Chapter Text
Something was wrong with Simon and Grace, and Rocky was at a loss for what it was or how to make it right.
He was able to start putting the pieces together, at least. When he woke up, he had found the two of them standing uncharacteristically far apart, not pointing their faces towards one another the way they had been doing before Rocky went to sleep. Their faces, which Rocky had come to understand did most of the heavy lifting for emotional display in humans, were both turned into expressions associated with sadness and discomfort. A weak bloom of thanergy was radiating from Grace’s digestive tract, a small amount of cells dying in the highly acidic environment he used to sterilize his food. Rocky was able to start making a guess, his study of Grace’s secret papers which he had fed through his scanner while Grace was sleeping coming in handy. But even his best guesses gave him no clue as to how to fix their obviously fractured relationship.
“Grace can tell Rocky anything,” he mentioned to his friend while the two of them unloaded equipment from the Hail Mary onto the surface of Arboretum. “Even if it’s embarrassing.”
It’s nothing, said Grace, the pattern of simple notes and fleshy clicks coming easily to Rocky. I don’t want to talk about it.
Simon was still putting his clothes on in the ship above. He was much too far away for his small human ears to pick up any bit of their conversation, especially though the thick hull of the Hail Mary. “Seems like a big problem,” said Rocky. “Did Simon hurt Grace, question? If so, Rocky wants to know.”
That got a reaction out of Grace, at least. No! he said, emotion raising the pitch of the word. He didn’t do anything wrong. I did something wrong.
“What did Grace do, question?”
Grace let out a puff of air, fogging up the mouthpiece of his respirator. They were just a little too far from the atmospheric pumps of the Arboretum site to go without them. Rocky’s own respirator fit snugly over the vents at the top of his carapace, more for temperature control than actual respiration since he could go a bit longer than Grace without gas exchange. I did something inappropriate, he said, his body language indicating extreme discomfort. Rocky could read between the lines, the clues he observed filling in the parts of the story that Grace couldn’t seem to say. Humans, Rocky observed, had an almost food-like aversion to talking about anything to do with reproduction, and this situation seemed too serious to warrant unnecessary needling from Rocky.
“That doesn’t sound like Grace,” he said. “Did Simon not want it, question?”
Grace raised both of his hands in a gesture for helplessness. I don’t know. I’m pretty sure he did want it, but. I don’t know. It still wasn’t fair.
“How, question?”
He can’t leave, said Grace. It’s not fair for me to make my--I don’t know--attraction his problem when he can’t even quit this mission. Grace paced back and forth around their prepared packs, feet scuffing through the loose rock. He might have felt like he needed to go along with it. I didn’t even think about that.
“Has Grace asked Simon how Simon feels about it, question?” asked Rocky.
Grace paused for a second, seeming to think about that. I can’t really just ask him about that, he said. If he’s worried about me, I dunno, kicking him out or sending him back to the Ninth, he’s obviously going to say yes.
Grace had a point, but it was still a stupid reason not to have a proper conversation. Rocky stamped one of his feet. “Grace should still communicate. It would be better than Grace and Simon not talking.”
He knew Simon was just coming down the ladder to meet them, his respirator over his face, so Grace couldn’t say whatever it was he had been planning to retort back. Grace just looked away from Simon, fiddling with the straps of his pack. Rocky stamped his foot again in frustration. “Stupid stupid stupid.”
Simon didn’t even look down at the translator clipped to his belt, which Rocky supposed meant he used that word enough that Simon had already picked it up. He looked between Grace and Rocky, confused. What?
Nothing, said Grace. Ready to go?
Yeah, said Simon
“Ready!” said Rocky, putting his friend’s troubles out of his mind for a moment to let the excitement of their mission take charge again. Grace’s research had promised several fascinating constructs protecting some inner sanctum within the Arboretum site, and Rocky was looking forward to taking them apart and studying the way they were put together--preferably after Simon had helped neutralize them, rather than while they were chasing a very panicked Grace and Rocky at the end of their necrophage supply. Neither of them had any idea what the constructs were meant to be protecting, but that was just another exciting mystery that Rocky was looking forward to uncovering. The three of them strapped on their packs--Simon’s the smallest of the three, since Rocky and Grace were already used to carrying all their supplies--and set off towards the site in the distance.
