body further onto his back, grinning wildly now that they were through the toughest parts. He placed one foot in front of the other, huffing as he climbed back up the ladder. “I got my sample!”
.☆。• *₊°。 ✮°。
Rocky worked fast sometimes, but Ryland had never seen him build a xenonite tank as fast as he currently had. Some brief scans of the figure Ryland had rescued revealed that it was covered with mild amounts of radiation. Rocky wasn’t taking any chances, and demanded Ryland keep the suit on until he finished the tank. Once it was done, Ryland set the figure in on a makeshift cot and moved Armando in with it as well. Immediately, Armando went to work cleaning the figure, dabbing up blood and rinsing it off. Ryland had already thought ahead and had put plenty of the blood into test tubes to mess with later, so he was happy to let the robot go to work.
Ryland himself was just coming out of his own changing area in a fresh t-shirt and pants, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose when he almost ran into Rocky. The Eridian had planted himself outside Ryland’s door, and as much as he could look anything, he looked down right mad.
“Did something happen?” Ryland tried to look past Rocky to where the body lay, his stomach dropping slightly at the thought that it was dead.
Grace owe Rocky apology.
Ryland furrowed his brow, looking back toward his friend. “I owe you an apology? Why?”
Rocky stamped one of his legs, rolling back in the ball. Grace almost die. Rocky could not fix. Scare Rocky bad bad bad.
The two of them hadn’t talked since Ryland had returned to the ship. There had been a lot of Grace stay here Rocky build and Watch out, you’re going to smash the fort but they hadn’t had a chance to really discuss the trip - namely, how stupid Ryland had been about the whole thing. Rocky was right, he did deserve an apology. Ryland sighed and moved one of the boxes so he could sit on it and be closer to Rocky’s level, placing a hand on the outside of the ball.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone at all. I was being impulsive and reckless and -”
Not Grace.
Ryland chuckled. “You’re right, I wasn’t being myself. I think I just needed something different, like I said. But how about, next time, instead of galivanting to a moon covered in weird creepy blood, we can just pick a different game, deal?”
Rocky paused like he was considering the proposal. Grace listen to Rocky more often.
Ryland tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
Rocky say moon was bad bad bad. Grace ignore. Grace almost die. Injure bad bad. Would not happen if Grace listened to Rocky.
Ryland immediately felt himself get defensive and forced a small, stabilizing breath. “I understand that, pal, but if I always listened to you, then we also wouldn’t have the Taumoeba. Remember? You wanted me to leave it and come back inside.”
Do mission different time.
“There was no other time, we’ve been over this.” He sighed again, more forceful this time. “And, also, I’m not that injured, okay? I lightly pulled a muscle, it’ll heal in no time.”
That was a blatant lie. In the mirror, Ryalnd had looked at the side that had been pushed and pulled around. His skin had looked fine, thanks to the EVA suit, but it was black blue from the tops of his shoulder down to the bottom of his ribcage. It hurt to twist too far to the one side, and he kept gasping in pain as he had put his clothes on. All in all, he could have had it much worse. The EVA suit had taken a lot of the damage, all without ripping, which was great. He would just need to take it easy for a few days and then he would be fine.
If an Eridian could look like they were calling you on your bullcrap, Rocky had the best look of them all. Grace injured. Favor side. Yell many time of pain.
Curse that rock and his excellent echo location.
“It’s fine. We have to meet in the middle here. You have to trust me just like I have to trust you. Can you trust me that I know my limits if I trust you to know yours?” He felt like a school teacher again, talking to one of his students whom he knew could do better on tests but wasn’t putting in the effort.
Rocky didn’t seem at all pleased, rolling back in his ball again. Grace know limits, question?
It wasn’t supposed to be a question that hit that hard, but Ryland felt himself slapped by the words. He did know his own limits, didn’t he? At least, he thought he did. Then again, he never would have thought he could be the person who pulled a full body out of an ocean of blood, and he had done just that. He never would have voluntarily sacrificed himself to save an alien, and yet he had. But those things are just me being stupid, Ryland thought. I know I’m stupid.
Before he could answer his friend, namely to say that of course he knew his limits, Rocky was being silly, Ryland saw the body shift in the dome. Immediately, he was on his feet, pain be damned, and moving toward the xenonite.
