Chapter Text
Chapter 1
The ship smelled like cat piss.
I ran my fingers along the open panels on the walls of the Hail Mary, closing them as i floated by. Most of the (non-critical) parts had been stripped away and were now on Erid powering lights, displays, and other small gadgets I needed in my home. Empty conduits snaked through the exposed walls where bundles of wiring used to run, and hollow mounting brackets jutted out like broken ribs. Every now and then I'd pass a connector dangling loose, its matching component long since repurposed. The ship was a shell of its former self. At a glance all that was left were the pilot controls, a couple of unused beds, the life support hardware, and a whole lot of trash. It looked like a tornado ripped through it.
Or a team of Eridians.
Hence the lingering smell of cat urine.
Hence hence I was cleaning it up.
I shut more panel doors. One by one, the exposed guts of the Hail Mary disappeared behind white composite covers. It didn't actually fix anything—it just made the place look less like it had been picked clean by scavengers.
I collected floating trash as I went. Empty food pouches, used tape rolls, a pen I'd been looking for before deciding it had been permanently claimed by the universe. Everything went into whatever random cubby I could shove it into. I wiped dust off the shelves. Dust. Still weird to think that existed in a sealed spaceship. Years of human occupancy eventually made their own ecosystem, I guess.
After a couple of hours of work, one room finally looked respectable. Not perfect (there wasn't enough intact equipment left for that) but respectable. Nothing floated through the middle of the compartment waiting to smack me in the face every time I passed through at least.
I pushed gently off the handholds and drifted toward the observation window.
God, I missed the view.
It had been about two years since Rocky and I had arrived at Erid. While the dome had functional sun simulating lights I hadn’t gotten around to asking them to recreate the night sky. They had enough work cut out for them just keeping me alive and it felt too soon to ask. I’d only been restored to full health for a few months.
Below me, the planet filled half the window, a swirl of blue clouds and a halo of atmospheric light. Above it stretched unending darkness and a beautiful cluster of stars and galaxies. I rested one hand against the window and just watched. Nothing demanded my attention. No experiments, no meetings, no language lessons. Even after years in space it was still amazing and I could gaze for hours.
Oh, and then there was the joy of being weightless again. Erid’s gravity was hard on my body and I was relieved to have a break. I did a backflip just because I could.
Days passed cleaning more rooms, reliving memories (some good, some bad), and napping to the soft ambient hum of the life support system. I also collected handfuls of small items I wanted to bring back down with me that I previously saw no use for. I hesitated when I came across Yao and Ilyukhina’s personal items. Two years ago, I almost brought the boxes to the planet to bury and give a proper funeral but ultimately decided against it. Erid was never their home. Their bodies lay to rest among the stars, but their spirits were connected to Mary. I couldn’t separate them. Maybe one day, should this ship ever return to Earth, they would see land again.
Selfishly though, I needed some new clothes. Mine were in rough shape (add it to the growing list of things I need to ask the Eridians to make). My current outfit was the bottom half of a flight suit I cut into pants and tied to my waist with a xenonite belt, a thread bare crew neck shirt, and tattered shoes held together with elastic bands. As I placed T-shirts, pants, and yes even a skirt, into my bag another item caught my eye. At the bottom of Yao’s stuff was a small wooden box. I hefted it up and balanced its weight in one hand. Even in zero gravity it was heavier than expected. I already knew what it was before I flipped the latch but I lifted the lid anyway. I gazed thoughtfully inside and ran my fingers over the smooth metal. I don’t know why I took it but without further thought. I closed the lid and placed the box among the clothes.
“Grace, come in,” a familiar voice said over the radio.
I jumped out of my skin and slammed my head into the ceiling. Ow. I reoriented myself and glided to the intercom in the control room, pressing the talk button. “You’re home early. And that’s Captain Grace to you while I’m aboard my ship, thank you very much.”
Rocky ignored me. “Why didn’t you tell me you were visiting Mary?”
“You said you’d be gone all week and I wanted a break from the zoo. Besides, Kirk said I could.”
“It’s not a –“ he huffed. “Just come down as soon as you can. We have something to talk about.”
That can’t be good. “All right. I’ll pack up. Tell the team to come get me when they’re ready.”
