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It was roughly 50 years since the launch of the Hail Mary. Grace was feeling old these days. He'd stopped teasing Tom and Colt about how much older they were than him when he had needed to start using a cane to get around. Some mornings he woke up and thought wistfully of floating in zero gravity again. It would be nice to take the pressure of gravity off his joints for a while. It pained Grace every day to see the weight of the years he had missed on his husband and brothers. They had experienced an additional 17 years or so more than he had and it was definitely slowing them down.
The world was in much better shape than it had been when the Hail Mary first returned to Earth. Sol had long since returned to full luminance and the environment was recovering from that catastrophe. The other changes to the planet, done as a stop gap effort to keep everyone from starving to death were taking longer to undo. Yes, the methane from the bombing of Antarctica had dissipated into the atmosphere long ago. But they had intentionally destroyed a large chunk of the polar ice caps and they couldn't just refreeze them. The overall pH balance of the ocean had shifted and a lot of fish species had died as a result. They had bought time for agriculture, but the oceans were a mess. On land there were many species that had also fared poorly due to the drop in temperature. It was a very different planet now than it had been decades before.
One morning Ryland was making breakfast for himself and Tom when he got a phone call from Claire. She had retired from her position with the Petrova Taskforce a year before, but she was still well connected with everyone involved. These days the Taskforce was mostly involved in astrophage research and how it could be utilized to help the people and environment of Earth to recover from the astrophage crisis. "Good morning, Claire, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Hey, Uncle Ry. I have some news to share with Rocky if he's available." Claire said.
"Sure, let me call him over and get you on speaker phone," Ryland said as he sat the phone down on the counter. "Rock, Claire's on the phone and says she has news for you!"
Rocky quickly came scrabbling through his tunnels to the kitchen. "Hello Claire! Rocky is here for news!"
"Hey Rocky, good to hear you! I just now heard that we are tracking a ship arriving in the solar system. We haven't made contact with it yet, but it appears to be arriving from the same direction as the 40 Eridani system!" Claire told him with enthusiasm.
Rocky froze and Ryland looked up at his friend to see if he was okay. Rocky then shook his carapace and emitted a high-pitched sound that didn't register to the translator or to Ryland's practised ear. Eventually he spoke in a more normal tone, "A ship from home?! When will it be close enough to speak to them? Can you hear what it looks like?"
"It will take a while before we have any more information, but we wanted you to be among the first to know, Rocky," Claire replied. "We aren't sure what type of communications equipment they are using, but we are hopeful that they will be able to reply to our messages soon. Given that they are still out past Neptune, it will be a significant lag time between messages once they can reply to us."
"Understand. Can Rocky send message, too? Tell them I am here and waiting to meet them?" Rocky asked. Ryland could tell his friend was barely able to contain his excitement as he asked.
"Of course, Rocky. That is part of the reason why I called, to ask if you could help us welcome your people. We know you must be very eager to make contact with them again after all this time." Claire said.
Rocky trilled happily and ran off to his workshop to begin recording a message to the Eridians who were approaching Earth.
Ryland smiled after his friend and finished the conversation with Claire, telling her they would be sure to get Rocky's message forwarded to her as soon as it was ready. He then finished cooking breakfast while thinking wistfully about the news they had just gotten. He found it a little bittersweet. Rocky had waited so long to hear from home, but now Ryland worried that he would end up leaving with them. Surely they would want to stay and visit on Earth for a while before going back, right? He just couldn't imagine being separated from his best friend after all this time.
**********
Weeks had passed and it was the long awaited day of the Eridian crew's arrival. Rocky was beside himself with excitement. Rocky had long ago made himself a xenonite suit that was more tailored to his form than the ball he once boarded the Hail Mary on and he was waiting expectantly with Ryland and his family to greet the first Eridians he had seen in over 75 Earth years. As the shuttle from the Eridian ship set down, Ryland thought that Rocky was going to launch himself into orbit from sheer happiness. During the weeks the ship had traveled the Sol system, Rocky hadn't been able to communicate with his people directly, but they had exchanged a few messages back and forth and he couldn't wait to hear them carapace to carapace, so to speak.