Armando had done a good job of cleaning the body off. It wasn’t just a body now, it was a man. He was built, more than Ryland was, which was to say very built. He probably would have had no trouble pulling Ryland out of a blood ocean. His skin was warped in various ways, seeming to be peeling in certain places. Ryland couldn’t tell what red spots came from the blood ocean and what ones originated on the man’s body. Boils were also present, scattered about on arms and legs, all the way up to his forehead, which looked vaguely like someone or something had taken a large apple peeler to the skin. The man’s eyes were closed, but he had a broad nose and a little more than a five o’clock shadow surrounding his small mouth. It was hard to tell, but it seemed like the boils formed a half smile on the left side of the man’s cheek, stretching up almost toward his ear, and they looked deadly sharp compared to the other boils. Ryland had been right to assume that flop of mess had been hair. Black locks fanned out around the man’s head, looking surprisingly soft. Maybe blood was a great hair mask. The biggest thing that Ryland noticed was that the man only had one arm. The left arm seemed to end at the elbow, ragged and shredded flesh poking out from what presumably had been a shirt sleeve. It didn’t seem to be bleeding itself, but it was incredibly damaged looking.
There was something familiar about the way the man looked, but Ryland almost couldn’t put his finger on it. It wasn’t until the man moved again - squinting his eyes shut tightly and moaning, like he was in pain - that Ryland could place the face.
“Mark?!”
No, that was stupid. The man may have looked like the guy who swooped in on Ryland’s ex-girlfriend, but it couldn’t be him. For starters, Mark had no space training, and unless something drastic had happened in the decade Ryland had been gone, that man would never be in the stars. Wasn’t worth his time, was what Ryland recalled him saying. Second, there was no scientific theory strong enough that would put Mark in the middle of a blood moon lightyears away from Earth. They said there were about a hundred people who looked like you in the world, and Ryland guessed that could extend to the universe, too. It was just a guy who looked like Mark. A very handsome guy who looked like very handsome Mark.
Ryland watched the man for a few more seconds as he squirmed in pain, finding he desperately wanted to help. “Mary, what’s wrong with him?”
Unknown. Lifeform in need of diagnostic.
“Diagnose him, please.”
It took about a minute for the Hail Mary to do her thing, and a light bell sounded when she was done. Diagnostic complete. Subject in immense amounts of physical pain due to lesions and abrasions found throughout the body. Lidocaine injection recommended. Anesthesia recommended. Six to twelve weeks rest recommended.
Ryland almost told Mary to give the man the drugs but stopped himself. He didn’t know what this man’s body was made of - he had survived being in no atmosphere and had also not drowned in an ocean of blood, under its currents for God knew how long. Giving him lidocaine could possibly kill him. On the other hand, the man seemed to be gradually gaining consciousness, and it seemed to be hurting him. If the Mary had been able to read the man’s body, presumably it was at least mostly human. Or she could have calculated his non-humanness into her results somehow. Oh, but what if he was wrong? He could kill the very being he had just saved.
Throughout Ryland’s back and forth with himself, the man’s moans grew louder and more emotionally painful. Rocky tittered back and forth in his ball, looking from Ryland to the man in the dome. Ship give thing sleeping, question? Ship put thing sleep, question? He was trying to say put the damn thing back to sleep, Grace, but his limited vocabulary was an obvious barrier.
Ryland couldn’t take his eyes off of the figure as he grasped at his hair in panic and worry. “I, I don’t know! I don’t want to kill him! What if we put him to sleep and he can’t wake up because he’s got weird, not human DNA?”
Pain worse! Ship give thing sleeping!
“Uh … uh …”
Before Ryland had a chance to react, the man’s eyes snapped open. One of them was a deep brown ringed in red, the pupil blown wide. The other looked almost like a colored contact, yellow and red taking over where the brown was on the other eye. It looked bloodshot to a degree, and both eyes darted around the room as if they were searching for something. They ended up falling on Ryland and Rocky, and the man yelled as he bolted upright.
Ryland yelled too, as did Rocky. That was sure to help, if they were all terrified.
