Chapter Text
The worst part of all of this has been the swell of sympathy I can feel building inside me for the Boss Baby. I didn’t watch it when it came out, being twenty-seven and deep in the weeds of my PhD thesis, but I have the sinking feeling that if I were left alone for long enough, I might watch it out of a morbid sense of fascination and kinship with the titular baby. I cannot become a single guy somewhere around forty, watching the Boss Baby by himself, all alone on an alien planet.
There’s no one to judge me, but I’d judge myself.
If I want to fix the massive messy miscommunication I’m trapped in, I’m going to need a plan.
The best way to deal with miscommunication problems is directly, right? I just have to communicate my needs—in this case to be treated and understood as a grown man—and then work through the problems that arise from there. And there will be problems, because clearly there’s too many assumptions about human similarities to Eridians. I should have seen this coming though, with how insistant Rocky was about watching my sleep from the jump.
I wonder if its because humans have had comparatively so much more time looking up at the stars? From what Rocky told me about Eridian pop-culture genres akin to what I’d call “sci-fi” involving space and space as a setting had only gotten popular in the time between the construction of the space elevator and the discovery of the astrophage, upon which they’d often begun to overlap with Eridian horror. Rocky had told me that aliens were still a pretty new trope in their version of cinema, and were usually far more similar to Eridians than I was—a body plan built from radial symmetry, echolocation used as their primary sense. The Eridian equivalent of Star-Trek style humanoid aliens.
So aliens only became popular relatively recently—the children of Rocky’s generation would likely be the only ones to ever grow up with ‘aliens’ as a concept in their cultural consciousness. And it took humans a while to admit to ourselves how truly weird aliens would likely be—if we’ve even admitted it, since we’re still holding on to the assumption that all life will require water—which again, makes this whole misunderstanding slightly more logical. (I definitely am not telling myself this to help keep my low-lying simmer of frustration from boiling over.)
Okay. Tangent time over. Back to planning.
Should I explain things to them using my chronological age, or my biological age? Chronological makes more sense, but for the sake of my health I should use biological—it’ll give them a better picture on estimating health benchmarks in the future as I continue aging. I’m sure it’ll be fine.
Right. First, I should figure out a rough ballpark for my biological age in Eridian base six numerals: I was shipped off Earth sometime between age thirty-four and thirty-six. I think I stopped actively tracking my own age somewhere during my teaching years, and I can’t remember the year I was born, so I can only figure my best estimate by the time the Petrova Taskforce came around. I’ll use thirty-five to be square.
I aged four-ish years on the way to Tau Ceti, and then another eight months or so in orbit at Tau Ceti. A bit more than three years to Erid, and that puts me at forty-five quickly approaching forty-six.
So: forty-six, which ought to be IⱯℓI in Eridian numerals.
I duck out of the dormitory where I’ve been holed up, trying to conserve my energy expenditure as much as possible. I’m not down to just Taumoeba, and I won’t be for a while yet, but I’m dreading it enough that I’ve cut my rations to just about one hundred calories above a deficit, knowing that if I move less, I can get away with eating even less than usual.
There’s no gravity, docked at the space elevator, and I’ve retied my guides throughout the important parts of the ship. It helps me get down to the bathroom, where I can really only brush my hair, my teeth, though I am nearly out of toothpaste, and look longingly at my razor—it was not designed for zero gravity, and I have no idea how I’d be able to use it without dooming myself to short itchy beard hairs free-floating throughout the ship for the rest of time.
Feeling as clean and ready as I’ll get, I return to the hallway and knock on the airlock to let the care team know they were free to come back in. Shoot, I forgot to eat something. Oh well, I can wait a bit.
“Good morning, Grace! I hope you slept well!” The Eridian who greets me at the airlock is much, much smaller than Rocky. About half his size, actually, with a deep black reflective carapace. Like a beetle, almost, but not really.
“[Yes, Grace sleep good,]” I reply. It’s a lie, but there’s no way for them to call me on it. I think.
Another Eridian follows the specialist in. I think this one is a scientist, I vaguely recall seeing them among the crowd I’d haltingly explained Taumoeba to when I’d first arrived. They’re about a inch larger than Rocky in all dimensions, which makes them quite the odd match with the specialist.
“We have an important job for you today! We’re working on building a new room outside your airlock so that you can talk to larger groups more easily, and so that Eridians with larger carapaces can meet you—I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s a little cramped in your dormitory—which will also make medical care easier, should you get into an accident,” chirps the specialist.
