Work Text:
Even in the few weeks I’d been awake before meeting Rocky, I’d become used to living on my own. You don’t think about how often you bang your plates and cups on the counter or talk out loud to yourself until you’ve got a roommate who can hear you from the other side of the entire habitable space on board the Mary. And with every little noise I made, Rocky would come rolling up to ask what I was up to. Even when I told him he didn’t need to interrupt what he was doing to come check on me.
Back in Tau Ceti, time was of the essence: we hardly spent any time apart anyway, because being apart meant ‘not working’- even stuff like ‘fishing’ in the Don’t Go Crazy room really was for us to understand each other, as well as to keep me from going insane due to my dumb brain’s leaky cortisol -and we needed to work fast otherwise our entire races were going to die.
But now, on the way to Erid. . .
Rocky couldn’t really get “alone time”, now could he?
There was no place on the Mary dampened enough to where he couldn’t hear me. Every clumsy pounding footstep, every cough of mucus in my throat, every gurgle of my stomach, every wet slap of my hands against any surface- god forbid against his Xenonite enclosure.
That was the reason his ship had been made out of long thin tubes criss-crossing the interior. The spider comparison was shockingly relevant after all- if you got tired of hearing your crewmates, all you needed to do was step off the set of strings they were on.
(It was the gaps between the strings that had left his crew unshielded. I didn’t tell Rocky this, but I’d thought it when I’d walked down his ship’s corridors.)
But for us on the Mary, there was no getting either of us off the floor- not while the engines were still going. All the rooms were connected, millions of panels bolted together out of the most conductive set of elements out there and only tiny snatches of purified liquid prehistoric microbes. Or plastic, as I’d described it.
I’ve constructed a pair of slippers out of some spare fabric there’d been covering the crate of rations. Maybe not a great thing that one entire crate has already disappeared from the hold, but I try not to think about that too much. We figured out the rationing schedule for both of us (me, mostly- his metabolism is slower and his scientists planned for 23 coming on the return mission, but he apparently didn’t want to single me out in the planning process) and unless I’ve been raiding the snack fridge while sleepwalking, everything is going according to plan. Not going “well”. Just. . . to plan. Rocky promises he’ll figure something out. I want to believe him.
The slippers. Right. They’re comfortable. More cushy than my beat-up shoes, which is nice. And quieter, which was the goal. They’ll work. I try to wear them whenever Rocky’s working or eating. Sleep isn’t a concern, he can’t hear me even if he wanted to then.
I try to eat as fast and as quietly as possible. I even thought about doing it in the airlock for a while, but the margin for error in there is too slim for me to commit. For all the wishing you might think I’d be doing for another human out here with me, I am very grateful to not be subjected to human chewing noises. But Rocky. . . has to put up with it. Every day. Twice a day.
His culture thinks eating is disgusting, which he forgot to tell me. He’d called it beautiful as a joke.
Rocky assures me that he’s ‘used to it by now’ but it doesn’t make me feel any better.
Maybe the trip to Erid was short in comparison to an Eridian lifespan, but it definitely wasn’t going to be nothing for Rocky so I want to make sure I’m helping him stay sane as much as he’s helping me.
Which is inherently a failing goal. Because Rocky is a pretty great roommate all things considered now that we’re past my initial hesitation. Best roommate I’ve ever had that I can remember. No dirty clothes strewn about everywhere (sorry,) not moving any of my stuff without notifying me where he’d set them down (I don’t know why I’d set his timer down by the new breeder tanks, honest!) and no leaving out dirty food dishes. Had it been like seeing your roommate’s sex toy left on the counter for him? I have no idea.
On top of it all, I still haven’t told him I’m a coward yet. I’d remembered it on his ship but I still haven’t told him.
Because if the mission hadn’t launched, if Eva hadn’t forced me on the ship then he’d still be floating alone out there until the radiation killed him. Who knows how much longer he would have lasted?
