Work Text:
I am the one who owns my own life.
They don’t have currency on Erid. So, this was a gift. I don’t take it for granted, but I do understand a little better each day that I shouldn’t try to repay it.
I can’t repay it. I guess that’s the point.
I’ve had a long time to think about gifts, about obligation, and about what people need, what they get, and what they deserve. In the height of my press exposure, fielding queries daily from Eridian historians, recorders, and fans alike – once my team decided I could be trusted not to make fear balls in crowds – I could think of little else.
How do you respond when someone thanks you for something you never could have chosen not to give them? How do you quantify your own worthiness of receiving in return?
I don’t know if it actually matters. I think that what you make out of a gift has very little to do with whether you deserve to have it. My experience has been that absolution comes down to chance more often than we’d like to admit to ourselves. Sometimes there’s a hand waiting to reach out when you’re flailing in the dark, and sometimes you’re simply alone. It just so happens that we on Earth were not alone.
Relief, when unprecedented, unwarranted, and undeserved, is elevated to grace. There isn’t a word for ‘grace’ in Union Eridianese, so that’s what they call me: Undeserved Forgiveness; Gift. I wish Rocky had explained these before I had to figure them out myself, but can I really blame him? I don’t learn what his name means – or even that it means anything at all – until after everything is over, when we’ve already started building what comes next.
After the disaster that was Contact Thrum, it takes a while before I can bring myself to review Probe A’s archive manifest. (I should say, the thrum itself went swimmingly. Or so I’m told – I didn’t make it. Therein lies the disaster.) Many scholars and linguists worked hard to compile Erid’s first unmanned handshake to Earth, but I’m the lucky guy who has to give everything a final pass. I’m the planet’s only native English speaker, after all.
I hover over Rocky’s name on the manifest. Seeing it juxtaposed with all the prolix greeting titles of the other contributors doesn’t feel right. It's too simple, too small - but I don't have a good translation for Rocky's greeting name. Unlike the other contributors, however, this particular Eridian is sharing my couch in advance of a sleep-watch party, so I can just ask him. “Hey, Rocky, what do you want to be called in the probe message?”
Rocky is, as is typical, working on about 8 things at once; it must be a drain on even his attention span, because he doesn’t respond at first.
“Earth to Rocky, Rocky to Earth, what do you want me to call you?”
“Grace call Rocky whatever Grace likes. As long as Grace call me.” He makes an imitation receiver with a thumb and one finger but otherwise doesn’t look up from his handiwork.
“Thanks, wise guy. That's a lot of help.”
“Grace say Rocky name every day for years. Write down.”
I stare at the document on my laptop screen.
I remember meeting Rocky with vivid acuity – unusual for me, I know, but it’s probably because it was the most important moment of my life. I remember blurting out, exhausted, “I’ll call you Rocky, because you look like a rock.” I wonder whether, if Rocky chose to recall that moment, he could use his current knowledge of English to understand exactly how seriously I took our introductions.
“Does your name – your Eridian name – not have any meaning I can use?”
“Not have meaning. Not like Gift. Rocky already explain. Human brain.” He huffs, but his carapace stays cocked even after a moment passes, so I keep silent, waiting for him to finish his thought. Finally, Rocky says: “...But.”
Okay, so here’s what I learn:
Rocky’s name is more than a random collection of notes, but the meaning isn’t explicit. Apparently, to ‘understand’ it is merely to have a sense of purpose conferred – an outline of a thesis about who the named person is, or, rather, who they’re going to be. The meaning is based on the historic context of the name’s specific rhythmic pattern, and of the tonal intervals between the notes, and it’s a bit antiquated, too, so even a lot of Eridians wouldn’t pick up on it. It definitely isn’t what you could call a word.
I really struggle to parse all this with a brain that still works internally in English. At first, the closest I can get to wrapping my head around what it means – Rocky, the real harmonics of Rocky, not the throwaway name I pulled out of you-know-where that then became the last word I’d ever choose to lose – is actually through his greeting name. Tied to the location, before the genealogy, is a chord sequence built on the foundation: ‘Run to stone unyielding’.
He explains to me what it means for the stone to be unyielding. Not yielding is its primary and essential property. This rule is not about the stone; it’s about the world the stone sits in. If the stone gives way, nothing else will survive the fall. It isn’t unyielding because it won’t yield, but because it mustn’t. The loss could not be countenanced.
I say, “That’s a big responsibility for a little stone.”
Rocky shrugs – a gesture he picked up from me. “Big or small, it no matter. Stone must fulfil purpose.” He knits together a few links of some sort of chain weave he’s making with two hands while punching holes in note paper with a third. He says, “No hug now. Rocky busy. Hug later when work done.”
“Okay,” I grouse. I fold my arms. Damn, he can read me too well.
Humans have a tendency to grow into the names we call ourselves. For example, if you ever tell a kid they’re trouble, you can absolutely guarantee that trouble will find them. Maybe Eridians do this too. Maybe that’s why Rocky is such an obstinate little heel sometimes.
I think about the stone, upright against a universe’s mass. Foundational. “You know,” I wonder, “There is actually a word for a thing like that in English.”
I swipe the trackpad to wake up my laptop.
After getting the okay from Rocky, I write in the manifest - next to ‘Undeserved Forgiveness’ - ‘Indispensable and Fundamental Basis, of the Eastern Stones Unyielding Where the River Runs, Third of Three Generations Who Fix What Is Broken’.
It’s a mouthful, I know. I’m just trying to do him justice. In the rest of the archives, where I am only Gift, we call him 'Cornerstone'.