It’s not a bad idea. “[What job?]” I ask.
“Before we get started—it’s okay if you’re not sure about any of this, and we can stop at any time,” the specialist cautions.
“We have Lieutenant Engineer Rocky’s preliminary notes on your environmental needs here,” the scientist says, waving around a sheet of Eridian paper. I really hope it’s not asbestos or something, though they’ve kept it on Rocky’s side of the xenonite. “We’d like for you to affirm that these are the correct specifications, since Rocky is still unfortunately indisposed. You require an atmospheric pressure of ℓ•ℓIIVℓVI+, with air composed of VIℓ percent nitrogen, λV percent oxygen, and the rest in argon, correct?”
“[Yes!]” I answer. Hopefully this is going in the ‘here’s what we’re doing to prepare a habitat for you off the space elevator’ direction.
The specialist chimes in—I’ll call them Mack, since I can’t keep thinking of them as the specialist, and I haven’t overheard anyone saying their name.
“Careful ♫♪♫♪♪♫♪♫.” That must be the scientist’s name, and nope, no way I’ll be able to pronounce that. Mentally I assign them the name Mick, because I feel like he’s closer to being in my corner than the specialist. Apparently I also assigned him some pronouns with the name. I’ll call the specialist Mack, and try not to assign them more unnecessary pronouns without asking. Rocky was cool with it, but I mostly use the generic pronoun when talking to and about Eridians, because I have no idea what determines pronoun difference in Eridian still.
Mack switches up a few registers, right up against where my hearing dips out, and continues. Clearly they’d gotten to the part about my natural hearing range in Rocky’s notes. I’m just glad he hadn’t included the fact that he’d designed me assistive tech to help deal with that limitation, because I’m sure that whatever they’re about to say is important for me to know.
I glance down at my wrist to see what they’ve just said: “They’re quite developed, but we can’t be sure how much of their understanding is real, and how much is influenced by mirroring the lieutenant. Children often mirror trusted adults.”
The last pitch fades away from the surface of my wristband, and I look up with a frown.
“[No, Grace know what mean. More know than can say, not because Rocky said. Is ok,]” I interrupt.
Mack sits back, disgruntled, and Mick continues. “Ah, alright then. Please let me know if there’s anything you don’t understand—I’m happy to explain in terms that might be easier for you to understand.”
Oh my god, I’m a middle-aged man with a doctorate, for Pete’s sake. A simple five-note chord inversion or two are easy enough to understand and tie semantic meaning to—it’s not rocket science. The natural limitations of only having five vocal-chords helps too. If they want to use a big word like that, they can’t be carrying on multiple conversations at the same time, which is my biggest stumbling block when it comes to fluently understanding natural Eridian communication.
“You also require a steady removal of built up carbon dioxide due to a series of biological processes that convert it from the availible oxygen in your air, correct?”
“[Yes, yes. Some bad air ok. Rocky say different much?]” I try to contribute. Hopefully they know that we have a tolerance for a certain amount of carbon dioxide in the air, because if they try to keep it scrubbed completely clean of the stuff, they’ll wind up wasting a lot of energy.
Mick taps his claws against the floor. “Do you mean to ask if Rocky told us the acceptable threshold for carbon dioxide saturation in your atmosphere?”
“[Yes! Yes is question Grace ask.]” Maybe I’ll be able to get across my situation after all!
“Excellent job, Grace. Rocky will be pleased to know you remember so much of what he told you,” Mack praises, and maybe I was wrong. I cannot freaking believe this, why are they so determined to treat me like a child?
“Finally, is it also correct that you rely primarily on a sense that utilizes the same spectrum of wavelength-emanations as the star?” Mick manages to sound incredulous, despite not dipping into his higher registers.
“[Yes, is true. Grace people hear much different.]” I point to my eyes. “[These hear stuff you say.]” Because light is still a relatively new concept for Eridians, and a highly technical one at that, unneeded in day to day life, the word is firmly one that requires five vocal cords to say. Star is a little better, but four vocal cords is still three more than I have.
“♯♫♯♪♯♫.” Oh, hey. An expletive Rocky had managed not to teach me. Didn’t know any of those existed. We sit in silence for a moment, as Mick digests that Rocky had actually told him the truth.
I clear my throat, and rub at the sides of my neck. I should probably pick up vocal warm-ups, if I’m going to continue speaking Eridian all the time.
