Chapter Text
00:08:04:10:47:34.
33.
32.
31.
Grace swallowed down his final disgusting swig of the coma slurry, watching the countdown.
With about eight months left on their journey to Erid, the solid food supply had dwindled into just three items. One cup noodle, one lunch burrito, and one breakfast burrito. These were the meals he had enjoyed the most flavor-wise, so Rocky had recommended he save them for the scientists on Erid. That way, they could use those flavors to create food that he could not only survive on, but that would actually taste good. Grace was still fighting the urge with every bone in his body not to tear open those food samples; Rocky had even built a second xenonite bubble around them for safety. While Grace knew that was probably for the best, part of him was stuck in a perpetual pout about it. At least he could actually stomach the coma slurry now.
“Grace done with meal, question?” Rocky called out from the hallway. Grace set the bag down and stood up; Rocky still didn’t like to be around him when he ate food; the act was too disgusting to him.
“Yeah, bud. What’s up?” He turned toward Rocky, who rolled into the cockpit in his hamster ball.
“I sleep now. Grace observe?”
“Always do,” Grace chuckled, only lying a little bit. Ever since the Fishing Incident where he nearly lost Rocky, he had developed some kind of separation anxiety. Or maybe trauma response was a more apt term. The first couple of times Rocky slept after the incident, Grace couldn’t leave the room until Rocky woke up again; it was like his body physically couldn't move more than a few feet away from wherever his Eridian buddy had laid down. Only after the first human-month or so did he find the courage to leave the room, to accept that Rocky would wake up… and would keep waking up. Now, he was able to step away for the first two hours or so to get things done. But at the end of those two hours—the minimum amount of time Eridians would stay asleep—he’d always come back and hover around the room until Rocky woke up, even if he slept for ten more hours.
Right as Rocky was about to get comfortable, though, an alarm went off.
“Blip-A detected,” Mary’s robotic voice blared over the ship speakers. Rocky perked up, and Grace straightened in surprise. “Warning: Blip-A rapidly approaching ship nose. Abrasive maneuver required to avoid collision.”
“What?!” Grace gasped, leaning around to look out the window at the front of the ship, then using the camera to look around. He couldn’t see anything. Mary began repeating its last warning over and over like irritating ambient noise. “There’s nothing there, why is she freaking out?”
“Grace not see Blip-A?” Rocky sounded annoyed now. “Why not see, question?“
Then, in a flash, Grace did see it… and he wished he couldn’t. Or, at the very least, he wished his brain moved slower so he wouldn’t have been able to process what was right ahead of their ship.
It looked like… a hole. An outline of one, at the very least, that was only visible against the backdrop of stars because through the hole, there weren’t any. Just an inky black void of nothingness that seemed to be rapidly growing. Oh god, was this a black hole? Were he and Rocky about to be turned into spaghetti?!
“No! No, no, no!” Grace panicked. They were so close! Less than one year away from Erid, they were almost back to safety. This couldn’t happen. Not now, please not now-!
“What happen? Grace, what see, question?!” Rocky’s soft trills had become shrieks of panic. Grace couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. The hole was too close, moving and growing too fast. He wouldn’t have been able to escape it even if the Hail Mary had warned him sooner... which, why didn't she? His radar settings had been the same as before; he hadn't changed it at all. The only explanation was that the hole had simply appeared in front of them. In a feeble attempt at protecting him, Grace placed himself around Rocky’s ball, then shut his eyes as the ship got closer. He was so afraid that he couldn't even talk; couldn't say goodbye to his best friend in the whole Universe.
The Hail Mary jostled a little. Just once, and then…
Nothing.
Complete silence.
Well, they hadn’t been spaghettified, and that thing was far too small to be considered supermassive… which meant whatever they’d just gone through wasn’t a black hole at all. But if not a black hole, then what? Grace knew he would have to open his eyes if he ever hoped to find out, but frankly, he really didn’t want to.
Dang it.
Grace peeked out through one eye first, then both, then he really wished he was as blind as Rocky. It wasn’t a matter of what he could see, it was what he couldn’t. As far as he could tell, the Hail Mary had entered a complete dead zone. There was absolutely nothing around them. No matter where he was looking, or what angle he positioned himself in to widen his view, he couldn’t see a single star. Not one.
No, wait, there was something. Directly ahead of them, as if the void hole had spat them out in a way where they would be perfectly positioned in front of it, Grace could see a small orb that looked vaguely red-colored. It was too far away for the radar to detect. According to the system, the new Blip-A, the black-hole-that-might-not-be-a-black-hole was behind them now. Which meant it was still there, looming behind them like the Grim Reaper after they'd just slipped its grasp. What was that thing? Was it a new kind of black hole, or had science just been wrong, somehow? No, the spaghettification phenomenon had been scientifically validated for a long time. The only logical explanation was one he’d already arrived at; that they had not bumped into a black hole, but something else entirely, maybe even something that no one—or, no human, at least—had ever found before.
“What was ship movement, question?" Rocky asked. Right; Grace was blocking the window. “Why Grace panic, question?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything, but then I saw… a huge circle of darkness. I thought it was a black hole too close to maneuver away from,” Grace replied. “But then we went through it. Get your camera, bud, you need to see what I’m seeing right now.”