The man didn’t say anything, just stared at the two travelers as they stared back at him. There was a long silence that stretched between the three, all of them at a loss for what the proper etiquette was here, until Rocky started moving. Two front limbs slowly moved into position, and the Eridian started to shuffle from side to side. Ryland looked at his friend with a mixture of confusion and horror, until it dawned on him what Rocky was doing - he was mimicking Ryland from when they first met. Ryland had done those silly poses and dances to see if Rocky would copy him, and he had. Ryland felt himself start to vibrate as the laughter rose in his chest, and a hand quickly moved to cover his mouth. He would have to explain to Rocky later why that was so funny to him, and why he definitely didn’t need to do that if they came across other alien life forms.
The man didn’t move in response to Rocky’s dances, confusion dawning more and erasing some of the fear that was there. His eyes kept moving back and forth between the two travelers, lingering for only a few seconds on each. Slowly, as if at any moment the pair would lunge at him, the man slid forward on his makeshift cot to plant his feet on the floor, then quickly stood up.
He wasn’t standing for long.
The man’s knees buckled, and he went to catch himself with his left arm - the one that was no longer there. It ended in the man falling to his side with a loud and painful thud, which made Ryland wince. The man slowly turned his eyes to where the phantom arm was, fear and shock and horror written all over his face. He wiggled his shoulder lightly, and slowly a cry built from his throat. It was deeper than Ryland thought it would be. He moved to take a step closer to the bubble, but the man only skittered back more. His good hand reached up and began to feel his face. When his fingers passed over some of the boils, fear dominated the field of emotion once more and the screaming became worse, ragged and terrified. Rocky rolling around, shouting the word bad on repeat.
Ryland stepped toward the bubble, both hands flat against the makeshift glass. He wanted to do something to help, he had to help, but he didn’t know what to do when he couldn’t enter the dome without his EVA suit. The man had obviously had something happen to where he didn’t remember what he looked like, and it had obviously been traumatic.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, it’s - you’re fine! You’re fine.”
The man continued to scream, grasping at where his arm had been.
Yeah, so that wasn’t working.
“Mary! Uh, help! Help him!”
The man jumped again as the Hail Mary’s voice appeared. Anesthesia initiated. A long needle dropped out of one of the panels of the ceiling, and Ryland felt his stomach drop. Suddenly, he was back in the fields, being chased down by guards so that they could drag him on board this very ship. The screaming in his memory was his own, not the man’s, along with the pleading for the guards to stop, to leave him alone. The man said no words, just scooted farther and farther away from the needle until his back hit the wall. He looked so scared, so helpless, Ryland found himself sinking to his knees, panic pushing him more than anything.
“Wait, wait Mary, stop. Stop!”
It was too late. The Hail Mary was already inserting the needle into the man’s skin. He looked up as she did this, locking eyes with Ryland. The scientist could almost feel the devastation the man had as he was injected, whether from personal experience or whether the other just radiated that much terror.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t think. It’s going to be alright, okay. You’re just sleeping, I promise. You’re going to be alright. We’re going to take care of you. You’re safe.”
The man’s eyes drifted open and shut slowly, as if he were fighting the medication that had been injected into him. He didn’t seem to believe Ryland’s words, and to be honest, Ryland didn’t expect him to. He didn’t even know if the man spoke English. It was like watching a mirror of an event he never quite got to see past his own terror. The man’s eyes eventually closed, and Ryland realized he was shaking, head to toe. He felt terrible.
He slumped down on the floor, Rocky rolling next to him. All he could do was stare at the man’s body as he slept, his chest rising up and down rapidly. It didn’t seem like it was a good dream, but at least he was still breathing.
Ryland didn’t know how long he sat, watching the man. It felt like hours, and also no time at all. He was vaguely aware of Rocky tittering around him, saying things he wasn’t able to process through his muddled mind. He kept replaying the scene over and over again, sometimes he was the one who was being pinned down screaming, other times he was the one pinning the man down. He couldn’t seem to drag himself from the fog. Eventually, after who knew how long had passed, Ryland slowly felt his brain come back to him. Rocky was curled beside him, watching him as he watched the man. When Ryland locked eyes with his friend, Rocky seemed to perk up a bit. Ryland offered a tired smile but did not move.