The Eridian crew all had xenonite suits similar to Rocky's. The first Eridian to exit the shuttle was significantly taller than Rocky. They had a blue-green carapace and looked almost elegant, if a five-legged rock-spider alien could be said to be so. At the sight of this Eridian, Rocky let out a loud squeal of glee that was so high pitched it nearly injured every human standing nearby. Ryland thought that he recognized a bit of what Rocky was saying and turned to ask him for clarification. "Rocky, is that Adrian?!"
Rocky finally remembered that even the humans most familiar with his language couldn't understand him at that pitch and modulated his notes to be a bit more down to Earth. "Yes yes yes, Adrian is here! My mate has come to Earth!"
Ryland remembered his reunion with Tom years ago and tears started welling in his eyes. He had wanted this for Rocky for so long and hadn't dared to hope that it might happen, even with the news of the Eridian ship's arrival. His old friend deserved the kind of happiness he had allowed him to have in returning to his mate. Ryland grasped Tom's hand and squeezed it and felt Tom squeeze back. He knew his husband was just as grateful for the time they had been given by Rocky's sacrifice of coming to Earth instead of insisting on returning to Erid with Ryland.
Rocky was bouncing back and forth, clearly wanting to run to his mate. Ryland nudged him forward and said, "Go to them. We'll be waiting for you here. Us old folks can't run that fast." Rocky chittered out a laugh and then took off toward his mate. When he reached the tall Eridian, they both stopped and, well, stared wasn't the right word, but they seemed to be observing each other closely. Ryland suspected they were speaking in tones either too low or too high for human hearing. Rocky and Adrian each tilted their carapaces this way and that as they regarded each other, and then finally Rocky reached out an arm to gently touch his mate, or as close as he could with the suits in the way.
While Rocky and Adrian were greeting each other, five other Eridians exited the shuttle and lined up behind them. They were a wide variety of shapes and sizes and colors and Ryland was excited to meet each of them. After a short time, Rocky and Adrian finished greeting each other and it appeared that Adrian was introducing Rocky to the rest of their crew. Eventually, Rocky gestured to all of them and waved in the direction of the humans waiting to meet them.
With Rocky in the lead, the group of Eridians approached the waiting group of humans. At first the amount of vocalizations happening at the same time was overwhelming for the humans, but Rocky made a sharp noise and things quieted. Then he introduced the Eridians one by one. "Allow Rocky to introduce his fellow Eridians! First is Rocky's beloved mate, Adrian!" The rest of the names were all untranslatable and would have to have human equivalents assigned to them for the sake of the translation device. Still, the introductions seemed to go well and the Eridian delegation was invited to the temporary habitat set up for their use.
***********
Ryland had initially worried that the Eridian ship was coming to take Rocky home, but it turned out that had only been a backup plan in case the people of Earth were not willing to let them stay. Thankfully that wasn't an issue and they soon had new neighbors.
Six months after their arrival, the permanent Eridian habitat/embassy was open for business, or moving in at least. In total, the Eridian ship had housed twenty-three crew, just like Rocky's original ship. It took a few trips to get everyone down to the surface on the shuttle, and they did keep a skeleton crew on board the ship to monitor things in orbit. Ryland had worried that it would be a problem convincing the people of Earth to set aside a permanent habitat space for more aliens, but it had actually turned into a bit of a bidding war on where to house them. Governments, businesses, universities, science labs, and many more had virtually fought for the privilege of being able to host their alien friends. Eventually the Eridians had agreed to set up their home base on land owned by UCLA and several of the crew had taken positions teaching at the university. There were scientists, engineers, and sociologists among the crew and they were all very knowledgeable and well liked by university staff and students alike.