Not to mention the millions more Humans and Eridians who might have died in the months it took to train another scientist to replace me that I clearly hadn’t cared about when I’d made my decision. Eva- Stratt had been right. And I was wrong.
I’ve found my person to do it for and I would never have met him if I’d gotten my way.
So really, I owe it to Rocky to be a tolerable roommate for the rest of the trip. As long as I last. My part to play is over.
His current project was tinkering with his Xenonite containment until he’ll be able to pilot the ship on his own.
I suggest ideas here and there and help translate but the construction of something so delicate and detailed means I’m sitting on the sidelines for the building part of it, unlike with the chain. And I don’t want to interrupt his workflow. Hence the slippers. Hence hiding away to eat. Hence remembering not to hum and tap my fingers on stuff, even if I still sometimes slipped up.
It’s the least I can do.
I watch Rocky wake, his internal system chugging back into function. I’ve started thinking about him in terms of a steam locomotive- limbs moving by hydraulic action and using a fraction of the produced pressure to move air to produce his tones to speak. It’s likely that my understanding of his anatomy is wrong at this point; given we’ve only had about three months together to figure out how to communicate, (and there’d been a two-month gap between the first month and the latter two, as it’d taken some time for the Mary to catch up to him after the leak!) I can’t be too mad at my lack of accuracy.
Rocky, meanwhile, seems to absorb the meanings of all my words instantly, and finds great joy in raiding the simple English wikipedia and having Mary read it out while he works.
Anyways, Rocky finishes un-paralyzing himself. He rises to his feet, tapping each foot in the same order as he always does to hear out the room.
“Good morning, Grace!” He speaks, and his translator echoes.
“Morning Rock,” I smile back.
“How Grace feel, question?”
“Feeling great, buddy. Start of a brand new day.”
“Day number 64 of 🎵🎶. It is nice to have counting down again.”
“For sure.” I smile before I think about it, then cover my mouth with my hand. Good morning Rocky, here are the sharp protrusions from my leaky vulgar food hole!
“Grace plan sleep when, question?”
“In a few hours. ‘Til then sounds like prime focus time, right?”
“Focus on, question?”
“Your project. No pressure though- you can also take a break if you want.”
“Focus time acceptable.”
‘Acceptable’ doesn’t feel like the word choice he’d meant, so I check his vocal frequencies on my translator and try to manually match them, but ‘acceptable’ really is the file we have on hand for what he said. The last time he’d said ‘acceptable’, or at least the last time I can remember, was before the little maneuver on Adrian that’d nearly cost him his life in my atmosphere. He’d called my piloting skills ‘acceptable’. Ha ha.
“Alright, I’ll let you work. Let me know if you need anything, kay?” I stand.
“Grace.” Rocky tapped the two legs of his that were in my direction. “Stay?”
“Oh, yeah, I can stay. I’m always down to be another set of hands.” I turn back around and walk beside his Xenonite enclosure.
He scuttles over to his workstation and I to mine, which is right beside and has all of our transfer stations for passing material back-and-forth.
“Not need another set of hands. Rocky already have plenty.” Rocky eventually replies.
“Oh. Sorry for assuming.”
“New word?”
“Assume: like, I was guessing at what you needed, but I did so without enough evidence.”
He mutters a few different tones for a bit while I grab the microphone, before he taps on all sides of his enclosure to ground himself again. “Word: 🎵🎶🎶🎵. Meaning ‘assume’.”
“Got it. That’s probably a good one to have going forward. Hopefully it’ll help clear up any misunderstandings.”
“Yes.”
“So with that now- do you just want me in the room?”
“Yes yes yes. Please.”
“Of course, Rock. Any time.”
He gets to work, calculating and shaping and troubleshooting new twists in Xenonite. From what I can see, I think he’s building a more tactile suit. As fun as the ball is, having something that’ll allow him fine motor control is going to be essential for him to figure out how to get out of the Mary back on Erid with minimal bodily harm. Even just building a pair of arms, like a long pair of gloves, would be an excellent start.
