Chapter Text
“Just like old times.” Grace’s mouth was turned upwards at the corners, smiling. “Remember when I almost died?”
“Which time?” chortled Rocky. “What about when I almost died?”
"Which time?”
It was just like old times, in a way. The ship was different, specially designed to comfortably house Human and Eridian together. Xenonite walls still separated them physically, but there was nowhere one could go that the other couldn’t follow. More than enough food for both life-forms, light lamps so that Grace could see, and Astrophage-powered radiation protection— that was important.
The two travelers had also changed. It hadn’t been a very long time for Rocky since he’d last been off the planet, though the experience had matured him beyond his years. Grace, however, had a much shorter lifespan. It was remarkable how quickly Humans changed physically, and how much. Grace’s bones were weaker, his skin saggier with wrinkles lining his face, deepening as he grinned. His posture was bent over, making him shorter. Moreso than would have been usual for his age, Grace had explained once, because of Erid’s high gravity compared to Earth’s. Sometimes it took him longer to know what things were at a distance. Though Grace wouldn’t admit it, Rocky had learned from the Human thinking machines (computers, because they were originally designed to compute numbers) that as Humans aged, their eyes became worse at focusing light to make an image. Grace’s voice was weaker, raspier, but still filled with the same humorous lilt as always.
“Are you excited to see Sol again? And Earth?”
“It’ll be so different from when I left. I won’t know anyone.” Grace’s voice softened.
“Much will be the same.”
“If I even live long enough to make it there.” Grace pushed out a laugh after this, maybe thinking that a dark joke would lighten the mood. It was true— the journey would be long, and though the engineers and scientists had worked hard on designing a sturdy ship, both of them knew well enough what unknown problems one could encounter in space. Grace wasn’t a young man anymore. He wasn’t as strong. He wasn’t going to survive much longer on Erid, certainly not without a lot of difficulty. This was one last shot, one last chance at letting him live a little longer in comfort. A second Hail Mary, Grace had called it.
Rocky knew all of this. He had learned early on in his friendship with Grace that Humans had such short lifespans compared to Eridians. They were weak, leaky, inefficient creatures.
Still, the abstract idea of a lifespan hadn’t meant much to him until recently.
"Hey, I was just joking,” Grace added, placing a hand on the wall between them. He must have noticed that Rocky hadn’t responded to him. “I’ll be fine.”
“Like you were fine when we took off?” Taking a page out of Grace’s book, Rocky covered with humor.
“Hey! That was my first time actually being conscious for a takeoff, and your space elevator freaked me out. Sue me.”
“With what money?”
“You know that’s just an expression.”
Bantering in space, just like old times indeed. Hopefully, Grace would be fine and make it back to see Earth. Problem was, Rocky got a round-trip ticket while Grace’s was one-way. Earth–Erid communication was in its infancy, and one of the first collaborative projects was this very trip. The ship would make the years-long journey from planet to planet. Once it reached Earth, Grace would enter the Human-designed landing shuttle and descend to his homeland. Rocky would turn around and come back. They were going to have to say goodbye to one another at some point, no matter what. This was the best-case scenario.
Still. They had plenty of time before that moment, and Rocky and Grace had a lot of reminiscing to do.
—
“You never told me that Humans get noisier when they age.”
“Noisier?”
It was several days (Eridian days; fewer for Grace) into the journey, and they had fallen back into their old routine. Watching each other sleep, exchanging questions, joking around, and the typical spaceship maintenance tasks. Even with as long as Grace had been living on Erid, as long as his people have had to learn about Grace’s planet’s culture, it still felt like there were things he didn’t know.
“Yeah, noisier. You make noises any time you do anything. Standing up, lifting something, even when you sleep. And they don’t all come from your voice. Sometimes–”
“Woah, hey, I don’t talk about the gross things you do!”
“Gross?”
“Body functions associated with, you know, waste.”
It was so strange that Humans had no problems talking about eating, even eating in front of each other, eating together, but as soon as the rest of their digestive system is brought up it’s suddenly gross. Either all of it is gross or none of it is! Why do Humans pick and choose?
“You’re the one who wanted to watch me eat after you just met me, Grace.”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“Okay, and how was I supposed to know that stuff going in is just fine and stuff coming out is gross? It’s the same stuff!”
“You just don’t get it.” Grace shook his head and turned, facing away from Rocky but smiling still. He should know that just because he can’t see Rocky, doesn’t mean Rocky can’t see him. Mumbling like Rocky couldn’t hear that even if it was from across the ship, “of course he can hear me fart, even the silent but deadly ones. At least he can’t smell them.” Rocky had to agree.
