Archive of Our Own

“This is a terrible idea.”

It’s a well known fact that I hate planets. They are always full of hazards that make my job harder, like human eating fauna, poisonous vegetation, or weather related dangers. Take our last on-planet mission, where the snowstorms were so bad that Iris and I had to camp out in a cave for 2.5 cycles and I had to have a third of my organic skin replaced due to frostbite.

"Seth has already accepted the mission and we are scheduled to leave in 6 cycles. No one is forcing you to join us."

While that was technically true, I was free to turn down jobs from the university, ART knew I wouldn’t sit this one out. For one thing, it was a long mission. Even with wormhole travel it would likely take at least 50 cycles one way, and I couldn’t sit at the university station that long without going stir crazy (I might also even manage to miss ART in that amount of time, but I would never tell it that). The other thing was that this mission seemed particularly dangerous. The goal was to travel to a planet well outside the Corporation Rim that was clearly uninhabitable for humans. The atmosphere was both extremely toxic and unimaginably hot, so it had never been of interest to any corporations or settlers. Now however, some scientist on the newsfeeds claimed to have evidence of precious metals on this planet, so corporations were lining up ships to be the first to claim whatever resources might be available.

I sighed. I wanted to argue more, but there wasn’t any point. ART had some say in the types of missions it was assigned, but it was ultimately still university property, so if the university really wanted this and Seth had already agreed then it couldn’t say no without a compelling argument. We did long cargo runs and dangerous missions regularly, so this wasn’t too far outside of our normal conditions. I just really didn’t want to go to another awful planet.

“I’m going to go on campus and see if I can find some more new media downloads. We are going to need it.”

—————

45 cycles into the trip we were all going stir crazy. I was almost looking forward to reaching our destination planet and getting to stretch our legs a bit (at least until I remembered the dangers we were likely walking into). During the trip Ratthi, Iris, and ART had attempted to piece together what little info we had about our destination planet to aid in our mission. The information was extremely sparse, and there were a few inconsistencies that seemed suspicious.

The timeline wasn’t clear (partly because when dealing with planets outside of the Corporation Rim everyone measures units of time differently), but there were a handful of old newbursts that mentioned the planet in a positive light, something about planets working together to solve problems. Shortly after those however, there appeared to be a slew of CR-funded propaganda that basically said nevermind that silly planet, let’s celebrate all the corporations that are the real heroes. Based on what they found, Iris and Ratthi were convinced that someone had made contact with the planet in the past, but that for some reason it was covered up by higher ups in the Corporation Rim.

“If this planet is actually inhabited this could be an amazing source of historical information that hasn’t been corrupted by the Corporation Rim. We could make another documentary!” Exclaimed Ratthi.

“If the planet is inhabited there is no reason to think they want visitors, we should assume any sapients we discover are hostile.” I added.

Iris glared at me and said something about my glass always being half empty (I don’t drink liquids so I don’t know), but did admit that we would need to be cautious. We would do as much investigation on-board as we could before attempting to go planet side. In addition to potential hostile occupants, the planet itself was likely to kill us. The planet was large, which meant gravitational forces would be intense, with pressures that would basically crush all the soft parts of a human or construct. Not to mention the suspected high temperatures and extremely toxic atmosphere. ART was working on some special evac suits for us, but we wouldn’t really know the exact conditions until we got there. I trusted ART, but I wasn’t looking forward to being a test subject in such a harsh environment, now with the added threat of possible hostile inhabitants. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

————-

Cycle 53 of the mission and we still hadn’t made it down to the planet. We had arrived on schedule (actually slightly ahead which ART had initially been smug about), but ran into roadblocks as soon as we got close to the planet. The first problem was the atmosphere. We already knew it would be toxic. What we didn’t know was that it was also almost fully opaque, so none of our long distance scanners were useful. ART had sent out its pathfinders to start collecting data, but they have to get quite close to the terrain for their scans to be effective, and with a planet this size it would take weeks to scan the full surface. The second problem was the satellites. Or the maybe satellites.

When we arrive at uninhabited planets it’s not surprising to find a bunch of space debris orbiting the planet. I don’t really know how space works, but ART says that gravity from planets, especially big planets like this one, can cause nearby objects to get pulled into orbit. The problem here is that we weren’t seeing much small debris like we would expect, but instead we came across multiple larger objects that couldn’t be definitively identified (Martyn joked that they were “unidentified flying objects” or UFOs which seemed like a reasonable name to me). We were coming in range of one of these objects now.