I huddle myself in the corner, crossing my legs onto the fabric mat I stashed here just for this purpose. Obviously Rocky felt better with me in the same room- he didn’t have to worry about finding me if I ever went silent like his crew. I couldn’t blame him for that. Not in the slightest. So I’m happy to sit here as long as he needs and not wander off on my own. . . even if I was starting to get bored. I can’t imagine how much more bored he must have been until I’d showed up in Tau Ceti.
Watching him work wasn’t the most boring activity, far from it, but the novelty had worn off some around this point. He’s a very thorough guy, and I really respect him for it but I do wish he’d go faster. Purely selfish, of course- not like we had anything else but time, right?
He’s holding this triangular bit of Xenonite pane in his hands for longer than usual. I lean forward and cringe as the metal plating beneath me creaks. Sorry, Rock, I’m a pro interruptor. (Why do you think I became a teacher?) But Rocky doesn’t flinch. If anything, he grows more still.
It’s amazing to see just how still an Eridian can keep their body. “Like a statue” doesn’t even begin to cover it. Perfect silence, both to my eyes and to my ears. He’s only done it a few times before now, and that was during the stressful stuff when we really needed to focus. Whereas I cried like a little baby, he literally locked in.
The air circulation fan kicks on, but it sounds different than it has before. I cock my head a little before my ears figure out that I’m wrong, and the noise is coming from inside the Xenonite enclosure.
A leak is the first thing my stupid brain jumps to. We’ve got alarms set up, and I don’t smell any ammonia, but maybe the alarms are malfunctioning. I built those, not him, so it’s possible I made some sort of mista-
The whistling happens again, louder this time and in a different pitch. It’s from Rocky. Of course it’s from Rocky. I try to breathe as deeply but as quietly as possible, as if my heart smacking against my insides hasn’t already given me away. He’s probably just humming while he works. Given that humming is how he talks, it’s a little weird I haven’t heard him hum while working more.
Stop freaking out, Ryland. Stop freaking him out.
I resist the urge to apologize out loud, if only because my human voice is probably a thousand times more distracting. I found his voice to be somewhat pleasant because the way he spoke resembled my music. But me? Nothing melodic about me, and unless his home culture on Erid had some sort of gritty percussive spoken-word poetry I doubt I sounded very good to him at all.
A whistle, this one loud enough to trick my brain into thinking it’s outside of the enclosure. I refocus. Rocky still hasn’t moved.
“Rocky?”
At the sound of my voice, Rocky shivers. He taps his feet erratically, drops what he’s holding, and then jumps over and leans towards me against his enclosure.
I’m on my feet immediately. “What’s wrong, Rock? Are you okay?”
I’m checking his body, checking his scars. They’ve been healing over well, as far as he’s told me, as far as I know, but who knows what internal damage he suffered in my atmosphere? Temperature, yeah, but also decompression. I don’t know anything about the bends. I don’t know anything about Eridian anatomy. I’d compared him to Thomas the freaking- no, screw this, we’re upgrading to ‘fuck’ -Thomas the fucking Tank Engine earlier today, even.
“Are you okay? Status?” He doesn’t specify question but I can hear his voice tremble.
“I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m scared because you’re acting different. What’s wrong?”
“Sorry sorry sorry. Sorry.” He bleats one after the other.
“No, no need to apologize. I’m sorry. I guess I made an assumption again. Just want to make sure you were okay, didn’t mean to overreact.”
“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry-”
His whistle pierces straight through the dome and his joints lock up again.
“Hey!” I kneel in front of him. “Are you okay? Tell me what’s wrong. I can help. I’ll try my best.”
“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Grace not worry. Grace not. . .”
“Well, too late. I’m already worried, so you might as well just tell me, right?” I feign a smile before I forget it won’t comfort him.