“[Grace need say thing. Quiet please. Please hear, Grace need say thing.]” Mick and Mack still, and the ambient noise level drops, save for my wristband’s constant indicator for high frequency sensory pitches. I guess it’s hard to ask for complete silence, when talking to a species that requires sound to see. It’s not even like asking them to close their eyes, since Eridians have no spatial memory to rely on.
I wonder how that affects their ability to gauge changes to an environment?
Nevermind, I have something important to say. I’ll see if Rocky will help me test that when he wakes up. It’ll be fun science to do together, to prove to myself that he’s okay.
Anyway, here goes my attempt to correct the record and prove I’m an adult man and should be treated as such.
Mack raises a claw. “Grace, can I bring in a couple extra team members before you get started? Just in case?”
Just in case? Mack, what does that mean? Are you afraid I’m going to disclose something you need a superior for? Like a medical concern, or something like having…been…forced on a spaceship and sent to Tau Ceti against my will. We don’t know each other well enough for that. I haven’t even told Rocky yet.
Two other Eridians I recognize from various iterations of my care team float through the air-lock. At some point, someone had made lightly magnetic grips throughout the Eridian side of the Mary, and I was quite jealous of the speed it allowed them to move at.
“Thank you Grace, you can keep going now,” Mack allowed. I feel a surge of sympathy for my former middle-schoolers back on Earth.
“[Ok.]” I take a deep breath. “[I am grown age. Not kid.]”
My wristband pings.
A midtone periwinkle blue circle, with a lighter X in the middle. They’re expressing doubt. (Rocky had been thoroughly immersed in internet meme culture by the time he’d gotten around to making my communication assistance band.)
“[Promise true. I am IⱯℓI - but is normal for Grace people. My age grown for Grace people. Promise, promise, promise. Not kid, not little kid. Grown age.]”
The vibration of my wristband intensifies. I sigh. Well, there goes the simple way of doing things.
“Do you mind explaining further,” Mick prods. Another one of the care team pulses a low agreeing rumble. “Why do you think this?”
Laughing incredulously is really the only thing I can do. “[What? What mean why? How Grace say? Grace say not kid. Is what Grace can say. Grace not say good. You know this.]” Embarassingly I can feel my eyes prickle. It is not a good time to cry.
“Grace, most common Eridian megafauna with non-sapient intelligence live at least Iℓ+IⱯ years. At IλⱯℓ most have not even left their parents yet—and these species are not fully sapient, just more intelligent than average. Your species matches ours in intelligence. Can you understand why we might not believe you?” Mack asks gently, and it’s only the half-decade I spent as a middle school teacher that keeps me from exploding with frustration.
“[Yes,]” I manage, and then I drop out of Eridian.
“Fuck,” I exhale. I wish I had enough words to explain myself clearly and cleanly, but I don’t. Obviously being direct didn’t work.
“Go ahead and get some sleep, Grace. We can talk more about this in the morning.”
At the edge of my hearing, Mack tells Mick it’s time for them to go.
Miserably, I follow Mick and Mack to the door, and watch as the doctor and the specialist step out of the airlock. Even though it’s tempting, I don’t push my luck. I don’t want to look like I’m throwing a tantrum or something, after not getting my way. Mick leaves. I’m a little sad to see him go. Mack goes too, and I resist the urge to stick my tongue out at them. Eridians have 360-degree vision, it’s not worth trying to explain what I’m doing.
At last, I’m alone for a moment to contemplate just how badly that had gone. Fiddlesticks. I forgot that I’m bad at confrontations. There’s absolutely no way they took me seriously. I’ll need to see whether that conversation had any impact at all, and then probably come up with a new approach.
I return to the other two specialists waiting in my bedroom for sleep-watch.
It’s hard to sleep when you’re in a room full of gossips. Especially gossips who don’t know that you need a certain amount of silence to sleep.
I know that Rocky gave them some information on how humans sleep during his one ‘aliens for dummies’ radio transmission before he was injured, but I’m never really sure just what he said, since he split his voice into as many strands of conversation as possible to take advantage of the radio signal. I think he’d meant to answer questions later, and go over everything at greater depth, but that was supposed to be after we went to Three-world and dropped off the Taumoeba.
