Chapter Text
Dr. Ryland Grace, sole human on Erid and beloved mate of Rocky and Adrian, was frying up some him-bacon and whistling a little tune. He was eager to make himself a nice BLT sandwich, especially now that their crops from the Mary’s little seed bank were thriving. Out of nowhere, he heard a voice clear as day.
“Grace.”
He jumped, letting go of the pan’s handle before he accidentally catapulted the hot bacon. It was English. Clear, crisp English in a voice he didn’t recognize.
“Grace!”
The voice was louder now.
Grace’s heart pounded in his chest. Was he finally going crazy? It’d been over 30 years since he last had contact with another human. His only sources of human voices were Mary and the vast archives Stratt had given to the mission. Maybe it was finally catching up with him. Humans were social creatures after all.
His thoughts were interrupted by the voice again.
“Grace, open door!”
Knocks could then be heard. They sounded familiar.
Grace made sure his bacon wouldn’t burn and went over to the foyer. “If there’s no one here, I’m calling Dr. Lee…” He mumbled under his breath. He opened the door, finding Rocky there.
“Surprise!” Rocky raised his arms, speaking in crisp English. His voice was similar to the computer voice they had chosen for him when they first met.
“Rocky? How- How are you doing that?” Grace blinked.
“It’s easy. Studied Earth bird creatures. Adrian’s idea.” The Eridian replied.
“Ohhh… Clever. Can you do full sentences?” He wondered.
“Can do, but don’t want to. English very inefficient. Why use many words when fewer words work fine? Plus nostalgic.”
“Fair enough. You wanna come in?”
“Yes yes.” He slipped past Grace and together they entered the kitchen. “You like speaking, hmm?” Rocky asked, tapping a foot.
“It’s… I think I prefer Eridian, no offense. I don’t wanna get rusty. It’s really cool though!” …and slightly creepy… He thought.
“Yes yes. Squishy human brain. But now I can say your real name! Grace! Graaaaace! Ryland Grace!”
The sound of his first name made him cringe. “That sounds so weird…”
Rocky giggled.
“How long have you known how to do this?”
♬It took many, many years to practice. I started after we called Earth seventeen years ago. I would have mastered it faster, but I was busy. Speaking of Earth, we got a reply!♬
“Really??” Grace turned his focus away from his bacon and fully on Rocky, who was doing vigorous jazz hands.
♬Yes! Received probe! The data was given to Mary. It is waiting for you. We go now, question?♬
“Can I finish making my sandwich first? I haven’t had one in forever.”
♬Yes, bring it with you.♬
Grace sat in the cockpit with Rocky at his side, munching on his BLT. He turned on the video message sent from Earth.
-
Two astronauts, a man and a woman, were floating in what looked like an updated version of the International Space Station. The man spoke first. He sounded American.
“Hello, Erid. I am Commander Michael Bridgeman and this is Flight Engineer Svetlana Sorokina. It will be a long time before you receive this message, but we bid you hello all the same.
“To Dr. Grace in particular, it was incredible to hear that you’re alive and well! We really enjoyed looking at all your pictures of Erid. They really set up all those lights just for you? The USA in particular is in talks about sending a mission to Erid. We really hope you’ll be there to greet them and give them the tour. This probe should have plenty of information about what happened to Earth while you were gone. It was pretty rough for a while, but we pulled through. It was honestly really surprising how well everything went. The world is very excited to hear more from the Eridians. We, uhh…”
Sorokina continued for him, her accent thick. It reminded Grace of Dmitri from Stratt’s Vat. “The world took some time to decide how to handle your message. When news of your recruitment situation came out, we hoped Eridians not know.” She chuckled awkwardly. “Do not want war with aliens. But is good, no war! Your message very reassuring. Russian Federation want to appoint Adrian to parliament. We will be very happy to collaborate with Eridians! And is good to know you solve astrophage problem there too.”
Commander Bridgeman spoke up. “Speaking of which, NASA sent a probe to 40 Eridani during the same mission as our Venus seeder probe just in case you didn’t make it. If you find it, feel free to keep it. I’m sure it’ll be good for Eridian science. We look forward to hearing from you, and feel free to come on home! ISS out.”
The video ended.