“Rocky not mean to 🎵🎶🎵🎶🎶.”
“New word?” I say.
“Make things harder for Grace.”
“New word is ‘impose’. Means exactly what you said. But-” I press my hand against his enclosure. “You’re not imposing on me at all. Not at all. Not making anything harder.”
“Grace lies.”
“Wha- hey! I’m not lying.” I furrow my brow. If only he could hear if I was lying or telling the truth through my heartbeat like one of the characters in my favorite cartoon growing up.
“Grace is very polite.”
“Thanks, I’m trying to be, but you still need to tell me what you think I’m lying about.”
“Not relevant. Ignore.” Rocky gestures a tiny goodbye motion, rubbing his arms together.
“Alright. Just. . . tell me when you’re ready, okay?”
I’ll give him some time to think. I stand and start walking away-
“Stay! Stay! Grace stay, please please please.”
-and in seconds I’m kneeling in front of him again.
“Tell me what you need, Rocky. Please. You gotta let me help. You’ve helped me so much. Let me return the favor.”
“No! Grace came back. Grace-” Rocky hisses a few chimes of what I’m sure are curse words. Whether they’re directed at me or the translator, I’m not sure. “Grace already give everything. Statement. And-”
“And?”
Another wordless whistle escapes him. The silence of his limbs leaves the monkey part of my brain worried he’s going to pass out, as if I can feel the way he’s locking his ‘knees’.
“Rocky-” his own whistle interrupts him, and the translator glitches out.
Oh my god, he’s crying. This is his equivalent of crying.
“Rocky only demand more.”
“You’re not demanding more. You’re having an emotional moment. That’s fine. You’re always dealing with my leaking. And you’re my friend. I want to help. How can I help?”
Rocky presses himself against the barrier towards me. I press my hands against his.
“More more more. Please. Please.”
“Do you want a hug?”
“Hug? Yes! Hug work,” he sounds out the longer set of chimes for what’s a single syllable for me to speak.
I press myself against the not-glass. It’s hard, but it’s warm. I keep my chest and especially my stomach off it so he doesn’t have to have all of my interior wriggling shouting in his metaphorical ears.
“Grace why? Why-” another high-pitched whistle-sob, “-question?”
“Why what?”
“Not full hug? Why not?” He shouts so loudly I can feel it through the Xenonite surface.
“But, this is a full hug?”
Rocky collapses, drawing his legs in on himself. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Rocky not make more demands. Rocky. . .” he chitters much more complex words that my stupid flesh brain hasn’t learned yet. “Rocky brain damaged. Not fatal. Just. . . damaged.”
I keep my hand against his enclosure. “. . . how is your brain damaged?”
“Eridians need 🎶🎶🎶🎵🎶🎶🎶. Rocky not have 🎶🎶🎶🎵🎶🎶🎶. Not until return to Erid.”
“We can build it. You and me. You just have to tell me what it is.”
“Not something built. It is culture.”
“Tell me and I’ll do my best.”
“Not fatal. Been without for many years. Only 🎵🎶 days until have it again. Can wait. Rocky not want to impose.”
“How are you imposing?”
“How is Grace- Grace!” Rocky snaps. “Grace. Grace not going home. Grace no more contact with any humans ever. Grace might die. Telling Rocky to focus on project always because Grace might die. All because Rocky’s breeder tanks break and 🎵🎵🎵🎵 both of us.”
The mystery word matches what I think is a curse word. “That wasn’t your fault. Your design was great, I’m the one who bred the Taumeoba and didn’t check for leaks.”
“Irrelevant! Agreed not to argue about that. Sorry. Sorry.” Rocky slowly curls out his limbs and stands. “Main point: Grace give all already. Rocky not need to impose. Return to Erid is soon.”
“Not soon.” I disagree. I sigh without meaning to. “And maybe I have more to give. Maybe helping you helps me. Did you think of that?”
