Work Text:
Olesya woke with a start and quickly told the computer to ‘fuck off,’ although it came out more like ‘ffrckuf’. When that didn’t work, she eventually managed a loose ‘fuuuur’ which was close enough to four that the computer left her alone. As her memory came back with a jolt, she sat up, pulling out tubes and wires with abandon (and rather painfully) to help the computer along. She craned her neck frantically to Ryland’s pod, only to find it empty, the sheets rumpled.
“Computer, status update on Dr. Ryland Grace,” she demanded, her voice still rough but much more authoritative in her panic.
“Dr. Grace is alive and cancer-free,” the computer reported, and the jackhammering of Olesya’s heart calmed slightly. “Weight nearly back to healthy levels. Effects of chemotherapy resulted in moderate-to-severe long term arrhythmia. Implantable Cardioverter-defribrillator installed 6 months ago during coma, and beta-blockers prescribed to slow and regulate heartbeat.”
Fuck. Ilyukhina didn’t even know that cardio issues could be a side-effect of chemo, and thanked her lucky stars that Stratt had apparently had Lamai plan for every possible contingency, including apparently having a spare pacemaker just lying around. And oh double fuck, because Ryland hated taking pills- he said they got stuck in his throat, and getting him to take so much as an aspirin was like pulling teeth. Had he been taking the medication since he woke up however long ago?
“Computer, how long since Dr. Grace woke up?” she demanded.
“14 days, 3 hours, 2 minutes, and 54 seconds,” the computer chirped back.
Olesya did some quick math. That just about tracked- they’d waited ten days to start their comas, and four days difference wasn’t a huge red flag, especially when accounting for differences in individual reactions to the comas. Yao was still asleep, but he had said he planned to wait an extra day to make sure that everything went okay with her coma, as he felt it was his duty as captain. Alright, so far, so… okay? She just had to find Grace. And also make sure he was taking his medication. And eating properly. And doing literally anything else besides going on a days-long science bender, as he had been wont to do when left unsupervised until the cancer got too bad for his body to allow itself to be pushed that way.
She stepped out into the main room of the spaceship and nearly smiled at the mess, until she spotted the whiteboard.
“Oh triple fuck,” she said again, her eyes quickly roaming the surface. Who am I? It demanded at the top in big, red, accusing lettering. Then, below:
Name- Grace, Ryland
Doctor??? Smart???
American??? Canadian???
-Think in imperial units for distance.
-Def not British- call them fries.
-Liberian??
-probably not. Caucasian population .1 percent
-why know this but not hometown?
Science shirts whole wardrobe????
-BIG NERD!!!
Teacher!!! Yay!
Gravity weird??
-FUDGESICKLES (sidenote: No curse? Why?)
- SPACE??????!!!
Weird thing in chest? Armando robot Doctor annoying about pills?
-Body feels okay, why surprise???
-Always muscles?
No partner, don’t think.
-Why relief @ thought?
Lived on boat???
-why?
-Not get seasick? Def get airsick!
Best friend very mean, super cool
-German? Dutch?
-gave science job- nepotism???
-was intern??? Scientist babysitter?
-why change jobs when happy teaching? (Addendum: world in danger? explains motive)
Sleeping friends:
Names: Li-Li and Oly?? (nicknames??)
-full names unknown
-wake up soon???
Oh… oh no.
__________________
There were equations scribbled on the wall, making the place look like a sort of prison cell for a mad scientist. The computer must not have let him into the upper rooms (the ones with windows) until he could remember his own name, because he looked like he figured out the space thing by testing the gravity.
He also apparently couldn’t remember much about his job on the Vat, either (although to be fair, he did seem quite surprised when people referred to him as the first officer or the lead scientist even when they were on earth. Olesya distinctly remembered a time where he mentioned that it was really weird meeting ‘all these important people’ like diplomats and prime ministers, and when Stratt had told him bluntly “Dr. Grace, you are literally one of the most important people on earth right now. If anything, these people should feel weird about meeting you,” he’d squeaked and fallen out of his chair). So maybe the fact that his aggressive modesty and inability to pick up on any social dynamics whatsoever had survived the amnesia was actually a good sign.
She could figure out more if she could just find him. The lab was a mess, and then mental health room was empty except for a pillow and blanket. No amnesiac middle school teacher in sight. Where could he be?
And then she noticed the open airlock. And all three EVA suits were still there.
Fuck was starting to feel insufficient, at this point.
