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I'm surprised the plants are still alive after all of that. I've been banged around so much there's an ugly bruise on my upper thigh that is fading so slowly I'm half convinced it'll still be there when we get to Erid, but the sprouts are happy as can be, tucked neatly in a little planter tray in a side closet I hadn't looked at until now. Maybe I'm more surprised that we have spouts at all than that they survived. Actually, scratch that, Stratt clearly put everything in the world onto the ship. There must have been some watering system set up too, and I'm definitely not going to mess with it. If it's not broke, don't fix it, right? I'm a molecular biologist, okay, not a botanist. Every plant I've ever had I've killed.
"Why did they even put those in here? I can't eat them. How are they even still alive?" I lift the tray to peer at the bottom of it. "Not even a label?" Six tiny saplings did not a dinner make. I put the tray back down. "These are probably poisonous."
"What is that, question?" Across the room, Rocky is pressed as close to the xenonite wall as was physically possible, carapace bopping up and down like a different spot might give him a better view. "Found more Earth stuff, question?"
I look at Rocky, then back at the plants. Okay, I know Stratt and the rest of the team probably didn’t plan for aliens but honestly other Earth life is probably the coolest thing we could ever have to show them. Unless the plants are sprouts because they started growing after we were supposed to be dead so that aliens who found the ship would have them. Then it’s less cool.
"I’ll show you." I shuffle one of the saplings out of the plastic. Somehow, I expect the tray to crinkle like the ones stores used to sell in the spring for people to plant in their gardens. It doesn't. Dirt drips through my fingers and onto the floor of the lab.
"Grace made mess." Rocky's laughing at me, I can hear it in his pitch.
"Yeah, laugh it up. I'll clean it later." I frown at the airlock at the end of the xenonite tunnel. "I don't think I can give it to you or it will combust, but it's an Earth plant." Instead, I hold it out, cupped in my hands like I'm one of those Earth Day posters they used to hang at school. For a moment, I wonder what the Earth looks like now for the students, for my kids who are now almost as old as me. I push the thoughts away. I’ll never know.
Rocky presses a hand to the wall. "You plant on Erid. Grow bigger, question?"
I...hadn't thought of that. Even the idea of having something green from home, even if it turns out to have an appetite for human flesh (which it probably doesn't but at this point, I'm not ruling anything out), makes me lighter. More soil trickles through my fingers, right onto my socks. Because of course it does. "Maybe," I say, but the hope fades as fast as it showed up. Chances are, I live on the ship, at least for a little while. There's no place on Erid I can go, and the Eridians will definitely care more about the whole "saving the planet" thing more than me at first. I don’t blame them. "If I have the space," I say instead. The depressing thought of living on this ship alone is for later. "I don't know if it would even grow in Eridian soil. Or if they'll survive until we get there." I'm not sure I can spare the water. That is also a depressing thought.
Rocky makes a soft noise. "I ask Adrian. Adrian will love. Adrian Biology Eridian.” More dirt hits the floor. “Put back now. Messy messy."
I step over the trail of dirt and tip the plant back into the tray. "Your mate is a biologist?" The dirt level in this spot is lower than the other ones now. Whoops. Is there a dustpan in here somewhere? There’s not really dust in space. "Of course they are, they'd have to be smart like you." I nudge the tray back into the box. The sun lamp inside ticks on.
"No no no. Adrian much smarter." His carapace is held high as he says it, though. I'd brag about my mate if they were that smart, too.
"I think you're underselling yourself a little bit here, buddy." I dust the rest of the dirt off my hands, use my feet to slide the small pile of it towards the wall, then drop my socks on top of it. I should probably get new ones, but I can also just get back into my nest of blankets and that sounds like a much better option.
"Adrian important Biology Eridian," Rocky emphasizes. "Very good."
I slide down the wall onto my blanket cushion and pull the top one around my shoulders. Between the lingering heat from the xenonite and my quilt, I'm set. "I can't wait to meet them."
"Yes you meet. Become friends."
