Chapter Text
Blood was naturally warm, at least for mammals, birds, and some other animals. The average temperature among all species in both groups would probably be slightly higher than the normal temperature of a human being, but even mammals like lions, which maintained quite high body temperatures on land, would still have blood relatively close to human blood.
That thing surrounding the drifting asteroid was definitely boiling. You see, this was easy to notice; blood doesn't bubble and evaporate like water, proteins like hemoglobin begin an extreme coagulation reaction, and the blood quickly becomes a solid, dark mass.
In the vacuum of space, without the atmospheric pressure that guarantees the boiling point observed on Earth, what happens is the instantaneous evaporation of all the water contained in the blood and the emergence of a kind of expanding, solid foam that was once those proteins.
And, in fact, I know this because the proof appeared right in front of me.
“Come on, Rocky. Let’s see what awaits us this time.”
“Time go fishing!”
“That’s right. A giant metal fish for dinner coming right up!”
The outer hatch of the decompression chamber opened and I prepared myself. Over the years on Erid I’ve been out on the Hail Mary very few times; the peace of my beach is contagious, and between my classes, the small pebbles, and the care of the still delicate greenhouse, I had less time than one would expect from a human on permanent vacation 16.2 light-years from Earth.
It turns out that sometimes a pair of eyes is very useful.
Congratulations Grace, once again reaping the consequences of being important in your work.
Only, this time, the work in question was my own curiosity much more than any help the Eridians might need. But what else was I supposed to do when the scientists showed up at my dome with some rather… strange readings from their sonar sensors?
A celestial body appearing without any trace in the orbit of the Eridian star would already be strange enough on its own (Eridian technology was very advanced in all kinds of location, nothing should go unnoticed by them), but the readings they brought me left me much more intrigued.
The asteroid, or Blip-D, as Hail Mary identified it, was apparently porous and of very low density (nothing new, nothing interesting), but it had a solid, hot core. This shouldn't happen; an asteroid like that should have turned into a cloud of gas long ago, and, as scientists, strangeness leads to research.
During my years on Erid, I dedicated myself to teaching everything I knew about radiation to ensure that no Eridian would die again because of an invisible enemy that I know very well, and, oh how proud I am, they learned very well. All Eridian ships are now equipped against radiation and have X-ray spectrometers.
All it took was for one of them to point at the ship and the answer was at their fingertips. Or claws.
Every chemical element absorbs specific measures of radiation, it's the K absorption edge, it turns out that the asteroid's radiation readings showed that the asteroid's core conducts electricity like metal and the radiation leaking from inside it has an absorption signature of 7.1 kiloelectron-volts.
It's a capsule made of pure iron.
Not that this makes sense for a spacecraft. Iron is a terrible choice for space. Too heavy, space doesn't have enough pressure for it to even be considered by Earth scientists, even though iron is extremely abundant.
Blip-D was more like a sealed fuel tank and, according to the Hail Mary monitors, hot, bubbling with radiation and showing signs of life.
And worse, that iron couldn't transfer the internal heat to the outside because of the porosity of the outer layer. Whatever kind of life was inside was cooking like hot soup in a thermos.
God, if the outside is solidified blood, what would be inside?
“Grace has to be careful, bad radiation.”
“I know, buddy. I don’t like it any more than you do, but just like radiation is bad for us, it can be bad for whatever’s inside too.”
I took a deep breath to hold my dinner deep in my stomach and propelled myself out of the Hail Mary. Spacewalks always made me anxious, but it wasn’t like Rocky couldn’t pull me back if I went off course. He’d ensured a spacewalk support system was in place for years up to Erid after the near-atmospheric incident on Adrian.
Still, I would have preferred to be in my bed.
Luckily, Rocky's calculations were still accurate, and I hit the Blip-D perfectly. Well, not so perfectly; my face would have preferred to stay out of the collision course next time.
The mass on the ship was less solid than I expected, almost like the foam expanders we put on the walls of our houses, easily removable with our hands, even with these ridiculous gloves.
The Blip-D's outer metal was severely damaged as far as I could see; some parts were completely crushed as if it had been run over by a truck, and others looked like they were about to tear apart.
My part of the mission was to find whatever hatch was trapping the life source inside so Rocky could make a portable airlock to get the living thing out. The Hail Mary was equipped with almost every kind of chemical to simulate the proper interior atmosphere, but as soon as I found what looked like a cracked window, all our preparation seemed unnecessary.
"It's... a human..."
“New human friend? Amaze amaze amaze. Take human back to Erid so Grace is not alone anymore!”
Rocky seemed so happy through the communicator that I didn't dare say another word, afraid my voice would sound wrong and shaky.
A human.
Almost fifteen years later.
It was difficult to identify much of the person inside the ship; the interior was almost completely filled with blood, a man's body floated on the surface, everything else was completely dark, the ship seemed to be tilted, the window that now pointed upwards probably should have been pointing forward.
“Rocky, the portable airlock needs to have 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% argon. Let's get him out of here.”
Part of me wanted him to stay there.
My hands trembled as I rummaged through the hatch, but I tried to silence my thoughts. The last thing I needed right now was a panic attack remembering what happened in my last interaction with human beings.
YOU'RE KILLING ME!
I slammed my fist against the solid iron.
My opinion didn't matter at that moment; my selfish desires would never let me sleep again.
I wasn't in a position to play God. It's not up to me to decide who lives or dies. As a scientist, I must always seek the greater good. As a captain, no astronaut dies under my supervision.
"Grace, airlock ready."