“But humans not like noise. End of discussion. Returning to work.” Rocky makes a goodbye motion before crossing the legs facing me. He plucks up the little Xenonite triangles again.
. . . he thought humans don’t like noise?
I love noise. I can hardly stop tapping or humming or crying around here. My attempt at having a human mate listed one of the reasons she broke up with me because I couldn’t shut up. To be more accurate, she’d said ‘you’re in love with the sound of your own voice’. Anyways.
“I like noise.” I said, not getting up like he’d nonverbally told me to. “Do you like noise?”
“Grace like Human level of noise. Eridian level of noise very different.”
“Shoot,” I mumble. “I’m sorry. Sorry sorry sorry.”
“Sorry sorry sorry.” Rocky echoes and rocks himself.
“I’ve been trying to be as quiet as possible for you. I know it’s not good enough.”
Rocky freezes again. “New word?”
“Which word?”
“Translated as ‘quiet’. Not correct.”
“No, that’s what I said.” I blink. “Right?”
“You,” Rocky specifies, “have been trying to be quiet?”
I hang my head. “Trying to. Sorry.”
“Why? Do you really-” Rocky cuts himself off, but his breath continues until it whistles another piercing high pitch from before. He shakes himself and whispers something the translator barely picks up, “not personal, culture, culture, culture. . .”
“Please,” my voice starts to choke up a little as well. God damn cryer that I am. “Tell me what I can do better?”
“Grace already ‘better’. Grace best. Rocky is problem!”
“Then tell me what your problem is!” I shout back.
I cover my mouth. I’ll give his poor ear equivalents time to stop ringing before I force him to listen to me blubber more-
But instead of flinching away, Rocky presses every facet of himself that he can reach against the barrier and shouts “It is too quiet!”
His whistles reverberate through the air around me, bouncing off the ceiling and the floor, and for a moment I can almost picture what it’s like to map out a room with sound alone.
He starts shivering, clacking like a thousand little pebbles sliding down a hillside.
Oh my god, I’ve messed up. I tear the slippers off my feet. I hover my finger over the barrier and after a moment tap three times on the not-glass.
Rocky replies immediately, tapping both his nearest legs three times. So I tap more, with my fingers, then switch to the palm of my hand. He vibrates wordlessly, almost like a rapid chirping of a bird, as he leans into it.
But then he stopped. “Grace do not need to do this. Humans don’t like noise.”
“I love noise! I-I thought you didn’t like noise?”
“Grace say ‘personal space’ at word meaning high value during video log. Grace flinch whenever Rocky roll in ball and collide with things. Grace be silent as-” a small high-pitched whistle that Rocky clamps down immediately, “Grace is silent all the time.”
“No, that’s- that’s my fault. I thought you wanted quiet.”
“Why, question?”
“Because you can hear everything.”
“Why do you not want me to hear you?” Rocky says every word accurately for the translator instead of our pidgin and even specifies, “question?”
“It’s not that I don’t want you to hear me at all, just that I don’t want to overwhelm you.” I explain. “If I whisper you can hear it from all the way across the ship.”
“That is normal.”
“I know it’s what you’ve been putting up with-”
“Unknown phrase! Grace, listen. Level of noise is normal.” Rocky stamps his feet. “Eridians hear everything. That is normal normal normal.”
“But I’m a leaky space blob.”
“Not time for humor.”
“That wasn’t humor.”
Rocky is about to tap the glass of my hand again, but stops just short.
“New word. . . repeating a phrase to highlight something. Not meant to be literal.”
“I don’t know what that could be. Maybe it’s an Eridian culture thing. Like humor is to Earth.”
“Humor close enough.” Rocky settles on. “Leaky space blob phrase use is like humor.”
“Okay. I’m sorry I took it personal.”
“I want to hear you.” Rocky says, before slamming his breath vents shut as if he’d let something slip that he shouldn’t.
Why not full hug?
Oh my god I’m such an idiot.