A day later I was back on land. You can’t just come down from orbit in a matter of minutes, even with a freakin’ space elevator. I thanked the people who escorted me back to my environment, where I saw a few others suited up inside waiting for me. Two of them I expected to see, as they were practically residents of the dome themselves – Rocky and Adrian. Next to them were two others, both pale brown-grey in color which made it harder for me to recognize them until I got close enough to see their markings and hear their voices. When I first arrived on Erid I struggled to tell the difference between most of the people. It was like walking into a room filled with black labradors and differentiating every single one. It was embarrassing how many times I had to ask someone to reintroduce themselves because they all looked the same. Was that racist?
Eventually I learned to distinguish them by various carvings on their arms or a splash of color on their carapace. Or some who were so distinctly colorful they stood out from the crowd, like Adrian, who was tip to toe a beautiful shade of teal blue. I also started assigning them names based on their occupation or relationship to help me better remember who they were. Don’t judge me. You try assigning a human name to every single person you meet and see how quickly you burn out.
For example, one of the people in the pack I was approaching was Kirk, the ambassador of the space program. They were the Eridian equivalent of NASA’s highest position in this nation. I named them after Captain Kirk because it suited them thematically and in personality. Kirk carried themselves with confidence and ease, and they’re quick to act. I have them to thank for kick starting the process of saving my life.
I gave an informal two-fingered salute as I came to a stop. “Good morning, everyone.”
I was met with a murmur of greetings in return.
“How was the ride in?” Rocky asked, tilting his carapace to one side in the Eridian version of a smile.
If anyone but Rocky had asked that it was a harmless question. But I could hear the smugness in his voice. He knew I got terrible motion sickness on the elevator. When I first rode it I vomited twice on the way down, much to the horror of the Eridians accompanying me who had just met me -an alien from outer space- minutes before.
“Fine,” I responded flatly. I was mentally prepared this time and I held it all in (barely). “What’s the bad news?”
“No bad news,” Kirk chimed in. “Just news- “
They sounded like they were about to continue but Rocky, who was shaking with excitement, burst out, “The International Science Hive wants us at their next conference!”
“Really?” I squeaked. “I’m invited?” I looked to Kirk like asking my mom for permission to play outside with my friends. “I can go?” Rocky, of course, was invited to every single space related committee, meeting, and thrum planet wide but this was the first time I was included.
Kirk nodded. "The doctor's cleared you to head back to your ship alone; I think you can survive a little socializing. After all, even the best crew gets tiresome if they're the only people you ever see."
“I – yeah! Yes, yes, yes! I would love to go. Not that you are all boring just, wow.” An Eridian science conference. I had so much more to learn about them and this was a monumental step in the right direction. And yeah, I needed a break from this place. The beach was beautiful but when you look at the same quarter mile stretch of sand every day, devoid of animal or plant life even, it gets stale.
“We will arrange for security, of course, all safety precautions for your health, and Kanji will be there as translator.”
I turned to the last person in the group with a wide smile. “Kanji, you’re coming too?”
Kanji was a linguist and spoke every single Eridian dialect (at least all the widely used ones), plus English. I understood “Common Eridian” as I called it pretty well in the years I spent alone with Rocky, but he was no language expert. Kanji was the one who taught me proper sentence structure, conjunctions, and corrected some words I had mistranslated in my computer. I named them Kanji because the etchings on one arm were remarkably similar to Japanese kanji. And, well, they’re a linguist so it felt like a fitting name. They were also a huge nerd of aliens. If I had a fan club, Kanji would be their leader. They were probably the only person I spoke to more than Rocky swapping stories about our planets and translating new words.
Kanji hopped excitedly from feet to feet. “Yes!” they exclaimed. They also rivaled Rocky in their exuberance when they were happy. Rocky was very animated compared to most people his age.
“It will be held at our astronomy building here,” Kirk continued, “so you won’t travel far. It has high vaulted ceilings and doorways that can accommodate your… height. Lights will be added around the walls for your convenience. Do you have any requests?”
“A chair,” I said quickly. I hated how much I needed to sit but the gravity was too much to stay standing for too long.
