Chapter Text
“So I would have run
I would have stolen your car
Driven it round and round
I would have gone
And gilded your name to my door
To mark out where you belong
And I'd make you come
Come to your senses and I'd be
I'd be the one to warm you in winter”
“Warm in Winter”, Josh Pyke
It’s time for a Taumoeba test.
I know, I know what I said. But in the past few months since Rocky first sang my name to me, I’ve been doing some thinking. A lot of thinking. And I think there are actually a few ways to mitigate the risk. It won’t be perfect. It’s still a risk. But we’re gonna do it.
I turned off the engines for a minute so I could do an EVA - this time I made sure everything was packed up and tied down before the zero gravity. I went out with an empty container and brought in some dead Taumoeba from one of Rocky’s fuel bays outside the hull. Just a small container. It stinks, by the way. Smells pretty bad. At least I didn’t bring in much of it. We know the Taumoeba is dead; it has to be. But I still nitrogen-washed everything I brought in. And I’ve still got my Taumoeba alarm set up in the lab; a slide with Astrophage on it and a sensor behind. If any live Taumoeba get loose and eat the Astrophage, light will get through to the sensor and we’ll hear about it. And it’s been fine so far. It’s fine. We’re gonna be okay.
A lot of things broke when I flipped the lab upside down after Adrian. But not everything, thank goodness - not even most things. A lot was bolted down, and a lot was either plastic or stainless steel. The screen of the thermocycler is cracked but it’s still usable. One wall of the analytic balance got smacked by a flying Erlenmeyer flask, but I think Rocky can make a xenonite panel to fix it. So I think I can do this.
It’s a process. First, I swabbed the inside of my cheek and got some live cells. After I collect them, they can only survive in saline for a few hours, but that’s enough time for a test. Two petri dishes with my cheek cells in them. Add chlorine bleach to one, leave the other one alone, check back in a little while. The cells in the bleach dish are dead, and the others are still okay. Good. The test methodology is sound, so far as it goes.
Next, I tried it with real Taumoeba. Two petri dishes with my cheek cells again. Into one, I scraped some of the Taumoeba out of the container. And my cheek cells died.
Well. That was a bummer. I… was surprised how disappointed I was. I thought I was resigned. I’m gonna get Rocky to Erid. That’s the most important thing, and that hasn’t changed. So it’s okay. Whatever happens. Rocky will be with me to the end, whenever it comes.
But I wanted to live. Man, did I want to live. I have to live, now.
Rocky finds me hunched over the lab table, head in my hands. “It’s poisonous,” I say quietly. “Dead Taumoeba kills my cells on contact.”
He goes very still.
“Explain experiment procedure please,” he says.
I sigh. “I got cells from the inside of my mouth, Rocky. I put them in two dishes. I put dead Taumoeba from that container–” I point at it– “into one of them, and the cells in the dish with no Taumoeba did fine, but the cells in the dish–”
“That one. You get from fuel bay on outside of ship.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Taumoeba in fuel bay eat Astrophage. Make waste. Grace separate, question?”
I gasp.
“No. Oh, Rocky. Of course.” I jump up and start rummaging through one of the cabinets. Finally, I find it, way in the back.
Dubois is - was - very picky about his coffee. I remember once asking him about it… and I regretted it. I learned more about espresso than I ever wanted to know. But I know he insisted on coffee filters with a pore size no greater than 10 microns. Can you believe that? Who measures the pore size of their coffee filter? Dubois, that’s who. And did you know that many amoebae are quite large? Taumoeba, for example, is huge - I’ve seen some that were a whopping 40 microns across, and I’ve never measured any smaller than 20 microns.
Reverently, I pull out the coffee filter box from the back of the cabinet. I get a beaker, set a coffee filter on top of it, and then carefully scoop a little bit of sludge into the filter. I run water over the sludge in the filter and… yes. A muddy little pool starts to collect at the bottom of the beaker.
