Chapter Text
About halfway into the four year journey, Rocky and I were running out of ways to entertain ourselves. All of the movies, television, music, books and scientific articles, essays and journals ever written were great and all, but there was only so long you could spend playing video games with a guy who couldn’t see, even if he was the best friend you’d ever had.
“Grace wants to try to speak Eridian, question?” said Rocky, still tinkering with one of his projects.
I straightened up from where I’d been hunching over the microscope, stretching out my back. “What do you mean, buddy? I have my keyboard, do you want me to go get it?” I was practicing with Rocky every day, but it was coming slowly, so for most of our casual conversations it was still faster and easier for me to speak English and for him to respond in Eridian.
“No, no, no,” said Rocky excitedly. “Grace speak Eridian with human mouth, statement.”
“… I don’t think I can do that, bud,” I said slowly. “I only have one set of vocal chords, remember?”
“Rocky remember, Rocky never forget anything. Squishy human brain forget. Rocky suggest Grace learn to speak like Eridian child, one set of notes, very easy for human voice.”
I spin around to face him properly. “Do you think I could?”
“Yes, yes, yes. Rocky teach, Grace is smart human, learn fast. Use when keyboard not near, speak to other Eridians. Use for emergency.”
“That’s a great idea, Rocky! How do we start?”
Rocky let out a series of chirps, hums and whistles. “Rocky full name. Eridian child or close friend would say like -” and a shorter series of notes. I hum and whistle them back, and Rocky does jazz hands.
“Grace perfect! Accent a little strange, but Rocky understand! Now try this-” another sequence of notes. “Means best friend, Grace can call Rocky this.”
***
Teaching me to speak Eridian occupied a lot of our time. There were no words in the simplified version that I could speak with my mouth for any of the technical concepts or science that we needed to be able to discuss – most of the words I could use were very basic, for communicating needs and emotions, simple directions, simplified names and basic objects. He warned me not to use it when we met other Eridians at first – Eridian had a lot of formal registers and ways to address people, and I guessed he didn’t want to risk me calling a planetary leader by a shortened name.
So I still mostly used the keyboard or spoke English – although I used the keyboard more and English less as the days passed. But Rocky liked it when I spoke to him in his own language, and as I practiced I got a better grasp on the language as a whole. Even if it wasn’t very useful on its own, it was worth it. I chirped greetings when I woke up and went to sleep, hummed from the other room to let him know where I was, and told him how much I liked him in his own language.
As we approached Erid, Rocky got more excited and nervous in turns. He taught me polite greetings for fellow scientists and planetary leaders on the keyboard, paced around the ship in his tunnels, and wondered aloud how Adrian and their cluster were doing now that he was so close to seeing them again. I was tired a lot, my Taumoeba/coma slurry diet not pulling its nutritional weight, but more okay than I had expected to be at this point on our journey.
A couple of days out from Erid, disaster struck. We hit an asteroid field that neither of us knew about, and while I was fighting to pilot Mary through it, one of them collided with the hull. Thankfully there wasn’t a breach, but the force of the impact threw everything that wasn’t secured – including Rocky.
As soon as I was certain our course was set for Erid again, I unstrapped myself from the pilot seat and ran to Rocky’s area. He was lying on his side, but moved when I approached, adjusting his position.
“Rocky, I’m so sorry! Are you okay? What can I do?”
“Rocky will be okay, not Grace fault. Grace is good pilot, much better than on Adrian. Rocky was thrown by impact, carapace cracked – here-” he indicated a fine fracture on his carapace with a faint line of his mercury blood welling up. “Rocky will heal, Grace cannot assist. Not fatal, just painful. Can tell medical team what happened when reach Erid.”
“Yeah, buddy, they’ll fix you right up.”
“No, Grace tell. Grace good with keyboard, speak good. Rocky will sleep to prevent sickness, many Earth days. Grace need to communicate with Erid alone.”
“Oh, okay! I won’t let you down, I promise. You can rest now, I’ll watch.”
As soon as I was sure Rocky was sleeping, I slumped down, putting my head in my hands. I was not expecting to have to make first contact with Erid alone, but I couldn’t let Rocky down. Thank every star he had taught me how to use the Eridian radio he brought with him from the Blip. I looked around at the mess the impact had made of the ship. The scientific equipment was secured, thank god, but everything else – spare xenonite panels, the jacket I had left on the chair, a mug I had been using for water – was thrown around the ship. I started to pick stuff up, and under the jacket on the floor was my keyboard – cracked at the sound box.
