Chapter Text
It's been 2 months in Earth's calendar since I moved onto Erid. Teaching has begun since acclimatizing. The curious pebbles so amazed to learn about Earth and our surrounding Solar System, their teaching at a faster pace than what I was used to teaching my children, the middle school students on Earth Looking around I still feel alone although I'm surrounded by the pebbles, and Rocky. The quiet loneliness of slowly forgetting another human's warmth, their soft touch.. Staring up at the roof, the metal plating of the ceiling as I'm now reminded of Rocky as he begins knocking on the metal door of my recycled house viewing the ocean ledge.
My mind feels groggy, lost, as I stretch upwards, the heavy gravity of Erid's cored weighing down on me like a weighted blanket, as much as I want to fall back asleep Rocky's knocking has begun growing more incessant, impatient. The soft blue light that shines into the biodome shining down on me through the clear xenonite windows. My back aching from the adjusted gravity as I slowly get out of bed, grabbing my glasses to try and clear the fog from my eyes. Looking down at my mismatched socks with silly cartoon characters I no longer recognize besides faint memories of a box TV as a kid who looked like me and an older brother all crowd around watching the cartoons, the sight of broken alcohol bottles and the smell of dried beer and piss never leaving me fully, a memory not even amnesia could get rid of. Found in a box labeled with my name 'Ryland Grace' on Mary's space ship adorn my feet as I begin walking on the fake hardwood floors, or at least Eridian's best attempt at it.
The weight of Ilyukhina and Yao's still comatose bodies are heavy. I could've killed them, sent them out to space in a memorial of sorts, used their clothes as materials for survival, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. They had lives, a life they will probably never return to, but they're alive, and the existence of their faint heartbeat has stopped me from "pulling the plug" in a sense.
My slowly graying dusty blond hair which is thankfully not matted from the way I awoke. In what felt like a flash the bed was made, time flying past me as it always has, my memories from Earth as gone as my life itself. Adorned in my new favorite cardigan, a beige one made of soft crochet yarn with foxes on the back, a white T-shirt I wore in my days stuck on Mary walking through the house I pass Armando as he hands me a mug of coffee..
I look at the claws of the glorified robotic nanny and respond with gratitude.
"Thanks Armando!"
I smile as I begin drinking my coffee, a fairly easy cup to make, just a simple coffee grounds that the Eridians had managed to copy their DNA structure to create a new plant for me to consume, truly the biodomes dedicated scientists are amazing, their intelligence expanding with the new lessons I give to both the children and the scientists. My eyebrows scrunch up subconsciously as I try to put on my shoes without falling, Rocky's knocking slowing down as he hears my footsteps approaching, sighing as I finish putting on both of my sand-worn sneakers. Granted whenever I truly heard and understood Rocky's singing I froze, my hand on the door knob.
"Grace, hurry! Grace, hurry! New humans! New humans! Humans like Grace!!"
My heart started sinking to my stomach at the rate of a Rollercoaster. The idea of Yao and Ilyukhina finally waking up.. Alone, scared, so far away from their family. Twisting the knob in fear I move out the way of the door to look down at Rocky with a baffled face. My mood sank at the possibility of this being a joke or a hallucination.
"What do you mean they're awake? Rocky, where are they? They were moved to an Eridian holding zone last time I checked, are they okay?"
My mind works faster than my mouth as I begin freaking out, tears gathering in my tear ducts. The tears make it even more difficult to see through my old glasses that have been cracked since I accidentally dropped them in the greenhouse that was built for me.
"Grace, follow Rocky! New humans in the medical holding space for human recovery, human science knowledge amaze!”
I scoff playfully as I try to swallow my anxiety as I run down as fast as I can at 39 to where the opening of my biodome is as I flail around thinking about how I'm no longer the only human on Erid. My old space suit is now being repurposed into being a suit that can bear the atmosphere of Erid outside of my dome. The space suit itself is the same except for the fact that it has a protective clear xenonite encasing that wraps around everything as I zip from the inside of my suit.
