Chapter Text
Grace, Simon, Rocky, and Adrian were cramped together in Grace’s impromptu lab. Grace had copied down everything that was on the white boards in a notebook and erased them. Simon held the journal packed with… math, he thought. It was a lot.
Grace held the marker and pointed with it to Rocky.
“Okay, what do we know?” he asked.
“Subject: Simon. DNA indicate species: human.” Rocky answered. Grace copied it on the board. He had put together markers that basically worked like puffy paint so the Eridians could “see” his writing. They were a bitch to clean off, but he’d say it’s a work in progress.
He pointed to himself, then wrote while speaking, “Anomaly 1: CO2 output 0%. Humans inhale O2, eat carbon, and then release CO2. That’s not happening here, so what is happening to the oxygen Simon is breathing? Any ideas?”
Adrian gave their idea, “I think CO2 is still being made. Scans show functioning lungs and blood oxygenation in normal range. Something else -untranslated- the CO2.” Adrian noticed one word was not translated by Grace’s machine. They thought of a word that was in the programming, “Eat. Something eat CO2.”
Grace scribbled it on the board: O2 -> CO2 -> ?? ->
“And anything that eats, poops. What is our mysterious friend crapping out?”
“Heat,” Simon answered. The three scientists looked at him in silence, not expecting him to speak up. Simon started rambling, “I, um, you’ve seen it before. You got a burn touching me that one time.”
It had happened, back when he was staring at the sun and made the ocean boil. Who knows how bad the burn would have been if Grace got there while the water was still boiling, or if they weren’t surrounded by what felt like glacier runoff? There were plenty of other times that Simon was running so hot that Grace literally couldn’t be in the same room without risking heat stroke.
Grace giggled, “All right, okay! Yes! We have a hypothesis.” He added to the board: O2 -> CO2 -> ?? -> Energy (Heat)
“Now, who likes CO2, is microscopic, and can give off massive amounts of energy?” Grace said, “Two hints: they brought us all together, and they’re living in Simon’s lungs right now.”
“No,” Rocky immediately shot down Grace’s speculation. “Grace is wrong.”
“What do you mean I’m wrong? You haven’t even thought about it!”
“Rocky not thought about because Grace idea is stupid.”
Simon and Adrian watched the two go back and forth like this. Neither of them gave any good reasons why one or the other was right.
“Mr. Engineering, tell me how I’m wrong about biology, which you don’t have a degree in!”
“Degree is paper from Earth! All it mean is Earth people told you Earth things! Degree does not make things, does not go in space! Anger!”
Simon looked down to Adrian. “Are they just gonna…?”
“Yes, sigh,” Adrian said through the translator. They put down the tool they were messing with and climbed on assorted chairs, equipment, and materials scattered in the room to reach the white board. She wrote with the slow, determined scribble of someone just barely graduated from tracing letters.
Anomaly 2: Blood type
They made what would translate culturally to a throat clearing sound and regained the room’s attention. “What is blood question? What is it for question? And why Simon blood different question?”
“You’re right, we should move on,” Grace said sheepishly. He tried to reach for the marker but Adrian batted away Grace’s hand.
“Answer. What is blood question.” Adrian said firmly. Grace accepted that Adrian was in charge now.
“Blood is plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Mostly water and proteins.” Adrian slowly copied the four components of blood. Grace was practically vibrating with impatience, knowing he would get this done so much faster but that Adrian would not hesitate to smack him or tell Simon to carry him out of the room. Would Simon actually do it? The thought was more than a little distracting. He glanced over to Simon, who was completely transfixed on the white board.
“Doc, you said I have four blood types. What does that mean?”
“Humans have different blood types.” Grace started and paused, thinking of how to explain this to Eridians with a completely water-free system. “All humans need blood, it’s what makes the body work. People die from getting hurt and too much blood comes out. So we made blood transfusions. Humans, we make our own blood automatically in our bodies. A transfusion takes blood from someone who has made enough blood and gives it to someone who needs more blood. If it’s the wrong blood type, then the body will get sick trying to get rid of the wrong blood. Same type, everything’s fine. We know what type to use when we test the person giving blood and the person getting the blood.”
Adrian struggled to write, then crossed it out and drew pictures. Drop -> a rough human stick figure. Stick figure flat on the ground -> drop. Blood goes in human, dead human if blood comes out. Two more drops with the words “Same yes,” then another two with “Difffrr No” written on it.
“Types must match person,” Rocky thought aloud. “Simon have many type, can match many person.”
Grace shook his head, “See, that’s the thing. A person makes their own blood. One person. One source. One type.”
“Simon have too many,” Rocky said, “nodding” in understanding.
Grace looked over to Simon, “Your antibodies should be fighting against each other to reject the types that aren’t yours, and your body should be making more of your type until the foreign body is gone, you get sick, or you die. Which none of those are happening. Well, I think your bone marrow is still producing blood but…” Grace shrugged.
“But whose blood. Who made other types in Simon question?” Adrian asked.
Simon held up 4 fingers. He put one down, “One is me. We know that. Do we know anything about the other 3? DNA, gender, age, anything?”
“It’s been really hard to isolate by type. Blood tests are supposed to be done a couple times to compare the difference, and definitely not all mixed up.”
“Show me what you have,” Simon requested out of curiosity.
Grace led the group to a table with a centrifuge and about a dozen sealed test tubes with blood samples. “Here’s all of them. These ones are-”
Simon’s body moved on its own. He picked up one of the vials. It was one of the two Grace had successfully isolated one of the blood types.
“I’m here,” he said softly. He held the vial close to his chest. He looked frantically over the table. He whispered over and over, “I’m alive, I’m alive…” He reached for a marker, then backed away, baffled that he only had one arm so he couldn’t hold the marker and vial at the same time. He passed the vial to Grace and then the marker.
“Doctor Lovelock, Female, 43. SM-8 mission to AT-5. Died 362 EIC.” He suddenly spoke clearly. He grabbed the other vial. This one he held to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. He whispered something to himself, then passed the vial to Grace urgently.
“Caleb, Male, 26. Stop it. SM-no, go into the light, go, stop it- Died 682 IMC.” Simon said through gritted teeth.
“Fuck!” he shouted and sat down on the floor. He pulled his shirt up over his face, it was the quickest way he could think of to cover his eyes. He once described the pain as hot pokers fucking him in the eyes. This was worse. Like fire ants in his blood. Like two nukes shrunk down and injected into his eyes. The room flashed completely white like lightning burning up the entire sky. Then it was done. Simon lowered his shirt but kept his eyes closed. He felt around for where he remembered Grace was standing and leaned on Grace’s leg.
“I think I need to go outside,” he mumbled.
Grace looked from Simon to Rocky and Adrian wide-eyed. He remembered that they didn’t understand nonverbal facial cues. “Concerned,” he said aloud to the room.
Outside was much better. Simon felt like his energy had somewhere to go. All three scientists had to help him get to the beach since he barely had the energy to walk and was scared to open his eyes. Once laying flat on the beach, Simon dared to open his eyes. They glowed softly. He looked at the sun and smiled softly. He felt sad, but peaceful. Loved, but distant. A trail of light, almost invisible, floated from Simon’s eyes to the sun far above him.
Grace, Adrian, and Rocky all stood back and watched. “Concerned,” Rocky said.