-
Grace gave Rocky a pat. “I am home.”
Dr. Grace stood on stage in the Continental Science Hive’s grand auditorium. He watched as many of Erid’s most prominent scientists filed into the room. He recognized a lot of them. Once everyone was settled, he began his lecture.
“Good morning. When humans first started studying space and the universe, we asked many questions. One question stood above the rest, ‘where the heck is everybody??’. Today, I’m going to tell you about some of our most popular theories that try to answer to this question, at least since before contact with Erid. And who better to teach you about aliens than the alien?” He gestured at himself, earning some amused chitters.
“The easiest answer is, of course, that we’re alone. Which, as we now know, is obviously not true. Even before the discovery of astrophage, the consensus was that it was extremely likely for alien life to exist *somewhere*. This discrepancy between the high likelihood of alien life and the previous lack of evidence for it is called the Fermi paradox, after physicist Enrico Fermi.
“There are a lot of potential theories for why we don’t see aliens. Which… Hold on, I need to sidetrack for a bit. We’ve spent so much time looking for Earth-like exoplanets and making theories about the probability of, like, eukaryotic cells evolving on other planets and… Why??? It’s so stupid that we would only look at Earth-like planets. We knew about 40 Eridani for decades but dismissed Erid because we thought it would be too inhospitable to life! Like what??? Every planet is a viable candidate! ASTROPHAGE CAN LIVE ON THE SUN! NOTHING IS OFF-LIMITS! And they were soooo obsessed with looking for water and carbon! THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THAT WATER OR CARBON ARE MANDATORY FOR LIFE! Any self-replicating chemical process can evolve into life! AUGHH!!” He waved his arms in frustration. “I was basically exiled from academia for this! I can’t believe I have to share a species with those… those complete wastes of carbon!”
An Eridian raised their hand from the audience.
Grace huffed, calming himself. “Sorry… Yes?”
♩Why did the Earth scientists not believe this, question? We knew this for centuries. Many Eridian microbes have no water, oxygen, or carbon. The leading theory is that life evolved twice on Erid. Once independently in the waters and a second time from space-traveling microbes now known to be from Adrian-planet. The two branches of life were clearly too different to be related. Earth does not have this, question?♩
“Uhhh…” He blinked, stunned. “Uh, no. All life on Earth is related. We haven’t found anything yet that could be completely unrelated. It was believed all life on Earth came from a single common ancestor, though now we know it came from Tau Ceti. There might’ve been independently evolved species, but we haven’t discovered evidence for them, and they’d certainly be extinct by now. The Great Oxidation Event almost certainly got them if nothing else before that did.”
A different scientist spoke up. ♩Great Oxidation Event, question?♩
“About 2.4 billion years ago, give or take, the level of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere went from almost none to about ten percent of our current amount. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it had very significant effects on the ecosystem. Most notably, it caused the mass extinction of tons of species, though I don’t know exactly how many.”
A collective shudder rippled through the audience.
“Anyway! Let’s go over some of the theories. This is by no means an exhaustive list. A theory I find really interesting is that we’re simply quite early in the whole evolutionary timeline. It’s totally possible we’re among the first species to reach the space age. We haven’t found anyone else because they simply didn’t evolve yet. Alternatively, there was enough time but getting to this point is very difficult. Maybe evolving life is really complicated, or other species simply don’t have the right set of circumstances to get this far. Maybe we’re just lucky. Even if other species have evolved by now, we don’t know where they are. Space travel is difficult. Maybe the others are simply really far away and haven’t gotten to our stellar neighborhood yet. Maybe they never will.
“Let’s say they are here. How would we know? Maybe we simply don’t know what we’re looking— sorry, hearing— for. It’s possible they’re sending out tons of signals, practically screaming at us, and we don’t have the technology or ability to hear it. Or they’re in the area and they’re keeping quiet. The worst-case scenario is they’re just… ignoring us for some reason. Maybe they’re scared of us. I’m sure it’s a combination of factors. We didn’t discover Eridians because you guys didn’t leave your planet until the astrophage forced you to. Meanwhile, I’m sure our activities from Earth were too subtle for you to notice. Maybe someday we’ll find other species. I hope I can live to see it.”