Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Rocky carefully stretched out his third limb, slowly testing out its responsiveness as a young Eridian dutifully waited for him off to the side. His body had finally deigned to release him from sleep 314 clicks ago and he was impatient to get back to work. Unfortunately, these days he needed to take his time.

Rocky – against all odds – was old, old, old.

As annoying as that was, he couldn’t complain too much. His brain, inorganic as it was, remained sharp. His carapace was decently tuned. Predictably, Rocky mused, it was his finickity biological bits that were the problem.

Worker cells in charge of maintaining his brain and body were steadily growing less efficient with age, making his sleep cycles both longer and more frequent. This was typical for an elderly Eridian and led to fluid buildup accruing in the colonial cavity, affecting both memory and movement.

It might be normal, but it was still vexing, Rocky thought to himself as he tested his fourth limb.

If this trend continued Rocky wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up wasting as much time as Humans did on sleep, something he was sure Grace would have delighted in making fun of him for. Especially after all the ribbing he had been subjected to for his own naps - thinking back, he supposed he could have cut him a nanometre more slack.

Quite honestly, Rocky thought as he moved on to his next leg, it was baffling. He, much like dear, dear, Grace, had suffered many adverse effects from the voyage to and from Tau Ceti. Despite this, again like his long-gone friend, he had somehow far-exceeded the average lifespan of his species at 707.56 sols.

A bloated number that brought nothing but annoyances in Rocky’s expert opinion.

Already a legend, his prodigious lifespan had somehow made him even more venerated. An intolerable state of affairs that only led to being invited to 1.27 times more boring events. Events that occurred much too often, as he had been sure to let everyone know. The only upside had been back when Adrian had still enjoyed attending. Now, showing up just meant dealing with what seemed like younger and younger hatchlings each hex^[1], all asking tedious questions that he’d literally answered thousands of times before.

Rocky was aware that this was a distinctly Human way of framing things- obviously thrum-leaders weren’t actually getting younger. The older he got however, the more he found himself understanding Grace’s otherwise bizarre turns of phrase.

It had been strange to realize that Grace had been more mature than him by the end. Grace had lived to just 104.314 sols, barely old enough to vote as he’d often joke. Somehow that was ancient by Human standards, and it had given him a perspective on life that Rocky had only really began to appreciate 150.53 sols ago.

Rocky shook himself out of his thoughts as he let his last leg down. Then, letting out something like a grumble he gestured to his sleep-watcher, a new intern, that he was done. The only response was a confused series of warbles - they must be having an awful time working with the Human scientists, Rocky thought to himself exasperatedly.

“I’m done, time to go”, he said aloud, already beginning to move back toward the lab, confident that the team had finished their scans while he was sleeping. “Too slow!” He said, trilling a chortle as the kid stumbled behind him as they scrambled to catch up.

It would be funny to play up his odd habits around the new batch of interns and drive them all a bit mad. If he was lucky his teasing would loosen them up enough that they could actually do their jobs properly.

In any case this new batch seemed particularly baffled by Humans, and getting them used to him would help bridge that gap. Rocky knew his voyage to and from Tau Ceti had made him exceedingly strange by Eridian standards. When he’d first left Erid, he’d been a chatterbox utterly incapable of shutting up. Nowadays he was considered bizarrely taciturn and had a body language that was half alien. In their short time together, he and Grace had managed to become something of a matching set. It had been so long since his counterpart had passed, but he still often found himself longing to commiserate with him about the oddities of life – increasingly so whenever he had to deal with kids.

Odd or not Rocky of course had no interest in changing his speech or habits, after all it was far more efficient to say,

“I liked the performance.”

rather than,

“The rhythm-sound performance masterfully led by rhythm-keeper Resonant-Chime and executed by the Tancien Ensemble in the Tancien rhythm-sound performance hall, was enjoyable, to me the one whose diminutive call is Thump-Stomp, solely in my leisure time and not when in work-thrum mode”.

That was a direct quote from one of his more reserved colleagues. As far as Rocky was concerned most Eridian’s abused their ability to say a lot quickly by filling their speech with long winded redundancies. Why it was necessary to constantly refer to oneself by name was beyond Rocky. In this case at least, Humans had the right of it in their habitual use of “I”.

Turning the corner, Rocky called out a quick greeting to a passing colleague as he excitedly continued on his way. Encountering Scientist-Lazuli would inevitably waylay his pursuer as they paused to make their own lengthy acknowledgements and admirations, as was polite almost everywhere else on the planet. Happy to avoid the whole song and dance Rocky didn’t bother waiting – how ironic it was that he’d gone slightly insane from silence and isolation, and now needless chatter rubbed him the wrong way! With Adrian gone, Rocky even found himself preferring to live alone for a sixth of the hex, with only a companion-animal to watch him sleep.