“I can see one on our radar now. Peri, are you getting any signals from it?” Seth asked.

“Nothing in our typical ranges.” It paused for 0.3 seconds before adding, “a full range review has identified 1 anomaly, but it may just be interference.” It played a sound over the comms that mostly sounded like static but had a very slight melodic undertone. Without augmented hearing I wasn’t sure the humans would be able to detect anything besides static, but Ratthi surprised me by catching it.

“Is that music? Is this a sign of habitation?” His excitement was obvious (that makes one of us I guess).

ART kept me from saying something snarky by responding quickly, “we do not have enough data to jump to that conclusion”, just as it caught an alert from one of the pathfinders.

Oh shit.

I felt ART hesitate for 0.05 of a second before sharing the image to the lounge screens. Even at relatively close range the pathfinders were inhibited by the hazy atmosphere, and so far all of the rendered images we had seen just looked like rocky surfaces in various shades of browns and reds without much detail. This scan looked mostly the same, lots of blurry cliffs and boulders, but it had just come across an area that looked suspiciously like a small colony air-bubble.

“Do we have enough data now?” Ratthi asked.

ART bristled and I had to suppress a smirk.

—————-

After trying a few more scans of the bubble it was apparent that we wouldn’t be able to get any additional info from the pathfinders. Even if the dome itself was clear, the opaque gases surrounding it made it impossible to see inside without being right up against the side. It was decided that we would send in one reconnaissance shuttle to get a closer view. Obviously it should have just been me, and possibly ART’s ops drone, but of course several humans tagged along. We put on the specially made uniforms that ART had made to go under the reinforced evac suits. I doubted they would help much, if our evac suits failed we would probably be dead before we even knew what happened, but the uniforms were nice and the material felt good on my organic skin so I didn’t argue. I got in the shuttle with Tarik and Iris. Ratthi was still half-heartedly arguing that he should join too, but given his penchant for finding hazardous fauna it was decided that he should stay behind on this first (and hopefully last) visit.

I was just about to ping ART impatiently when it stepped into the shuttle bay in its upgraded ops drone. It had added some thicker metal plating to the carapace and protective coating to the visible legs, which made its spider-esque form a bit more imposing. The coating material also appeared to have a slight blue tint which I didn’t hate.

“Looking good, Peri” said Tarik cheerfully. ART did a quick 360 degree turn on its way into the shuttle to show off before boarding with us. Fuck, it was really good at making a dramatic entrance (not that I would ever admit that). (It definitely already knew).

Your heart rate is elevated, it said on our private feed.

I couldn’t deny anything when it could measure the values itself so I just said, I’m traveling to a dangerous planet with one of your favorite humans, no shit my heart rate is elevated.

Of course, it said, while gracefully making its way to the pilot’s seat.

—————

I was just starting a second episode of Sanctuary Moon when ARTbotpilot alerted that we were approaching the surface. I knew the visual data would be limited, but even at this close distance we couldn’t see anything through the cameras. Thankfully our scanning functions did work and ARTdrone was able to translate the data into a visual for the humans. We were hovering about 20 meters over what appeared to be relatively flat rock and we could “see” the vertical surface of the dome about 50 meters in front of us.

I got my evac suit on while Iris prepared a soft drop for me so I could check the landing area. Tarik sent me an awkward encouragement sigil and I stepped into the airlock. I leaned my body past the air barrier before jumping down. I could feel a slight pressure on my limbs but the suit appeared to be holding. ART sent me a pointed ping, probably for doubting its suit upgrades, but I took it as a sign to jump. I landed sooner than I expected and not very smoothly given the bulky suit, but at least my crew couldn’t see me. I placed the sensor at my feet and started using the handheld tester Iris had given me. The sensor results looked like natural rock, not much different than we have encountered on other planets, though it did have higher than usual levels of several heavy metals. I sent the results back to the shuttle and indicated that I was going to move towards the bubble. It was disconcerting not being able to see anything around me, and I really hated that I couldn’t use drones here, but ART was directing me using the data from the shuttle scans. It stopped me about a meter away from the bubble wall. I still couldn’t see anything which was… not great. I thought about sticking my arm out and seeing if I could feel anything, but for some reason that reminded me of my whole false memory thing and hostiles eating my limbs so I decided against it. Instead I picked up a small rock and tossed it in front of me. I was expecting the small sound an air barrier makes when you step through, but instead it hit a hard surface with a loud clang and bounced back at me causing threat assessment to absolutely lose its shit. Once I realized I was not in imminent danger from a fucking pebble I managed to actually do something useful and inched forward enough to get the handheld tester up against the bubble (wall?). I sent the results to the shuttle.

