Chapter Text
“Hey, Rocky?”
“Am not playing human guessing game again.”
“Okay, first of all, I know you're lying. Second of all, that's not even what I was gonna ask.”
Grace is laying on the floor with its legs up against the wall. It insists this is comfortable - helping with blood flow in its body. Human biology is all about fluids and problems with those fluids. Higher-than-Earth gravity and suboptimal nutrition only makes this worse. At least it seems relaxed. More than usual, which isn't very.
“What is question?”
“Why did you become an engineer?”
“Why ask, question?”
“I dunno. Call it my natural curiosity.”
“Hm. Same for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Natural curiosity.” Fitting, since I’m taking apart one of the spare human science instruments for study. “I like knowing how things work, and fixing things that don’t work. Fun problems to solve. Even the hard ones. Rewarding.”
Grace had two spectrometers and finally agreed to let me dismantle one, so long as I could put it back together. The enclosure I designed to keep it from melting in my atmosphere is working well, even if the articulated claws I need to use are less dexterous than my own.
🎵♫ Add an additional degree of freedom to the wrist joints. ♫🎵
“Of course. Were you one of those kids that took apart the washing machine and made your parents mad?”
🎵♫ Hm. My xenonite suit still needs dexterity. The prototypes keep failing. They collapse inwards in Grace’s atmosphere. ♫🎵
“Parents not mad as long as I fix it. One worked in part of Engineering Cluster. Worked on ♬♭♪♫♬ magnet trains.”
It still did when I left Erid. A familiar pang tenses one of my hands. With deliberate effort, I release it. I tap the claws together five times to shake the feeling away.
“🎵𝄫♫𝄪♩♩ took me and hatchmates to work. Is common on Erid. A way to teach.”
“Oh! We have that on Earth, too. Kind of. “Take your child to work day,” though it usually is just one day. Maybe once a year.”
“Yes! We do often, part of education. Hatchmates were bored after a few trips. I begged to go back. Loved loved loved watching the work. How simple parts work together to make complex parts.”
I reposition the screwdriver in two artificial claws.
🎵♫ I can use slip rings to allow continuous roll. Don’t need a screwdriver in the enclosure if the wrists can do it on their own! Damn, I should have done that from the beginning. ♫🎵
Grace laughs while I sift through a container of spare materials.
🎵♫ Can I add similar arms to the suit? I would need to keep them in place while I roll. If I want to use them outside, it would limit what axes I could move about. Unless they can retract back into the suit. Hmmm. It still wouldn’t fix the real problem. ♫🎵
🎵♫ Grace is laughing! Good good good. ♫🎵
“What is funny, question?”
“I’m just imagining tiny Rocky following the other engineers around. You must have been adorable.”
I puff up. “Of course. Was adorable. Still am adorable!”
Grace laughs again. It’s a sound I can never get tired of. It has more tones, more variation than normal human speech. Less layered than Eridian sounds, but not that dissimilar. It was a delight to discover aliens express joy in the same way.
It also means Grace is happy. Sometimes. I can recognize its not-happy laughs; the same base components and air movements, but the tones aren’t right. Grace has been doing those a lot lately. I used to point them out more, but that makes Grace upset, and then we argue, and it’s the same argument every time. Futile.
🎵♫ Except when it’s so bad that I need Grace to stop doing that thing that it does, where it tries to pretend it is more okay than it is. ♫🎵
That isn’t now. We laugh together and I enjoy the harmony.
“Oh, Rocky,” Grace sighs in the way I’ve identified as ‘wistful.’ “You would have loved Mythbusters.”
“Myth ‘’what,’’ question?”
🎵♫ These slip rings are too big, I’ll have to make smaller ones. Don’t need to use up more xenonite. Any material that can survive in Grace’s atmosphere will do. ♫🎵
“Wait!”
I do not shriek, I simply let a little extra noise out of my vents. Grace, with very little of it, rolls itself over. It leans unsteady against the wall for a moment before it’s moving again, with more energy than I've seen in several cycles. I follow along the barrier, where it stops in front of its laptop.
“A thousand nerds who grew up on Discovery Channel worked on this ship. If all of the Fast and Furious sequels can be on here, then surely…”
Grace mutters to itself while typing on the computer keyboard, leaning heavily on its forearm. It must find what it’s looking for when it whoops in triumph.
“Rocky, clear your schedule.”
“Hm. Don’t know. Very very busy, you know. Like the last 1146.68 Earth cycles.”
