Chapter Text
The first problem when the enormous seed appears is that the most reasonable course of action is to quarantine it as fast as possible... and then run every scan possible on it, slowly, multiple times. And then stare at the results, confirm with the Eridians that this is all indeed weird as heck and Grace has no idea what's going on either, or where it came from, or what it is, and then run all the tests again. And again.
And this process repeats on a loop. Over the course of 37 and a half hours. The seed shows signs of radiation, like it came from somewhere with incredibly high levels, but it doesn't seem to be a source of radiation itself, and the longer it spends in the quarantine bay, the more its levels plummet. Its dimensions aren't changing. (4.692m diameter at widest point, 3.422m at narrowest point) There's definitely stuff in there, stuff floating in stuff, and the thermo cam keeps getting photos that leave Grace feeling like the expectant parent of a horror movie monster, trying to make sense of the first ultrasound pictures.
A tiny, tiny sample of the exterior is shaved off and examined. The seed doesn't seem to get mad about it. The exterior's DNA is genetically similar to many Earth trees, but not quite right. Adrian is several white papers deep in the effects of radiation on Earth plant life. Many other biologists-cum-xenobiologists are debating the risks and rewards of treating the Earth-like seed like an Earth-like seed, and introducing soil and moisture to see what would happen. They are willing to build a larger quarantine bay in case the tree grows but can't be confirmed safe.
Grace has been staring at test results and helping direct the Eridians to the relevant corresponding Earth knowledge in the Hail Mary data banks, but he's still not sure if comparing all of this to Earth things is just leading them on a wild goose chase. There's so much that's familiar about this thing, compared to everything he's seen on Erid, but there's also something so foreign about it. Well, alien.
"I don't think it's a seed-seed," Grace says finally.
Rocky stops tapping out some very emphatic response to an Eridian scientist on the other side of the planet. He looks up. "Seed seed. Explain."
Grace takes off his glasses. "Okay. You know an egg. A chicken egg."
"Rocky familiar with concept of chicken egg, statement."
"You see it and -" Grace gestures in front of him like he's looking at one right now. "If you crack it, and pour it all into a bowl, that's the egg.The Embryo, the yolk. Breakfast. The round white shards left over that you'd been looking at, that was just the shell."
Rocky is checking an Eridian clock app. "Grace awake too long and gotten stupid. Arguing semantics instead of doing real science."
Grace points to one of the x-ray scans overlaid with the best ERI scan they've gotten so far. "The thing in here doesn't look like a seed embryo. We've looked at every diagram of tree seeds, plant seeds, and, and it's too - there's so much liquid, it's not gymnosperm or angiosperm coded, I think it's a seed shell around a non-seed thing, because it's for traveling."
Rocky can't stare, but Rocky's staring at him.
"Egg shells crack," Grace continues. "Animal egg shells aren't meant to go further than, like, the cloaca to the nest, maybe roll out a few times and get rolled back in, right? But seed shells get blown around and stomped on by animals, and, and eaten by birds and pooped out hundreds of miles away and drops down hundreds of feet-"
"Seed shell for protecting thing that travel through worm hole question?"
Grace shrugs. "Seed shell is ship?"
"Grace sleep NOW, statement."
/////
They promise promise promise they will wake him up if anything changes. Nothing has for over 9 hours now. Grace is almost positive that the blob in the middle is not actually a humanoid person in a fetal position so much as his own brain, cooking up some flavor of pareidolia blended with all the years of not having seen another living entity with a face. But just because he wants it to be a person doesn't mean it isn't.
Rocky enlisted Adrian to escort Grace back to the 'Earth temp' room to sleep, which was definitely strategic. Rocky knows Grace doesn't try to argue or bargain with Adrian.
Under normal circumstances.
"If you end up doing the drill test, though, you guys will wake me up," Grace wheedles.
"Human Grace will get awoken if anything important happens with anomaly, statement." Adrian taps the door chime and gestures one leg out to invite Grace to go in. Adrian's getting better at Earth gestures every day. "Is Human Grace... sure that it is alright to sleep alone? Adrian can get a suit and join-"
"You have real science to do. And you're not hampered by my stupid human bio-rhythms. I'll be fine." Grace waves goodbye and walks through the double-doors. He waits for the doors to shut and the airlock thing to woosh and then he begins the long and surprisingly exhausting process of wiggling out of his suit. Maybe he is tired.
He's not tired. There's some kind of lump that's apparated onto the planet and it may have something living inside. Or that was alive. Or will be alive. That's incredible. That's even weirder than he is. Grace drops down onto the emergency cot, installed for science jags just such as this one, and begins fiddling with his communicator's radio settings to see if he can get the chatter between universities that's going on right now. He knows Rocky's been yelling at someone at one of them about some theory about localized time dilation 'echoes', which may have been a mistranslation or... Grace futzes more with the radio channels. None of these channels are the channel he wants. He wants a specific channel. It's not there. His arms and legs feel like lead. He knows this is exhaustion but he doesn't want to sleep when there's still so much to think about.
Grace lets his head drop onto the cot, hand still on the radio, and doesn't think. He falls the fudge asleep.
