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“No!” Rocky chimed in frustration. “You mess up word order again!”
“Sorry,” said an embarrassed Grace, his face flushing slightly. Eridians used an object-verb-subject word order, so a sentence like “I am frustrated” in English would be like saying “Frustrated is me” in Eridian. Of course, using chords instead of words. Grace knew this, of course, he’d heard Rocky plenty to be able to understand him pretty fluently. But trying to speak his language was a whole other matter.
“Hey, Rocky, more complex words in your language usually have more chords, right?” Grace said, trying to distract from his disfluency.
“Yes,” said Rocky. “Example.” He chirped a complicated rhythm of chords that Grace didn’t know, but he could tell there were definitely some of what humans would call jazz chords.
“What does that mean?” asked Grace. He didn’t bother to bring up his spreadsheet.
“It when star moving away. Turn rough,” Rocky replied.
“Oh! Redshift?” realized Grace.
“That is human word, question?” Rocky asked. Grace nodded.
“You are not ready to learn those words yet,” said Rocky matter-a-factly. It still stung. “Why ask, question?”
“Because I was wondering about a particular word in Eridian. The word for ‘love’ is this, right?” Grace returned to the piano and sustained a simple F major triad.
“Yes, if in present tense,” Rocky replied. “If change tense—“
“Yeah, I know,” interrupted Grace. “The key changes as well. But it is still just one chord. Most one-chord words in Eridian are things like conjunctions and pronouns, right? Fundamental building blocks of language.”
“Yes, mostly,” replied Rocky. “We also have some important noun and verb. Like ‘sleep’ and ‘food’”.
“Love is a complex idea, though. Why only one chord?”
Rocky did what Grace could only interpret as the Eridian equivalent of a shrug. “Important.”
“And also—“ Grace rambled, now curious. “Does it mean, like, romantic love? Or platonic?”
“No understand words after meaning.”
Grace sighed, not at Rocky, but at himself for assuming that he’d already taught him those words. It’s not like Grace talked about his relationships back on Earth all that much. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Does it mean how you love a friend? Or how you love a mate?”
Rocky “shrugged” again. “Does not matter. Love friend. Love mate. Love parent. Love Grace. Same word.”
Grace suddenly startled. “You…you love me?”
“Of course,” said Rocky nonchalantly. “You come back for me. You save Erid. I love you.”
“Really?” tears welled in Grace’s eyes.
“Yes. Why you face leaking again, question?”
“I don’t know,” said Grace through a sniffle, now slightly embarrassed. “It’s just…I haven’t had anyone tell me they loved me in a long time.”
“Why not, question? You are Grace. You are good friend.”
“I wasn’t…I wasn’t always the greatest friend back on Earth,” Grace admitted. “Also, ‘love’ is a big word for humans.”
Rocky’s carapace did a signature twitch that it only did when he was confused. “Big as in size, question?”
“No,” Grace sighed, putting his palm to his face. “Big as in…important. You don’t tell someone you love them unless you really mean it.”
“Understand,” said Rocky. “Word used more on Erid.” He paused. “But I big love you.” He struggled to find the words. “Like human when human say word. You are important. You save me.”
Grace’s attempts to restrain the tears rolling down his cheeks were rapidly failing.
“You are leaking very much now,” said Rocky. Grace just nodded. “Humans strange. ♩♫♩♬♪.“
Grace looked at Rocky, confused. “I don’t know that last word.”
“It when thing not work well,” explained Rocky. “Slow and use many resource. More than should.”
“Ohhh,” realized Grace. “Inefficient.”
“Yes,” said Rocky. “Inefficient.” He repeated the series of chords. Grace laughed wryly. Rocky was starting to remind him of Stratt.
“You make funny noise,” said Rocky matter-of-factly. “What is funny, question?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Grace. “You just reminded me of…someone I knew back on Earth for a second.”
“You love person, question?” asked Rocky.
Grace jolted back. “No!” he cried, louder than intended. “I mean…nothing against you, Rocky, it’s just that you…you say the same word. ‘Inefficient’.”
“So person calls you inefficient,” said Rocky.
“Yes. I mean sort of.” Furrowing his brow, Grace thought back to his time on Stratt’s Vat. By now, most of his memories had come back to him. Eva Stratt was constantly hauling him to meeting after meeting, forcing him to work long hours, dragging him around the world, making him feel like a scientist again, pulling him away from his kids, confiding in him about the project…”
Gosh darn it! Grace…missed Stratt! Why the heck would he miss Stratt? She had forced him onto the damn ship! Drugged him against his will! Gave him amnesia, for God’s sake! Though, if she hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t have met Rocky…
Grace winced. Maybe Stratt, as much as he hated to admit it, was right. Maybe he really was a fundamentally good man. Maybe he couldn’t hate Stratt, even though he wanted to.
“Rocky,” Grace said suddenly. Rocky turned around. He’d been fiddling with some xenonite while Grace was lost in thought. “What is the word for when you’re sad about someone?” He struggled to phrase the question properly. “Like, you’re sad because you can’t be with them?” He cringed internally.
“Eridian word for this is ♩”, answered Rocky. One chord.
“Hey, wait. Isn’t that the same as the word for love? Just as a minor chord?”
“What is minor chord, question?” asked Rocky.
“It’s when the top and bottom notes of the chord are the same, but the middle one changes. It moves to a lower frequency.” It was a slightly oversimplified explanation, but Grace thought it was good enough. Rocky seemed to understand what Grace was saying, because he didn’t ask any more questions.
“Wait…so ‘I love you’ is this…” Grace played a C suspended 4th chord on the piano, then moved to an F major chord, then finally resolved to a C major triad. “But I miss you is this.” He started again with the Csus4, shifted his forefinger to play an F minor triad, and then resolved to C once again.
Suddenly, Rocky’s carapace perked up. “You did it! You use right word order!”
“I did?” Grace had forgotten all about the lesson.
“Yes! Yes yes yes! You think too much. When you don’t think, you do good!”
Grace’s face flushed. Then he spoke. “You know, ‘miss’ is a sad word.”
“Yes,” replied Rocky. “Concept is sad. You away from thing you love.”
“No, I mean…” Grace sputtered. “I mean, yes, it’s a sad concept, but the Eridian word is sad. I mean, the chord. It sounds sad.”
“To human hearing, question?” Rocky sounded curious.
“Yes. It’s a sad-sounding chord. Even without knowing the Eridian word.”
“Interesting,” mused Rocky. “Maybe human and Eridian hearing evolve similarly.”
“Maybe,” Grace wondered.
They both thought about it for a moment.
Then, Rocky leaned back. “Tired. Watch me sleep, Grace, question?”
“Sure,” replied Grace, who was feeling pretty wiped himself.
Rocky slumped down in his hamster ball. “I love you, Grace.”
Grace didn’t try to hide his tears anymore. “I love you too, buddy.”