________
Ilyukhina had never suited up so fast or ignored so many safety checks in her damn life. She rushed through the tunnel, which had clear walls made of some sort of material that gave off heat. She put that in the back of her mind for now, and nearly fell to her knees when she saw Ryland floating placidly at the end of it, scribbling equations on a legal pad. He was still a bit skinny, but looked infinitely better than the last time she’d seen him. He’d clearly given himself a haircut, and his glasses were once again hanging from one ear. On his feet were his old converse, and he had his jumpsuit sleeves tied around his waist, showing off a t-shirt that said “Ah! The element of Surprise." Ironic, Olesya thought, her mouth moving before her brain.
“Why the fuck did you nearly give me heart attack when you’re the one with arrythmia!” She blurted.
He did a little whole-body startle, but then his face lit up. “Oly! You’re awake! I’m assuming you’re Oly and not Li-li? Sorry if I’m wrong though. Oh, wait, arrhythmia? Is that why I have the weird bump on my chest? Nevermind, not important right now. You’ll never believe what we--”
“Who Grace talk to, question? Grace friend 🎶🎶🎵 question? 🎶🎵🎵🎵🎶 help 🎶🎶🎵🎵🎶 Rocky 🎶🎶🎶🎶🎵🎵 question?” came from a computer near Grace’s hip, and Olesya jumped.
“What is that?” Iluykhina demanded, her slowing heartbeat jumping forward again.
“Oh goodness- I’ve been so rude!” Grace declared, smacking himself across the forehead. “Oly, meet Rocky!”
_________
Okay, so her amnesiac friend had made first contact when she was in her coma. That’s… she decided to table her feelings around whatever weirdness Ryland had gotten up to (and the STUPID STUPID STUPID decisions he’d made to not prioritize his safety at all, like taking his EVA suit off inside of an alien tunnel!). Control what you can control, and all that.
“This translation software sucks,” she lamented. “Seriously, HTML? You have not ever heard of python? And why are you not updating? You clearly understand more than you put in,” she scolded him, as he smiled at something the alien said that just came out of the translator as random chords.
“Oh yeah, sorry… I haven’t done any coding since grad school, and even then it was barely. I started with doing words and stuff, but once we got to real grammar, it became apparent pretty quickly that I just wasn’t up to the task, but luckily I did musical theater in high school- at least I think I did- so I’m picking it up faster than I thought.”
“That’s great for you,” Olesya grumbled, “but I have no clue how I going to even begin fixing this.”
“Well uh, Eridians- that’s what I’m calling Rocky’s people, by the way, since they’re from a planet in the 40 Eridani system- they have five separate sets of vocal chords, and from what he’s told me, it seems like the vocabulary is largely different sets of notes and chords, and the grammar is determined by things like the speed, tempo, and octaves. Like, a typical syllable is a quarter-note, but drawing out the syllables in a word to a half-note signifies emphasis. The base C scale is for present tense and indicative statements, with major chords used to talk about the future and minor chords used to talk about the past. Repeated vocabulary indicates strong emotion, as does raising or lowering octaves- higher octaves are for pleasant emotions, lower octaves are for negative emotions. The articulation effect the aspect- staccato is for the continuous aspect, and Legato is for the simple aspect. I haven’t figured out the perfect aspect yet, sorry! And uh, the volume seems to determine whether a statement is indicative or conditional or subjunctive? I think that if all five voice boxes are at a normal volume, that's the indicative. Sharp notes at the beginning and end of a sentence signal a question, and Rocky says that how much you raise or lower the volume with each voice box indicates different types of conditionals and how likely or unlikely they are, but I’m still trying to figure all that out, and so right now he’s adding a lot of markers for me like saying “certainty” or “likelihood.” Grace spit all that out in such a rush that Olesya’s brain was still trying to translate the music terms enough to dig through her brain for her high school piano lessons.
“What the fuck, Grace? How do you even know all this?” she asked after eventually giving up.
“Uh, the band teacher at the school I taught at- still can’t remember where I’m from, by the way, sorry- had a double major in music and linguistics, and she liked to talk a lot in the teacher’s lounge. That’s one of the more specific memories I’ve gotten back, actually. The flashback sort of hit me like a truck and nearly scared the toolbelt off of poor Rocky when my brain just went AWOL for like a solid five minutes in the middle of him explaining Eridian grammar.” He scratched the back of his neck sheepishly and fixed his glasses.
“Alright, well, that definitely makes coding harder, but if you give me few hours, I should be able to fix if you’re willing to answer questions while you work on your thing,” she agreed, glad to focus on something that made sense in the weirdness that her day had been so far. She shrugged her way out of the EVA suit so she could grab the computer.
“Yeah, no problem,” he agreed easily, returning to his equations.