The first leg of the trip was aggressively quiet. Rocky didn't like that one bit. Usually, he and Grace would chat about the mission ahead on their walk, or at least trade jokes back and forth until they got to wherever they were going. But the silence between Grace and Simon was as thick as bone as they walked, and as the Hail Mary fell into the distance Rocky grew less and less able to tolerate it.
He had found himself growing quite fond of Simon, despite his early reservations about the human. Unlike Grace, Rocky had read his file in detail. The crimes he had been accused of hadn’t made much sense, but they were serious enough to give Rocky pause. But once Rocky had actually gotten to know him, he had found Simon to be a very pleasant addition to their crew, if perhaps a slightly shy and quiet one. Simon kept the space tidy, asked interesting questions about Rocky’s work, and had programmed a whole slew of delightful curse words into Grace’s translator. There wasn’t much not to like.
And Rocky also knew that Grace agreed, or at least that he had. Grace’s heart had sped up considerably when he first saw Simon on the Ninth landing platform, which Rocky had teased him for at the time but which had ended up being more serious than Rocky had anticipated. It had been a long, long time since Rocky had seen Grace interact with another human, and even longer since it had been with a human Grace liked quite so much, but Rocky recognized it well. What was more surprising was the way Simon seemed to exhibit the signs of interest back. That had been exciting--Grace was especially stingy with details about human reproduction and copulation, so Rocky had been eager to study the courting process up close. And if nothing else, he was excited to see his old friend making a new friend.
Grace’s explanation of what went wrong made some sense, but it didn’t sit right with Rocky. From his point of view, Simon and Grace seemed equally concerned with taking advantage of the other, each for reasons that would be a waste of time to count. Rocky couldn’t understand why they hadn’t cleared the air with a simple conversation yet, but he resolved to be gentle with them as well as he could while they figured it out.
“How is the function of Simon’s arm, question?” he asked. “Any problems, question?”
Simon checked the translator before responding, keeping his face pointed towards Rocky. It was unnecessary, since Rocky could hear him just as clearly no matter which way he was pointed, but he appreciated the politeness of the gesture all the same. Yes. It’s all working great.
“Good good good,” said Rocky. Simon’s new arm had been some of Rocky’s best work, if he did say so himself. Probably anything would have been better than the terrible arm Simon had arrived with. Rocky had seen constructs several thousand years old that were better made than the arm Simon was meant to use daily. “It should be fully healed now. If any part breaks during mission, Rocky can fix.”
Okay, said Simon. Thank you.
“Simon already thank many times,” said Rocky. “Understand. Now Simon tell Rocky how to improve.”
Simon looked confused. Grace did too, looking back and raising an eyebrow at Rocky. It's fine, said Simon. There’s nothing else I need. It’s already better than--
“Not perfect,” said Rocky, cutting him off. “Very, very good, but not perfect. Rocky wants to improve craft. Feedback helpful.”
With only a little bit more coaxing, Rocky was able to get Simon to start talking about the things that his flesh arm could still do better than his bone arm, things that Rocky happily noted and started planning solutions for in his mind. Some things would simply require further innovation, such as the fact that the surface of his arm was still much less sensitive than it had been before, since Rocky had exhausted his entire understanding of human nerves in order to give Simon the functionality he had. That would simply take more study, and more experimentation. But other things, like the fact that there was a ligament that caught whenever he turned his wrist while carrying something, was an easy fix. Simon assured him that it would be fine for him to wait until they were back at the ship to fix it, but Rocky could already picture the new and improved ligament in his mind as they talked the problem through.
Eventually, Grace couldn’t help but join in. Bone construction wasn’t anywhere near his wheelhouse, and he was pretty hopeless when it came to anything more complicated than the most basic theorems, but his curiosity still got the better of him. Rocky couldn’t help but feel satisfied once he had drawn Grace into the conversation and gotten him and Simon to at least talk to one another, even if it was just about human ligament tissue and bone density. The two of them walked on either side of Rocky, but at least now they were looking at one another. Rocky could call that a win.
The Arboretum site rose up over the rocky ridges after only a few minutes of walking, and Rocky had to admit that it was smaller than he expected. A square stone building only slightly bigger than the dormitory of the Hail Mary stood alone against the barren landscape, made from thick blocks of what appeared to be the same rock that surrounded them. An ancient metal door was the only feature Rocky could discern, but more interesting to him was the structure next to it. Carved from the same rough rock was a tall, thin sculpture of some kind, one that started as a thick protrusion from the ground and divided as it crept upwards, until it ended in several dozen skinny points just above the height of the building.
