Work Text:
"Why you so surprised, question?" Rocky asks. "How long do humans live, question?"
"Only, like, eighty years," I say, still reeling. "Actually, that's on the high end. The country I'm from has good medicine and food." This is an egregious oversimplification, but I'd rather not explain poverty and health disparities to my new alien friend right now. Call it anthropocentric pride, but I'd like to keep humanity's reputation intact for at least a little while longer. "Humans who live in places where the best technology isn't accessible die sooner."
Rocky is silent for a moment before asking, "How many years have you been alive, question?"
Now, this is a difficult one. Between the amnesia and the time dilation, chronological age has basically ceased to mean anything to me. I work backwards from what I know. The trip to Tau Ceti took three years and nine months from my perspective. When I first woke up, I guessed I was in my thirties, but that hunch was probably based on the age I was when I went into the coma. So... how old was I when the Hail Mary launched?
I try to focus. I've gotten this far without disclosing my amnesia to Rocky, and I'm not about to do so now. The only other intelligent being within lightyears of me doesn't need to know that my brain is Swiss cheese; he already thinks my flimsy human brain is too weak to handle quick conversions from Eridian to Earth measurements. Which—it is. But I don't need to reinforce that idea.
For the first time, I realize how still Rocky has gone since he spoke. He doesn't have eyes, but he's focused on me in a way I can't quite describe. Maybe I'm just getting better at reading his body language, but I'm suddenly aware of how much attention he's turned on me. "Um," I say. "Thirty-five." Probably a generous guess, if I'm being honest.
"You are baby!" Rocky shrieks, and I can tell by his tone that he's either incredibly amused or deeply distraught. Maybe both.
"I'm a grown man!" I say. "You're the one who's—you're old!"
"Two hundred ninety-one years is young-middle adult age," he states. "Two hundred ninety-one over six hundred eighty-nine is zero point four two two three five. I am forty-two percent of approximate expected lifespan."
"And thirty-five over eighty is—" In the split second I take to do the math in my head, Rocky already has the answer.
"Forty-three point seven five percent." After he spouts that number, he produces a disappointed trill.
"Ah-ha!" I say. "That makes me more mature than you, relatively speaking."
"Approximate!" he emphasizes. "Approximate expected lifespan!"
I laugh. "Either way, humans are considered adults at eighteen years old, and I'm well past that."
"Eridians considered adults at one hundred eight years. On Erid you are baby."
"Well, on Earth, you'd be the oldest terrestrial animal to ever exist." Anticipating the need for a new word, I explain, "Terrestrial means living on land, not in the ocean."
"Earth has ocean animals that live long time?"
"Yes, many." I try to think of a good way to describe sea sponges and coral, but I suspect that Rocky might accuse me of making things up if I tell him about centimeter-tall sea animals that excrete exoskeletons and reproduce asexually by cloning themselves in colonies. Then again, maybe that kind of organism exists in abundance on Erid. For all I know, any Eridian with good enough aim can win a ring toss at the state fair and take home a coral colony to keep in a xenonite tank as a pet. "Some live thousands of years, but they're more like plants than animals in some ways. Humans argued for a long time about their classification."
"Amaze," he says, and then goes quiet and still.
"What?" I prompt, knowing by now what he looks like when he's lost in thought.
"Want to know all of Earth," he says finally. "Want to tell you all of Erid. To know all differences. All similarities. Want us both to be Earth ocean plant-animals so we can argue which planet is more weird for one thousand years." He pauses. "Apology. Weird. Discomfort."
"No, no," I say, scooting closer to the xenonite wall separating us. "Understand." I'm aware that my new alien friend basically just confessed, 'I wish you and I were sea sponges so we could fight about whose home is more bizarre forever,' but the strange thing is, I get it. "Really. I... I think the same thing. I mean, I wish..."
I wish there weren't planets to save. I wish we could teach each other about our homeworlds forever. I wish I weren't going to die before I'm forty, nevermind the approximate expected eighty.
God, I wish I weren't going to die.
A sudden swell of emotion catches me off-guard, and I attempt to swallow it down. Screw this, honestly. Screw this entire messed up mission. Screw the fact that I'm on a spaceship lightyears from home, bonding with an alien over being middle-aged, knowing that no matter how old I really am now, the ten-year-old Ryland who used to look up at the sky for hours every night and plead there must be someone else out there, there must be would think I'm living the dream and I can't even take a second to enjoy it because Earth is dying and so am I.
"Grace. You are okay, question?"
"Yes." I swallow again and blink until my vision clears. "I wish we didn't have so much work to do, Rock."
"Agree," he says. "Time to make ship spin for science, question?"