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“Blip D detected.”
Grace, at the edge of consciousness, merely groaned and rolled onto his stomach, electing to ignore whatever Armando said in favor of a little more sleep.
“Blip D detected.”
Grace grunted. Armando sounded like a jumble of robot voice and he was sure that if he was really needed, Rocky would—
“Grace, Grace, Grace!”
Whomp. There it is.
“Yeah, bud?” He said, giving up on trying to sleep as he sat up and rubbed the tiredness out of his eyes.
“Blip D detected.”
Grace and Rocky stared at each other. What?
“What is ♬, question? ‘D’ is letter in human English alphabet. ♬ unknown. Need word,” Rocky said.
“Uhh, it’s another word for ‘anomaly'. It’s how Armando told me about your spaceship and what you sent me, actually,” Grace explained, standing up and stretching his arms.
“Why do humans have multiple words for one meaning, question? Does not make sense. Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Rocky grumbled. Grace just nodded along to placate him, because this was not the first time that they’ve discussed this subject, and they hadn’t been able to reach a conclusion that Rocky’s satisfied with.
“Let’s just see what it is,” Grace muttered, feeling the nerves bubble up in his stomach. Discovering one alien was enough excitement to last a lifetime, but two?
Armando directed them to a window, where they saw what looked like a small capsule, of some sort, floating around. Grace turned to Rocky, a bit uncertain. “Should we check it out?” He asked.
Now, his friend didn’t have a face, but if he did, Grace was sure it’d be conveying the message of: DUH.
A few minutes later, Grace was suited up, tethered to the ship, and making his way out into space. When he got close enough to the capsule, he tentatively reached a hand out, about to touch when he heard Rocky suddenly say, “careful! Careful! Careful!”
“Yep!” Grace responded, biting his lip, his heart racing. “I got it.”
He turned the capsule around and let out a compulsory, “Oh, fudge!”
“What, question? What, what, what!” Rocky chirped in his ear.
Grace could only stare. His eyes had to be deceiving him, he hoped his eyes were deceiving him. There was a baby in there. A very human-looking baby, his eyes closed, small chest rising up and down.
“I-I think you have to see it to believe it, Rock,” Grace stammered, feeling like his brain was short circuiting. Without waiting for a response, he took the capsule (because he couldn’t leave a goddam baby in space) and headed back to the ship.
When he got back inside and got out of the suit, Rocky was rolling around, talking a mile a minute. Grace had to zone him out just to focus on getting the capsule to the table, since it was quite heavy now that they were in gravity. He tried to set it down as gently as possible, scared out of his mind.
“Tiny Grace,” Rocky stated, stunned, looking between the baby and Grace, as if comparing the two.
“I’m not sure about that,” Grace admitted, looking closer at the capsule. “These symbols, this design . . . I haven’t seen anything like this. It doesn’t look like it’s from Earth.”
“Why look like a human infant if not a human infant, question?” Rocky asked, and wasn’t that the million dollar question?
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Grace said, stumped. There was a second of silence where they both just stared, before Grace decided that he should do something about it. He had to at least make sure that this baby (or alien who looked very much like a baby) was okay. Thankfully, right now, nothing seemed wrong with him. He was fast asleep, his tiny chest moving up and down, which at least told them that he breathed oxygen.
He put his hand on the side of the capsule, looking for a way to open it, when he unintentionally hit a button. A hatch at the top of the capsule opened and inside was a device of some sort . . . It looked kind of like a hard drive.
“Okay,” Grace muttered. “What is this?”
He reached out to touch it, figuring that it was probably safe to grab without gloves, when it suddenly started speaking.
Well, more like, a recording started playing.
“English language detected. Translation beginning.”
While that happened, Rocky began scurrying around the ship, muttering to himself. “Everything alright, bud?” Grace asked.
“Earth send infant into space! Earth send infant into space just like earth send Grace into space!” Rocky exclaimed angrily, going faster and faster as he rolled around.
“We really don’t know if it was Earth—” Grace started to say, only to be interrupted.
“Translation complete.”
Before either of them could react, a holographic-like screen popped up from the device (which definitely didn’t make Grace nearly jump out of his chair). Paragraphs upon paragraphs of information began to be displayed, which Grace and Rocky would spend a while reading over and discussing.
As it turned out, this baby was not from Earth, but a planet called Krypton. His name was Kal-El, and he had been sent away by his parents right before the planet had, essentially, exploded, in the hopes that he would find another place to call home.
After Grace and Rocky digested that startling piece of information, Grace very carefully lifted the baby out his capsule, holding him close to his chest. He was a tiny thing, with some tufts of black hair on his head, wearing a onesie that had, according to the information they had, what was his family’s symbol on it.
“Hi, little dude,” Grace whispered, a bit nervous to wake him up. His heart was hammering in his chest at the fact that he was holding a baby in space. He’d never held a baby before but to have to do it in space, in all places?? Crazy. This was crazy.
“Grace let Rocky see,” Rocky demanded, and Grace shifted Kal-El so that he was cradling him now, in the way he’d seen other people hold babies.
Rocky peered at Kal-El for a few moments. His previous anger at the idea of the kid being sent into space like Grace had seemed to melt away now. Finally, he said softly, “Looks like a pebble.”
(Of course, Eridian babies weren’t actually called pebbles, that’s just the cute name Grace told to translate it to, and Rocky didn’t need to know yet that it wasn’t very accurate)
Grace looked up at his friend, remembering when he had said the words “We’re fathers” to Carl and then told Stratt that he and Carl made a baby. Before he began working on this mission, all those years ago, Grace had never been sure that he wanted or didn’t want to have kids. Then, when it seemed like everyone was going to die, there wasn’t any point in figuring that out anymore.
Now, though, Grace couldn’t help but feel some excitement. This baby, Kal, had been on his own for so long and finally he was with people who were pretty used to being alone, too.
It didn’t have to be like that anymore. Grace could have a family. Kal could have a family. Rocky, of course, had a mate back on Erid, but maybe he wouldn’t mind taking in a couple strays.
“I think we’re parents, Rocky,” Grace said, as they both gazed down at Kal-El. He couldn’t tell for sure, but when he looked up, he swore his Eridian friend was smiling at him.