“Hush. I’m about to blow your mind.”
I drop my parts and cycle the airlock for my ball. I can't help the extra bounce in my step when I follow it to the Not-Go-Crazy room.
“Stop! Stop video!”
“What’s up?”
“Human things in background. I want to look.”
I've sat through many Earth shows and movies at this point, all with varying levels of what I would call “interesting.” Valuable, perhaps, in the sense of cultural exchange. But that can be for the Eridian scholars, not me. Now, I’m happy I took the time to improve my screen reader sensitivity.
“We’ve barely made it past the intro,” Grace whines.
“Don’t care. Is interesting. I see Earth table of elements.” The air whistles out of my radiator. “Is that human skeleton, question?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“For decoration, I think. Oh, but they do use fake bones and ballistics gel to recreate body parts. I don’t think they do that in this episode, but I’ll find one of those.”
What? “Disgust. Disgust.”
“Okay, I’m pressing play again!”
“I am not finished!”
“Absolutely not. Humans made that up. Statement.”
“You really think people would do that? Go on television and tell lies?”
“Stand corrected. Human is no longer intelligent life. Human is Taumoeba to me.”
Grace does that thing where it “laughs itself stupid.” So much so it slides down to the floor where it was leaning against me.
“Single cell. No cells left for brains. Use explosion to clean truck? Why? For what? Will not work. Waste of time!”
“That's why it's a myth, Rock,” Grace wipes its eyes. It’s still laughing. “We aren't going around blowing up cement trucks for fun. It's like, a random thing one guy supposedly tried, and someone told someone else, yadda yadda. Oral history.”
So many human things explode. The ships they launch into space explode for several minutes! Stupid oxygen atmosphere. If Grace didn’t need it, I would purge every oxygen molecule from this ship.
The episode ends with humans blowing up a cement truck for fun. I shove my screen reader as close as I can. Holy shit.
“Where did truck GO? Nothing left!”
“Right?!”
“Impossible. Words of disbelief. Amaze!” I tap the barrier, miming the way Grace taps the keyboard to control the screen. “Rewind! Play again!”
“Okay, so pirates are— or, were? I think there are still pirates around? But they’re basically sea criminals. They travel around on boats and, you know, steal stuff. Usually from other boats.”
“Understand. We don’t have Eridian word for sea-criminal.”
“Right. You guys don’t really do boats, do you?” Grace has its eyes towards me from the floor, where it started laying down and didn’t stop.
“Use oceans to make Astrophage. Many missions have been sent for research. Some on surface and some deep, to ocean floor. But always use robots operated from ground. Only crazy Eridian would put themselves on top of big ocean on purpose.”
“Sure. I guess you guys sinking in water would make that more intimidating.”
“Of course sink in water. What do you mean, question?”
“Well, humans float in water. Most of us, anyway. Of course not knowing how to swim is still—”
“Wait. What the fuck? Question?”
“Hey.”
“Apology. What the fuck. Statement.”
Grace makes one of its nose-air sounds. “We’ve talked about swimming before, haven’t we?”
“Yes, but must swim to stay afloat, yes? Large effort?”
“Well, yeah, but floating is part of swimming. I guess? We can float pretty easily. Humans are less dense than water on average.”
“No. Grace is lying.”
“Promise I’m not! Some parts of the body are denser than water, but others aren’t. Lungs are mostly full of air, for example. Balance all the forces, and the buoyancy wins out.”
Hm. Yes. Okay. Understand.
🎵♫ What the fuck! ♫🎵
“I would show you if I could. They might go swimming in this episode? I can’t remember. If they don’t, I’ll find an example for you.”
“Fine. There are enough myths about pirates for entire episode, question?”
“Oh buddy, you don’t even know. Pirates are kind of a whole thing. There’s TWO episodes in this season about pirates.”
“Ohh. Pirates are a ‘whole thing.’ Statement.”
Grace falls asleep seventeen and a half minutes into the episode. I don’t wake it. Nothing is tangibly wrong. Not more than usual. But the sound of its steady breaths soothes something in me, something that is perpetually strained and has been for some time.
Humans swim for fun. Fascinating. I hope Grace does not ask to do this on Erid.
If Grace did, I would make it happen. Which is why I hope it does not ask.
🎵♫ I already started schematics for an Earth beach. Open water. Of course it’s going to swim in it. Ugh. Maybe I will also make it a boat. ♫🎵
“Remember when we talked about human space exploration? The Apollo Program and all that?”