What Grace Rocky do now? Rocky’s voice was low, almost too low for Grace to hear. He switched his gaze to the body. He must have assumed Ryland was distraught because of the man, and Ryland wasn’t in a place to correct him. What Grace Rocky do with blob?
What were they going to do with the man? Or, more accurately, what could they do with the man? They knew next to nothing about him. All they had definitively was that he was hurting, injured, traumatized, and sick. Rylad couldn’t imagine putting him back on the blood moon, not in his current condition. That would be cruel, and if that were the case, there was really only one thing Ryland and Rocky could do. Without answering, Ryland moved to stand up, brushing himself off and moving toward the testing area, getting things ready.
Rocky followed him around for a bit, watching Ryland work. Ryland lined up the test tubes across the workstation, eyeing them like they personally offended him. Heck, at this point, they kind of did. He wasn’t sure what was going on with them, but he considered them evil. Eventually, he grabbed one and brought it over to the bench, laying out the supplies he needed to dissect the sample.
What Grace doing, question? Rocky couldn’t see on top of the table, but he didn’t need to. Ryland could hear his cautious tone and knew full well that Rocky knew what Ryland was doing.
“I,” Ryland answered carefully, attention fixated on the test he was running, “am going to help him.”
Why, question? Put back on moon. Go home. No more delay.
“Because we don’t know if that’s what’s best for him.” Ryland pulled back from his position over the microscope to look at his friend with a stern gaze. “He’s scared, Rocky. He’s terrified, and I don’t know why or how he got to be so terrified, but I know what it’s like to be that terrified. Not just that, he’s sick. Radiation, pain in his entire body - that’s not normal no matter what kind of life form you are. I can’t just throw him back out there with a ‘Good luck!’ and feel okay about myself. Until I know what he is, what he wants, and what the best way to help him is, I need to keep looking for answers. I will not throw him back out there to fend for himself when there is even the slightest chance that what is out there is what made him so scared.” Ryland had never felt so immediately protective over someone before. He had his students, yes, but they were young and fearless, and they were not the level of scared the man in the dome was. Something about the terror spoke to Ryland’s heart, and he couldn’t possibly ignore it. “Just like I didn’t leave you when you needed help, I won’t leave him.”
There was a long pause as if Rocky were about to say something, but he instead turned around and rolled away. Ryland frowned at that response, but figured it was better than getting into yet another fight today. Rocky may not have agreed with Ryland on this, but he knew his friend understood. He’d make it up to Rocky about the delays at some point. Ryland turned his body back to science and began to work.
.☆。• *₊°。 ✮°。
The man didn’t get up again the entire time Ryland worked on the tests. What passed for days on the ship turned into what passed for nights, and Ryland lost track of what was morning and what was evening. All he knew was work, testing this and that and trying this scan and that run and looking up this information and that. Rocky came by in the beginning, maybe to check in on Ryland and maybe to see how much longer everything was going to take. Ryland wasn’t ever sure, because he would always launch into his more recent findings whenever Rocky rolled around, and only managed to shut up when Rocky rolled away.
It was a day ( or night, he could no longer remember ) several days later that Ryland finally put down his pencil and stared at the sheet he had been using to write the conclusions for his tests. Right as he did so, as if the Eridian had been waiting for a break in Ryland’s furious scribbling, Rocky rolled over, stopping in front of Ryland.
Grace need to eat. Statement.
“Yeah, yeah, in a minute.”
No. Grace eat now.
Ryland looked up with bleary eyes and slowly nodded at his friend. Rocky had a point - he couldn’t remember the last time he had consumed more than a cup of coffee. He motioned for the Hail Mary to bring him some food, which ended up being more Taumoeba served up with more Taumoeba, and a little Taumoeba to garnish it. He was so hungry, he didn’t even mind.
While chewing on his food, Ryland stared at the page of notes, brows furrowed in thought. “Hey, Rocky, I have a question.”
Yes, question? Rocky was rolling back and forth in front of the man’s dome, almost like pacing but a lot speedier.
“Does it seem normal to you that anything that touches this blood ends up decomposing and taking on the properties of the blood itself?”
Rocky froze where he was rolling, turning to face Ryland dead on. Human blood do that, question?