This result makes no sense. The identified component is a gas. ART insisted.

I don’t know what to tell you, it’s your tester. I said, mostly to piss it off.

I felt ART ruffle in the feed before responding, return to the shuttle so we can regroup. We will land at your original drop coordinates.

Yeah that probably made sense, but I was so close to the dome right now. If I could just see it maybe I could confirm it’s just more rocks and we can go home. I sent a noncommittal acknowledgement then took another step forward and pressed my helmet against the wall. The good news was that the dome actually was clear up close. The bad news was that this planet is definitely inhabited. I shared my visual inputs with the team feed (I share drone feed fairly often but I don’t frequently share the view from my eyes, Amena told me once it was terrifying, but that was admittedly not an ideal situation). I could see what looked like liquid water on a rocky beach as well as several buildings and a structure that looked somewhat like a stage near one of edges of the dome. I was considering walking in that direction to try to get a better view when ARTdrone frantically pinged me and said the shuttle was picking up movement above baseline levels. The scan indicated the objects were approaching from the stage area, so I started running towards the shuttle and away from the movement. Normally my max speed is much faster than the unidentified objects (UOs? I couldn’t tell if they were flying or not), but with no visuals and the fact that I had stepped out of my original path to get a view into the dome, I couldn’t count on a clear path back to the shuttle. I only made it about 20 meters before I tripped on another damn rock and fell face first onto the surface. Disoriented, I tried to get up quickly but without my route data from the walk out I kept tripping on things in my path. I was within 5 meters of the shuttle when I fell again and ART practically screamed my name into the feed. I flipped to my back and tried to get up but found I was now trapped under a heavy rock. Was this one of the UOs? It seemed like it was moving on top of me which made no sense. I tried to push it off of me but two more weights felt like they crawled onto my arms. Was this really how I was going to die? Meters from my shuttle being crushed by hostile rocks?

I heard the hiss of the shuttle airlock opening and yelled at whoever it was to go back inside. It turned out to be ARTdrone, who obviously ignored my request and came rushing to me with a stream of loud and creative curses (note to self, if I don’t die I want to save some of those for use later). To my surprise, the weight on my chest actually lifted and I felt it scuttle down my legs and off of me. It was quickly replaced by ARTdrone who was still shouting a variety of warnings and expletives at anything that might dare touch me. I grabbed the drone’s body and pulled it towards me which startled it and made it pause its rant long enough to hear the noise around us. It was the same musical sound we picked up from the satellite, and it was coming from the rocks?

With the movement and increasingly loud music coming from them I was able to roughly estimate the location of the rocks. Hostiles? Targets? Honestly I wasn’t sure so rocks is fine I guess. There appeared to be at least 5 of them in a semicircle a few meters from my feet. I held onto ARTdrone and scrambled to my feet with some difficulty (the suit was bulky and the drone was heavier than normal due to the additional layers). I shuffled backwards toward the shuttle while ART resumed its torrent of threats in its ominous supervillain voice (you might think that would be less intimidating coming from its smaller ops drone, especially while it was clamped to my chest like a parasitic insect, but you would be wrong). The rocks seemed to understand the message and backed further away as well which allowed me to make it to the airlock. I expected the bot pilot to lift us up as soon as we were inside but instead was greeted by Tarik shouting something untranslatable and sweary.

“We have a problem” he said. Yeah, no shit, we have several problems right now. “There was a gap in the insulation covering one of the engine starter modules and the high temperature seems to have damaged it.” Apparently there had been high temperature warnings while I was outside being held down by rocks, and of course the humans didn’t take that as a sign to get the hell out of here and save themselves (this is part of why I cared about my humans, but it was also extremely annoying). The shuttle scanner showed the objects retreating back towards the biodome which was good, but didn’t change the fact that we were now stuck on this dangerous planet until our shuttle could be fixed or someone else put themselves in danger to come get us.

