Chapter Text
I was visiting Grace in his house. We were talking about how his experience in teaching eridian kids has been so far and the conversation turned to discussing differences and similarities in teaching children between Erid and Earth. It was always fun to learn something new about Earth, but I wasn’t so surprised when I found out that both eridian and human children engaged in playtime. I told Grace it was something common observed among animals in Erid with higher cognitive capacity. Grace said it was observed on Earth too.
We started describing what games the children usually played.
“There’s this one, it's called hide and seek.” said Grace “It’s a game where you have to either hide or be the one trying to find the other hidden children.”
“Human naming always creative.” I joke. He laughs, agrees, then continues.
“There’s also tag, where you just run around trying to catch people and they try to run, if you catch one of them, then they are the new person trying to catch the others.”
“Very interesting. Is similar to eridian children games, but this is because eridians evolved as predators, so we play games of hunting. Some predator animals show same behaviour.”
“That’s so cool because that’s exactly the same to humans and predator animals on Earth. We also evolved as predators so we often engage in games related to hunting. Gosh, it is so cool that we are from different planets but we have so much in common.”
“Humans not predators.” I say in disbelief.
“Yes we are. Humans are the [apex] predator on Earth. That means the top predator, the predator of predators… Actually I’m not so sure anymore because we changed the environment so much that I think we are something beyond predators, and we don’t even hunt anymore.”
“No, no, impossible. Eridians are the top predator because body is hard, very fast, very strong. Humans too squishy, skin soft, body waste water all the time.”
“Well, the ‘waste’ of water might be actually one factor that helped us in being better hunters, it’s called [sweat] and it’s an efficient thermoregulation. We might not be as strong and quick as an eridian, but we are the top of the food chain on Earth. Ancient humans used to hunt, but also gather food from plants around. Then we learned to [domesticate] the plants, meaning we had control of growing it where we wanted, that’s called [agriculture], and domesticated animals too, so now we don’t have to hunt anymore because we always have food available close to us.”
“Impossible, human body not designed to hunt. Grace all wonky when walk, couldn’t hunt Rocky.”
"Yes, humans hunted! Some still do for sport."
"Don't believe Grace."
"But it's true. We have front-facing eyes, that's a predator adaptation!"
"The concept of eyes means nothing to Rocky."
“If you were on earth I bet you’d be dinner already, pal.”
“Would not! If humans on Erid, they be extinct!”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“Rocky is sure, statement!”
“Well, you know one human, I know thousands, so agree to disagree.”
“No agree! Then we test!”
“Test? Test what?”
“We make experiment. Hunting experiment. Between Grace and Rocky. Who wins is best predator.”
“You know what? I’m bored anyway, and the exercise might be good, keep me smart. And the best thing is I can show you that you are wrong. All right, let’s do it. But let’s set some rules before, ok? I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
“Grace won’t even get chance to hurt Rocky.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you. The thing is, humans had many techniques for hunting, one of them is piercing the prey with sharp objects from afar. Obviously we can’t do that, if your suit break and you’re exposed to the atmosphere here, you die, and if you cut my skin I might get a disease or something, we don’t want any of that.”
“Human too weak, skin break for anything. Rocky agree to set rules.”
“Do you want to play this hunting game now or you prefer another day?”
“Do now!”
“Okay then, how about this: we spend the next hours trying to hunt each other, whoever catch or touch the other first, wins. No excessive physical aggression. Attacks with weapons don’t count for winning. We start the game far from each other on opposite sides of the biodome. If anyone feel hurt or want to give up, they can, but lose. What do you think? Anything to add?”
“Agree! Grace put thicker clothes, if fall no hurt soft skin.”
“Agreed.” He grabs a coat that’s thrown around nearby over the furniture and puts it on “Okay, we leave the house now. When we leave we start counting 10 Earth minutes and go separate ways, after the 10 minutes the hunting starts, how about that?”
“Yes! Time go hunting!”