Farts aside, the two had been in remarkably high spirits. The past sings sweetly, fond memories prevailing, drowning out the memories of boredom and terror or reducing them to funny stories. More often than not, they found themselves reminiscing about when meeting each other was new and exciting. When Rocky didn’t know that Grace could only see him through light-permeable material, and when Grace didn’t know that Rocky couldn’t tell the difference between wavelengths of light. After years of learning about Humans— the smart ones, the stupid ones, the evil ones who waged war, the selfless ones and the cowardly ones— Rocky was glad that out of all the humans that could have made it to Tau Ceti, it was Grace.
—
Grace’s breathing was getting more and more labored. Even with the ship’s gentle acceleration keeping gravity light, his body was weakening. It was just something that happens when Humans get old.
To Grace’s credit, he hardly complained. Grace was no stranger to whining. If his food tasted bad, if his students misbehaved, if Rocky showed up late because Adrian slept longer than predicted, he knew he could expect Grace to cross his arms, wrinkle his face, and grumble. On this journey, though, so far he’d hardly mentioned any of the inconveniences he must have been experiencing.
Rocky didn’t want to worry, but when Grace slept, he couldn’t help but remember the Human anatomy books he’d seen. Oxygen powers the Human body, pulled into the bloodstream from the air around them. If there’s not enough oxygen in their body, Humans die. If their heart stops circulating their blood, pushing the oxygen where it needs to go, they die. Human death looks a lot like sleeping, but their hearts still beat and their lungs still pull in oxygen. This is how Rocky reassured himself. If he could hear his heart beat— and he could hear it across the ship— Grace was okay.
It was Rocky’s own sleep that worried him the most. When Grace sleeps, a loud noise can awaken him immediately. For all their flaws, Humans do have that great failsafe. When Rocky sleeps, he’s out until his body decides to wake up. Grace could trip and fall, break a fragile bone or cut himself and bleed out, and Rocky would have no way to know or help.
When Grace slept or ate, Rocky spent his time reading about Humans. There was some pretty amazing technology that could translate any Human written language into something Rocky could read displayed on his tablet. His favorite thing was learning about the name Grace called him. Rocky, because he looked like rocks, and the ending -y meant something like “similar to” or “made of.” Rocky, also, was the name of a movie, a story written and acted by Humans and then recorded by machines that remember the movement of light. Rocky, the main character, was tough, a fighter. He wasn’t the most talented or the strongest, but he never gave up, and that’s how he won.
Rocky was touched to learn of his namesake. He wondered if Grace would ever find out that the closest translation of his name, after he’d explained its meaning, was a word used to describe those who gave everything to help others, one of the highest honors. That, once Rocky had introduced him, the word had become nearly unanimous with him.
—
One Earth year into the journey. That’s what Grace had informed him after a particularly long food sleep. One Earth year for the two of them, but longer for their home planets, a fact that Rocky still hadn’t quite digested fully.
“I wish you could see it,” said Grace, looking at a screen that was probably showing him images of Earth. “It’s beautiful. Here’s where I’m from, California.” The general area of the landmass he lived on. “There’s forests, mountains, ocean, desert….”
Rocky aimed his light interpreter at Grace’s screen, textures on his tablet approximating the light given off to form the image. A lot of longer wavelengths, with lines of a shorter wavelength intersecting one another near the center.
“The Golden Gate Bridge. This is close to where I lived. It’s pretty famous.” Grace coughed, wheezing slightly. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it in real life.”
“You’ll get to see it again soon!” Rocky tried to sound cheerful, but the high octave was crackly and forced, because when Grace sees the bridge, it would mean Rocky would’ve said goodbye.
“I wonder if there’s a way to bring you on Earth,” said Grace. “You all figured out how to do it with me. We could build a dome, pump in your atmosphere, make your food, we’d have to get radiation protection but Astrophage would work pretty well…”
“We brought you because that was the only choice. You would have died. You saved us all, it was all we could do.”
“Are you saying you don’t think Humans would do it?” Grace’s voice became stubborn. “Because I’d force them to. I’m a hero to them. They’ll listen to me.”
“I’m saying it’s risky. And it would take a long time. Even with all the adjustments, there’s bound to be something dangerous on Earth that we weren’t aware of. Besides, by the time they’d be done with construction….” Rocky couldn’t finish his sentence. By the time they’d be done with construction and testing, it was unlikely Grace would be around to see the end result. And at that point, there would be no reason for Rocky to go to Earth.
Grace sighed, letting his head fall onto the wall between them. “I don’t have any friends on Earth. I’m gonna miss you.” A cast of water welled up in the corners of his eyes. If Rocky had eyes, his would be the same.