Is that a tree? asked Simon in disbelief.
Looks like it, said Grace. No way it could be alive, though. Not in this atmosphere.
“Tree is made of stone,” said Rocky. “Sculpture. Decoration, question?
That would make sense, said Grace. He scratched his head. From the texts I thought it would be bigger, though.
Once they had gotten a few steps further, Rocky immediately figured out why. Underneath the little stone building was a massive network of tunnels and hallways, all dug into the thick rock itself. The walls and ceilings were incredibly thick, so much so that Rocky could only see down a few layers, but he could tell that there were tunnels and caverns leading off into the edges of what he could sense. There was movement, too, the promise of weird constructs shifting beneath their feet just waiting to be found and examined. Rocky was suddenly impatient. “Arboretum is mostly underground! Very large! Many many rooms and tunnels.”
He picked up the pace, letting Simon and Grace catch up behind him. They crossed the last stretch between them and the site in just a few minutes, Simon and Grace both breathing heavily into their respirators as they came to a stop in front of the fascinating little building. It was secured by an ancient computerized lock, the metal of the machinery practically rusted through but the screen still buzzing with electricity. Rocky got to work setting chips of potent bone into the cracks he could find in the door as Simon and Grace took their respirators off, the atmosphere thick enough this close to the site for them to breathe. It seemed to be coming out of a pump near the roof of the building, slow and soupy but surprisingly fresh-smelling as Rocky took off his own respirator. Once the chips of bone were in place, he motioned for Grace to bend down so he could reach the necrophage converter. “We should begin thanergy release now.”
Grace crouched low enough for Rocky to reach. There’s a lot of weird necromancy here, he said. Nobody’s been here for a few millenia at least, but they brought some serious thanergy with them when they did.
“Understand,” said Rocky. That matched what they had guessed from Grace’s studies. Rocky turned the crank on the necrophage valve to its lowest setting, allowing only a few individual cells to release their thanergy at a time. A faint, steady bloom of thanergy immediately flowed from the device, and Rocky harnessed it easily to expand the bone chips in the door with enough force to pop the decayed metal from its hinges. A hiss of dusty air rushed out, and Simon drew his sword from his scabbard. But nothing waited for them behind the door but an empty stone room with a small hole in the center, and a rusted ladder leading down.
“Amaze!” said Rocky. “It is time-go!”
---
The walls of the Arboretum were thick. Rocky only got a slightly better view of the rooms around them once they climbed down the ladder into the first chamber.
Nothing bad waited for them below. The room looked like an ancient storage bay with the skeletons of rusted equipment piled in the corners under long-decayed tarps. Two doors similar to the one at the entrance sat on either side of the room, and Rocky could tell that behind one was an elevator shaft, and behind the other was a lab. Beyond that, the thick walls made it fuzzy. Grace turned on a battery-powered lamp while Simon got to work checking every corner of the room, leaving no cranny large enough to hide a skeleton unchecked before returning to the middle of the room. Grace watched him as he worked, making no move to unpack anything else.
“Grace want to start examining room, question?” said Rocky after Grace had been staring at Simon for a little too long.
Grace jumped into action, unzipping his pack. Yup. You got it. Great idea, buddy.
He put his glasses on his face properly as he got his scant equipment out, a sure sign he was starting to take this seriously. Rocky was a little disappointed not to find any constructs waiting for them in here. Typically, Rocky and Grace made sure to clear every room one at a time to keep from being overwhelmed, but that meant that Rocky had precious little to do in rooms that didn’t have much to offer his areas of expertise. Grace only got more and more energized as he started inspecting the contents of the room, though, soaking up almost all of the thanergy from their generator as he investigated the thanergic signatures on each piece of equipment. Simon leaned against a nearby wall that gave him a good view of the whole room, sliding his sword back into its scabbard and mostly keeping his eyes on Grace as he worked.
Grace muttered into his voice recorder as he went, his sleeves growing damp as he wiped blood sweat from his forehead and cheeks as he worked. Simon watched him carefully, turning his face away whenever it seemed like Grace might lift his head up to look at him. It frustrated Rocky. Neither of them seemed happy with whatever their current situation was. He was about to say something, forming a plan in his mind to gently nudge them both to that conclusion, when Grace yelled in surprise and delight, picking up a small device from the pile he was standing over.
“What did Grace find, question?” asked Rocky, hurrying over.
