Chapter Text
“On Erid,” Rocky says, “you speak with other Eridians, question?”
Well, yeah. It’d be hard to avoid, even if I wanted to. Their scientists are gonna be champing at the bit while their linguists do a speedrun of my language.
“Yeah, of course. They’ll probably want you to teach them all you know about English so they can start chatting with me themselves as soon as possible.”
“Yes, yes. I teach, I translate. But you.” He stops tinkering with the xenonite of the airlock for just a moment to point a claw back at me. His voice grows a little softer, more curious. “You speak, question? Use sound from thinking machine, question?”
I’ve actually been thinking about that too. I roll over onto my stomach on the bunk, propping my chin under my arms to look at him properly. “The speech recognition software on there is probably good enough that I could set up an algorithm to automatically convert English words to Eridian words. But I’m not sure that would work so well.”
“Yes, computer voice has no texture.” It was one of many, many words he’d used disparagingly against the dry, pure-chord-only MIDI output I’d shown him one time. “Use Eridian instrument. We convert for human size and hands.”
“Oh, wow. Like a keyboard?”
“Exactly. Large, complex keyboard. I can make practice instrument. No sound function, but will develop ♫♩♩. Fingers remember the movement.”
“Muscle memory,” I say.
“Human words strange. No is the muscles that remember,” he trills.
“Well, you don’t know that. Our bodies are pretty different. For all you know, humans could have little brain cells in our muscles.”
“You would tell me if human muscles have brain.”
That’s true. It’s also true that I might keep a detail like that to myself if I thought it might give Rocky new opportunities to call me stupid when I’m tripping over nothing.
“So, we get to Erid, you fix me up a real, functioning speech-keyboard, and I’ll be able to start talking just like that?”
“No,” Rocky says. “You not know Eridian.”
“Wha—I know Eridian!”
“Do not.”
“Okay, I haven’t spoken it, but here, listen—”
I sit up, pull out the laptop, and open the MIDI keyboard. It’s barely seen any use since I was last using the computer to practice, but I remember how to play well enough. A couple faltering chords get me to “Rocky and Grace are friends,” then, in an attempt at something simpler and more fluent, “Grace loves Rocky.” Awww. With an example sentence as sweet as that, maybe Rocky will have mercy on me for butchering his mother tongue.
Rocky puts down the xenonite tools to give an exaggerated, full-body cringe. “No! Is not Eridian.”
“Sure, it doesn’t sound great, but you can understand it! That’s a start!”
Petulantly, Rocky says, “Grace sound stupid. Like child.”
“I’m just talking how you talk, buddy.”
“Yes. This is because I talk like child, to speak to stupid human.”
“Well, you don’t have to do that,” I say without thinking.
“♪♫♩as this♪ when, underst♪♪♫d ♪me, question?” Rocky says.
“What?”
“Can♪♪♫will understa♫d it ♫think talks♫♪ as this♪ Eridian you♩♫, question?”
“Slow down,” I say.
Wow, there’s a lot going on here. Most obviously… the word order. Yeah, I’d forgotten that pretty early on Rocky had altered his speech patterns to be more similar to English. It sounds like he natively talks in… verb-subject-object word order? It’s hard to tell, though—not just because he’s slurring chords together like he sometimes does when excited or nervous, but because he’s twisted the words themselves in certain ways, swapping out a note or two, leaping across the scale in ways I’ve never heard.
“Can you…” I realize this is going to make me look stupid again, but it is what it is. “Say the same thing, but in English sentence order?”
Because Rocky can, of course, do this on command. Barely even thinks about it. “♫Think will be able ♪♪♫ to understand♫ it Eridian talks♫♪ you♩♫ like this♪, question?”
A couple additional meanings fall into place just with the rearrangement, but it still feels… chopped up in that same weird way. “What are those little—you’re adding some notes to some of your words. What is that?”