Oh, fudge.
***
Erid radioed us first in the end. They must have seen us coming on a satellite or space telescope, because I was sat next to Rocky, watching him sleep, and about to settle to sleep myself, when the radio crackled to life.
In Eridian, it said, “Polite greetings, unknown craft. Please identify yourself.”
I cleared my throat before pressing the key to transmit, and in my clearest simple Eridian, I said, “Hi all Erid! Am Grace, bring bestfriend Rocky home. Rocky home is Erid!”
There was a quiet moment, before the radio replied, “Grace is… not Eridian, question?”
“Grace from far home. Grace friend! Grace bring Rocky from-” I paused, there was no way I could say the Eridian name for Tau Ceti, or even the Eridian for star. “Grace bring Rocky from home of warm eaters. Grace Rocky fix warm eaters.”
“You have a solution to the Astrophage problem, question?”
“Yes! Bring warm eater eater, fix home! But Rocky hurt, Rocky need help. Rocky sleep long time. Bad bad bad.”
“Bad bad bad,” agreed the radio operator. “Can Grace pilot ship to dock with space elevator?”
“Grace come,” I agreed.
The Eridians asked me for more details, but I often had to admit that I couldn’t explain – my language was too limited without the keyboard. They called in other members of the astronomy thrum at the space elevator. They were curious about my and Rocky’s status especially.
“How old is Grace, question?” one of them asked. I had to think about it, and then do the math to translate it to Eridian years.
“Grace IVII years!” There was some commotion at that, and I briefly wondered if I’d done the math wrong, but there wasn’t time to worry about it.
Before I docked the ship, I needed to communicate that my atmosphere was toxic to them – I didn’t want anyone else getting burned and frozen like Rocky had been at Adrian.
“Grace air bad,” I managed, after some thought. “Grace air for Grace, hurt for Rocky and friends.”
“You have a different atmosphere?” one of them asked.
“Yes! Grace air cold, weak, have-” I paused. No word for oxygen. Not even a word for fire – Eridians didn’t have naturally occurring fire, it was another scientific word. This was so frustrating! “Grace air have bad for Rocky.”
“How is Rocky alive,” one of them asked – I thought I wasn’t supposed to hear, but answered anyway.
“Bestfriend Rocky small air in Grace air. In box.”
The Eridians made plans to build pressure suits to enter my atmosphere and retrieve Rocky, as well as sampling my atmosphere so they would know what I needed. I wished I had my keyboard, so I could contribute. One of the members of the thrum stayed by the radio at all times, keeping me updated and reassuring me with quiet hums and chirps when there was nothing to say, which I found extremely kind and actually quite calming. I caught myself humming back, like I did with Rocky.
I managed to dock the ship, slowly and clumsily but without any further damage, and released the airlock once the Eridians were ready for me. Three of them, all enclosed in flexible xenonite suits, went straight to Rocky’s tunnels, gently lifting him onto a stretcher that could be sealed against my atmosphere. I couldn’t stop myself from saying “Be careful!” in English, and then again in Eridian, “Gentle! Hurt!” even though I knew they knew. Instead, I sat on the floor so I wasn’t looming over them, and watched them gently carry him away.
Another Eridian approached me, and said, “Greetings, Grace. I am ♫♩♫.” I remembered the string of notes, but decided to nickname them Mica, just for now. Their carapace had glittering inclusions that reminded me of the Earth mineral.
“I am-” they hesitated, obviously trying to think of a way to phrase the concept. “I am here to keep you company while the doctors look after Rocky.” Oh, a liaison!
“Understand.” I said. “Bestfriend Rocky okay question?”
“Yes,” they said. “Rocky will be fine in a day or so.” I remembered an Erid day was about 5 Earth hours – not so long.
“How did you and Rocky meet, question?” they asked, and I remembered that this was first contact for them, too – we had so much science to discuss! If only I wasn’t so limited.
“Grace Rocky meet at home of warm eaters. Rocky alone, Grace alone. Rocky family gone. Rocky not fix home alone, Grace not fix home alone. Bestfriend Rocky Grace together find warm eater eater and Rocky come home. Fix Erid.”
“It sounds like you were very brave. Why didn’t you go back to your own home, question?”
I couldn’t think of a way to phrase everything that had happened with the suicide mission and the escaped Taumoeba, so I repeated my line from earlier. “Grace bring bestfriend Rocky home.”