“Rocky has camera." He rolled forward to the port hole and pointed his little crystal camera at it. “What, Grace? Rocky see one small mass in distance. Is undiscovered planet, question?”
“Isn’t that a little… weird, that you only see that small mass?” Grace hedged, hoping his intelligent alien friend would catch on. And, of course, he saw the exact moment that It clicked. Rocky dropped his camera device and froze in what Grace could only assume was understanding and abject horror.
“No stars. No- n-no stars! Grace, why no stars, question!?” Rocky was panicking more than Grace had ever seen him panic; rolling around in his ball and fumbling around the cockpit, similar to the way he had when they discovered life on Adrian. This was different, though. Grace supposed it was warranted in this specific situation. They had just gone through some kind of mysterious teleportation hole, survived it, and were now sitting in an endless void where there were no stars; just a weird dot in the distance. “Astrophage accelerate damage, question?!”
“I don’t know, Rock.” Grace was trembling, mostly in fear, but also… curiosity. What was that glowing red orb in the distance? Why was it there, and why was it alone in this endless expanse of nothingness? It was like some kind of mirror. Like Tau Ceti — the only sun Astrophage wasn’t killing. What made that red orb special? “Whatever it was that brought us here, is right behind us. It’s still there. Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Rocky?”
“No. Rocky Grace mind not same. Cannot think what Grace think,” Rocky replied, ever the literal-thinking diva.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it. Whatever. I was thinking, what if we take a look at that thing in the distance?” Grace supplied, giving up on the prospect of explaining the human saying before he even really attempted it. He tried not to think about that growing theme. “As long as we move totally straight, we’ll be able to find our way back.”
Rocky was quiet for a long moment, then slowly lifted his carapace to “stare” at Grace.
“First, we test exit. Make sure won’t disappear,” he replied and Grace threw a fist in the air. Fudge, it was genius. If they went in and out a couple of times, then they could at least be a little bit sure that the weird rift-thing wouldn’t disappear. “Big hole appeared. Might disappear if get too far. We test. Then explore dead space.”
“Alright, bud. But we can’t waste too much fuel on this.”
-
After a few trials of flying in and then back out of the Rift (as Grace had resorted to calling it), controlling the ship with just small spurts of fuel, they verified that the Rift did not seem to be going anywhere, nor did the locations on either side of the weird door-between-worlds seem to change. They even tried going farther away on their original side of the void, and the rift was still there when they came back. Only after that final test did they feel even remotely comfortable entering again with the prospect of staying there, at least for a little while.
Once they finally made up their mind and forced themselves back through to pioneer toward the crimson anomaly, Grace began to contemplate. Staring at it through the telescope, he found that the shade of red was… uncomfortably familiar. It was truly the color of human blood; the very idea sent chills down his spine. Not that it would even be possible for human blood to be this far out in space, but he did not enjoy the visual. He had never been a big fan of horror movies, or gore in general. While the sight of blood didn’t make him faint or anything like that, he sure wasn’t one to actively seek it out. He was pretty sure it was a primal thing. Biologically, discomfort around human blood made perfect sense, so he’d never really thought much of it. Linda had once called him a pansy for not being happy to watch the first Saw movie with her, but honestly, was it really that weird? He simply didn’t enjoy watching the product of some film guy’s torture porn fantasy; he didn’t like watching people in pain, even shitty people. Sure, he personally believed that some people were evil enough to deserve a slow and painful death—namely child predators, rapists in general, and certain politicians—but that didn’t mean he wanted to watch it.
Stay focused, Grace silently scolded himself. It definitely wasn’t blood, it was just… a weird ocean on some kind of tiny planet, maybe with life or chemicals on it that made it look red. Like those algae blooms on Earth that caused specific tides to look red. He couldn’t see from where they were; he wished he had some way to get samples, but alas, the Hail Mary was not built for re-entry of any atmosphere. It wasn’t that far, maybe another few hours’ journey now that they had turned on the spin drives. They still had more than enough fuel to get to Erid; Rocky had given him a lot of excess, just a bit more than he’d needed to get to Earth, since he had so much to give—millions more than what he’d needed—before the Taumoeba had gotten to it. Grace was honestly just being overly cautious about the fuel; if they somehow got another Taumoeba outbreak, they would need the excess as a safety cushion.
Eventually, Grace decided that the orb was not, in fact, a planet. It was far too small to be considered one, not to mention it did not have a sun to orbit. Judging by its size, it had to be some kind of moon, but could it even be considered that without a planet to orbit? Grace would just stick with moon for now until they had more answers… if they got any. What would they find there? Where were the stars, the other solar systems? Why had the Rift taken them here? Was there a reason at all, or was it just happenstance? What had caused the Rift in the first place, and why did the dang thing have to appear right in front of the Hail Mary? Why not anywhere else? Why had it stopped growing as soon as they went through? Why not before? Was it because they’d gone through, or was it a “correlation does not equal causation” type of deal? Maybe he was thinking about it too much, but he didn’t know what else to do as they hurdled closer and closer to the red.