“Need word. Change in word that gives word new context meaning. ‘♫Think’ is shorter, more correct way to say ‘you think.’”
I groan. Four years of high school Spanish flash through my mind in an instant.
“‘Conjugation.’ Word is ‘conjugation.’”
An hour later, I decide that conjugation is not, in fact, the right word. Conjugation is too narrow a term for the absolute bullcrap that Eridian seems capable of doing to its words.
Rocky’s completely abandoned his previous project; evidently this is even more exciting than a shiny new airlock. He starts me off with an example sentence: “Grace loves Rocky.” I’d already picked up the differences between “love” and “loves,” simply because English marks third person conjugations, but that doesn’t mean I made a grammatical sentence.
“Need word,” Rocky says. “Just ‘Rocky’ is not right. Correct way to say is ‘Rocky♪.’” He’s swapped out a single note in the last chord of the word—according, I would later notice, to a specific mathematical pattern. “Must change Rocky to Rocky♪ because Rocky no is main point of sentence. Rocky does not love.”
“Rocky does not love?!” I gasp.
If he had eyes, he’d roll them. “Yes yes Rocky loves Grace. Different sentence. There, Grace not topic, so ‘Grace♪’ not ‘Grace.’”
“That’s called the object of a sentence. The main topic is called the subject.”
“Subject does not change with conjugation. Object always changes. With this, word order can be fluid. Order changes in different contexts.”
“According to rules? Or can you just switch it up when you like?”
“Both. Easy to switch. Easy to think in different word orders.”
“Can we just stay with English order for now,” I plead. So I sound pathetic. Whatever.
“Yes. Before we get to Erid, you learn other orders so that you not confused.”
I nod. Once more, I prep the MIDI keyboard and play “Grace loves Rocky,” now with requisite object marker.
“No,” Rocky says calmly. Even when berating me, there’s a certain consideration to his tone. Good going Rocky, you’re becoming a slightly better teacher every day! “You sound like you don’t know anything.”
Slightly better. Doesn’t mean great. Just slightly better.
“Why?”
“‘Loves’ is too neutral. Is you, so you know for sure.”
“What?”
“You say ‘Grace loves Rocky.’ You are Grace. You know sentence is true. Verb needs new conjugation.”
“You conjugate verbs based on… certainty?” Was he actually not calling me an idiot after all? “You need to do that for every verb?”
“I no use because language no need. Meaning clear with context. But to speak right, you need.”
Still. It’s linguistic information that Rocky hasn’t even tried to give me. Would anything have changed in our communication if he had?
“What’s the right way of saying that sentence, then?”
“Grace ♫loves Rocky♪.”
“What if you were the one saying it? Would that change, because you don’t have, uh, an intimate knowledge of my emotions?”
“Yes, subject is not me, so I say, ‘Grace ♩loves Rocky♪. I know, am very certain, but is not self-knowledge.”
I really should’ve picked a different example sentence. I’m very certain that you love me is a heck of a thing for Rocky to drop in a context like this. No sentiments that haven’t been shared between us before. But… wow.
“I’m glad you’re certain,” I say, voice only a little wobbly. “So uh, when you conjugate it, it changes the first chord?”
“Different words, different conjugations, different chords change. For ‘love,’ conjugation changes always always always in first chord. ‘Understand,’ change usually in second chord, but not always. ‘Speak,’ different changes in different chords.”
I’m incredibly glad that Rocky made that initial decision to cut most verb conjugations out of his speech.
There’s only so much grammar a man can take in one afternoon, so in the next few days we move on to the second phase of this new linguistic initiative: immersion. Rocky will begin introducing complex Eridian grammar back into his speech, and I’ll see what I can pick up. Supplemented, of course, by my own solo practice… that is, when I’m not slacking off.