This, said Grace, pulling his lips back to bare his teeth joyfully, is an ancient plant-based thanergy detector! This thing must be older than you, Rock!
Simon kicked off his wall to come see the device. It was a tiny thing with a thick handle at the top, an empty chamber in the middle, and a complex network of bone connecting the inside of the chamber to a set of thin metal meters on the top. Some crumbly, dead material sat in the bottom of the empty chamber. “Amaze,” he said. “Good find. Valuable for study or for money.”
How does it work? asked Simon.
These bone proxies are all connected to the roots of a tiny plant on the inside, said Grace, pointing to the webbing of bone on the outside. Internal sensors measure the hydration of the plant, while the proxies pump ambient thanergy through the living tissue. If the plant starts to rapidly die, the hydration sensors pick up on it and cause the dials up here to show trace amounts of thanergy. Grace’s voice wavered between a wider range of frequencies, showing his excitement. It’s really old tech, but modern thanergy sensors work in more or less the same way.
Is there still a living plant in there? asked Simon, staring intently at the machine.
Grace shook his head. The sensor plant’s been dead for years. They still need water and occasional light when they’re not being used, and nobody’s been around to give it that.
Simon looked almost disappointed. He seemed to realize how close he had gotten to Grace, their bodies near enough that a gentle push would have knocked their shoulders together, and he backed away all at once. Grace’s face fell as Simon retreated. He went back to his work, and Rocky went back to his plotting, wondering if maybe it would be worth it to simply lock them in a part of the Arboretum until they worked out their issues. But it was a stupid idea with so many unknowns, so he shelved that plan as a truly last resort.
Grace finished his initial examination of the room, and they moved on to the room opposite the elevator shaft. This room was more to Rocky’s taste, as three skeletons formed from piles of bones as soon as they stepped through the door. They were pretty terrible, as far as skeletons went--one was missing a skull--but they were still constructs, and so Rocky was still interested. Simon was the first one into the room, shattering the closest skeleton into pieces, and Rocky used fragments from the first skeleton to send spears of new bone through the remaining two, cracking them into their composite pieces. It was an underwhelming fight, but Simon looked as glad as Rocky for something to do.
Rocky examined the bones left behind. “Bad construction,” he said. “Old. Not meant to last. Triggered by ward on door, but not clear why they attack.”
Grace placed his hands on the doorframe, warm blood beading on his skin as he concentrated. I think they’re protecting something, he said. There’s a conditional here. Some kind of check that they made which we failed that made them attack. I can’t figure out what, though.
“Understand. Information useful,” said Rocky.
They went through the lab a little quicker, though Rocky knew Grace would be eager to return to it. He filled an age-worn metal bin with papers, making all sorts of interested and excited noises as he chose which ones to bring with them and which to leave. There were a few more doors leading off of the lab, and Rocky was most interested to learn what lay in the very large room through the closest door. Once Grace had finished choosing papers, Rocky unlocked the door with a few more bone chips, sending it careening through the frame, off some ledge, and down a very deep-sounding pit.
“Too much force,” he said as Simon and Grace both gave him a look. “Apologize.”
The room beyond the lab was much larger than either of the two they had seen before. It was a tall cylinder large enough for the entire Hail Mary to stand upright in, ringed with rusting platforms and thick stone stairs between levels. In the center of the room, a stream of water flowed from a hole in the ceiling to some far-off depths below. The bottom was too far away for Rocky to be certain of, but he could easily tell that every level was populated by at least a few skeletons, every single one of them stopping in their tasks as the door went sailing past them. Simon stepped through the door before Grace or Rocky could stop him, and Rocky saw every single skeleton turn, set their empty eyes on him, and charge.
Fuck! shouted Simon, hurrying back into the lab. Guys? There’s a fuckton of skeletons out there.
What? Grace peeked his head out the door to get a look. Oh man. Yeah, that’s a lot.
“More necrophage!” shouted Rocky. “We leave this room. Too small to fight.”
Grace ran for his pack, which he had left on the far side of the lab, but the skeletons they had already dispatched were starting to re-form, broken bones regrowing and reforming to block his path. It would have been fascinating to study if it hadn’t been a bit of a problem. Grace slammed his body through them, sending bone fragments flying as he reached the pack and cranked up the necrophage valve. Thanergy bloomed much faster than before, and Rocky drew on it immediately to grow the bone chips he had used to dislodge the door into a barrier of bone webbing across the empty doorway.