Iris interrupted my panicking and said, “Peri, you are going to lose your mind if we don’t come back into range in a few hours.” She was talking about prime, but the drone responded.

“I have already attached a message bundle to the nearest pathfinder with details on our status and the shuttle failure so it can ensure the other shuttle is not susceptible to the same issue.”

“Can we fix this shuttle with the parts we have on board?” she asked.

“Unfortunately without additional heat shielding we will likely do more damage to the electronics while attempting the repair. I am also not comfortable allowing any crew members to go outside while there are potential hostiles in the area.”

So that was great, our plan was to wait inside the shuttle until more of our crew came and put themselves at risk for us. I was still suited up and briefly considered going back outside to evaluate the damage myself when ARTdrone pulled hard at my feed and caused me to physically flinch. I don’t know how it knew what I was thinking, but it glared at me until I sent an acknowledgement.

While we waited in the shuttle the humans talked excitedly about the implications of possibly finding alien life on this planet, and ARTdrone attempted to interpret the audio it had recorded while we were outside with the potential aliens. It didn’t have a translation module for the noises we heard, but it was able to parse out a few words based on the interactions between the objects themselves and their responses to ART’s yelling. I know ART is really smart, but I wasn’t overly confident in its translation abilities because so far the words it had identified didn’t make much sense. It insisted that several of the rocks had said “like grace” repeatedly and used other words I wouldn’t expect them to know like “oxygen” and “human”.

I was arguing with ART about its clearly biased translation modules when we noted a new moving object on the shuttle scan. It was slightly larger than the previous objects and heading towards us. There wasn’t much we could do other than watch it approach. I convinced Iris and Tarik to take cover in the rest area and stationed myself just outside the door while ARTdrone latched itself onto some of the shuttle controls (we couldn’t fly but it might be able to bump the intruder if they were hostile, for whatever good that might do). It approached the shuttle cautiously and essentially knocked on the airlock near the entrance. We didn’t open the lock because fuck no, but it seemed to expect that and placed an object on the ground by the shuttle before shuffling away.

My first thought was that it was probably an explosive device, so I got my evac suit on quickly thinking I could grab it and get it as far away from the shuttle as possible. ART didn’t love that plan and informed me that the scans showed the new item to be inert and made out of the same gaseous material the dome was made out of somehow. ART didn’t have to put on any protective gear so it raced out of the airlock before I could finish putting on my suit. It was an asshole and knew I wouldn’t leave the humans inside alone, but it did give me access to several of its limb sensors so I could get its data in real time. It converted the data into a visual representation for the humans and sent it to the group feed. The item looked similar to a decorative object I had seen on Amena’s shelf once. Though that one was full of liquid and had little flakes that would float if you shook the item. This one was a hollow, clear, half dome and inside were two figures, a large human form and the a smaller spider shape.

Do you think they're inviting you into the biodome? asked Iris.

Why would they invite a strange construct and drone into their habitat? For all they knew we were dangerous murderers with guns in our arms and no sense of proportional response (I’ll let you guess which of us was which). ART came partway back inside as we saw the UO moving back towards us. It tapped on the airlock again, and since I was finally in my evac suit I decided to join ARTdrone in the airlock. Even from this distance I couldn’t get a good visual, but between my audio inputs and the drone/shuttle scans we were able to piece together a rendering. It appeared to be in a protective casing and had a general shape similar to the ops drone with a central carapace and several supporting limbs. It was significantly bulkier however, and asymmetrical in a way that made it seem much more organic than any of ART’s drones. It was also excitedly gesturing in the direction of the biodome while emitting a series of whistling noises.

It looks like it wants you to follow it said Iris from the rest area. Then she added helpfully, maybe it needs our help?

I still didn’t trust ART’s translations at all, but it claimed that the creature’s vocalizations did not appear to be hostile and both of our weapons scans suggested it was unarmed. ART tentatively admitted, Iris may be correct, its body language and tones are in line with someone requesting assistance.

Ugh. We were going to have to go back out there. I double checked the projectile weapon strapped to my suit and grabbed a short length of rope. I tied one end around the narrowest portion of the ARTdrone’s carapace and attached the other end to my evac suit. It was probably overkill given that ART then latched onto my torso using several of its limbs, but it still made me feel a little better about walking into the open with no visual inputs.