---
I use my time to find a good place to hide. I know the area well because I helped build it, but so does Grace, so no one has any advantage over the terrain. Maybe I have a little bit more advantage because Grace’s memory is so bad, if I change things around he won’t even notice, but if he changes I will. My biggest vulnerability is my sleep, but my last sleep was not so long ago, so I won’t be needing another for a good time still, enought to win this game. Grace has to sleep 8 hours every 16 hours, and if he doesn't, he becomes dumb and it will be so easy to catch him.
I don’t know why Grace didn’t want to admit that eridians are superior predators. He’s not usually like that, stubborn, he’s usually very receptive and agreeable in talks, I don’t know what got into him.
The time passes and I stay in my hiding spot waiting for Grace to appear, when he gets close enough I'll ambush him. Unless he’s hiding as well. I should’ve asked him if humans tend to hide. They probably do, since they’re so breakable. Grace is probably hiding right now. But it's okay, if he doesn’t show up I’ll just wait here for the next few hours until it's time for him to sleep, then I’ll go chase him. It won’t take long because it’s already near the end of the day cycle.
But then I hear the sound of shifting sand in the familiar gait of Grace’s footsteps. He’s walking peacefully, he’s not even trying to muffle the sounds, he’s just walking. It’s too early for him to be dumb already. No, no, he must have had the same realization as me, soon he’ll be tired and dumb and he’ll become vulnerable, he probably thinks that coming to me is his best alternative. And he knows I can hear him from very far, he probably won’t even bother trying to be quieter. So what’s his strategy? Is he gonna attack me with brute force? I don’t think so, he’s weak, and even with his unusual stubbornness he’s well aware he’s way weaker than me.
He’s getting closer, getting closer. It takes a while because he’s just walking calmly, like when we are strolling around the beach, is he not taking this seriously? He’s close now, I prepare myself, he gets real close.
He stops.
He stands there.
He turns around and grabs something from the floor. I don’t know what it is, He’s too close for me to send sound to get a good reading of the surroundings without him noticing. Even if my echolocation uses sounds out of his hearing range, I still have to move to do it, and I don’t want to risk it.
He raises the arm he’s holding the thing. What is he even doing?
Ah, he was holding a rock. I know that now because he throws it, and it lands right on me. What?
“If this pebble was a very strong [arrow] or something else with enough force to penetrate your carapace, you’d be dead, but we agreed attack with weapons don’t count, I just wanted to show you what could’ve happened.”
This is impossible, he must be bluffing, there’s no way he can tell where I am, I’m very well hidden among the rocks, buried in sand. There’s no way he’s just throwing random rocks around trying to find me, right?
“I see you, Rocky. Were you waiting to ambush me? Is that how eridians hunt? Not gonna work. I can see you right there.”
“How you know, question!?” I shout angrily, rising from my hiding spot. “How Grace find me, question?”
“I told you, I can see you. Your color. Is slightly different from the things around you. You’re brown with green specks, the rocks are more greyish, the sand is lighter color.”
I don’t even know what he’s talking about, I know he can sense a range of wavelengths of light, but I really can’t even imagine what is the world he experiences and how this color he talks about even look like. I just know he sees it.
“Grace saw Rocky when, where, question?”
“Oh, close to that tall rock” and he points to the direction.
I send sound but it doesn’t reach the tall rock. I know what rock he’s talking about, because I remember the terrain, but I can’t sense it. I barely hear something close to it. He has seen me before I could even have the possibility of hearing him approaching.
“All humans can see from that distance, question?”
“Oh, no.”
Ah, well, it makes sense. Grace has that special object he wears that improves his sight, his glasses. I was afraid for a moment, but Grace is just a special human.
“Humans normally can see much, much farther.”
What?
“Remember this?” He touches the metal frames over his eyes “My glasses? I wear them because my sight is bad bad bad. I can’t see things from afar. I wear this to correct my sight, but you can never correct it well enough to be as good as someone with normal eyes.”
What!?
“With my bad sight and you hiding with color similar to your surroundings, I had to be a bit closer than I normally would to see you. But normally I can see things a few kilometers away, further if I’m standing on higher ground.”
Kilometers? I quickly calculate one kilometer into the eridian measure of distance. That’s… That’s too much.