“No, that’s the thing. This blood from the moon, it had the components of human blood but it’s not like any blood I’ve ever run into. It almost acts like a parasite, latching onto the host and killing it before rewriting its cellular biology, which it shouldn’t have the capacity to do, let alone be smart enough to know to do it on command.” Ryland took an absentminded bite of his food. “The good news is, it has to be larger than the host to completely change it. If I put a spec on, say, a piece of Taumoeba, it completely engulfs it within a second. If I place the blood on a slide with more Taumoeba than blood, the blood starts to eat away at it, but the Taumoeba is smart and fights back. It never comes out unscathed - usually it loses a chunk or two - but it lives. It fights to live.”
Ryland’s gaze drifted back to the man, and then to the blood sample on the table. It was blood drawn directly from the man himself. Ryland had felt incredibly violating, drawing the man’s blood without his explicit consent, but he needed it to determine what exactly was wrong with him and how to fix it. Boy, had that blood been interesting, too.
“The subject’s blood shows so many traces of the ocean blood in it. Like, I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s about fifty-fifty. And this blood has so much oxygen in it, it’s probably why he was able to survive in no atmosphere for as long as he did. He would have died sooner or later, but it gave him an extra oxygen bubble. Anyway, like I said, it’s fifty-fifty right now. Half of the time, the blood comes out what I would mark as normal human blood - apply it to Taumoeba and it doesn’t do anything. The other half of the time, it’s what I’m calling Bad Blood, this weird compound -”
No. Different Name. Grace bad at names.
“Hey, I discovered it, I name it.”
Technically not discover. Technically screaming blob discover.
“Whatever!” Ryland sighed with irritation, but smiled slightly. It was nice to have Rocky bickering with him. “This other blood, it shows up in his system. It’s like the two halves are fighting each other for who gets to be in charge of the body.” Ryland looked back at the man, who was still asleep on the floor in the dome. His breaths had started coming easier now, a lot more softly, as if he were having a peaceful dream. “I wonder if that’s what’s going on in his mind, too. If he’s fighting for control.”
Rocky thought about it for a moment along with Ryland, gazing toward their comatose friend. What mean for screaming blob, question?
Ryland let out a long breath. “I mean, what I can take away from it is that whoever this guy is, he’s a real fighter. His body must feel like it’s being ripped to absolute shreds every single second he’s awake. The Bad Blood - or whatever we’re calling it - is trying to basically eat him alive and change his DNA from the bottom up, all while he is still actively himself. My guess is that he’s in tons of pain, mentally and physically, and if someone doesn’t do something, eventually either the Bad Blood will win and he’ll be completely changed into … whatever it’s trying to change him into, or there will be so little of him left he’ll die even though his human side won.” It wasn’t looking good for their dome guy,
Rocky turned back to Ryland then, a knowing expression on his face as much as the Eridian could have a knowing expression without a face or expressions. Grace be someone. Grace save screaming space blob.
Ryland sucked air through his teeth. “I don’t know, Rocky. I’m a microbiologist, not a doctor. I wouldn’t know where to start to treat him, never mind what to do to completely flush out all the Bad Blood in his system. I could kill him, or worse.”
There was only a small pause this time. Grace save screaming space blob because Grace brave human.
Ryland looked toward his friend then, a half-smile forming on his face. Rocky knew him too well. There was no way Ryland Grace was going to let this man go without trying. It could end very badly - like another airlock funeral badly - but he couldn’t go on without attempting to save the man he had already rescued from the weird blood moon in the middle of nowhere. Part of it was for selfish reasons - he wanted to know why the man had been there, what he knew about the blood moon, and what he knew about life on other planets. He was one of the most curious scientific discoveries of the ages, even if Ryland couldn’t show his discovery. However, part of Ryland also wanted to save him for … him. For the scared man who had seemed genuinely terrified of himself. For the terrified man deep inside of Ryland Grace who never really got an ending, one way or another. Ryland had an intense and indescribable urge to protect the man and help him. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing the man’s horrified face and desperately wanted to replace it. Both of these halves of himself agreed on one thing : he would have to do a little bit of medical malpractice on the man, but it would be to save his life. It would be worth it when he could sit down next to the man and have a conversation about … anything. Or everything. The possibilities were endless. Rocky was right - there was really only one choice.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m going to save him.”