////
Grace doesn't know what time it is when he jolts up in the cot. Someone is banging repeatedly on the double-doors of his Earth temp room.
The Eridian outside is saying something like 'important' and 'right now' but also the respectful 'please', but it's too fast and muffled through the doors. Grace tries to parse it all before realizing there's no accompanying English translation and that's why it's so difficult to understand. He looks down at his communicator and sees that the translation switch is 'off' and the radio channel is... set to something that isn't even being used.
"Hold on, sorry," he shouts, and flicks the first switch.
"-only two inches shorter than Human Grace! The doctors gave dose consistent with all Earth medical texts, statement, respectful!"
Two inches shorter? What is that? That's data. New data? "Hold on, I'm suiting up!"
"Please please hurry, respectful! Fast fast fast, respectful! Communicator broken or out of power, question?"
Grace is throwing himself into his suit as fast as physics will allow. If he cooks alive in the hallway outside, he will never get to find out what's going on. "The switches - it's not important! What are the inches you were talking about? The data? Get me up to sp-" He hits his funny bone against one of the transparent polygons of the sleeve. "-dang it- to speed!"
"Anomaly seed began leaking fluid about six minutes ago! Drone sent in to collect fluid for tests seemed to cause anomaly reaction! Sent first radio message to Human Grace!"
Grace trips and falls directly on his face, which should have ruined his glasses, which he's thankfully not wearing for some reason. He looks back at the cot and grabs his glasses off the pillow and shoves them on.
"Scientist Rocky say many thing about Earth bird egg protective barriers versus Earth plant seed protective barriers! Say interior mass movements more consistent with Earth animal than Earth plant! Send more radio message to Human Grace!"
Grace finalizes the suit acclimation and slams the door chime. The Eridian's first two legs are already raised and ready to run alongside him.
"So it's - something's hatching?" Grace pants as he begins to sprint.
"Present tense incorrect, statement, respectful, respectful!" They round the corner together and several other Eridians with tablets have to dodge them.
"Hatched!?"
"Sentient Anomaly severely injured but stabilizing! Physiology incredibly similar to human and Earth triage treatments being enacted with great care! Synthesized human blood introduced with good-"
"Why did you all let me sleep?"
"SENT SEVERAL MESSAGES, MANY THINGS HAPPENING QUICKLY, STATEMENT, RESPECTFUL RESPECTFUL RESPECTFUL!" They reach the end of the corridor where Grace thinks they're going left to the quarantine bay, but the Eridian jukes right instead and Grace realizes that the anomaly is in one of the human-friendly medbays made just for him. Ahead, he sees it now, a cluster of Eridians who were talking animatedly before noticing him. They're now proactively backing up, outlining the path he's taking, like onlookers of a two-person race. Grace tries to synthesize this new information without tripping again. He doesn't feel fully awake yet.
"So it hatched and it's stable?"
"Stabilizing, correct, respectful! Very injured, missing limb, respectful! Used synthesized membrane to-"
Deep laughter peals through the hallway, causing something in Grace's body to immediately freeze in place and lurch. It's disorientation cut with euphoria. He's heard humanoid voices on his laptop speakers every day for years, but that's - that's someone here -
"HUMAN GRACE HAVING MEDICAL EPISODE, QUESTION, RESPECTFUL?"
There's speech. Grace can't make it out but it's not Eridian song, it's some kind of - it's vocal chords vibrating, it's, it could be a human, it-
Grace feels like he's being moved by some other force. He's moving again, hitting the door chime for the medbay, moving past the cluster of Eridians at the human-sized medical bed. Dark hair, filthy and sticky with something reddish, and an unimaginably big smile.
The man turns his head and notices Grace. He lights up even further and Grace feels like something is pressing his rib cage from the front and back with enough strength to crush a car.
"Is this him!?" The man asks the room, voice excited and unsteady. One of the Eridians is doing the pat-pat-pat on the back of his hand that they have learned from the medical texts. Several others are huddled around the foot and side of the bed, near the IV drip, appendages half-crooked and waiting as if they're worried this person is going to tip out of bed at any moment and need to be caught. "You're him!? You're the guy!?"
Grace can't stop staring. The man looks like he's been doused in tar, or paint, or something - he also looks drunk. There's a strong jawline under all that mess, and warm dark eyes, and when he reaches out toward Grace his bare arm is muscled.
"Does he not talk?" The man is looking at the Eridians now.
"Human Grace can speak, statement." One of the leading doctors is bravely moving forward to dab at the man's exposed chest with some kind of wet compress. He looks like he wants to clean him but is unbelievably nervous about it.
"I can talk," Grace confirms on autopilot, and when the man begins to sit up in excitement, Grace continues on said autopilot, reaching out and grabbing him by the shoulders to gently push him back down on the medbay bed. This is someone who shouldn't get up. That much is clear. "Are you - are you okay?"
"You're in a shiny box like they are," the man is saying. Grace can see now that his far shoulder, near his fingertips, is meticulously bandaged and only a stump seems to remain. Morphine. This is morphine, or something equivalent. "Are you stuck in the box?"