The science team came back shortly after that, this time with a human-sized xenonite suit. Wow, Eridian engineering was fast when it wanted to be!
“We will bring Grace to Erid surface, have more Grace atmosphere, closer to Rocky,” said Mica. “Is that okay?”
“Yes!” I said. “Grace hear bestfriend Rocky, good good good!” I didn’t want to try to explain light to Eridians with the vocabulary I had right now.
I put on the ORLAN EVA suit underneath the xenonite, and checked to make sure I had a few hours of air – I didn’t know how long it would take to get to the surface from here. I grabbed a torch, clipped it to the EVA, and after a moment’s thought, picked up the cracked keyboard – hopefully Rocky would be able to fix it, it was one of the first gifts he gave me and I’d be sad to lose it.
Mica asked, “What is device question?”
I replied “Gift from Rocky,” and that seemed to satisfy them.
I showed the science team the sealed tanks of Taumoeba and let them take one – the others would be okay up here for a few days, and after that hopefully Rocky and I could give them better instructions. Still, I wanted them working on it as soon as possible and I was sure they did too.
I followed Mica and the science team out of the airlock – they unfastened their suits when they entered their own atmosphere, but Mica and a couple of others kept them on – I guess to go into my atmosphere with me on the surface. It didn’t actually occur to me how we would get to the surface until I actually saw the space elevator itself – an Eridian-sized box, tall enough for me to stand in but only as wide as an elevator on earth, and with absolutely no lights, no windows, not even a mirror to make it seem bigger. I remembered taking six flights of stairs to avoid the elevator at my university, and backed up a couple of steps.
I said in English, “Oh no. Absolutely NOT. I’m afraid of elevators, I’m claustrophobic, I can’t get in that thing.”
Mica let out a questioning chirp and nudged me towards it, but I was too panicked to manage much Eridian. I said “No. Box scary. No box.”
“It’s perfectly safe,” reassured Mica. “I take it every day. Don’t you want to be near Rocky again?”
I did want to see Rocky but also. Dark box. The torch on my EVA suit was not that bright. I tried again. “Box small, Grace big. Bad bad bad. No box.”
“It’s not far,” reassured Mica. “Only λλℓℓ seconds.” About half an hour. Not long to an Eridian, but a very long time to me.
I closed my eyes and imagined Rocky, in hospital, waiting for me. I stepped into the box and immediately sat on the floor in the corner to feel like I had more space. Mica came into the same elevator with me, but they directed the science team to take another lift. I was grateful for the extra space, but didn’t say anything as the lift shuddered into motion.
In an attempt to distract me, Mica retrieved something from a pocket – an intricate metal cube of some kind.
“This is a puzzle,” they said. “If you twist it into the right shape, it will unlock.”
“Understand,” I said, already angling it into the torchlight to get a better look. The EVA suit didn’t have the best dexterity to manipulate it with, but I could still examine it – it was fascinating.
By the time we reached the bottom of the elevator, I was still struggling with the puzzle cube, and feeling the effects of most of what should have been my night cycle spent awake. When I stood up to leave the elevator, I stumbled in the higher gravity, dropping the cube, and Mica had to catch me. “Sorry,” I said in Eridian. “Need sleep.”
“You can sleep in the room with your atmosphere,” they said. “It’s not far. Rocky will be awake when you wake up."
They tried to carry Rocky’s keyboard for me, but I wouldn’t let them – I felt bad enough they were taking all this time babysitting me, I didn’t need them to carry my stuff too. They led me a short distance to a room with an airlock, resealing their suit – once we were in, they directed me to take mine off. It was a relief to get out of extra weight, and the air in the room at least felt fresher than it did in the suit.
“Grace can sleep now,” they said, indicating what looked like a mattress on the floor. I nodded, walking over to it and settling down, pulling my cardigan around myself.
Mica looked like they were settling in to watch me, and I didn’t want to take any more time out of their day, so I said “Mica no need watch Grace sleep.” They let out a confused chirp, so I tried to clarify, “Grace sleep many years no one watch.” I couldn’t say the word for species or culture, so I tried, “Grace family no watch Grace sleep.”
Mica sounded quite upset when they said, “Rocky did not watch Grace sleep question?”
I didn’t want them to think Rocky was a bad Eridian friend, so I said “No, bestfriend Rocky always watch Grace sleep. Rocky alone.”
Mica replied “Then I will watch Grace sleep until Rocky returns.”
I couldn’t argue with that, so I settled in, turned off the light, and dozed off.