I take a sample of the original sludge from the container and check it under a microscope. Yes, I can see Taumoeba swimming in a sea of other bits and pieces - the leftovers of digested cells. I take some from the coffee filter and check them next. It’s just Taumoeba. Nothing else.
I whoop. “Yeah, Dubois!”
I rinse the Taumoeba carefully in the coffee filters. Wash out all that nasty toxic poop. Then I test them four ways. I add “raw” dead Taumoeba to my live cheek cells and check what happens. I centrifuge some Taumoeba to smush it up a bit, and put that on my cheek cells. I take some Taumoeba and pop them with a nanosyringe, just like I did with Astrophage on Earth way back then. And I cook some - just put it in a pot on a hot plate with some water, and bring it to boiling. Cooking is good for humans. It breaks down indigestible compounds and makes nutrients more available to us. Sometimes it even breaks down toxins and makes them safe to eat. I don’t know what kind of proteins and compounds are in Taumoeba. But my hypothesis says cooking can’t hurt.
I test all four - raw, centrifuged, popped, and cooked - on my cheek cells in different petri dishes. If it's toxic in any way, shape, or form, under any circumstances at all, I want to know.
And all four pass. At least, my cells don't die during the timeframe of the experiment. Dubois and his espresso preferences just saved my life.
That night, Rocky and I do a lot of dancing.
“Have song for dance, Grace,” Rocky says. “Listen. Rocky find on laptop. Good song. Grace not hear before.”
He presses play. And I hear, “We’ve known each other for so long, you know the rules and so do I…”
I punch the walls of his tunnel and groan. I don’t believe it. I’ve been rick– no. No. I’ve been Rockrolled. Rocky giggles - yeah, that’s an Eridian giggle, one of the best sounds in the universe. And then we start dancing to it anyway.
And he sings my name to me before I sleep. He does it every night now. And I sleep well.
–
We’re not done. Still testing. There’s something called the universal edibility test. It was designed for wilderness survival - when you’re lost in the woods, you gotta have a way to test if that berry is edible. It’s hardly foolproof. And it’s not designed for testing alien microbes. But it’s not a bad guideline, and it’s better than nothing.
We’re taking it nice and slow, because we can. We have all the time in the world. Step one is rub the substance on a small patch of your skin, then wait. I wait 48 hours, which is generous; if it were gonna irritate my skin, it’d probably show up before then.
No rash, no irritation. So far, so good. Next, touch it to the lips, but do not ingest. Wait 48 hours. No ill effects. Next, hold a tiny amount in the mouth but do not swallow for fifteen minutes. Watch for any symptoms.
This is tricky. Rocky coaches me, which I'm not sure is actually helpful. “Remember, do not ingest. Not ingest yet, Grace. Grace feel discomfort, question? Grace has ingested, question? Grace? Grace?”
“Mmmmggfff,” I grumble. It tastes… well, it's not as bad as the slurry. Kinda like mud. Not good, not remotely appetizing, but I can tolerate it okay.
After fifteen minutes, I swallow. Rocky cheers.
–
So now we’re giving me very careful, small, regular doses of Taumoeba, and monitoring carefully for any problems. Of course, it could be that Taumoeba doesn't cause any immediate, unpleasant symptoms, but maybe the more I eat, the more poison will accumulate in my system and I'll start having seizures a year from now. Like lead poisoning. So we're having the medical robot do weekly blood tests on me, to make sure. We have to be cautious if we're going to catch anything before it becomes a problem. Hopefully anything dangerous will show up. So far, nothing has.
Yeah, blood tests. Weekly. I almost said no. I almost said, forget the whole thing, I just won't eat the Taumoeba. I remember the needle… when they knocked me out, and I was trapped, and there was no way out, and I start to hyperventilate. I can't.
But… I can, now. I mean, I have to try. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. But I'm Grace, and I'm going to live. So I'll try.
So every week, we go down to the dormitory. I lean against the xenonite fabric and offer the robot my right arm while Rocky stands behind me and holds my left hand tight. I usually faint. But that's okay. When I return to consciousness, I hear Rocky singing my name.