“Consider it done. This will be next month so we have plenty of time to prepare for anything we need. Speaking of, Adrian we need to discuss…”
And that was where the conversation left me behind.
Eridians can do something humans simply can't; each of them can produce several musical tones at the same time, almost like a living chord. They use those overlapping notes to carry multiple streams of information simultaneously. To an Eridian, it's perfectly natural to hold two different conversations at once, either with two different people or even with the same person. It's the same principle behind the massive communal thrums their cities use, where dozens or even hundreds of Eridians contribute overlapping parts to create a single, incredibly information-dense exchange.
What Kirk and Adrian were doing was a much smaller version of that. A mini-thrum. Then Kanji joined in, their voices intertwined into a dense web of harmonies. I could still pick out the occasional familiar word, but everything else blurred together into a wall of music carrying far more information than my human brain could process. Whenever they started doing this, I usually took it as my cue to excuse myself.
Rocky was noticeably not joining in and instead, turned to me. I copied him. I gestured to my bag. “What’s in the bag?” he asked.
“Oh, um, just some more clothes and random stuff that was left behind,” I said, trying not to voice my discomfort. If he was paying attention to the contents inside, he didn’t comment on it. I hoped he didn’t look closely.
“Well, this is exciting!” I said, changing the subject. “I finally get to join the world’s leading space expert in a conference.” I said it in a teasing tone, but he really was the person who had spent the longest known time in space on either of our planets. I was just the one who gave him the tools to survive.
He waved a hand, dismissing the comment. “My speeches are not exciting.”
“Are you kidding me? This is amazing!”
“Why do you need a chair?”
The abrupt change in subject threw me off. “You know why. Standing for long periods in this gravity is hard on my body.”
“It won’t be long. We can leave before you get tired.”
“Heck no! I want to stay as long as I can.” I rubbed my chin. “I wish I had someway to take notes. Using the laptop in the suit would be hard. Hmm.” I clicked my tongue in thought.
Rocky flinched. “Ugh, you know I hate that sound.”
I smiled down at him. “This sound?” I clicked again.
“Now you’re being mean.”
I leaned over him and did it again, more exaggerated this time. Schlock.
The next thing I felt was a sharp pain in my foot as Rocky stomped on it, careful not to deliver the bone crushing force he was capable of but hard enough to make it hurt. I hopped on one foot and put a hand on his body for balance.
“Now who’s being mean?” I laughed.
“I know pebbles your age more mature than you.”
I attempted to swipe his feet out from under him with no success (he was just too heavy) and instead tumbled onto his carapace and sat on him. He made a startled, embarrassed trill. “Grace, not in front of-“ He cut his sentence short as he threw me off.
“Children!” Adrian snapped suddenly, making both me and Rocky wince.
“Sorry,” we said simultaneously. Rocky helped me up as I dusted sand off my clothes. Adrian was already turning back to their conversation.
“We should go,” Rocky said.
“Right,” I replied. With that the conversations came to a close and everyone said their goodbyes. I walked them out and waved as they exited to the airlock. “Bye Rocky, bye Adrian!” Rocky gave me an enthusiastic wave. Adrian lifted a hand in acknowledgment, but their attention never left the airlock door. On the other side of the wall Rocky put his hand against the barrier. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, then followed his partner home.
I turned on my heel and walked home as well.
Time on Erid doesn't work the way it does on Earth. There is no sunlight, so there's no day-night cycle to organize life around. No sunrise, no sunset, no such thing as nocturnal or diurnal animals. Time is measured, but "morning” and “night” weren’t words in their vocabulary until I came around.
Sleep is even stranger. Eridians don't go to bed at the same time every day because their bodies don't run on a predictable schedule. On average, they sleep about once every ninety-six hours, and when it finally catches up to them, they can be out anywhere from two to twelve hours. Heavy physical exertion, injuries, or even eating a meal can bring on sleep sooner, but they can't decide to sleep whenever they want. The best they can do is recognize the signs that it's coming within the next couple of hours. Eventually it just hits them. One minute they're fine, and the next their body has decided it's nap time, whether they agree or not.
The result is that nobody shares the same sleep schedule. At any given moment, some Eridians are awake while others are asleep, so the cities never truly shut down. Living on Erid is like living in New York—the city that never sleeps.