Despite the concerns of some of his family members Rocky maintained he needed his space with how busy he was the rest of the time. He always had dozens of projects vying for his attention, on top of his unavoidable social obligations. Humming to himself Rocky amusedly recalled the strange expectation he’d want to retire after his return. Instead, he’d spent a wonderful 55.314 sols collaborating extensively with Grace, working on anything that caught their interest, from botany to architecture. Much to the befuddlement of both of their species they’d even gone on 3.101 more space missions, culminating in a historic trip to Earth where they’d remained until Grace’s passing.

He’d been back a couple of times since, finding himself needing to listen to some trees or get a break from gravity every couple of hexades or so. His joints definitely missed the reprieve, but everyone insisted he was too old for any more adventures. He was sure the thrum-leaders meant well and just wanted to ensure he’d die on his own planet, as was proper. Naturally Rocky had a plan in place to make sure they wouldn’t get their way – it would be a good reminder to those youngsters that they didn’t know better than their elders.

As he drew ever closer to the lab the kid finally caught up, and after awkwardly stewing in silence for 36 clicks they blurted out a discordant overlapping slew of questions, before embarrassedly cutting themselves off.

Incredulous at what they had decided to ask, Rocky tapped two opposing legs to better tune the shape of the Eridian beside him. The Research Centre they were in was a sprawling interdisciplinary complex that had sprung up around the space elevator after Grace’s arrival. Busy with projects in the engineering campus Rocky had mostly avoided the biomedical wing for 330.757 sols until his current passion project had drawn him in 38.6 hexes ago. So far Eridian biologists seemed to be starstruck and stupid – the answer to two of those questions was common knowledge for goodness sake! Luckily for the kid, Rocky knew Grace and Adrian would have thought their fumbling was cute.

Rocky couldn’t quite contain himself when answering the third question – he was extremely excited for what the day ahead had in store!

Speeding up as he finally closed in on the seam bisecting the building, he began to hear where everyone was waiting up ahead through the open door. He politely waited till he actually entered the Eridian half of the lab before saying anything.

“Hello!” He called to Science-Human-Orlov and Researcher-Breccia. “Have you two thought up of any more ways to dawdle?” Rocky said, punctuating his question with two firm stomps.

“Star-Savior-Rocky^[2], while Researcher-Breccia admires, admires, admires Star-Savior-Rocky’s boldness, a known and celebrated quality of Star-Saviour-Rocky’s, the team of the Eridian-Human-Neuro-Engineering-Initiative believes every possible precaution must be taken!”, Researcher-Breccia began, waving their limbs anxiously, “While Scientist-Orlov is confident that Star-Savior-Rocky’s scans are in order, I, Researcher-Breccia, believe it would be prudent to run them a fourth ti-”

“Bah!”, Rocky interrupted, “Enough of this dilly-dallying! We’ve taken twice as many tests prior to starting my first trial compared to any of the other volunteers! If we take any longer, I fear that Scientist-Orlov here won’t live long enough to see the end of his own study!”

The Human chuckled even as Researcher-Breccia despaired at his half-joke, needlessly trying to reassure the man.

He’d been more than patient and was determined to get started. How could he wait a moment longer! Rocky was excite, excite, excite to be a test-subject in a cutting-edge Human-Eridian experiment!

Not letting himself be delayed any longer Rocky made his way to where equipment was laid out and began strapping on various sensors, forcing the listening assistants to jump in and help him.

He had volunteered as a test subject 3.42 hex’s ago, the first to do so but the last to be chosen. Everyone involved had been reluctant to perform an experimental procedure on the only remaining Star-Savior while simultaneously being unable to refuse him. So, they stalled instead, finding reasons to choose other participants for Eridian trials.

Trials in a study with the lofty goal of finally giving Eridian’s a light-sense.

How to interact and modify the inorganic brains of Eridian life to process new types of alien senses was a challenge scientists had spent dozens of hexades on. The first in a series of bold experiments had been to enhance a sense shared by both species, specifically bringing Eridian touch to Human levels. Scientists had done so by adapting Human techniques to program specialized worker cells paired with devices that simulated the sensory areas of the Eridian brain. Success had only come after regular collaboration with Humans had been established, but when it did it had been resounding. An inter-species research group had promptly been created and on the Eridian side of things the natural next step had been smell, which had been scandalously described to Rocky as a perpetual sort of enhanced tasting of the environment. As morbidly fascinating as that had sounded, everyone had known that the eventual goal of this field of research was to allow Eridian’s to experience that miraculous thing called sight.