–
“Like constellations imploding in the night
Everything is turning, everything is turning
And the shapes that you drew may change beneath a different light
Everything you thought you knew will fall apart, but you'll be all right”
“Constellations,” The Oh Hellos
"Why Grace touch arm, question? Touch touch touch always."
I snatch my hand away from my forearm where I was rubbing it. "Um. No reason. Just habit."
"Still pain, question?"
"No. Not really." It's not really an ache anymore. Just sometimes... I don't know... a feeling. "I just don't like it."
"Texture bad, question? Bad feel?"
"No, I just... I think..." I pause. And then I know. "I look at it, and I think about how I almost got you killed. And that’s the worst."
He's still, frozen for a moment. Then he says, "Grace? Grace almost get Rocky killed, question? No no no. Wrong wrong wrong. Not what happen."
"You were on fire! You could've died! And you're hurt-"
"Who make Rocky come out of environment, question?"
I blink.
"Who do this, question? Who go to airlock, grab Rocky, pull, make come out to Grace atmosphere, question? Grace do this, question?"
"Well… but..."
"Grace not make Rocky come. Grace not ask. Grace not want. Grace want Rocky safe, not want Rocky come. Grace not boss of Rocky. Rocky decide."
"But you did it for me. It was because of me. And it hurt you, and we don't even know if your radiator will ever completely heal-"
"Rocky not alone, also because Grace. Rocky alone on Blip-A forty-six Earth years. Grace come to Rocky, save Rocky. Hurt Grace to come. Grace hurt hurt hurt, Grace almost die, but Grace come save Rocky. Two times! Two times, Rocky alone, lost on Blip-A. Hurt Grace to come, maybe kill Grace to come, but Grace come."
"That doesn't count," I argue. "The first time, I didn't even know you existed. I didn’t do it on purpose."
"Bad thing happen, Grace not want, Grace say Grace bad. Good thing happen, Grace not know about, Grace not say Grace good. Correct, question?" He points one of his arms toward mine. "Grace arm rough texture because Grace hurt. Bad. Not have to like arm. But arm not Grace fault. Rocky radiator not Grace fault."
I look down at my scarred arm. Blotchy, mottled colors; pale white, dust-colored, soft pink, deep red. Wrinkles, patches, an arrangement of bumps with ridges connecting them. Raised lines, like Eridian writing, visible to sonar. Almost like a pattern. Almost like you could read what's written there.
Without really knowing why, I grab a pen from the lab table. And I draw the lines on my arm, tracing the marks, connecting the dots.
–
“But somewhere along the line
Rayleigh scattered across my eye
And I found her blue
Yeah, I found her blue
You don’t know what you don’t know yet
Yeah, I go on forgetting it
Don’t you go on forgetting it, too
I must have found a new cone in my eye
What other lapis lazuli was hiding
Behind my color blindness
What did I miss, what did I miss, what did I miss”
“Lapis Lazuli”, The Oh Hellos
I don't understand why he's so good to me. I don't understand why he cares about me so much. But then I hear him sing Grace, Grace. And that's the answer. It's enough.
My Eridian is getting better. It's still so little, I know, but I can play so many words I couldn't before. Slowly, I'm getting more fluid. My hands move faster. The notes no longer stutter from my fingers. Sometimes, sometimes they fly. I'll be ready when we get to Erid. I'll be able to talk to Adrian when we finally meet. Rocky’s told me so much about Adrian, and I'm so excited. I actually can't wait.
I’m still afraid, sometimes. Not of Erid. But… I know there’s gonna be a lot of pain ahead. Taumoeba will keep me alive, but it’s not gonna be easy. Rocky knows it too. He doesn’t try to tell me everything’s gonna be rainbows and sunshine when we get there. They don’t even have sunshine on Erid, much less rainbows. But Rocky’s gonna be with me. And he’s gonna do whatever it takes to keep me alive. Somehow, I’m going to live. I really believe it, now. And if I forget my name, Rocky will sing it back to me.