Once we got outside the alien bounced on its lower limbs in a way that reminded me of Mensah’s smaller children when they were excited, then gestured again in the direction of the dome. We had to walk along the circumference of the dome for about 20 minutes before we reached our destination. It was an airlock. I sent ARTdrone a generic query which basically translated to, are we really doing this?, to which it responded with an affirmative. We stepped into the airlock and I felt the pressure on my suit and joints lifting as the air cycled. We stepped inside and I was immediately overwhelmed with visual stimuli. It was like we were suddenly on another planet. ARTdrone had jumped down and was currently examining the ground cover and asking questions about the elemental make up and atmosphere (I’m not sure how much of the responses it could understand, but definitely more than me). I didn’t really care about the composition of the dirt we were standing on so I took a moment to finally look at our guide with my eyes. It was wearing a protective suit like we thought, but it turned out that the suit was actually clear, just like the biodome. Inside it basically looked like a small boulder connected to 5 limbs made out of smaller rocks. It was mostly brown, with some visible striations on its carapace and some green mineral looking patches on several of its limbs. I’ve seen a lot of aliens in my media and I had never seen anything like this.

It directed us to continue walking towards one of the interior structures that looked suspiciously like human housing. The front door was wide open which threat assessment didn’t like at all. I considered grabbing my projectile weapon when a voice called out the window of the building.

“Rocky, I’ll be right down!” the voice said in an language that my translation module identified as an older variant of the Corporation Rim standard.

The creature, Rocky, I guess, did the leg bouncing thing again then took off toward the house. I stepped closer to ARTdrone but didn’t go any closer to the building. I was thinking maybe we should turn back while we had the chance when Rocky came back outside supporting the oldest human I had ever seen. There was no feed access here, so I couldn’t see any information, but the human waved and gestured for us to come forward while Rocky helped them into a chair.

“I didn’t believe the kids when they said they found a human”, they glanced at me and then ARTdrone quickly, “though it’s hard to say with that suit on.”

ARTdrone had sent me the atmospheric details when we came in and it appeared the air was breathable, but it seemed like a good idea to keep my suit on in case we needed to make a quick exit. After a few awkward seconds I caved and unlatched my helmet so the human could see my face.

They gasped and immediately started sobbing in a way that made me extremely uncomfortable.

“Um, are you okay?” I asked uselessly.

The human sniffled and wiped their nose on their sleeve which was gross. “Yes, yes, I’m fine, I just can’t believe it. I never thought I’d see another human again.”

I almost told them that I’m not a human but ARTdrone poked me and spoke up instead. “Are you in need of assistance? Your companion was insistent that we come.”

The human looked startled, like it didn’t realize the drone could talk, but adjusted quickly. “No, I think he was just excited for me to see another human. I hope it means we saved Earth. Though how would you have gotten here? Were you a teenager when you left? Even with the time dilation you look really young to have made that journey. I considered going back once my ship was fixed but I wasn’t sure if I could make the trip a second time.”

I realized the human was now talking to me but I wasn’t sure how to respond. I had heard of Earth before, but only that it was one of the earliest planets in the CR. I had never even been there, presumably because the planet was already fully mined for resources. I had also never really been a teenager, at least not in the way humans think of it. I looked to ART for help.

“I believe our journey was likely shorter than yours.” ART replied. It was rapidly pulling together a timeline in our shared feed space trying to connect this old human to the news bursts we had found. It was extremely convoluted because of the way light speed travel used to work before wormholes, but it sort of made sense. “Would you be interested in speaking with the rest of our crew?”

“There are more humans here? I would love to meet them.” The human’s eyes started leaking again. “Oh, I guess I haven’t actually met you yet, my name is Ryland, but most of the Eridians call me Grace.”

ART poked me triumphantly. What do you think of my translation modules now?

————-

Iris and Tarik joined us in the biodome and the humans talked excitedly for hours. They learned that the old human, Grace, had been sent on a mission to address a problem with his planet’s primary star. During the course of that mission he had met his rock friend, who was trying to save his own planet’s primary. I guess they worked together and figured it out, but by the time their data made it back to the human planet, the Corporation Rim was just forming and whatever team Grace had previously been working with was eventually ousted by corporates.

