#saviorsofstars

[laikalike]

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ @saviorsofstars | cotd. from here. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

Grace flinches as the ball of Xenonite lurches forward, nearly trampling his feet. Intellectually, he understands why they can't really do curved surfaces with that stuff. Still, it'd be nice if he could move a little more predictably.

...Come on, Ryland. If that's his biggest complaint about meeting a real life alien engineer, he's living pretty good. The thought alone makes him giddy every time he remembers. Real, sentient life. And he was so cool! Capable, brave, attentive- not even a scientist, but with so much insatiable curiosity that he easily matched any of his peers on earth.

Explaining comes naturally now. Nothing is granted when it comes to cultural differences. Just explain and move on, as they've had to do so many times before.

"It's a food humans eat when they're watching something entertaining. It's not very nutritious, but it tastes nice and it's fun to eat. There's a vegetable on earth that, when dried and exposed to heat, reacts chemically by puffing up with air. It makes a little pop noise when the outer shell cracks from the pressure. Usually, people cover it with other flavors to make it taste how they want. The dried corn is just there for the texture."

He tugs the bag of popcorn out of the sample furnace. The paper's a little burned, but it looks like the food mostly survived. Eh. Science is an art.

"I can pass some through the pressure lock for you to try out. It'll probably burn pretty quick, but you can eat carbon, right?"

[petrova-problem]

@saviorsofstars continued from here

Out of all of the days of Dr. Ryland Grace's experiments, one of the more explosive reactions had to occur on the one day that Eva Stratt was required to entertain "guests". "Guests" as she thought of them, referred to government officials that wanted to stop by the facility to check on Project Hail Mary's progress and the Astrophage research progress.

Of course, as soon as she had taken the officials to Dr. Grace's area, to show how the Astrophage research was going, things exploded.

Of course they did.

The government officials look at Stratt with a mixture of panic and worry. Alarms were going off and the laboratory was a mess. Without missing a beat, she responds with an unflappable calm to the diplomats in Mandarin Chinese to reassure them, before turning back to face Dr. Grace. After seeing Dr. Grace clamp metal tongs onto a glowing red metal bowl, she asked the very obvious question.

At Ryland's response, she sighs and pulls out the walkie-talkie at her waist. She radios some people in English and gives quick statements, her voice slightly clipped.

"We're fine. Dr. Grace is safe. The explosion was from an experiment. Please reset the alarms."

She took her finger off the talk button, but then quickly pressed it and spoke into the radio again. "I also need laboratory two prepped and ready."

Immediately, the alarms stop. Then, she takes stock of Ryland. As annoyed as she might be that this event happened while people were checking in on her, she wasn't angry. Not at him. She knows that the nature of science is trial and error.

What's more concerning to her is Ryland's demeanor. Ryland's response and expression seem to suggest that his experiment likely didn't go the way he wanted. The fluorescent lights in the laboratory allows her to see the light wisps of smoke at the ends of his hair where he got singed from the heat. In addition, knowing what happened the first time he examined Astrophage, she can't afford for him to be demoralized. Her actions are limited at the moment, since she still has "guests" to entertain. But she can still do something.

It was fortunate that second laboratory facility was finished earlier than expected, and already outfitted with the necessary laboratory equipment. This way, no time was wasted. Another operable laboratory while the first one was being cleaned up.

Eva Stratt takes a breath before she talks to Ryland. She shoots him a stern gaze, a reminder to exercise caution considering the importance of his work and to (hopefully) assure him that despite the earlier explosion, she's fine letting him continue... to a point.

She's fairly certain that Dr. Grace will learn from the earlier explosive reaction in order to craft his next experiment with a little more care. But just to be safe, she is considering whether Dr. Grace should take a break before he continues his experiments.

It's not a suggestion.

"Take a break, Dr. Grace. When you return, laboratory two will be open to continue your experiments. I'll have the Astrophage brought there."

Her authoritative tone clearly lays out how she expects him to conduct himself once she leaves. She will be back later to ask about what happened, and to meet with him. She's hoping that when she comes back, his experiments will yield new information.

She turns to look at the diplomats in tow behind her, speaks again in Mandarin Chinese, and gestures at them to leave with her, leading them away from Ryland's area.

[hunt-the-hare]

@saviorsofstars | cont.

                       It's  odd,  watching  this  little  alien  do  things  he'll  never  understand.  He's  lived  through  a  lot,  done  a  lot.  He  gets  numbers  and  angles  and  things,  knows  metric  units,  but  he  couldn't  tell  you  anything  about  how  metric  follows  base  ten  and  imperial  does  not.  He  could  not  tell  you  why  Americans  follow  imperial  instead  of  metric.  He  just  knows  that's  how  it  is.

                        Like  Rocky.  That's  just  how  he  is.  He  won't  pretend  to  understand  much  of  him,  he  won't  pretend  to  understand  how  he  works  or  where  he's  from  or  what's  going  on  at  all  ever  with  them,  why  they're  tapping  as  much  as  he  is.

                       "  Grace  ??  I  look  nothing  like  him.  "  Not  that  Rocky  could  see,  but  Noah  doesn't  know  that.  What  the  alien  doesn't  understand  is  outwardly  they  have  their  differences.  Noah's  hair  is  a  little  longer,  he's  covered  in  tattoos,  perhaps  a  little  musclier  if  you  look  under  the  hood  a  bit,  but  to  Rocky  they  seem  almost  the  same.  Science  is  weird  and  he  doesn't  like  it.

                       "  I've  got  no  clue  where  he  went,  dude.  I  mean-  look.  "  Fingers  grasp  at  jacket,  shoulders  shrugging  it  off,  and  underneath  his  arms  are  bare  of  fabric,  revealing  a  multitude  of  tattoos.  Some  religious,  some  questionable.  All  different  from  Ryland,  he  knows  that  much.  "  I  got  tattoos,  he  doesn't,  does  that  help  with  telling  us  apart  or  ??  "