It appears that beyond telling them that humans sleep weirdly, and that just because I seem noisy or unsettled it doesn’t mean my sleep cycle hasn’t begun, Rocky didn’t manage to get to anything more about my sleep needs. Which is great, because it means that I can overhear all of their conversations about me, same as last ‘night.’
The Eridian who brings up the earlier conversation is a rusted-out pink, about Rocky’s size, with a odd asymmetric lump to the upper right of their carapace—my left, as they look at me. Eridians don’t have bilateral direction words, they instead use compass directions based on their magnoreception. I decide to call them Paulie. I’ve got a theme, I might as well stick to it. Commit to the bit. Commitment’s never been something I’m good at, but I’m about sixteen light-years from home, and that seems like as good a reason as any to turn over a new leaf.
There’s two of them now, Paulie having stayed while the rest of my primary care team filtered out, and the new one (smaller than Rocky, more of a greyish beige) has settled themselves near enough to Paulie that they could touch carapaces if they wanted. Eridians like to sleep-watch in pairs, I’ve found, so they’ve got someone to talk to. Since the first one is Paulie, I’ll call the second one Burt.
I’ve trapped myself into an endless cycle of Sylvester Stallone inspired names, which almost makes it feel like I’m somewhere in New Jersey between New York City and Philadelphia instead of on an alien planet. It’s weird because I’ve never been to New Jersey. Heck, I’ll never be able to go to New Jersey, which is a little depressing. Then again, it’s New Jersey. I’ve never gotten the impression that I’d be missing much. Not that I’d know personally, because again, I’ve never been to New Jersey, or pretty much anywhere on the East Coast.
Oh, hey, Paulie and Burt have struck up a conversation. Probably better for me to pay attention to that than all the places I’ll never go on Earth.
“Are we sure the alien is really a kid?” Burt starts.
“Do you have kids?” That’s Paulie.
"Uh, no. Not yet. Mate and I haven't decided we want to try yet, we're a little bit nervous for the whole process. It's just so draining, y'know?"
"Yeah." Paulie sighs. "No mate here, but most of my clutchmates and friends from my apprenticeship have been trying. It's rough."
"So no kids?"
“No, I just chip in to help look after my clutchmate’s brood on occasion. All their eggs hatched first time, and they went in for a second round too, added another two. It takes half the cluster to mind the whole lot, I don’t know how they manage alone.”
“Shut your sphincter—you’re fucking with me, right?”
“No, totally serious! The rest of the stave’s always saying that they’re trying to start a clef on their own, and I’m not even sure it’s a joke anymore. Look, I promise that kids do this all the time, trying to pretend they’re older than they are, or more responsible. You’re telling me you never tried to leave the burrow before your dermis had sloughed, and you were fully hardened?” Okay, so maybe Paulie did not deserve that name, because I don’t feel like they’re in my corner at all.
“But this isn’t one of our kids—they’re an alien.”
“Okay, fine. Here’s what we’ll do: tomorrow we bring in a couple of petruliatric psychologists, maybe a zoologist studying animal behavior or two, and then we’ll thrum up a list of criteria on which, if they score over a certain number, we’ll have proved they’re a child. In the meantime, ♯♫♪♪♫ decided we should keep on with our current treatment and remain consistent in our behavior towards them. Does that work for you?”
I have no idea who ♯♫♪♪♫ might be. Maybe that’s the Eridian from yesterday who seemed like they had a lot of experience with kids? I’m not sure. I don’t think we ever did real formal introductions. That might be contributing to the problem, I don’t think the Eridians have any idea about my role in my crew.
“Dude, it’s still an alien. If ♯♫♪♪♫’s wrong, they’re going to be shit-ripping mad. Not to mention what Lieutenant Rocky’s going to think. But at the very least, they’ll feel like we took them seriously—kids like that, right?”
“Excellent point, it’ll definitely help building trust. Actually, on that note, I wonder if Lieutenant Rocky told them about any of their family—might be good for them to hear a familiar form or two.”
Technically Rocky isn’t a Lieutenant, but the actual term of rank is pretty meaningless to me, since my grasp on Eridian social structure is still shaky. So I might have decided to go with Star Trek style designations for the various crew titles aboard the Blip-A. Rocky loved it, though he remained undecided about whether he’d rather I call him a Commander, like Spock, or stay a Lieutenant, like Geordi.
“I’ll ask about it tomorrow, after their sleep-watch concludes. Can’t wait to get out of here. I know Rocky said that their species sleeps differently, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d almost swear they’re awake.”