All of it was truly amazing, the science beyond exciting and novel – Rocky knew both Adrian and Grace would have been endlessly fascinated.

Of course Rocky was too. He had jumped on the opportunity to participate as a technical consultant for the design of the cameras needed for this final step, having gained an interest in their design after living on the Hail Mary.

And slowly but surely, as techniques were advanced and refined, neuroengineer’s eventually managed to program the worker cells of Eridian animals to create thinking-structures capable of processing visual information received from Rocky’s cameras. These complicated neural structures were based on the brains of specialized creatures that hunted high in the atmosphere of Erid, where light could penetrate. Eventually, after a long period of fine tuning, the latest of these experiments was considered a complete success when deafened animal subjects were finally able to reliably navigate through well lit environments. And after undergoing rigorous review, Eridian trials had been approved 3.41 hexes ago.

Unfortunately, as was often the case in Rocky’s experience, things did not go smoothly. The creation of additional neural structures via the introduction of specialized worker cells went by without a hitch. Instead, it was the experience itself that had been the issue. Processing even the most simple forms of visual information caused high levels of stress and physical distress in volunteers which prompted the decision to suspend the trials.

Rocky wasn’t having that – he’d been curious about colours for 416.563 sols now. What was the point of old age if not the freedom to take risks? He was liable to drop dead at any moment, so there wasn’t even any risk of long-term harm.

And so, after throwing his weight around in three long thrums, Rocky had reluctantly been allowed to be the subject of a study he’d initially only been a technical consultant on.

For the past 4/6ths of a hex implanted worker cells had been hard at work, in a cavity grafted on to his thorax. Scans taken while he was sleeping showed that the new processing centre had been arranged successfully and the artificial light organ was functioning properly. Currently there was no input for his new thinking-structure to process but the lab had one of his cameras set up and ready to go.

The first step would be for Rocky to perceive ‘darkness’.

Researcher-Breccia continued to chat worriedly as they were ushered into the neighbouring room where the two groups of researchers would observe him through sound and infra-red cameras both. The camera Rocky had helped design used a sensor unable to detect wavelengths outside the range of human vision, so his perception of darkness would be unaffected.
Finally all at once, everyone was ready, and all that there was left was for him to turn on the camera.

“It’s time-go”, he said to make the Human researchers laugh, before flipping the switch.

It was absolutely bizarre.

It was black. He only knew that that was the right way to describe what he was seeing due to the amount of time he spent with Humans. This was all so impossibly alien – overwhelming, awesome, and unsettling all at once, not unlike hearing Grace for the first time. Rocky kept himself deliberately still as all five of his pumps began to speed up, working off the stress by sequentially stomping each of his limbs.

He was perceiving the lack of something he had never known. But it wasn’t… bad. Or good. It was too bizarre for him to have an opinion yet. A lot better than the dead silence of space at least, which he’d managed to deal with for over 67.68 hexes.

Why had previous volunteers reacted so dramatically, Rocky couldn’t help but wonder.

The strangest thing was how the area of …darkness was focused only in one direction with the rest of the world around him lacking the additional overlay. Of course, where the dark overlapped with his own senses, he could still make out the lab as normal underneath, but it gave him an intimate understanding of what it meant to ‘face’ in a certain direction. In the other room scientists anxiously looked on, both species having long given up gauging what his reactions meant.

With a flick he disengaged the camera – a mix of technologies built to ‘plug in’ to the box grafted on to his thorax.

This much he could handle.

“Not so bad, but I need to process.” he said with a decisive nod and stomp.

The head researcher couldn’t hold in a shriek of exasperation he noted with amusement.

“You must elaborate Star-Savior-Rocky! How can you say so little when you have experienced something so novel! And all Stat-Savior-Rocky has to say is that it is not bad! Is not bad good? Is not bad…”

He patiently waited out the spiel as the human scientists stared at her with bemusement as Researcher-Breccia gradually began overlapping words they’d never heard before. He knew he could handle a lot more discomfort and disorientation than this – he’d work his way up to yellow for sure.

Rocky didn’t state that out loud however, in fact he hadn’t told anyone of this secret goal of his. By now most everyone thought Eridian’s would have to stick to a monochrome palette with none of the previous volunteers being able to stomach colours. As unpleasant as a reaction like that sounded Rocky was determined to get a grasp of yellow at the very least. He wanted to understand dear, dear, Grace’s favorite colour!

“I’ll answer your questions after I’m done” Rocky interjected amusedly. “But first let’s try the darkness one more time.”

Settling in he knew this would take a long time, but if there was one thing he was sure of it was his own patience and persistence.