BloodyMary, script/chapter 8
Ok, so things are not doing very great right now.
Simon somehow inhaled blood he needed to throw up and is now too weak to participate in active conversation, or anything near that realm of possibilities. Ryland is fine. He is so cool about it. He is SO okay. Not freaking out at all. He is very good at coping, especially now that he learned about quilt making. He spends time teaching it to the Pebbles and it helps SO much. He is gonna be OKAY because there is NO NEED to panic.
Until, of course, the need to panic arises.
It starts with Rocky breaching strange topics. Then Simon deteriorating.
"Are all human ships like Hail Mary, question?" Rocky asks.
And Ryland explains that no. The Hail Mary is very special and very expensive. Most ships are built for a few months to a couple years in space at most, and are not equipped with nearly as much supplies as Mary. She is both the best ship made by humans, and a tomb for those supposed to die in there. Rocky hums pensively.
"Are cheaper human ships made of organic material, question?" Rocky asks in return, and Grace nearly stabs himself with the needle. Fudge.
Grace says that no, that would be actually, um. Pretty unheard of. Why, why is Rocky asking that? Is there any problem? Is Simon dying?
But his submarine ship thingy seems to be. Which wow, isn't that a weird sentence. Adrian, tall and green and gracious, has explained to Rocky that the only reason they haven't called in for Grace about it is because Simon's wellness is a priority. But that right now things have changed, and they are very worried. Human medicine has stopped working... On the ship.
Eridian scientists have, apparently, been attenting Grace's classes and using the knowledge to care for the submarine.
Aliens exist. Xenon is a metal. Submarines breathe and can die. What else is new. Moving on;
So, Grace maybe takes a look at it. It's been kept in a dome not unlike to his own, hooked to machines simmilar to those used to treat him upon his first arrival.
And oh my GOD what a horrifying thing, okay, he gets it. Okay, yeah. Back when they first rescued Simon, Ryland had believed the ship was just- covered in blood, for some reason. There was a man going into hypoxia and covered in blood, Grace didn’t have the most attentive eyes about the ship's condition back then if he was being honest. But now?
He is in a xenonite suit, going inside it and doing his damn best not to throw up his me burger breakfast because WHAT on ERID is this thing.
The walls move like tissue pulsation, as if there's muscles contracting beneath the dissaturated red- not exactly inctive, not exactly dead- kind of a damaged intestinal tissue middle ground. Yeah. Intestinal tissue middle ground. Ryland just loves that this sentence exists.
He is also SO grateful the xenonite doesn’t allow him to perceive smells because oh Adrian in the sky (the planet), the cables are vascular structures branching like circulatory tissue, damaged, leaking necrotic runoff and all sorts of colored purulent discharge. Holy moly. Sheep. Fudge. There is still liquid, alive blood, somehow, coming from the damaged branches of vein-cables, despite the amount of time that's passed, which by the way makes NO sense. This blood should've clotted days ago, but instead it just keeps sluggishly moving in vascular bundles, darkening with oxidation, like it's waiting for something.
Whatever processes keep the tissues inside alive must be continuously preventing coagulation. He uses the sample spoon to collect blood from the bundle. It's dense, and as it slowly dribbles back down, instead of following the gravity inside the dome it moves right back to its place in the puddle. He wonders if somehow, just being in touch with the submarine is enough to keep it somewhat alive.
Ryland crouches to collect samples. Goodness gracious, the sounds. Oh God he is never again complaining of the sounds Rocky does when he eats, this is objectively disgusting. He collects tissue and watches the blood try to follow it. He is so scared right now to be completely honest. If he weren't in front of so many top dogs of Erid he would probably be crying. More than he is now, that is.
Leaky space blob. Distress = leak. It's not like the eridians can see him crying if he's quiet. He stands up, about 15 vials of samples collected with various tissues and fluids, and when he turns around to get the hell out-
A tree. A sappling, really, just very small.
Planted on the meat wall.
He stares at it for a few seconds before gently scraping it off. He waits to see if there's resistance... but there's none. It just falls right into his hand as soon as he takes it. He shields it with his xenonite encased hands and carrying it outside. For some reason... it feels important.
He promptly throws up as soon a she is out of the xenotite suit. Poor Adrian is worried sick.
[I am so sorry it took so long. I overthunked *cries*. I also needed to look into proper gross terms to use to describe stuff. Welcome back, I guess!!]