"I hope so." I mean it, I really do. I want Rocky's partner to like me. For more than just helping save the planet. Sure, that would probably buy me an Eridian's lifetime of goodwill. But after all we've been through, I want to be wanted, not just there.
"And meet—" Rocky trills a series of notes I didn't recognize. It's been nearly a week since we found a word we hadn't shared yet.
"I don't know that one." Out of habit, I reach for my laptop. It's on the desk on the other side of the room, and I am not getting up. Mental note for later, then.
"Need word for direct blood connection but not parents. Of same age."
I blink at him. "Sibling. Wait, you have siblings?"
"Yes, siblings! Have four. Average Eridian birth number is five. You meet siblings." Rocky is bouncing a little bit. The excitement is infectious.
"I would be honored to meet them." Okay so more people I need to like me, that's good. Rocky talks about his mate all the time. He talks about his friends on the ship, the other Engineering Eridian he was closest to, how they were picked for the mission. My stories pale embarrassingly in comparison. But by golly will I make sure Rocky's family likes me. I'm not sure how, but that is a problem for future me. Thanks in advance future me for figuring that out.
"Good good good. Grace have siblings, question?"
I pull the blanket tighter. "No siblings. I'm an only child. Humans are born one at a time, usually. Sometimes two or more, but it's less common."
"Is lonely? Siblings make much noise, always things happening." Rocky scuttles down to a different spot behind the wall, peering (or as much peering one could do without eyes—or a face) directly at me.
"Sometimes," I admit. "But we have friends at school and then at work so we aren't alone."
Rocky perks up. "Tell me about Grace human friends!"
I open my mouth, then shut it again. "I—"
Not one person comes to mind. On the ship, I drank with Dimitri, attended countless meetings with Stratt, spent hours training Shapiro and DuBois. But none of them were friends. None of the other teachers at school were friends. When I really thought about it, I had no one. No family, plenty of acquaintances, but no friends. Usually I tried not to think about it.
At this point, I don't even think there are any remaining gaps in my memory. I remember not having to tell anyone but my school and my landlord that I was disappearing to a boat in the middle of the ocean, never took a slot on the secure phone I knew was in action somewhere on the ship. I never even looked for it. It was easy to send me up because no one would miss me. No one had to be convinced to let me go.
It’s just that I’ve always been a little weird and a little hard to love. To like? Sure, maybe. Work with, presumably, though I don’t assume that people would tell me if I wasn’t. And I get that, it is what it is. You don’t go thirty years without accepting some stuff about yourself that you wish was different. It’s just another inalienable truth of the universe. Humans require oxygen to survive, Ryland Grace is hard to love. By adults, anyway. Kids don’t have the same expectations. I love that about teaching, too. Loved.
But, I mean, seriously, who wants to tell their best friend in literally the entire galaxy—because planet is too small a word—that they had more trouble making friends than their middle school kids? And middle schoolers can be really mean, so the bar I had to surpass was basically on the floor.
"Grace okay, question? You stare at wall for long time."
"Yeah, buddy, I'm good." I flash a smile at him like that would make it better. Which is stupid, mostly because he can't see it but partly because I realize he probably knows me too well to believe that brush off. It's a disarming feeling.
"Grace not okay. Why lie, question?"
I sigh, shoving my hands under my glasses to rub at my eyes. "I'm not lying, I am fine." I blow out a breath and look at Rocky. He’s still now, carapace tilted inquisitively. "I just...don't have a good answer to the question."
"Is not hard question," Rocky replies, and I know that he probably means that it wasn't complex math or life or death or something like that, but it knocks the air out of me like I have severals g's of gravity suddenly pressing down on my chest. Tears prick at the corner of my eyes. How pathetic is that? Also embarrassing, very embarrassing. I sniff, wiping one away before it can fall. "Grace leaking. Why Grace leaking, question? Grace sad, question?"
Rocky's frantic barrage makes me laugh, except it's a wet laugh, which only makes him more concerned. He's at least half an octave lower than usual. "Rocky make Grace sad, question?"