When Grace starts talking again and the sound reaches me, I know he’s baring his teeth in a smile, but it’s not a usual Grace smile, it’s not kind.
“What’s wrong, Rocky? You look a bit nervous there…”
The intonation of his voice is smug, unusual, I don’t like it. He says I look nervous. Can he tell? Can he really tell? I don’t know, I don’t know what it means to see. Can eyes tell how I feel?
“Not nervous! Just annoyed!” I point at him “Grace stupid eyes ruin Rocky ambush. Eyes stupid don’t even see well.”
“Hahaha! heey! You bully!” Grace smiles and laughs, but now is the same joyful bright laugh and kind smile I recognize from Grace. I relax.
“Grace good luck seeing in night cycle when there’s no light!” I shout and run away. I keep running until I can’t hear his nice laugh anymore.
---
Ambushing him didn’t work, but it wasn’t going to work anyway now that I know about the color thing. It’s night now, and now is my time, when his stupid eyes don’t work. There’s still light, actually. On earth, nights aren’t totally dark because there’s the light of the moon and stars, Grace said. He tried to explain stars to me, and showed me pictures, but to me it just seemed like a dirty floor all speckled with rocks and dirt. But Grace talked about the stars and the moon so lovingly that the very next day I took the idea of putting stars and moon simulations in the biodome.
But it was very very dim compared to the day, so I’m assuming he lost his light seeing advantage. I wait for a long time to make sure Grace will be asleep, or at least so dumb he won’t hear me approaching, and start searching around the dome. I spend hours searching for him, trying to be as quiet as possible with my echolocation. Being quiet shortens the distance I can sense but I don’t want to risk waking him up.
And, finally, there he is. Sleeping as if it was just another peaceful day. He rests in between a formation of very thick rocks, so it’s hard to get a clear reading because the sound is bouncing back distorted. Quite smart of him, but not enough. The rock walls might have some soundproofing, but if there's an opening, even a small one, I can sense inside.
I get closer very quietly, I’m afraid to send too much sound now, being so close to him, so I just use his own breath and heartbeat to estimate our relatives positions. It’s weak, but it's enough, I can sense his chest changing volume as he inhales and exhales. I don’t need much information anyway, I just need to know where his body is so I can touch him and be done with it.
I raise my arm in his direction, I’m very close-
Then I try to step forward and feel something thin snag against my limb and something falls on me, it makes a big noise, and it’s only because of the reverberation of this noise that I get a blurred sense of Grace turning quickly, something, probably his arm, extending in my direction, I panic and jump away. I escape. I stomp my feet and send a lot of sound to understand what’s happening. Grace is awake and looking at me.
“Almost.” He says “Hi there, bud.”
“What is the big sound, question? What Grace did, question?”
“A trap.”
Humans sleep lightly, their brains keep working even while they sleep. He must have make this noisy contraption to wake him.
“Grace make trap to wake with sound, question?”
“No, I wasn't asleep, I was pretending. I was waiting for you. The sound was to tell me when you were close.”
We are in an impasse. We stand in front of each other. Grace assumes a low stance, I do too. We're both ready for a fight. The surroundings are too narrow, there’s no space for me to go around him, he’s protected, the only way I could reach him is… up.
“If you had waited a little bit longer I’d be asleep already, I was so bored waiting for you. Are you not taking this seriously or are you just slow? Slow, slow eridian, bad at hunting.”
That damn human ridiculous human, he’s laughing, he’s making me a fool, stupid human I’ll give something for him to see with his stupid human eyes when I ♬♩♪♫♬ stupid ♩♪♫♬.
I was already low, so I was ready for the jump. I jump high toward Grace to tackle him down, but out of nowhere he produces a sort of rod and blocks my way. I fall to the ground and leap away before he touches me.
“Grace said no weapons! Statement!”
“We said that attacking with weapons doesn't count for winning, and I'm not attacking anyone, I’m defending myself. And this is not a weapon, it’s a stick!”
“No fair!”
“Yeah it is.”
Technically he was right, but it was misleading.