The verb conjugations are a bit tricky, but at the end of the day it’s no more demanding than learning a bunch of new vocabulary. There are rules, even if they can get stupidly complicated. The worst is the words that completely change their entire sound when conjugated. There’s just no good reason for the Eridian for “I speak” to have almost no notes in common with the infinitive “speak.” Then again, there’s no reason for English “am,” “are,” and “is” to have no sounds in common with “be,” so I can give some irregularities a pass.
Putting it all into practice, though, is where it gets intimidating.
“You are late,” Rocky observes when I emerge from the dormitory for our now-weekly Taumoeba checkup. (Earlier stages of the journey had demanded much more frequent monitoring.) I’m pleased to now notice which particular notes in the verb there give the indication of second person.
“Yes, yes. I’ve been studying!”
Rocky pauses. Slowly, he says, “Studying language, question? You understand this, question?”
He’s omitted the actual pronoun you from his second sentence, but I instantly recognize the conjugation. I nod.
“Good good. If you study, then you will memorize quickly, question?”
That’s a fun one. Eridian conditionality—would, could, will, stuff like that—is baked into its verbs in a way that English just doesn’t do. I’d figured that out even before we began this little linguistic exercise—how else would Rocky tell me You should sleep? But he’s been inconsistent about it, I realize. Now, I can hear in that last sentence the new notes he puts into the word study, a linguistic marker that doesn’t exist in English. Eridian is much stricter about indicating that sort of mood.
And yes, I said mood on purpose. A little Wikipedia trawl taught me that this particular thing Eridian language has a crap ton of is called a grammatical mood.
“I’m figuring it out,” I tell him. “But it helps if I hear examples from you.”
Rocky thinks about this.
“Last week Taumoeba was normal.”
I nod. He’s using the past tense in a way I’m very familiar with now… and moreover, his statement is correct.
He taps on the metal box that encases one of the tanks. “This week Taumoeba will be♫♩ normal.”
Wow! There’s a new conjugation. It kind of sounds like he’s mixing the Eridian word for “probably” into the “will be,” so I can guess what that means. “Will probably be normal?”
“Yes yes! Synonyms.”
“Which one do you use more? Like, the form where you have ‘probably’ as a separate word, or the one where ‘probably’ is part of the conjugation?”
Rocky paces up and down his side of the partition. “New word. Describes person who is careful and clear with words. Uses words like art. Eridian word is ♫♫♪.”
“Eloquent?” I try. “Uh… well-spoken.”
“Difference between ‘be♫♩’ and ‘probably be’ important to writers and people who are well-spoken.”
“So it’s not important to you.”
“You not think I am well-spoken, question?”
“You’re not telling me what the difference is, so I assumed you don’t care!”
“That is true,” he trills.
“And anyway, I don’t know Eridian well enough to make that call. Maybe you’re practically an Eridian poet and I had no idea.”
“New word, question?”
“Poet. Uhh. Someone who writes poetry.” I don’t have it in me to explain properly right now. “The most eloquent type of writing you can do.”
“You explain more later, then we can find Eridian word.” Hey, there’s another set of conditional verbs. “Check Taumoeba now.”
I know what’s going on with that verb too. That’s called an imperative.
Later, I’m getting ready for bed while Rocky fiddles with some new xenonite gadget. He’d been kinda cagey about what he was making—all I can see from here is a bunch of small, thin rectangles. New bumpy Uno cards to replace the ones I 3D-printed, which melted in his atmosphere after one game? I’m not ruling it out.
After some minutes of silence, Rocky perks up from his work.
“Other humans would consider Grace well-spoken, question?”
I laugh. “I don’t know about that. I talk pretty—”
“Stop,” Rocky says suddenly. He steps towards the partition, all attention on me. “Say first sentence again.”
“Uh… I don’t know about that?”
“Eridian has grammar to express this too.”
My instinct is that grammar before bed is a bad idea, but I should probably indulge him on these things as they come up. I’ll remember better that way. “Is this part of the certainty mood thing?”