“I’m gonna miss you longer.”
—
Grace wasn’t waking up. He was alive– his heart was beating, his lungs were noisy but they were working. Rocky tried not to freak out. Sometimes, Humans just didn’t wake up as easily.
Rocky continued to pound on the xenonite wall. He talked to Grace, as loudly as he could muster. “You’ve been asleep for too long, you know, you really need to get up, you’re gonna have to eat soon. You still haven’t finished teaching me that Human game with the cards and the numbers. Grace.”
Rocky backed up as far as he could go and flung himself against the wall. Finally. That seemed to do the trick. Grace stirred, began to sit up. “What?”
“Grace!” Rocky had clearly failed at not worrying, because his voice was embarrassingly high from relief. “You’re alright!”
“What? Did you say something?”
“Grace, you’re awake,” Rocky repeated, louder and in a more normal register.
“Just catching up on my beauty sleep,” Grace chuckled.
Rocky had read about Humans’ hearing as they age. They get worse at it. Sometimes, they can’t hear sounds that are too high.
“You need to finish teaching me that card game,” said Rocky, making his voice unnaturally high in mock excitement.
“What? Sorry, I’m an old man now, my hearing is going.”
Rocky repeated himself lower, and Grace nodded, chuckling. “Why, so you can lose?”
Despite his own laughter and challenge to Grace to bring it on, Rocky felt himself sink lower to the ground. Of course, it was only natural for Humans to lose their high-frequency hearing when they’re old. What it meant, though, is that Grace wouldn’t be able to hear him happy anymore.
—
Grace was sleeping more and staying in bed longer. He had to rest between activities and tasks with more and more frequency. Rocky was happy to take over as many duties as needed. Everything that needed to be maintained or done was accessible from both sides of the xenonite partition, and Rocky was much better at doing multiple tasks than just doing one. He’d have to do everything on the return trip, after all. He knew that Humans didn’t need someone to watch them sleep like Eridians did, and Grace had told him that it would be alright if he needed to leave and do something while he slept. Rocky tried once, but couldn’t muster up the will. It was irrational. He could watch Grace from anywhere on the ship. Unlike humans, he didn’t have to be right next to him to see him. He could multitask– do something while keeping track of Grace, listening to his heart beat and lungs expand and contract. But if he was somewhere else, he wouldn’t be able to help Grace right away if something happened. He couldn’t touch Grace, of course, for obvious reasons, but proximity just felt safer.
He tried not to let his mind wander, but it was hard for Rocky not to think of the dark days when his crew succumbed to radiation poisoning. Nobody had known what was happening. They were just getting weaker, frailer, withering away as their cells died one by one, and nobody could do anything about it. Rocky had watched his best friends reduce to husks of themselves. As he watched Grace’s frail form sleep, breath after ragged breath, heartbeat quieter than it had been in the past, bones losing mass and joints stiffening, it was hard not to be reminded of those others.
—
Grace had taken a liking to watching his window. It’s something he’d petitioned hard for, and had to explain the importance of many times to a people that simply couldn’t understand why he’d need one. He liked to watch Erid disappear, and he liked to search for anything else he might see. Rocky didn’t bother looking with his light interpreter unless Grace mentioned seeing something. It was odd, to Rocky, for Grace to spend so long looking at nothing.
“It’s not nothing,” Grace had tried to explain. “It’s space. It’s an endless expanse of black.” A color, a word to describe a group of similar wavelengths that humans found distinct from other groups. This word, though, described the color of no light. Which, somehow, is different from “nothing.”
“We’re still a long way from Sol,” said Rocky. “You won’t see it any time soon.”
Grace shrugged. “If I turn off all the lights, and close my eyes for a while, when I open them, I can see the stars.”
Too small to show up on Rocky’s tablet, Grace had talked about the faraway stars a lot. Tiny little points of bright light, white— the color of all wavelengths mixed together— and flashing. Twinkling.
“Are they beautiful?”
“Humans have been looking up at them since we first evolved. Our earliest stories were based on pictures we made by connecting them into shapes. Humans across the world wondered what they were, what they’re made of, and how we could get there.” He began to laugh. “There’s so many stories about people going to other planets, traveling through space, meeting aliens. And now I’ve done it. As far as I know, I’m the only one who has. You know, people used to think aliens would be little green men.”
“What?”
“People thought that aliens would look like Humans, but smaller and a different color. They thought aliens would come to Earth to steal our resources.”
“I bet you were glad that we turned out to be big-ass spiders.”
Grace smiled, deepening the wrinkles around his eyes. “I am. I’m glad you’re you.”