That was the biggest question looming over him; what the heck was the red ocean made out of? And what would cause it to look so dang red to the naked eye? The glow of the Petrova Line was only visible under a specific IR wavelength, but this…? He could see glowing spots from so far away, without any special camera filters. And yes, he was sticking to the theory that something on that moon was glowing, because nothing else would make sense. There were no stars to shine on it, which meant it had no light to reflect… unless there was some kind of light shining in from somewhere.
The closer they got to the mass, the more confusing that celestial body became.
Now that they were close enough to see the surface through the telescope, they had more questions than answers. There were surfaces of gray-ish stone, islands amongst the red backdrop of liquid… it seemed to be pretty cohesive across the surface angled at them. All of that was relatively fine; a little bit uncomfortable to look at, but it was fine. What was not fine, however, was the mass of green that seemed to be sticking out from the middle of the red liquid’s largest surface area.
“Is that a… tree?” Grace was convinced that he had gone utterly insane. It shouldn’t have been possible; no, it wasn’t possible. It had to be something else. Something that just so happened to look exactly like a freaking tree from Earth. The green leaves, the individual branches, the brown color of the main structure…
“Not possible,” Rocky replied. “Why would Earth tree be here? Make no sense.”
"You’re right, but…”
“…Yes. Looks just like Earth tree.”
Grace moved the camera-scope all around the tree’s surface, zooming in to see leaves that looked too much like the maple tree that had grown just outside his childhood bedroom. The pattern was so specific; why in the heck would a maple tree be growing on a random moon?! Was it possible that he and Rocky were having some kind of shared hallucination? Grace’s fingers moved quick as he forced the camera to scan the entire “tree,” searching for anything that might help that thesis, when he paused. What was…?
Oh.
Oh, wait.
There was something in the tree.
Grace shivered. There was some kind of blob; a suspiciously human-looking blob. Whatever it was, it seemed to be slumped over, hooked onto one of the floating branches and swaying softly with the liquid below.
“What the fudge?!” Grace gasped as the red liquid’s current changed, leaning the blob backward. Only it wasn’t just a blob anymore… there was a face! A human face! It was a person—there was no way it wasn’t, he could make out all of the features—but how?! How could a human be here, in space, so far away from Earth?
“What is-….” Rocky paused, frozen for a moment before he trilled, “What that, question?” Oh good, that meant Rocky could see it too.
“I think that’s another human, Rocky,” Grace replied. “But how? That’s not…” Too many impossible things had just transpired in far too little time for him to fully process all of it. But there it was; a human, with a nose and closed eyes and a mouth. If Grace had to guess, he’d say that he was looking at a man with long, wet black hair… “You can see what I’m seeing, right?” He hoped Rocky understood what he’d meant by see; he usually did, but sometimes he liked to be a diva and pretend he didn’t.
Rocky tilted his carapace, “Yes, Rocky see human. Human chest rise and fall, indicate breath. Rocky suspect human alive. Strange human left arm injured.”
Grace tilted his head, moving the scope down to see the arm that was floating next to his body in the ocean… but it seemed fine, as far as Grace could tell. Rocky made a noise of frustration, “No! Rocky say strange human-left! Not Grace-left!”
“Oh.” That was embarrassing. He scrolled over to the man’s other side and, sure enough, he saw… nothing. As in, there was no arm to see in the first place. At first, Grace had initially assumed it was draped over the branch, but it most certainly was not. The man’s shoulder wasn’t in a position for the arm to lay that way, unless it was severely broken or mangled- wait! Now, he saw it. It was so subtle that he’d had to really lean in to catch it, but the human was breathing! He was alive, somehow! …Without an EVA suit. On the surface of a moon with a thin atmosphere, just like Earth’s moon. How was he breathing without any kind of oxygen supply?
Grace felt like his sanity was beginning to crumble as a possible answer slapped him in the face. The tree. Trees required some kind of atmosphere to exist; they required so many things that he didn’t even want to consider the idea that this weird moon might have an atmosphere similar to Earth—because it didn’t, plain and simple—but… he couldn’t think of any other explanations. And okay, maybe he hadn’t slept in a couple hours too long. Or maybe his coma slurry had somehow gone bad, and now he was in some kind of illness-induced limbo where his mind was fabricating some insane dream where he found another human out in space, with no logical explanation as to why they would be there. Or maybe he was just plain-old going insane and Rocky was, too. Could Eridians even go insane? Was insanity even a thing for Eridians, or was that just as foreign a concept to them as radiation sickness had been?
Regardless, Grace knew he was in far too deep to turn back now. They had to figure out what the heck was going on… and maybe, just maybe, they could save this poor soul and patch him up. There was no guarantee the human would survive, though. And what would happen after? Would he be grateful, or would he be terrified or angry?
With startling conviction, Grace decided it didn’t matter. There was a human life on his hands now; he had to do what he could to save it. He had already tried being a coward; he wanted to try his hand at really being brave for the sake of someone that wasn’t him.
There was just one issue. How in the world was he supposed to get down there?