“Yes. You learn quick. My question is about what other humans think of you. Your answer not ‘I not know.’ Your answer not ‘no’ either. Your answer is ‘no’ but implied. Understand, question?”
I sit down on the bed near him. “Kind of. You’re inferring from my answer that… that I’m saying humans don’t think I’m eloquent.”
“No. Not about me. You talk about humans’ thoughts. Impossible to really know humans’ thoughts, but there are ways of discovering. If you know they think this because they tell you, is one type of grammatical certainty. If you know they think this because implication, is another type.”
I think I’ve got it? Really not sure though. “How would you say it? If you were me answering the same question.”
“They not consider♪♪,” he says.
“Okay,” I say. I’ll have him go through the conjugation rules another time. “So, if I say that, it means, ‘I don’t think they think I’m so well-spoken.’”
“Yes. Sounds better in Eridian.”
“I’m sure it does.”
“Why they not consider♪♪ you well-spoken, question?”
“Lots of reasons. I guess one reason is I speak really casually all the time.”
“Eridian concept of well-spoken not related to formal or casual speaking. Is about using few words but picking words carefully.”
“Being concise,” I say.
“Eridian word is ♪♩♪♫. Your speaking not concise. Many words.”
“Yep.”
“More concise at first when we were learning. Now, less. But English also less concise than Eridian.”
“That’s true,” I say. Then: “Honestly, it doesn’t matter much to me whether I’m well-spoken in the way that professional writers and speakers care about. The most important thing is being accessible. Being clear and accurate, but in a way all kids can understand. Big concepts, but not in big words.”
“Big words is metaphor for less common and more complex words, question?”
“Exactly. So, taking into account kids who might not have big vocabularies. I guess that was good practice for talking to you!”
“Yes, you communicate well. When fluent in Eridian am curious how you will sound.”
It’s a funny reminder of the longevity of this project. I have the rest of my life to become fluent in Eridian. All things considered, I don’t need to rush into all this new weird grammar right now. We have years to go until we’re even in radio distance of a live, non-Rocky Eridian; I could, if I wanted, keep leaning on the training wheels that Rocky’s provided. But that would feel cheap. It’s not fair to him, to make him keep speaking a dumbed-down version of his own language just because human memory is slow and bad.
“Forget me, I want to know how you’ll sound when I’m fluent in Eridian!”
He considers this. “I speak concisely, but not well-spoken in human concept of well-spoken. Also speak in particular way. Makes clear where on planet I am from.”
“An accent,” I say. “Humans have this too.”
“Eridian word is ♪♩♩♪. Some Eridians you will meet will speak like me. Some use different words. Many with different conjugations. I teach you to understand common differences.”
“Awesome.” A vision fills my mind: an alien tumbling out of a spaceship and speaking with a pure, synthesized Texan accent. “Hey, in English we often have strong cultural associations with different kinds of accents. They can be good, or bad, or funny, or really offensive, or anything. Does your accent have any associations like that?”
“No. Just shows original home.”
“People don’t assume things when they learn you’re from that place?”
Rocky shuffles the definitely-not-Uno-cards between his fingers. “Yes, people assume. Some assumptions true, some not. Original home colder than average Erid temperature. Assumption that Eridians from here survive cold better. Is slightly true.”
“Guess that helped you survive a bit better in my atmosphere, huh?”
“Yes. I will tell friends from hotter homes I survived 22 degrees Celsius. They will be♩ amaze.”
I’m pretty sure he’s using an especially strong form of certainty on that last verb there. New depths to Eridian sarcasm!
“The place I’m from can get pretty hot. Not sure if that’ll help me on Erid, though.”
“How hot, question?”
I puff out my chest a little. “I’ve survived up to 40 C.”
“Very amaze. You are prepared. Will not even need xenonite enclosure in my original home.”
