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“Grace have ♪♫, question?”
Grace blinks at Rocky over his morning cup of taumoeba slurry. “What?”
There are very few things to do after many years stuck in space other than contemplate suicide and jerk off. The whole novelty of the unexplored universe had worn off sometime in between the first time Grace ruminated on what it would feel like to open up the airlock and asphyxiate in the vacuum of space and the last time he’d done so—sometime just before a certain alien life form had crawled his way into Grace’s ship (and heart).
It’s nice to have company. Mary doesn’t seem so quiet or large with Rocky around. Grace’s mornings begin with incessant tapping right by his ear—a built in best friend alarm clock. The two spend the day exchanging cultural knowledge and planning for their (eventual) arrival to Erid. At night, Grace sleeps, safe and sound, under Rocky’s watchful eye (or lack thereof).
Rocky helps keep Grace sane most of the time—a definitive emphasis on most, because more often than not Rocky’s researcher curiosity gets the best of him (consider: point number two on Grace’s stuck-in-space to-do list—the morbid embarrassment of jerking off under explicit scientific scrutiny).
Most of the time, Grace pushes his way through mortifying explanations of taboo cultural norms with an awkward laugh or a mild blush. Most of the time, Rocky pushes until he gets the answer he’d like.
Today is a day like any other. Grace wakes up to the banging of Rocky’s xenonite ball against his bed frame. He trips over a cable on his way out of the sleeping quarters, and Rocky spends several minutes lamenting over the fragile, squishy nature of humans. Grace makes himself his terrible breakfast as Rocky decides on the nature of the morning’s information trade.
It’s early morning—as far as Grace is concerned, anyway, because time is funny when you’re floating in space trillions of miles away from home and home’s chronology. It’s early morning and Grace is only halfway through his cup of horrible sludge when Rocky asks if he has sex.
As a fellow researcher, he gets it. An hour prior, Grace had been sitting through a lengthy discussion on Eridian courting rituals, community structures, and the intricate process of egg laying. He’d absorbed the information eagerly, desperate to acquire as much knowledge of Eridian life as possible before they arrive.
As Ryland Grace, however, he would very much prefer tucking himself away in the “don’t go crazy room” to, evidently, do just that.
“♪♫,” Rocky repeats. “Human reproductive act, Grace told me about, stupid stupid human not forget—“
“Okay,” Grace says, with feeling. “I heard you.”
Rocky clicks impatiently. “Answer.”
“Why are you asking?”
Rocky clicks again like Grace really is stupid. “Talk about Eridian mates. Now Rocky want know about human mates. Grace say he have mate before. In human reproductive process mates have ♪♫ to make child.”
“I don’t have a child,” Grace protests.
“Grace have many children.”
“Students. I have—had,” he corrects, “many students. They’re my kids but they’re not, uh, mine.”
“Okay. No children,” Rocky says. “But Grace had mate. Mates have ♪♫, and Grace self ♪♫ sometimes.”
“Christ,” Grace says. The embarrassment of point number two may very well reopen the door (or, God willing, the airlock) to point number one.
There are very few things to do after many, many years spent in and out of futile relationships other than contemplate the loneliness of human existence and jerk off. Grace has wasted enough time on both activities—sometimes at the same time—to understand why he omitted the translation for ♪♫ in the first place. The vastness of space can only do so much for uprooting social conditioning, and Ryland Grace is simply one man.
The xenonite ball clatters across the floor as Rocky moves closer. He peers up at Grace. If he had eyebrows, Grace imagines they’d be narrowed. He amuses himself with the visual of it for a moment.
“Heart rate elevated. Grace embarrassed by ♪♫. Humans so emotional. No embarrassment in science. Answer Rocky’s question.”
Grace sighs. There’s little else to do but relent. Rocky isn’t going anywhere, and neither can he; they’re stuck on the same ship, after all, in the same nothingness of space. The taumoeba sloshes around uncomfortably in its cup as Grace sets it down on the nearest available surface.
With great effort, he says, “Yes, some humans do have sex. It’s considered normal in human culture to have sex with each other—with mates, sure, but even strangers.”
“Or self, like Grace.”
“That’s—“ Grace stops, rubbing blearily at his eyes. They really can’t get into that right now—not again. “Yeah.”
“Grace say some humans. What mean, question?”
“Most humans,” he amends. “The majority of humans do.”
Rocky mulls this over for a moment. Then, “What about not-most, question?”
It’s a terribly loaded question. Grace thinks about Earth, about Linda and Mark’s engagement photos, about the many, easy ways in which one could kill themselves in space. You don’t even have a dog, Stratt had said, as if the white picket fenced-in yard of a nuclear, pet-owning family could have somehow morally redeemed him.
“Some humans,” Grace swallows, “the not-most, don’t have sex. There’s a lot of reasons, really—because they don’t want to, or because they don’t like to, or because they can’t. It’s pretty weird to most people, though.”
Rocky chirps excitedly, then hums a discordant string of notes Grace has never heard before.
“Need a word, buddy.”
“♬♬♪♫,” Rocky repeats. “Some Eridians ♬♬♪♫. No mate or children, like Grace. No want mate. Still important, still family.”
There is blood rushing in Grace’s ears. He’s suddenly not nearly enough light years away from home—Earth, not home anymore—where his lack of interpersonal involvements had made his life expendable. He’s alive and breathing and alone and together and, most importantly, he’s family. Earth had never bothered to include him; Rocky fills Grace with a sense of belonging unlike no other. His chest aches.
“Some Eridians,” Grace rasps in lieu of throwing up all over the place.
“Not-most,” Rocky admits. “But some. Not weird. Only different. ”
“I get the feeling,” Grace says wetly.
Rocky trills, pleased with himself. “Grace ♬♬♪♫ good. Erid will understand. Grace different, but only weird because humans weird. Too leaky. Too embarrassed.”
“I think maybe you’re just not embarrassed enough.”
“Rocky no need be embarrassed. Rocky not leak everywhere or trip on cable.”
“Hard to trip when you’re inside a ball.”
“Rocky have more limbs than Grace! Easier to trip,” he chitters indignantly. “Humans just clumsy. Stupid stupid Grace need glasses to see but never put glasses on eyes. Inefficient. Maybe Grace should be more embarrassed always tripping.”
Grace picks up his long-forgotten cup of slurry and laughs. Tomorrow (and really, tomorrow is being generous) Rocky will come up with a new line of questioning. Tomorrow, they’ll be one day closer to Erid. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
Time and the stars stretch on endlessly before them.