Which is why it doesn't surprise me when Rocky knocks on my door while my habitat is in dark mode and I'm dead asleep. From his perspective, this is as normal a time to visit as any other and he can’t see that I’m in bed. I insisted on sound dampeners in the walls of my home so no one can “see” into it unless they’re close and actively trying. For better or worse (probably worse) Rocky has seen every single bodily function I can do aboard the small quarters of the Hail Mary and vice versa, so we are stupidly comfortable with each other, but I was relieved to have privacy again when this house was built. The last thing I wanted was everyone else seeing that too.
I rolled out of bed at the second round of knocks. “I’m coming,” I groaned. When I opened the door he didn’t wait for an invitation to enter. I rubbed my eyes. “You’re too early. I still have a couple hours left to sleep.”
“I waited ten hours. I thought you’d be awake by now. Where are you going?”
I shuffled back to my room and flopped in bed.
“Hey!” he whistled. “You’re going to leave your guest before I tell you why I’m here?”
“You’re not a guest, you’re a pest,” I said into my pillow. The mattress groaned under Rocky’s weight as he climbed into it. He stood next to my head.
“Get up. You can sleep later. We are working on physical therapy today.”
I cracked one eye open. “What?”
“You’ve been slacking since the doctors cleared you for normal activity. You still need a lot of muscle building. Armando, breakfast!” Armando (the traitorous robot) dutifully obeyed and began preparing my shake. I sat up when the robot handed me a cup of milky white liquid.
“You’re pushy today,” I said, taking a sip.
“Yes,” was his only response.
We sat in silence while I drank.
“So, what’s the plan?” I finally asked.
“Running. Good for human bone density and leg muscles.”
“I’ve never been much of a runner.”
“That changes today.”
I downed the rest of my vitamin shake. “Let me brush my teeth and get ready.”
He groaned.
I stood on the beach in a runner’s pose, stretching my leg. Then the other leg. Then my arms. Was I stalling? Maybe. Was Rocky losing his patience? Most definitely. He stood beside me, shifting from foot to foot. “Are you going to stretch?” I asked.
“Don’t have to. My body isn’t made of much organic material. No muscles to pull.”
Huh. Somehow I never considered that.
I straightened my back. “Okay. Try to keep up.”
He laughed. “I am much, much faster than you.”
“Do you know why humans evolved to stand on two legs? We are endurance runners, pal. You’re an ambush predator. My kind was built to wear your kind down.”
“We’ll see who wears out first.”
“Challenge accepted.”
Rocky took off, skittering through the sand like a crab making a mad dash for the safety of water. His five legs churned in a blur. Within seconds he had put 10 meters between us. I began a light jog. I was out of shape, and the afore-mentioned double gravity made it harder to run, but now Rocky had made this into a game and I was a sore loser. The trick wasn’t to outrun him, it was letting him outrun himself. I was only halfway down the beach when Rocky lapped me, taunting me to keep up. It’s okay. I could wait.
After a couple of laps I was already sweating and heavily breathing, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of giving up. I stayed at a pace I could realistically maintain. It didn’t take long to see him slowing down. He ran circles around me but he was faltering. Finally he stopped for a break a few yards ahead of me, and I took my chance. With my last bit of strength I burst into a sprint. He stood up but couldn’t run more than a few steps before I tagged him.
“Tag, you’re it.”
“Fuck you.”
Rocky was a dictator. Every single day for the next three weeks he pushed me to work out. Most of it was running (he seemed the most concerned about my legs), but I also did squats, lifted weights, and occasionally swam at my request. Rocky was not a fan of the swimming (“If you drown I can’t save you!”).
Swimming quickly became my favorite form of exercise. I drifted out past the breaker waves and settled into an easy rhythm, my arms carving through the warm water while the surf rolled beneath me. There was something wonderfully peaceful about it. Just breathing, kicking, and the steady splash of my hands disappearing beneath the surface. If I closed my eyes I could imagine being back on Earth. Although this water was warmer than the icy water of the Pacific, it smelled the same. I dove under and swam along the bottom, brushing my hands through the sand, until I needed to take a breath. When I resurfaced, Rocky berated me. “Stop going under!” he shouted, clearly nervous.