Whoa. I hadn’t even considered the possibility I might get to visit Rocky’s hometown. That’s far too big a thought for pre-bedtime. I settle down under the duvet, imagining myself running around in a huge xenonite hamster ball, enthusiastically introducing myself to, like, Rocky’s best friend from high school, or something like that.
“Are you as much of a jerk when you’re talking to other Eridians?”
“No,” says Rocky immediately. Then reconsiders. “Not rude. But sometimes use words bad for professional environment. Another part of how I speak in Eridian.”
I raise my head from the pillow. The prospect of Eridian swear words is enough to disrupt even my deep-seated anti-swearing instinct. “No way. In English those are called ‘swear words.’ I don’t use them much, but if you teach me yours I’ll teach you mine.”
Rocky shifts from foot to foot. “Important part of language,” he concedes warily. “But not nice. Very very not scientific view of Eridian anatomy.”
I can’t wait. “Isn’t it interesting how both our languages’ rude words are so focused on anatomy?”
“Very interesting,” Rocky says. He is suddenly very focused on his gadget again. “Sleep now. ♪♫♩♩ later.”
I mentally note the Eridian for “swear words.”
When I wake up, Rocky is out in his ball, crowding so close to me that it’s almost like he’s leaning over me.
“Oh my god,” I say. “What’s up? You know you can just wake me if you need me.”
“Not want to wake.” He’s buzzing with excitement; he skitters backward and away from my bed as I blearily sit up. “But I am very excite. Grace. Get computer.”
I pull the laptop out of its compartment, just as Rocky produces… oh, it’s the gadget he was working on last night. A long, thin slab of xenonite with many complex slats and indentations. It’s instantly clear what it is.
“A keyboard! Brilliant! Whoa, will it connect to my computer?”
“Modified for human fingers.” He’s talking fast, gesticulating as I pick up the keyboard. You can tell it kills him that he can’t demonstrate its function himself. “Set it up above computer. Place ♩♫♫ above proper keys. You press one key, then mechanism will press key on computer keyboard.”
Instinctively I recognize the conditional form in his last sentence. I grin to myself. “Clever as always. So I use this, and once we get to Erid I can play the real thing.”
“Yes yes yes. Set it up now!”
Two little legs come out of the keyboard’s underside to sit it upright just above the computer. Between them is tucked a whole array of thin, multi-segmented, fully-articulable pedals. Working together with Rocky, I map each pedal to the correct computer key.
“Play!” he squeals.
I guess this is too exciting an opportunity for him to care at all about the sucky MIDI voice. “Hello, my name is Grace,” I play, slowly and carefully, chord by chord. And I don’t forget to mark the verb for self-knowledge, as Rocky had once put it.
“Good good good! Perfect grammar!” He’s damn near bouncing off the walls. “Will speak you perfectly soon!”
“Careful with the word order,” I say. Which is kind of ironic, because the sentence requires me to phrase it “careful word order with” anyway. I’ve just gotten used to how Rocky does prepositions.
“Sorry! I am happy! Has been long long long time since I’ve heard Eridian voice. Even if your voice is bad! We are talking in Eridian!”
He’s gone full-grammar mode now. Given I’ve only got a few days of practice under my belt, I’d say I’m keeping up admirably.
“We should talk like this every day,” I say. Heck yes. Nailed the conjugation for the should.
“Yes yes yes. Just a small amount every day will be good.”
“Does it really sound like real Eridian?” I ask. It feels like it takes me forever to compose each sentence; surely that can’t be naturalistic. Then— “Question?” Almost forgot I needed that.
“No. Computer voice is strange and there are many small mistakes. But I understand.”
“You tell me the mistakes, I learn.”
“That sentence.” Rocky points at me. “Needs conditional conjugations.”
“If you tell me the mistakes, I will learn,” I tap out pointedly.
“Also sometimes you press wrong key.”
“I will learn!”
Rocky is silent for just a moment, concentrating on me intently. Then he says, “I wish that we ♫share atmosphere.”