"It's not your fault," I reassure him. Because it isn't. I'm the one who burst into tears when I was asked about having friends. Because that's a perfectly normal response to have. If Rocky ever meets any other humans, I am probably the worst original sample to compare to.
"Then why Grace leaking, question?"
"I don't know." My laugh sounds a little hysterical. "I thought I was over this."
"Over what, question?" Rocky skitters back up to the spot that put him level with the top of my head. At least I don't have to pretend to meet his eyes.
He'll keep asking, I know he will. I pull my glasses off entirely. Having the room just a little bit blurry makes things easier to process. "Not having friends."
"Rocky is Grace friend. You have friend."
"Friends from before," I admit. "From Earth." A not small part of me is relieved to hear him confirm it out loud. We're stuck together, but maybe one day he'll get tired of me and just start being polite. It's happened before.
"Why no friends from Earth, question? You work with other humans. Make friends at work."
If I wanted to drag the conversation out, I might have tried to explain coworkers and work friends and people you talked shop with but never about your personal lives vs people you actually want to spend your free time with because you like them. Or maybe that the one friend I do remember having stopped contacting me years before I was sent to space, and she wasn't the first. But I don't. Rocky would remember the question and ask again and honestly I'm feeling pretty pathetic and not super eager to rehash the whole thing.
"People just don't want to spend time with me, Rock. That's why. It's just me." Shame bubbles in my chest. Maybe it's time to go upstairs and get new socks. Or do literally anything else besides sit here and talk about this. "I'll be right back."
When I get back down, Rocky is waiting right by the ladder. "Why think people don't like you, question?" I tap my forehead on the ladder a couple of times. I knew he wouldn't let it go. Because he's Rocky, of course he won't. "Grace, why you think people don't like you, question?"
"When nobody in your entire life stays, you get the hint, okay?" Heat builds behind my eyes again. At this rate, “leaky space blob” is a better descriptor for me than my actual species. "I want to go to sleep. Can you watch?"
"No need sleep," Rocky argues. "Had sleep 12427 seconds ago." He squeezes himself into the tight end of the tunnel. "Not no one say. I stay."
Tears drip down my cheeks. I pull off my glasses and slid my back down the ladder so I can curl up on the floor. Rocky hadn't stayed, not in the way I meant it, but he'd nearly sacrificed himself for me, reminds me on the daily to do things I should have remembered for myself without being mean about it. He listens to me talk and wants me to meet his family. That's more than anyone else ever had. Suddenly I'm gasping, huge heaving things that make pulling in air feel impossible. Rocky disappears from the corner of my eye. I don't even have enough time to wonder if being a walking disaster had made him give up too before I can hear him rattling around in his ball. He nudges at my knees.
"Grace sad sad sad. Rocky no understand, but Rocky want to fix."
"I'm hard to love, Rocky, you can't fix that." I lean against the ball anyway. It's like leaning on a heating unit and about as comfortable, but worth it.
"Grace no make sense. Grace smart human, brave. Risk himself for Eridians he doesn't know. And humans. Make bad jokes but Adrian also make bad jokes. No need fix Grace." I won't lie, that only makes me cry harder. "Rocky make worse. Bad bad bad." He shifts in the ball, and I grab on for dear life, like I, from my little ball on the floor, might be able to stop a smooth surface containing a four hundred pound Eridian from doing anything he wants to do.
"You didn't make it worse," I try to say, but it's snotty and really nasaly and probably sounded gross and incomprehensible. "No one has ever stayed before. Please stay." He shifts back though, clanking a little bit against the ladder.
"Grace make friends on Erid. Erid friends stay." I don't think I can believe him, but I want to. "Rocky stay. Rocky Grace best friends. Statement," he adds, when I say nothing. "No question."
"Okay," I said. "Okay." The xenonite is warm under my cheek. Rocky is quiet for a moment. I can hear the whirring of the ship, feel it vibrate underneath me.
"Human fluids everywhere. Why humans make so many, question?" Rocky asks, but he doesn't move. I laugh, and he makes a chittering noise, and you know what, no one else on Earth will ever have this moment but me. And I'm pretty happy here.