Opening into an airlock as Rocky and I began traversing the hardly seeable darkness as one door shut and another opened. The darkness of the tunnels and testing facilities around the atmosphere, my mind blankly focusing on how insane it looks like a zoo enclosure, deep down I know they'd never view me like that but even the potential of having them back has sent me to view it from an outsiders perspective.
"This way, this way,"
Rocky chittered, breaking me out of my brain fog as I marched to keep up with him.
"Yup, on to- this way!"
I chuckled, nervously remaining as happy as I could in a stressed out situation. What if they failed to stabilize their bodies? What does Rocky even mean by 'new humans'? Bending down and lifting back up as a heavy door opens into a similarly built airlock, the atmosphere still that of Erids so we both kept our suits on as Rocky braced for the new pressure as the door slammed shut, condensation collecting about as the air is cooling. As the door opened I stared at the sight, Yao and Ilyukhina on their same medical beds from the Hail Mary as they laid, all of the medical facilities collected from the Hail Mary being used as are Eridian replicas of all medical equipment they could find in internet databases as 2023, the year we left orbit to head off. Everything archived on how to build heart rate monitors to a human thermometer. I then turned to look down at Rocky with a skeptical gaze as I asked.
“Were they awake? Did their heart rate fluctuate? Are they stable now???”
My heart speeds up at each new possibility, just to have a turquoise and teal colored Eridian that's top reaches my head at 6ft- Rocky's mate Adrian -come over and explain the situation.
“Humans awake a few minutes ago, Yao murmuring in unknown language, Ilyukhina movement in sleep.”
As Adrian chortled out the good news my knees sunk to the ground as I stared up, watching the two. I had no active yard work- the climate never gets too overbearing to harm the plants -and I take breaks from teaching for two days after 5 of teaching anyways, a hard habit to break from the work schedule I briefly remember having engraved into my head from Earth.
Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes turned into hours as I stayed there watching the two, Rocky sat down beside me as I waited, they had to wake up soon right? It's a shame that throughout my academic career I never went to study how the body reacts to long-term comas, granted I never expected to be sent onto an astronomy themed death sentence either. Eyes began drooping, slumber welcoming me into her grasp out of boredom to pass the time.
Whenever I had come to next there was loud noises around me, my eyes blurrily adjusting to the bright lights of the medical lab, my glasses having fallen from my eyes now leaving my sight to see a tall long blob with brown hair scurrying around the lab trying to get as far away from Rocky, Adrian, and the other two scientists in here … Wait, brown hair? My mind began pulling at straws as I haphazardly shoved my glasses up, almost digging into my eyesocket from the force as I stared and stood up, in disbelief I choked out a weak.
“Ilyukhina?.. Are you her?”
How embarrassing it was, who else was the lady who looked like the woman in the photos from the tote named after her? She turned around to stare at me, looking at me in terror, then confusion before screaming out.
“Grace? Where are we? Are we dead? Am I high?!”
Her voice deep and thick with a Russian accent, which matched with the Russian flag that was still on the jacket of her orange space jacket, her hair was messy as a tube that was sending signals to monitor her needs had since been removed, yanked off by the sight of it. Her arms and legs were exposed being covered in hair as her body kept growing in the coma, her brown eyes as rich as the soil that provides life now confused and lost as she looked to me for an explanation, so I began.
“I.. Okay so this seems crazy so you might want to sit down.”
I chuckled out as she sat down onto the medical bed they raised to be about 1 foot off the ground. I continued after she had done so.
“We're on a planet called Erid, I can take you back to my biodome and home to show you the logs I recorded and sent back to Earth and Stratt. The stars are okay, Rocky, the short, brown, rock spider creature over there-”
I point to Rocky who's to the left of me as I continue explaining the weird world were on.