“Humans bad bad bad!” I pointed at him “Humans always deceptive, question?”
I wave my finger in his direction. I’m angry, but I’m distracted from my anger when Grace suddenly stops laughing. I can feel his mood change. He answers me in a dry and curt voice.
“Yes.”
It was supposed to be those jokes where we tease each other with bad things but we know we actually don't mean it. I wasn’t expecting Grace to become this serious.
“Humans deceive and manipulate. They give you a sense of [autonomy], a sense of choice, but in the end you were fooled anyway, and it was always going to be that way. There was never a choice.”
I don’t understand what he means with all that. I don’t like the way he talks, sounds like he’s angry, but is not angry like when we fight about something and he’s loud and keeps yapping. This anger is… almost calm and quiet, but much more intense.
“And that’s what I did to you, didn’t I, Rocky? I fooled you, I made you believe you were in control, that you’d have it your way, but it was a trap all along. I knew you wouldn’t be able to hear that string, I set you up, and you fell for it. That’s what humans do, Rocky, they trick you. And I’m just as human as any of them. I’m just as human as she-”
He cut himself off. I don’t recognize the being in front of me. That doesn't feel like my nice squishy kind Grace. It’s not the way he talks, it’s not the way he moves, it’s not the way he stands. I don’t like it, I don’t like it. I want my friend Grace back.
“What… What Grace talking about, question?”
Grace faces me for a moment before taking a deep breath, then suddenly he’s my Grace again.
“Sorry, Rocky, it’s nothing. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Rocky not scared of Grace!” I stomp for emphasis.
“Oh yeah?” He laughs “I don't know pal, seems like you are, are you going to catch me or run away?”
Damn human.
“Is being annoying human strategy for hunting, question?”
“If it’s working, it is!”
“Is not!”
I calculate the distance to leap and bounce on the walls. The problem is that the rock is steeper and rougher than I expected with my hearing, and I bounce in the wrong angle. Grace evades and pushes me with his stick. I try again, he escapes again.
“You can keep jumping all you want, you won’t be able to reach me, I’ll keep dodging.”
“Eridians jump far and quick, limbs much much stronger than human!”
“But gravity is gravity and your mass is double than mine”
Yes, my mass is bigger, but that doesn’t matter, I can be quicker than this because I’m way stronger. I keep trying to jump at him, but never get to him, he keeps waving that stupid stick around. It’s no use, the rock walls are too steep, the passage is too narrow to maneuver. My suit hinders my movements. I might be stronger, but I’m at a disadvantage here. He’s taller and slender and lighter, has higher mobility in these surroundings, and keeps waving that stupid stick.
“Rocky will bonk Grace’s had with stick!”
“haha, if you reach, shorty!”
Rocky kill Grace. Kill Grace now. Statement.
That's enough! I’m just wasting energy here. He's not gonna give up his ground when he knows he has an advantage. I have to reach him through somewhere else. Maybe if I go around these rocks I can reach him from another angle. I back away slowly and leave him. I have to be quick though, soon it’ll be the start of the day cycle and I’ll lose my darkness advantage.
I go around the rock formation and try to reach Grace through another path, but when I get to the place, Grace is not there anymore. I hear him running not far from here. I prepare to run after him, but when I get in position, ready to take off, I notice that all the jumping has tired me more than what I expected. I’m already wasting energy to keep my body temperature inside the biodome, all the jumping had me just wasting more energy.
There’s a chance I could reach him, because when it comes to running Grace has an immense disadvantage, considering the gravity in Erid is double than in Earth. But I’m really tired. Eridians are creatures evolved for ambush, explosions of speed and brute force, not to sustain physical effort for long periods of time. Even if I reach him now, I’d have to maneuver around to catch him because he’s still carrying that DUMB STICK.
But it’s okay, I’m tired but he must be too. He can’t go without eating or drinking water for much longer, unlike me. Eridians can spend long periods without eating, and that’s an advantage in ambushing prey. Maybe it’s time to go back to the ambush strategy, because there’s only one place where he can find food and drinkable water, and I might as well rest while I’m there.