I press myself against the barrier between us. All of me- arms, chest, stomach and all the organs wriggling around inside me. I smush my cheek against it, rub my hair, each strand trailing across the not-glass. Rocky scrambles against the barrier, and I can feel it flex from the force.
“That’s right.” I say, forcing myself louder than a whisper. “Bring it in.”
Rocky whines something wordless. I know it’s not something untranslated by the way it isn’t buffered with any harmonies.
“Here, let’s go to the Don’t Go Crazy room, okay? We can play you some music, or a movie, and we can crank the volume as high as we want. It’ll be fun. Really fun.” I say, voice a little stilted from smushing myself as hard as I can against the barrier.
“No no no!” Rocky snaps the triplet in a burst. “Not the same. Mechanical sound. Sound like ship. Have heard enough of ship for too too long.”
Alone on his ship. Of course. I’m such a fucking idiot. “I’m so sorry.”
“Rocky sorry. Sorry Grace needs to- sorry that Rocky wants this so badly.”
“No. I want to help you. You’re my friend, you’re my buddy- I want to help you.” I repeat for good measure. “Is it better when I talk?”
“Yes yes yes yes yes.”
Five of his arms. Five planets in his home system. Five’s a big deal. Five yeses is enough for me to immediately overcome any filter I had and just start babbling.
“Of course I’ll talk more. Did they ever tell you-” as if there was a ‘they’ that could tell him, a ‘they’ besides me, who’s been giving him the equivalent of the silent treatment for as long as we’ve been sailing towards Erid, “-that on Earth I’m known for not shutting up? Like it’s gotten me in trouble. I insulted the lead scientist in my field. He is an idiot, of course, I still can’t stand his work but I said something in front of the whole conference hall because my lips go faster than my brain and that’s how I got kicked out of astrobiology until Stratt brought me back. Did you know that?”
But instead of responding, Rocky hums in long, stretched notes. I’m not entirely sure if they have meaning, but when he repeats them is when I’m sure they’re an attempt to self-soothe.
I start humming the notes along with him, and he starts to vibrate. Given that he’s not pulling away, I keep going.
“Can. . . Grace be louder?”
I take a deep breath and hum as loudly as I can. But I can’t hold that high note for very long, so I dip into my chest register.
Rocky follows me down to my note and trills in triads around it. Every time I pause for a breath, he pauses too.
“Different notes or same notes better?”
“Yes.”
Not an answer, so I play around with my voice. I find myself humming the outro to “Hey Jude”, repeating the line, feeling the way it shapes my lips. Rocky plucks out different notes and sounds them out. I then try a whistle and pick the one at the beginning of “Winds of Change”, but Rocky stops vibrating, so I transition to singing the chorus instead. It’s here that he really settles in, practically shouting in unison with me. Ilyukhina would have been proud. (Of him, not me, who’s probably flubbing a few of the actual lyrics.)
I imitate a fadeway ending to the song, getting quieter and quieter until we both stop. I pause to catch my breath and rest my voice. I can’t imagine a voice crack sounding all that reassuring for him, and I haven’t been using my voice for more than quiet conversations since I stopped screaming my head off upon waking up on the Mary. Instead I tap my fingers at him so that he’s not in silence.
“You like the low voice?” I ask.
“Yes! Very different. Makes Grace’s whole body 🎵🎶🎶🎶🎶. Word like vibrate, but better.”
‘Vibrate but better’ was likely a term that wouldn’t translate. Or maybe if I knew more about music I could take a crack at it.
“I guess it makes sense. You see in vibrations.”
“I feel vibration.”
“Yeah.”
“World without vibration like. . . world without color.” His word for trying to explain ‘color’ is much longer than the translator’s two-syllable readout.
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Color is technically a vibration, after all, but science talk can wait until later. “So singing is best. Talking is good. How is tapping? Do you like tapping?”
(Ah, tapping, our first-ever serious miscommunication when we first met is now helping me out of another.)