There’s a grammatical mood I haven’t heard. Something specifically for wishes or hopes?
“Me too, friend.”
“Touch not so important for Eridians as humans. But when teaching young Eridians, builds muscle memory to move their fingers yourself. I want to move your fingers.”
I don’t know why that’s the thing that gets me. He’s saying it so matter-of-factly. Possibly as a friendly insult. But suddenly, forcefully, I’m struck to the core.
“Oh my god,” I say out loud.
Rocky raps on the xenonite barrier. “No English!”
I play out “Sorry, Rocky,” all trembling and wonky. I put my head in my hands, beaming down towards the keyboard. It’s the magic of teaching! He’s felt the spark! He wants to show me in the best way he knows how!
“Grace, question? Are you okay, question?”
“Yeah.” I straighten up. “Yeah. Just thinking about how much I’d like that.”
“You will learn with your own fingers,” he assures me.
“No, I mean—it means a lot that you want to help me so much.” I grin and wiggle my fingers at him. “Enough that you’d want to touch my weird squishy human hands! That’s a lotta dedication!”
He makes a show of recoiling, then reconsiders and pats the wall again. “Worth it. We will become best in universe at communication.”
And now, thanks to his grammar lessons, I know he means that with complete certainty.
Docking at the highest structures atop Erid’s space elevator is pretty simple. Eridians, especially working in a group and especially on something this important, work fast. Mere hours after Rocky radios in with all the specifications, the dock crew have built a flexible airlock that will attach to the Hail Mary’s and a large containment zone with an Earth atmosphere.
Now all that’s left to do are some difficult orbital maneuvers, and then…!
The docking station is a huge truncated pyramid sort of shape. They’ve left me and Rocky a partition about the size of a large conference room, separated from the rest of the chamber by two complex airlocks and a sheet of clear xenonite. I stumble in after Rocky in his ball, towing my illumination along behind me. God, I wish I had some of his magnets. I’ve had years of zero-G practice and I still feel like I’m gonna make a fool of myself in front of literally all the most important people on Erid.
“Engineer Rocky,” hums a voice. It’s such a pivotal moment, but the tangle of the lights means I’m having trouble seeing exactly who’s stepped forward from the crowd—a slightly larger Eridian, I think, with a slow, melodic voice. “Grace from Sol. You to ♪welcome we ♫♫♪ deeply honored.”
My mind flits between oh my god, the aliens welcomed me by name and oh no, that’s a very formal grammatical structure, Rocky definitely didn’t grill me on this one enough—
Rocky’s standing very still. Nerves? I don’t think he ever expected to be the one talking in a situation like this.
“♫♪♩♪,” he starts. Sounds like a title, maybe? “Forgive me, but my companion is bad at Eridian and only understands a few word order ♪♩♫♫♪. For his sake, can we slightly simplify our speech, question?”
“What?!” I hiss at him. The Eridian throng in front of us, including that leader guy, is tittering. “Rocky, you’re embarrassing me! You’re gonna make me look bad!”
More background chatter, mostly along the lines of “wow, what a weird language!” Honestly, though, pretty glad right now that Rocky had vetoed the idea of me bringing along my Eridian TTS program. Even with its recent improvements, that might be even more embarrassing.
“Grace would like to express his apologies,” Rocky says. Bastard. He’s using a formal register too; fortunately it’s the one I know.
“Grace, please don’t apologize.” Some other Eridian is talking now. Wow, they all have pretty distinct voices! “We are excited to communicate with you in whatever way you find most comfortable.”
“Can you tell them I wasn’t apologizing,” I huff.
“Grace is also very excited,” intones Rocky.
“Okay. I get it. We’re in diplomacy mode. Just tell them that… that I’m excited to help them save Erid.”
That spurs him out of his still, nervous stance. His carapace tilts higher; his voice, when he speaks, goes up an octave. “And Grace is excited to help us save Erid!”