“Grace friend sunny fix think machine, question?” the computer beeped, along with the musical tones coming from the spider-rock behind the glass, and Olesya jumped again (as much as one could ‘jump’ when already floating in a low-gravity alien tunnel). She’d nearly forgotten he was there, despite the fact that they’d been talking about him. But it was pretty dark on his side of the wall, and she’d been too focused on Grace to really register the alien lurking behind the glass at his shoulder in what seemed to be a… protective???... stance. She couldn’t really tell, but her gut was telling her that the alien had pack-bonded with her dorky teacher friend.
Jeez, you wake up two weeks late!
“Yeah, Oly will fix,” Grace agreed, lightly brushing the barrier with his free hand, making Rocky’s claw flex affectionately.
“Why this translates my name as ‘sunny?’” She asked, picking out the detail among the truly inefficient mess of code.
“Uh, well, your name doesn’t really have a translation in Eridian like ‘Grace’ does, so I just picked a word, and I still don’t remember much, but I know you’re really cheerful, so I just went with that.” Awww, now he was blushing, Ilyukhina’s mind cooed.
“Okay, we’ll keep,” she agreed, trying not to sound too outwardly pleased. “So, how much you actually remember about mission?”
“Uh, I know we’re trying to stop astrophage- what a silly name, by the way- from eating the sun.”
“Ry, you named,” Olesya tried not to cackle as she opened Python.
“Oh, I did? Wow, I’m bad at naming stuff! But I remember that I did a lot of work on it, and I remember how it works and that I had a surprising amount of knowledge about it for a lab assistant- the lead scientist must have really indulged me when it came to spending time in the lab during off hours.”
“Grace, you were lead scientist on Project Hail Mary.” Despite how concerning the memory gaps still were, Olesya was really, really trying not to find this as funny as she did.
“Wait, for real? But I’m a middle school teacher!” he gasped, his jaw dropping.
“You were, until you figured out how alien lifeform worked and became world’s top expert.”
“How was I allowed to be in the same room with it? Did my scary German friend let me because she was in charge of the project? How did I even make such a powerful friend- did I study abroad in college or something?” Ryland asked, looking faintly dizzy.
“No, actually, Stratt- best friend’s name- didn’t know you until project. They needed someone to make look at it, but they couldn’t risk putting one of big names in room with unknown alien life form. Apparently you wrote paper with some pretty radical thoughts on theoretical alien life, and it caused fuss enough that Stratt heard about it and picked you.”
“Ahh, that makes sense,” Ryland nodded. “Weird that I went from guinea pig to friend, though.” He didn’t seem as bothered by the ‘guinea pig’ bit as Olesya thought he should be.
“Not really. You’re very loveable, believe it or not. And you certainly didn’t win position by nepotism like you were worried about.”
“Rocky loves grace!” the alien piped in helpfully, through the translator. He couldn’t catch everything Sunny was saying, since her voice and accent were very different than friend Grace’s, and since she wasn’t slowing down and explaining often like friend Grace did whenever he noticed Rocky seemed confused. But he definitely knew the word love, and he heard doubt in friend Grace’s frame.
Grace smiled fondly at his Eridian friend, before horror dawned on the scientist’s face as he realized what Olesya was referring to. “Oh fiddlesticks- you saw the board?”
“Yep,” she declared proudly. “Very funny, now. Was scary then, though, because I couldn’t find you!” She scolded mildly.
“Sorry,” Ryland deflated, and Ilyukhina felt bad immediately. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure when- or if- you would wake up, and then I’ve been so preoccupied with trying to remember enough to figure things out that it kinda slipped my mind that I should probably have left a note.”
“You’re forgiven,” Olesya said almost immediately, swallowing her nausea at how terrifying that must have been for him. “You’re from San Francisco, by the way.”
“Thanks- that’s really been bugging me,” he admitted, smiling shyly.
“Yeah, I could tell. Seriously- Liberia?”
“Hey- I was just spitballing! I mean, the truth is even crazier. I wrote a paper years ago and then suddenly a powerful German lady comes to grab me to look at alien microbes- that’s like something from a sci-fi novel!”
“Well, apparently it was a very controversial paper. Something about how aliens don’t need water and not everything needs to live in part of space named after girl with three bears? Not my field,” she shrugged.
“Wait, anhydrous life? The Goldilocks zone?” Ryland asked, a new intensity on his face. Ilyukhina leaned forward eagerly; it looked like he was remembering something!
“Yes, that- I think!” she smiled, grabbing him by the shoulders. “What do you remember?”
“Oh farts,” Ryland groaned, putting his head into his hands. “Denmark!”
Yao Li-Jie woke up to the distant sound of Olesya Ilyukhina’s cackling laughter.