“Yes. Tapping shows Rocky where Grace is.”
“You like knowing where I am at all times.”
“Yes. Not normal for humans, understand.”
“No, wait, maybe it’s like. . .” like when you’re a kid, and you track where everyone is in the apartment based on their footsteps. Not that I know how to explain that in a way he’ll understand without boatloads of context we haven’t talked much about. “Humans do it too. In. . . safest place.”
“Mary is safest place for us right now.” Rocky says.
I smile. “Yeah.”
“Grace help ship feel safe right now.”
“I know. I’m sorry for assuming.”
“Rocky assume also that Grace prefer silence.”
“Well, I’m. . . much more neutral about it. Sometimes I like quiet. But not all the time. Compared to you?”
“Rocky need noise much more than Grace.”
“Rocky need noise more than Grace, and that’s okay.” I echo.
“Is it?”
“We both have to make sure that neither of us go crazy.” I reply. I lean my cheek against the barrier again. “You’d do the same for me, right?”
“Yes. Statement, not question.”
“Exactly,” I tap my hands three times. “Exactly.”
Rocky taps back with each of his legs in a variation on the pattern. I play it back, changing one ‘beat’. We sling it back and forth, each making variations until he eventually morphs it into something so abstract my brain can’t call it a beat anymore. Music majors would have a field day with this guy. A shame he’s stuck with me.
So now I’ve found myself monologuing again. And singing under my breath. And letting my impulses get the best of me- tapping parts of the hull in a specific order or clicking my pen in rhythm. Variety is the spice Rocky’s looking for- repetitive and particularly mechanical sounds can get old, apparently. I try to avoid anything I’ve dubbed ‘ship-like’.
It’s. . . nice. Really nice. I find myself relaxing too. As if I was the one being screwed over and not Rocky, who I deprived of a basic social bonding function of his entire species for two whole months.
I find myself apologizing almost every other conversation. It’s gotten so bad Rocky calls it my “apology problem”. He says he’s going to fix it. I’m still not entirely convinced it isn’t out of guilt of me ‘fixing’ another one of his problems.
Until about a week later, where Rocky beckons me down to be near him on the floor. I grab my seat cushion but otherwise tap my feet against the ground and my hands on the barrier surface.
“Grace. I figure out your issue.” He’s thought through this conversation- he’s taking the time to translate this in 1st and 2nd-person pronouns, something his language does not do very often.
“Wha- huh? What do you mean ‘my issue’? Question?”
“You assume I do not like you. That I do not want to hear you.”
“No, I know you like me.”
“You assume I lie to you.”
“Well, I. . .”
I sigh.
“You know I say truth.”
“Okay. . . you caught me.” I hold my hands up, a gesture I translated for him a while back. I can’t keep myself from laughing a little. “Can I tell you why I don’t believe you?”
“Yes. Explain.”
“I’m loud and ugly. I leak fluid everywhere. Everything about me sounds hideous.”
“And Rocky is top human of beauty.” Rocky leans with one elbow against the barrier, almost a perfect mirror of how I do it. “Humor statement.”
“You’re a little freaky-looking but you’re not. . .” I look at Rocky. There’s a reason I named him Rocky and it wasn’t the boxer at first. Rocks are something recognizable on every planet, if anything they’re seen as mundane, even honest. And at this rate I think Rocky looks, well, friendly. I try to think back as to how I felt he looked when we first met. Fear pretty much covers all those bases but that’s also because it was first contact and frankly we were both terrified.
“Exactly.” Rocky finishes, assuming my silence as not being able to contradict him.
“I’m slimy.”
“I am dry. How different?”
“I must sound-”
“You sound good good good. Different. Unusual. Nothing like Eridian. But Rocky like Grace’s sounds now. The pumping and the 🎵🎶🎵🎵 is calming.”
