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Thank’s to Stratt’s flagrant piracy there would be any shortage of entertainment on the four year journey to Erid. I hate putting the words “thanks” and “Stratt” in the same sentence, but whatever.
Unfortunately most human entertainment doesn’t really transfer for Eridians. Rocky can’t see a movie, and his English reading is still not advanced enough for a novel. Human music just sounds like gibberish to him. But there’s one thing we’ve found common ground on, audiobooks.
Rocky likes audiobooks, apparently on Erid the most popular form of entertainment is live storytelling, so even if the stories are new, the medium feels familiar. Rocky has been wanting to learn more about human culture recently, after all we’re stuck on a spaceship for four years what better to do than study the alien right next to you.
I’m no literary scholar I wouldn’t know to introduce human writing to an alien, so I took a page out of Ms. Weston’s book (The Language Arts teacher at Grover Cleveland Middle) and started with the collected works of Shakespere. It was rough at first given how different Shakspere’s english is to mine, in the beginning we were stopping practically every other word so I could translate for him, we’ve added what feels like thousands of words to our shared dictionary since we started. So far we’ve made it through both Hamlet and Macbeth, after two tragedies back to back I figured we could use something a bit lighter, so we’ve skipped ahead to the comedies.
I’m sitting on my bed adding the data from my latest experiment to a spreadsheet, I’ve been studying the other lifeforms we found in Adrian’s atmosphere. Now that we’ve solved the astrophage problem I can focus on learning as much as possible about alien biology. It’s a dream come true! Well aside from the claustrophobia and constant anxiety about my food supply, but hey, I’ll take it over a suicide mission any day.
Rocky is busy on the other side of the barrier, working on some small xeononite device I don’t fully understand, I could ask but I don’t want to break his concentration, besides being surprised by whatever he’s created this time is fun.
An audio recording of “Much Ado About Nothing” plays over the ships speakers as we work,
“Beatrice: […] I thank God and
my cold blood, I am of your humour for that. I had rather
hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves
me.
Benedick: God keep your Ladyship still in that mind! So some
gentleman or other shall ‘scape a predestinate scratched
face.
Beatrice: Scratching could not make it worse an ‘twere such
a face as yours were.”
Rocky perks up from his workbench,“Are humans usually hostile towards their mates, question?” he chimes,
I don’t look up from my notes, “No, no, it’s similar to sarcasm. Beatrice and Benedick insult each other to hide their true feelings. Personally I think they should just go on a date but if they did that there wouldn’t be a story now would there?”
“New word, after go on a,”
“Dating,” I say, “It means to socialize for the purpose of finding a mate,”
“Explain, question?”
“Well, if someone is interested in becoming mates with someone else, they will ask that person on a date, an activity they do together to learn more about each other and determine compatibility. Any activity that both people enjoy can be a date, but more common ones are sharing a meal or seeing a movie.” It feels a little silly for me of all people to be explaining this, my singleness has lasted longer than the half-life of krypton-85, and that was before I went to space.
“Human mating confusing,”
“You’re right about that” I chuckle, then a question pops into my mind, “How do Eridians select their mates?”
“Question too broad, need more detail,”
I think for a second, “What do Eridians find attractive in other Eridians, what makes you want to be mates with someone?”
Rocky hunches his shoulders the way he does when he’s thinking “Hard to describe, different for different Eridians,”
That makes sense, Eridian sexual preferences probably vary just as much as humans, “Well,” I say, “What do you like about Adrian?” I don’t actually know that much about Adrian, Rocky hasn’t really mentioned them since he named the planet,I hope I’m not bringing up a painful topic for him.
Rocky perks up, “Adrian is Science Eridian, very intellegent, tell joke make Rocky laugh, skilled in xenonite, make beautiful sculpture,” he wiggles his carapace in a motion I’ve come to recognize as being similar to a smile,
Intelligence, talent, sense of humor, seems that Eridians and humans both look for the same qualities in mates, “They sound like the whole package,”
“Not understand,” rocky responds,
My bad, “It’s an earth saying, it means that Adrian has a lot of good qualities,”
“Yes,” Rocky agrees
“How did you two meet?”
“Adrian study stars, use big camera in station at top of space elevator. One day camera broke, I came to fix. We talk while I work, I not care about space, until Adrian tell me about stars and planets, then I want to know everything. After this I ask Head Science eridian of station if I can become repair eridian for station, I wanted to speak with Adrian more,”
“So, how did you let Adrian know you were interested in them?”
“Need word, small item, symbol,”
“Token, I think the best word for that would be token,”
“Create token, small clock, carve star charts into outside, give to Adrian. A few cycles later Adrian made me a new box to store tools.”
Step aside Titanic, Rocky and Adrian are the love story of the century, “I’m excited to meet them,” assuming we make it to Erid in one piece of course.
“Yes, yes, yes!” Rocky chimes an octave higher, “Adrian will love to meet Grace, will want to know all about how Grace hear light from stars!” Then Rocky’s body language changes he holds his carapace lower and his voice drops in tone,
“Is something wrong?” I ask him, he probably just misses Adrian, maybe I shouldn’t have brought them up,
“No humans on Erid, Grace no able to find mate,” Rocky chimes sadly,
Oh! He’s worried I’ll be upset about not being able to find a partner on Erid. I honestly hadn’t even thought about that. I’ve never really had the same drive for romance or sex as my peers. I’d had a girlfriend back in my grad school days, but that relationship fell apart pretty quickly once she realized I was more interested in cuddling and watching Lord of the Rings than sex. I’d stopped trying to date after that, and was much happier for it. Ilyukhina had told me there were rumors floating around the Hail Mary project that I was gay. I'd questioned it for a while when I was younger, but came to the conclusion that my lack of interest in sex and romance applied to men too.
I lean against the xenonite barrier between us, “I’m not like most humans, I’ve never had a strong desire for a romantic relationship, heck I don’t even like kissing,”
“New word, question?”
“Kissing, humans sometimes press their mouths together to express affection and romantic desire,”
“Information disturb” despite almost a year together aboard the Hail Mary, Rocky was still having a hard time adjusting to the cultural differences between eridians and humans regarding food consumption. I’m sure the idea of pressing ones food orifices to eachother was a deeply disgusting concept to him.
“Yeah” I chuckle, “I always found it kinda gross too. I tried date when I was younger, but I realized I was more happy being with my friends and teaching my students than I was when I was forcing myself into a relationship I didn’t want.” Now that I think about it, it’s a relief to not have to worry about the pressure to find a partner anymore.
Rocky assumes his thinking stance again, after a few seconds of quiet he finally chimes back “Understand, Grace not need mate, Grace need friend. Grace have friend Rocky!”
And that’s all I’ve ever needed, a best friend, “Yes I do,” I press my first against the barrier,
“Fist my bump!” rocky fist-bumps back and I dissolve into a fit of laughter.