Grace is still laying down, with its feet propped up on my ball. I complain about this, but do not stop it.
“Of course I remember. Humans do much space exploration before Eridians.”
“Right. This episode is about theories on why the moon landing was actually fake.”
“Why would moon landing be fake?”
Grace sighs. “Because people are stupid.”
This is my favorite episode so far. Even – especially – when they talk about human light sense and “shadows” and “reflections.” The texture changes on my screen, but I know it’s not the same thing. I lament once again that humans can observe it. Biologically!
“Image very fuzzy. Hard to see on screen reader.”
“These are recordings from the actual moon landing. Cameras weren’t as good back then.”
“Old cameras very bad. And space suits very different from Grace’s. More bulk. Helmet different shape.”
🎵♫ The xenonite isn’t the problem. It’s the bonding between the panels. Joints need smaller panels to increase flexibility. But more corners create more stress concentrations. Human space suits use bellows. ‘Constant volume joints.’ Can xenonite utilize that geometry to spread the load? ♫🎵
“Yeah. You know, it’s a small miracle those suits worked as well as they did. Moon dust is super abrasive. It could have punctured the suits under the right conditions. The Apollo astronauts even—”
I hiss in a way that I’ve learned means ‘be quiet.’ I can’t shape the sound the same way Grace can with its teeth, but I know Grace knows what I mean. “Show-humans are explaining again. One English at a time is bad enough.”
“Hey, I’m also explaining. And you’re the one who started talking. You shhh!”
“🎵! Pause video or shush! Statement!”
We pause the video thirty seven seconds later to discuss moon landing ship design. Erid sent a probe to study Astrophage, and the Tau Ceti ship, of course. Humans landed and walked on the surface of their moon. Multiple times!
“—was easier to leave those behind, so all of the descent modules are still on the Moon. Well, except for Apollo 13, I guess…”
“What happened to thirteen, question?”
“Oh, boy…”
Three Wikipiedia articles and one white board drawing later, we resume the episode.
🎵♫ Of course their damage was caused by an oxygen tank explosion. Again with the fucking oxygen! ♫🎵
New word: gelatinous. The fake human models that show-humans make are very gelatinous. Erid has a vaguely similar material used for adhesive, but not the same. We pause again and follow the small-earth-animal-hole to gelatin (disgust) and a human “food” called Jell-O (Big Disgust).
🎵♫ Gelatin is not strong in tension or compression, but it absorbs shock very well. Very useful. But I need a source of collagen. The only source of collagen in several trillion miles is sitting right next to me. So, maybe not. ♫🎵
“God, what I wouldn’t give for blue raspberry Jell-O right now.”
“Does not seem nutritious.”
“Not really. Just tastes good.”
Grace has that wistful tone again. I tap gently where his head is close to the xenonite. It taps back.
🎵♫ Find Jell-O recipe on human computer. Scientists can make it on Erid. Could Taumoeba be used as a base? They jiggle in similar ways. Eugh. ♫🎵
“Well, those are the episodes I specifically remember.”
“How many episodes, question?”
“Oh, a ton. There’s like fifteen seasons.”
I sing in excitement. “We start from beginning. Watch fun science show!”
Grace starts to talk, but is interrupted by beeping from its watch. I tap in acknowledgement.
“Grace eat, then more science show.”
“Man. Now I’m thinking about Jello-O. Taumoeba is kind of like Jello-O if everything about it was terrible. Like if something crawled up and died in it.”
“Grace must kill Taumoeba before eating it. So, something is dead in it. Technically.”
“Ugh. Please don’t remind me.”
🎵♫ Correction: find something that isn’t Taumoeba to make Jell-O. ♫🎵
I push against its back. “Grace eat, statement. Then we watch more science show. Go! Do for science! Do for Rocky!”
“Okay, okay!” Grace makes one of those placating gestures with its hands, but I push it out into the hall anyway. While it’s gone, I think about xenonite and adhesives.
When Grace comes back, it has two of its heavier sleep covers. Good. Smart. It positions one to sit on, and uses the other to wrap around its shoulders.
And me. It doesn’t have to do that for my sake; I’m not the one who has trouble with temperature regulation. But I’m a “great space heater.” Especially under a blanket. It ever so slightly fuzzes 210 degrees of my hearing. But I can clearly observe the fun science show, and Grace where it leans against me and promises that it won’t fall asleep.
“Alright. From the top this time!”
🎵♫ It fell asleep. But I can watch Grace and fun science show at the same time. ♫🎵