“Okay, so maybe we’ve pack-bonded.” Given the whole sleep paralysis Eridians have going on, it’s likely they’ve got stronger pack-bonding instincts than even humans do, and if Earth science fiction authors are to be believed, we’ve got it pretty bad. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m also stupid.”
“Stupid leaky space blob statements are mostly like humor.”
“I forget everything all the time versus you can recall everything.”
“Rocky not know what radiation is and entire crew die because Rocky not know.”
“That wasn’t your fault! No Eridian knew.”
“Exactly. And Grace not know how to remember because Grace have thinking machine to recall for you.”
His evolutionary assumption is off, but. . . I see what he’s trying to get at. Both ‘stupid’ in our own ways. I tap on the floor a few times before leaning on top of his barrier.
“There’s one more thing you don’t know about me that’s bad.” I said.
“Elaborate.”
“I. . .”
Coward, coward, coward.
I sort what I want to say in my head very carefully before saying it out loud.
“I wasn’t going to go on the mission at all. I did not want to. I was the only one who knew enough about the astrophage but I didn’t want to go. I was going to let everyone die. You were going to die because I didn’t want to go.”
Rocky paused, not by staying still, but by rubbing a pair of his hands together. I slide down the side of the barrier then shuffle away, legs crossed, hands tucked by my sides.
“Then. . . how Grace on mission originally?”
“I was forced.”
“New word.”
“Forced. It’s, um,” c’mon, Ryland, hold it together, “Grace being grabbed like a tool. Moved without moving yourself.”
“That is bad. Bad. Bad.”
“No. It was good. Because otherwise everyone die. You die. Erid die.” I’m waving my hands like an idiot now trying to get this through to him.
“Grace knew original human trip mean death, question?” Rocky asks.
I nod. “So did Yao and Ilyukhina. My crew. The ones who are gone now. They did it knowing that.”
“Grace was scared. Grace. . . that is understandable reaction.” Rocky replies.
“You’re lying.”
“Leaving behind Adrian is scariest thing I have ever done.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have anyone I had to leave. No one at all. Not even a dog.”
“Grace not happy about dying.”
“No. Can’t say I find the idea very fun.”
“Good. Grace should not be happy about dying! Grace had good reason to think trip would cause death. Normal to be scared.”
I nodded. Rocky mimicked my nodding motion as he continued.
“Rocky glad I could be here to help Grace, but Rocky would not have gone on mission if I had known all of crew would die. If that case, Rocky coward too.”
“You aren’t a coward.”
“If Rocky is not, neither is Grace.”
I sigh, drumming my fingers against the floor. “You got me there.”
“That is Grace’s issue.”
“What do you mean?”
“You want me to not like you. Why?”
“That’s not what I. . ..”
“Did Earth do this to you?”
“Nobody on Earth like a pity party either.” I gesture at my chest, knowing the words won’t translate directly.
“Then Rocky not know why. Was hoping you would explain.”
“I don’t know.” I feel my throat tighten. “You’re just. . . so much better than I am.”
Rocky pauses. Tests a few different word harmonies, quiet enough that the translator doesn’t pick it up. Then he commits. “I don’t think that way.”
I take deep breaths to keep my eyes from deciding to leak moisture. I instead press myself against the barrier, and Rocky presses back.
“You’re too good for me, Rock.”
“Grace. Rocky just explained that is not-”
“Humor! Humor. Just humor.”
“Grace banned from humor. Rocky banned from humor also until Grace understand that Rocky like him.” He deliberately screws with the translation voice we’ve picked for him, elongating the ‘understand’ with a humorous lilt.
“But jokes are all I have.”
“No they aren’t! Grace have Rocky!”
I open my mouth to deflect some more but I can’t just leave such an earnest response hanging. I nod my head against the barrier and hum my best impression of an Eridian “yes”.
“I’m very happy to have you,” I clarify.
“Good. Me too. Noise, mess, everything. I am not lying.” Rocky takes the time to conjugate.
“You too. You too.” I echo.