“And I ‘saved the stars’ as they put it while you two were comatose. After we discovered a new alien species that feeds off of the Astrophage I sent all of my data back to Earth before going back and saving Rocky after discovering a fatal flaw I skipped over in the selective breeding of the predator species; that I've named Taumobea, which had learned to eat into Xenonite, the primary metal in both Erid's infrastructure and their space ships. You're safe here Ilyukhina.”
At my explanation I saw her slowly untense her shoulder muscles, still processing the information laid down in front of her, her eyes picking up at a specific thing I mentioned, her eyes lighting up like a kid that just stepped into Disneyland.
“Did you say a biodome?! How does that work??? How do they maintain a safe atmosphere? What do you eat?!”
I smiled slightly, the scientist part of her taking over as her chill demeanor, the Ilyukhina I remember, having since been shoved to the side at the new technology at hand.
Rocky began chittering off musical sounds, his excitement radiating off in waves at a human engineer.
“Amaze! Human enjoy engineering too! New humans teach Rocky more than Grace about space ship!”
At his noises Ilyukhina only looked confused before looking to me for an explanation, which I then realized I owed her since she didn't know Eridian's language, nor did she understand their tunes.
“Ah, yeah, uhm Eridians as I named them, since we're in the 40 Eridiani star system.. Anyways they communicate via musical notes produced from their diaphragm near the top of their main, like rock.? I think that's what its called atleast, I was more focused on communication not skeletal & muscular structure. Anyways he's just happy you're interested in engineering.”
She looked amazed at his knowledge then smirked at me as she let out a playful scoff.
“How are you so sure its a he?. Also! Rocky really? You Americans have a poor naming system, besides the point! Do you rock guys know when Yao will awake? I mean Grace how long have you been in Erid?”
I was happy to see her excited again and calming down after everything going on, so I began answering her questions one by one.
“Ah yes haha, for the gender I went off of the voice boxes gender that he chose.. Regardless I am not sure how long it is going to take for Yao to awake but I was told he was sleeping. To answer your other question, I've been on Erid for about 2 months now and have decided to stay, I have no family on Earth left for me anyways. It may take awhile, if you want to explore my biodome you are more than welcome to, and if you want to stay they can make you one!”
My voice as chipper as it could be as I just realized that I could be alone once more if Ilyukhina and Yao decide to go back home, they have a home, family's to return to if they even can, so I told Ilyukhina the truth.
“If Yao and you can man an Eridian ship.. The Hail Mary was dismantled to build this medical bay as well as my house.”
At that I saw Ilyukhina loosen a bit of her luster but at that awkward moment Yao began whispering in Mandarin. I was unsure what to do as my focus shifted to the man, but Ilyukhina saw his face anxious and decided to try and wake him from his supposed nightmare.
“Yao, wake up, Commander Yao!”
She yelled out, the Eridians who function on echolocation and sound seeing then scrambled back, which concerned her.
“Oh, uh sorry guys!!”
She then turned to me, anxious at the situation we're in.
“It's alright, they see with sound vibrations and piezoelectric flashes so it just shocked them, they can get quite loud themselves its nothing to stress about.”
The reassurance seemed to relieve her, granted she did then let out a sigh before complaining.
“God, I need Vodka for all of this.”
I then soured at that, something she picked up on as she looked at me with a skeptical gaze.
“I kind of, maybe, owe you 3 bags of Vodka..”
Her jaw dropped in partial frustration and anger as she shouted out.
“FUCK!”
As she then fell backwards onto the medical bed, her oily hair falling back like a cape, granted that loud noise then woke up Yao.
“Hm?.. 我在哪里?”
His voice hoarse from no usage and perhaps old age as he sat up, staring down at the metallic white floor and then looking down to the Eridians. His head moving around before glancing over to Ilyukhina who's now staring at him as well before turning his attention back to the Eridians then finally to me, his coarse, rough English, coming out blocky as he asks.
“Grace, where the hell are we..”
I then sighed, my hand coming up to rub the back of my neck..
“We have a lot to catch up on huh?”