It was actually really depressing if I thought about it too hard. This human had been sent on a mission where he did a great job achieving the mission objectives and literally saved a galaxy’s worth of stars, but had his data stolen by corporates and was left to die in space. He also had the misfortune of traveling just before wormhole technology took off, and had spent years in space where it would have only taken a few months at most now. Humans don’t like to be alone for long periods (I know, it’s weird), and imagining one of my humans going through what Grace went through made me feel an emotion I didn’t want to name right now.

After awhile the humans took a break from talking and decided to eat a meal together. I took that as an opportunity to leave a few drones and then do a perimeter sweep of the habitat. I identified a few minor safety concerns, mostly tripping hazards associated with rocks or plants. The only significant risk seemed like the artificial water feature, so I decided to sit between it and the humans. I had barely started an episode of Sanctuary Moon when ARTdrone pinged me.

I thought you were busy working on your translation module with the alien. I said gruffly.

I would like to review some dialect discrepancies with other Eridians, but it is complete otherwise. There were a handful of regional phrases I could not translate directly though. For example, Rocky kept instructing me to “fist my bump” while pointing a limb at me. It was extremely odd behavior.

I shrugged my shoulders. It wasn’t any weirder than things our humans do.

Don’t you think it’s more strange that the Eridians built this whole habitat for one human? The humans who had sent him clearly considered him disposable, but the Eridians welcomed him to their planet and built him a home.

ART paused longer than necessary before responding, people do irrational things to protect the ones they care about.

—————

We ended up staying on the planet for several more cycles. ARTprime had upgraded a second shuttle and sent down a few more crew members and some spare parts to fix the first one. Though that turned out to be unnecessary because the Eridians fixed our shuttle in a matter of minutes once we explained the failure. For a planet with basically no feed access, the Eridians had some amazing tech for building and transportation. They also had some impressive stealth weapons on hand if any hostile corporates tried to visit. Apparently those satellites we came across on our way in were also dual purpose long range weapons. Why they didn’t shoot us on sight still didn’t make sense to me, but I wasn’t complaining.

Our humans stayed busy recording interviews, collecting samples, and doing supply drops to replenish the biodome. I stayed busy keeping them from getting lost or killed anytime they left the habitat (the biodome itself was actually pretty safe, threat assessment was only in the low 20’s while inside, which might be the lowest I’ve ever seen it while in the presence of humans).

Eventually Seth decided we had done all we could on this trip and it was time to start our return journey. We needed to publish the data we had found quickly to discourage corporations from venturing here (it turns out there weren’t precious metals on this planet but instead heavy metals. I guess those are different.) Ratthi also got his wish, and we planned to pull together Grace and Rocky’s story and make another documentary. With the long wormhole trip and access to ARTprime’s archives this time it was likely to be a lot better than the video we made for the Adamantine colonists.

Several members of our crew tried to convince Grace to join us and come back to the university. He seemed conflicted, but ultimately declined the offer. Everyone he cared about on his home planet was likely long gone and he was comfortable here. Though I wasn’t sure how he would survive on a planet with such limited media options.

After a few final checks, and one last connection to the Eridian satellites (ART had uploaded its translation module to their satellite system so they could communicate with any future ships that might drop by) we were finally all on board and preparing to exit the system. I was in my favorite chair in the argument lounge when Iris clumsily dropped herself onto one of the sofas the way humans do when they are in need of a rest period.

“Thanks for joining on this mission SecUnit. I know you don’t love going to planets but I’m glad you were here.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, I was just doing my job, and no one even shot me this time, so I just said “sure”.

“I think it was a really valuable trip, but I’m a little surprised that Grace decided to stay. I thought for sure he would want to go back to his home system. Personally I cannot wait to be home.”

At this point several other crew members had started filtering in, so I sent Iris an acknowledgment and got up to leave. On my walk back to my cabin I thought about what she had said. I wasn’t actually surprised that the human had decided to stay. It wasn’t a typical setup for a human, but Grace didn’t really have a reason to leave. He had found people who cared about him and would go to great lengths to keep him safe.

The door to my cabin closed behind me and I glanced around the room. Like Grace, it was not a typical setup, but I had also found people who cared about me and did nonsensical things to keep me safe (often involving more danger and violence than Grace’s people, but that felt oddly appropriate). So while I understood what Iris meant, I couldn’t really relate. I didn’t have to wait to go home, I was already there.