Adrian, who sat next to him, put a claw over his and said something I couldn’t make out. Unlike Rocky, Adrian was pleased to see me using the feature of the dome they designed.
“I’m fine,” I said, splashing water at him. It missed by yards. “Humans are great swimmers. And it’s a good form of exercise that’s easy on the joints.”
“Not as good as resistance training,” he grumbled. “Also, you’re not eating enough protein. Males your size should be eating 150 grams a day to build mass-“
“Rocky! Will you cut it out with the drill sergeant act? I’m doing my best.”
He made an annoyed trill but didn’t respond. Him and Adrian talked more in quiet tones. I continued treading water for a few more minutes before walking to shore. I didn’t have a towel so I shook the water out of my hair and wiped my face with my dry t-shirt. I went in the water with only my underwear and even that was just a formality. Clothes mean nothing to a species that can see right through it, but I couldn’t bear the social discomfort of being naked. If it was just Rocky, maybe, but Adrian and I weren’t there yet.
I sat next to Rocky, who faced slightly away from me and towards his mate. It’s hard to tell when a creature with no face and 360-degree environmental awareness is ignoring you but I can read Rocky’s body language as well as a human face.
“So, are you ready to tell me what’s really going on?” I asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice.
Rocky didn’t speak for a minute. Then two. I waited.
Adrian gave a small chirp of encouragement.
“I just…,” he said slowly. “I just want them to see you the way I see you.”
That caught me off guard. I’m not so socially stupid that I couldn’t tell Rocky was doing this out of concern for me but I didn’t expect that response.
“Who?” I asked even though I knew the answer.
“Everyone. In a few days you’re going to be introduced to people all around the world, not just our cluster here. The Grace I met was strong. You were stubborn. You solved impossible problems. You stayed awake so long I had to enforce naps!” His voice got quieter. “And now you’re struggling. You need to sit down a lot… You look different. I need a word. You’re… not sturdy?”
Sturdy was the term they used as a general compliment. It basically means you look good, or pretty, or healthy, or several other generic praises. Their language didn’t have the words for skinny or gaunt, or all the things to describe a frail human. They did have sickly, but I think Rocky was trying to spare my feelings.
“So that’s what this boot camp is about?”
“The what?”
I waved the question away. “Not important.”
We paused for a moment, processing.
Finally I asked, “Are you embarrassed of me?”
“No,” he said sharply, turning towards me for the first time. “No, I’m… I feel guilty. You’re stuck here because of me.”
“Rocky,” I said, getting a little closer and putting a hand on his carapace. “I’m alive because of you. And I thank my lucky stars every day I get to spend on this ‘planet, that admittedly, tries very hard to kill me. Even if I die tomorrow, that’s several more years I got. I was supposed to die in space a long time ago.”
“Please do not die.”
I shoved him playfully. That hurt my sore muscles but I refrained from grunting. “I’m not dying tomorrow. I’ll be right here.”
Adrian shifted closer to him. “And I’ll always be here for anything you need, Rocky.”
We sat in silence, Adrian and I each with one hand on Rocky, watching the gentle ebb and flow of the waves.
Slowly Rocky came to a stand. “I’m ready to go home now. Do you need anything before we leave?”
“No, no I’m fine. I’m hungry so I was going to excuse myself to eat dinner anyway. I’ll have two protein shakes just for you,” I teased.
“I told you not to talk about eating in polite company,” he said in mock disgust.
“You are not polite company, my friend – sorry, Adrian,” I quickly added.
Adrian stood as well. “I know you must eat often. Let’s go home.”
I didn’t get up. After they left I stretched my aching legs and stared blankly at the sea. I stayed there a long time. The water clinging to my hair dried into stiff strands, and grains of sand slowly loosened from my skin and clothes, falling away whenever I shifted. Slowly, very slowly, the lights dimmed. Darkness doesn’t really fall – it rises. It starts in the little shadows of divots on the ground, then crawls up your back and stretches out your silhouette. The ocean is the first thing to disappear, becoming nothing more than an inky black pool. The lights at eye level go out, then the next row, and the next. When the last lights at the top of the sky died out, I finally pushed myself off the ground and walked home alone.