And I’m playing Rocky’s name.
I’m not an Eridian. I can’t make the sounds he makes. I don’t even have a real piano. And I don’t know if I have the musical skills to take the chords of his name and weave them into a song, the way he does with mine. I was so embarrassed to try. Maybe that sounds dumb. After all, he’s already seen the worst of me. We should be past embarrassment, I guess. But… when he sang my name, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. I wanted to give him something smooth and perfect and beautiful in return. But it’s not going to be perfect the first time I play it. It’s going to take a lot of practice. And I didn’t want to reward him by making him listen to me butcher it, over and over, as my clumsy human fingers stumble over the keys. I can’t just practice by myself where he can’t hear me, and only play it for him once I’ve perfected it. This is a small and not-at-all-soundproofed spaceship.
I was playing his name, just the word, the chords, over and over, to make sure I could play it smoothly. And… I started to get an idea of what I could do with it. What it could sound like, if I repeated it, and extended it, and played with the rhythm. And I started to experiment a little bit. Just a little.
Suddenly, Rocky comes flying up the tunnel from the dormitory.
“Grace. What Grace play, question?”
I snatch my fingers off the keyboard. “I don’t know, Rocky. Nothing. Is it bothering you? I can stop.”
He sits down in the tunnel. “Not stop. Not stop. Play.”
Well, now I’m self-conscious. I was just trying something out. It’s probably no good. And at least before I could pretend I was by myself, even though I knew he could hear me. It’s different when he’s sitting right there staring at me. Well, not staring, but you know what I mean.
I duck my head. “Okay, but Rocky, I’m not good at this, I don’t know…”
“Play.” He’s not moving. “Grace. Please. Play.”
So I play.
And it’s really bad. And I make so many mistakes. I keep going back over it and changing it, trying to make it better. But Rocky doesn’t say anything. He just sits there, motionless, the whole time I’m playing. And when I finally stand up, stretch, and go get a packet of slurry to mix, he just stands up and goes back down to the dormitory without saying a word. I don’t know what that means.
But the next morning, when it’s time for me to do my Eridian practice, he doesn’t stay down in the dormitory to work on his own projects like he usually does. He follows me up to the lab in his tunnel. And he doesn’t say anything. He just waits.
So I try again.
And I try it every day, now. I still do my usual Eridian practice afterward. But by unspoken agreement, the first half hour or so is always Rocky’s name, in song. And, let me be clear, it sounds nothing like when he sings. Not even close. It’s never gonna sound like an Eridian. But… it’s starting to sound more like music, I guess. I’m getting closer. I’ll keep working on it.
Today I start playing his name, as usual. I’ve got a sense of what I can do with it now; I kind of know where the music needs to go. I was nervous at first with him right there while I play, but now we’ve done this so many times I almost forget he’s there. He never says anything. And today, as I move his name up an octave and linger on the last chord before flowing into the next phrase of it, I start to sing along with my voice. “Rocky, Rocky, Rocky…” My voice sounds a bit rough, but I’m having fun with it, I’m getting into the music.
Rocky’s carapace snaps up at the sound. It startles me, and I lose my focus and stop playing. “Sorry, Rocky,” I say sheepishly. “I’ll stop. Don’t want to ruin the sound.”
“Grace sing,” he says firmly.
So I sing.
–
The voice of Grace is not the voice of an Eridian. And the music of Grace is not the music of an Eridian. It is the voice and music of Grace.
Every Eridian song is different. Adrian does not sing my name the same way my siblings do. Same name to sing, but different song. When Grace sings my name, it is different different different. Strange. Weird. Almost not like music. But it is my name, in a way I have never heard before. A new voice can sing something new into your name.
It is strange. Weird. I have not heard my name sung in a long long long time. I am different now, too.
When Grace finishes the music of my name, he stops for a moment. Then he puts his fingers back on the keyboard, and he plays to speak Eridian words. He plays, “Rocky, I am an ugly blobfish that you are my friend.”
I say, “I am an ugly blobfish too.”