Grace hasn't heard anything he's said. "What?"
The man stays laid against the bed, but reaches out and touches worriedly at the multi-polygonal semi-transparent suit where it covers Grace's forearm. "You're in a box, right? Or am I hallucinating all the boxes?"
"Everyone but Anomaly is in a temperature and pressure regulation suit, statement." One of the nurses performs a human-friendly pat-pat-pat on the man's shin. "No need for concern, statement, respectful."
"And we aren't stuck," Grace reassures. Slowly, very slowly, his brain has shifted into an understanding of this situation. For all the brand new and unthinkable details of what's going on, this is essentially a drunk man, and Grace is a sober friend. It's like college. It's like grad school. Grace's job in this scenario is to gently guide this man toward good choices and away from risk and upset. That is what is going on here. "Are you feeling okay? You mentioned hallucinations?"
The man breaks into another beautiful smile. "I thought the ship was talking to me, but it was the rocks. I saw the rocks, but I didn't know the rocks talked. And all their voices were coming from-" He gestures toward one of the spare communicators that is perched haphazardly in the corner. They must have scuttled across the building to find it and bring it in here.
"The rocks talk here," Grace confirms gently. "And they're really nice, and they're trying to help."
"They are!" The man agrees with surprising enthusiasm. He almost looks like he's about to get emotional about it. "They asked me - they wanted to know if I was in pain, and, and if I was allergic to penicillin, and-"
As one of the doctors continues to inconspicuously pat at the worst of the viscera(?) on him, it becomes apparent to Grace that it's not just an aesthetic concern but a medical one. This situation has infections written all over it. "But you're answering all their questions?" Grace prompts, like this is one of his students who needs to be guided toward good behavior. "And letting them clean you up?"
The man finally seems to notice that his left pectoral is much cleaner than his right. He looks at his chest, then at the hovering stone hand that has frozen in place upon being discovered. "Are you cleaning me up, little rock?"
"Anomaly may have cuts or abrasions that need tending to, statement."
The man peers at Grace, suddenly in deep thought. "I think... I think I'm the anomaly."
Grace can't help the bark of slightly hysterical laughter that comes out of him. "Yeah," he agrees. He looks around - the Eridians seem to have been completely at sea with this person before, and now seem to trying to sneakily do as much work as possible while Grace is keeping the man - the anomaly - distracted and under control. Two are gesturing animatedly over a tablet that might be displaying neurological activity. "Do you - did they tell you? My name's Grace."
"Yeah, they said you -" He stops suddenly, frowning. He can't remember. "You did something important. They like you!"
"I'm, yeah." Grace laughs again and nods. "What's your name?"
The man's grin is so satisfied, like he's so pleased to have been asked. "It's Simon," he rasps.
Grace feels the ground underneath him shift a little. That's such a normal name. Everything about this guy - his (medicated) demeanor, the perfect English, his North American accent, it's all so normal. It's not alien enough. "I'm Grace. Where are you from, Simon?"
Simon lets out a derisive sound and sinks further into his bed. "It sucks," he says, completely dismissing the idea of it. "Where's here?"
"Uh." Grace blinks. "We're on a planet called Erid."
"Planet!?" For some reason this idea causes Simon to launch back up, dislodging the doctor's arm and pushing the sheets back messily like he wants to get to his feet. Grace's eyebrows fly up and he wants to turn for propriety, but he also has to push Simon back down into the bed, and medical safety wins out over etiquette. Simon yells incredulously.
"Yes," Grace grits out. In his periphery, more Eridians are swarming, but they're not covering Simon's lap up, rather using the opportunity to clean the newly exposed skin. Okay, fair. This man is covered in something awful. "You have an IV in your arm, here, and it's giving you fluids. Those are really important. Can you try to stay still for me?"
"Huh?"
"You have to lay still so you don't hurt yourself." Grace tries to smile again. Simon smiles back. He looks like he's been murdered. Or been murdering. "If I get one of these wet cloths, I can clean your face up for you. Would that be okay?"
"I don't care," Simon says agreeably. "I'm great. Nothing hurts. The rocks gave - they gave me painkillers. Like I'm someone important."
Unimportant people don't get -? Grace resolves not to go down every available rabbit hole here.
"And I'm safe here," Simon is continuing. "It said it would never look here. It's not... I don't think it's going to look anywhere anymore." He raises his hand and casts it dramatically from left to right until he sees the IV in his arm. He frowns at it a moment, remembering himself, then slowly lowers his arm again. "I'm complying."
Grace takes the wet compress from one of the nurses and starts at Simon's hairline. The latest polygonal suit still isn't good enough to type in, but he can hold a rough cloth shape and move it over someone's face without any issues. Simon's eyes drift closed and he makes a low, pleased sound deep in his chest. Grace ignores the bizarre stirring that draws up in him. Simon looks like he might fall asleep.
"Grace," Rocky is whispering quietly at his side.
"Hey," Grace whispers back.
"What the fuck, question."
"Don't know," Grace says under his breath. "Words of encouragement."