This door isn’t warded, said Grace, slinging his pack back on and pointing to one of the other lab doors. He, Simon and Rocky all ran for it as the skeletons in the great big room outside all converged on the door, Rocky’s hastily grown barrier cracking under dusty phalanges and rotting teeth. The unwarded door led to a tight spiral staircase down, and spat them out in a new room just below.
There wasn’t any time to study this room, though Rocky knew Grace wanted to. Rows of troughs ran up and down it in orderly lines, tube lights buzzing overhead. Rocky could tell by the way Simon and Grace looked more freely around the space that the ancient lights were somehow still working, making them both more confident and efficient as they threw down their packs near the center of the room and turned to face the oncoming hordes. The floor in the far corner of the room was cracked to ruin, a gaping hole leading down to the room below. “Careful!” said Rocky. “Floor in this room not very stable.”
The skeletons poured through the doorway, but Simon was waiting to dispatch them easily. They could only come at him two at a time, and his sword flew in a shower of crumbling bone as he picked them off easily. It gave Grace the time he needed to raise a thanergic field behind the door, slowing them further and allowing Rocky an opportunity to stretch thicker bone across the doorway to give them a more solid barrier.
You’re running pretty hot, Rock, Grace said. There was blood flowing from his nose, now, threatening to drip from his chin.
It’s a dead end, said Simon, who had gone off to check the rest of the room once Rocky and Grace were able to slow the skeletons with their necromancy. All these doors lead to fucking closets.
“Not a dead end,” said Rocky. “Floor below hole short jump. Safe to go down.”
We can’t just keep going down, said Simon.
“No choice. Many many skeletons coming from big room.”
They were clamoring at Rocky’s second barrier, scrabbling and gnashing at the thick bone. Rocky could just keep replenishing it, but that would burn through their necrophage fast and wouldn’t solve their actual problem. There weren’t any constructs directly below them, and Rocky was confident he could see multiple different passageways branching out from the room. “Grace and Simon go down. Rocky use necrophage to thicken barrier, then follow with Grace pack.”
Grace was silent for a moment as he ran that plan over in his own mind, and then stuck out his thumb at Rocky. You got it.
They ran in opposite directions, Simon and Grace towards the hole in the floor and Rocky towards the door. He gathered up the thanergy still spilling from Grace’s pack and thickened the bone barrier, trapping the hands of a few of the closer skeletons in the newly grown material. They were still breaking through it at a pretty regular pace, but it would take them a little longer now. He snatched up Grace’s pack as Grace and Simon both hopped down into the room below without any trouble, landing safely on the stone floor. Rocky had almost made it to the edge of the hole when a heavy tremor shook the stone around them, causing Rocky to nearly lose his balance as something shifted in the structures below.
What was that? Simon shouted. He and Grace were standing near the center of the mostly empty room, almost back to back, Simon holding his sword at the ready. Beneath their feet, a free chunk of stone shifted with their changing weight, cracked all the way through and terribly unstable.
“Careful!” Rocky shouted. “Floor is not safe--”
The thick stone rumbled beneath them again, stress lines meeting one another in the worn floor and giving way all at once. The slab Grace and Simon were standing on tipped, throwing them both to their knees, before the stone around them started to crumble all at once, the room they had just landed in sinking into the room one level below, walls coming loose and dropping like they had been waiting for just that moment to finally give up. Rocky shot a spike of bone into the room to try to keep the floor from collapsing entirely, but the necrophage was converting too slowly, the thanergy not nearly enough. The spike was smashed to bits by falling rock, and Rocky had to scramble back from the ledge as pieces began to fall from it too. He just barely saw the shape of Simon diving for Grace, shoving him into a mostly stable hallway in the lowest room before the ceiling caved behind them, burying their entrance in a mound of rubble that quickly grew too thick for Rocky to hear through.
He shouted their names, looking in horror as the rock finished its dramatic death and came to rest, burying his friends. A loud crack from the other side of the room distracted him--a skeletal hand reaching its way through his barrier, grasping at the bone to try to tear it down.
“Stay safe, Grace and Simon!” he shouted, hoping his friends could hear him, hoping they were still alive to hear. He strapped Grace’s pack to his underside, feeling the polycloth straps hover on the brink of melting from the heat of his necromancy. He cranked the necrophage tank up another notch. Worry for his friends threatened to overwhelm him, but first he had to make sure that he could live to save them. “Rocky come back to rescue! Stay safe!”
The barrier started to crack, and Rocky planted his feet.