Rocky had been offered a place in the Eridian habitat, of course, but he had refused to leave the home he shared with Ryland and Tom. He was increasingly worried over their health and safety, especially as Tom was well into his eighties now. He was horrified at the relatively short life spans of humans and was loath to waste any time apart from them. He had invited Adrian to join them in the house and Tom and Ryland had insisted that the Eridian environment portion of the home be expanded to give them more room.
Adrian fit into their daily life even better than Rocky had at first, due in part to their more reserved nature. They were also intensely curious about every thing Earth and human and spent hours talking to any human who was interested. By this point both Ryland and Tom were quite fluent in Eridian language and their nephew Thomas had programmed a few keyboards for them to let them play Eridian responses to Adrian rather than forcing them to learn to understand English. Adrian did still want to learn the language, but they also wanted to accommodate their new housemate and practice their language.
One afternoon, Ryland was in his office, reading a new paper about Eridian culture, published by one of Adrian's shipmates when Adrian themself walked into the room wearing their form fitting xenonite environment suit. They first hesitated by the door and knocked gently on the frame, waiting for Ryland to welcome them into the room. Adrian had opted to use gender neutral pronouns, as had most of the newly arrived Eridian crew, because the concept of gender still baffled them. Rocky was more used to it and had long since accepted Grace's initial gendering of him with male pronouns and seemed to like sharing the same pronouns as his friend. Mental tangents about gender aside, Ryland happily welcomed his best friend's mate into his office.
"Good afternoon, Adrian!" Grace played on his Eridian language keyboard.
Adrian fluted back, "Good afternoon, Grace." Adrian's voice was higher and more melodic than Rocky's. It had taken a bit for him to adjust to the differences in Eridian speech after having spent three decades only hearing one individual speak the language. He was well aware that the English language could sound vastly different based on regional accent and individual speaker, so he shouldn't have been surprised to learn the Eridian language was the same.
"Is there anything I can help you with?" Grace asked. He still felt cautious and formal around their new housemate. He supposed on some level he felt guilty for his part in extending Rocky's absence from Erid.
There was a pause and then Adrian replied, "I need to apologize to you, Grace. I have been taking advantage of your hospitality while harboring unkind thoughts about you."
That caused Grace to pause for a second. Perhaps Adrian felt he had earned some of that self imposed guilt. "I don't know that I can blame someone for what they think about me. It matters more to me what your actions are, and I haven't noticed any that are unkind."
Adrian gave their best approximation of a shrug, having already picked up on some of Rocky's adapted human mannerisms. "Maybe you cannot find blame, but I blame myself regardless. I have been jealous that you and your mate have had the past years together while I and my mate have been separated as a result. I was bitter that it was fuel from Rocky's ship that allowed you to come home while I continued to miss my mate."
Ryland nodded his understanding at that. "I definitely can't blame you for feeling that way, Adrian. I have felt guilt over that situation myself. Rocky was waiting in the Tau Ceti system for years before I was even born and still I returned home before him. It doesn't feel fair."
"This is actually the reason I realized I was wrong in my jealousy!" Adrian exclaimed. "I cannot blame a child for wanting to return home. Rocky made a decision to go to the stars as an adult, but you were so young when you were sent. You are still barely an adult by Eridian standards."
"That may be true, but I am nearing elderly by my species standards, Adrian. It isn't right to base your assumptions about me on the fact that I am a youth to you. I am much nearer to the end of my life than the beginning." Grace chided gently, knowing that the age difference was hard for Eridians to accept sometimes. Rocky still bemoaned the fact that his friends were aging so fast. He did not want to accept that Grace would be gone before he had even reached the halfway point of his species' average lifespan.
"Yes, yes, I understand. But I also understand why Rocky made the decisions that he made. To be mad at you for that is discounting your friendship and what you mean to him. You have done a great service to my people and to me personally by being my mate's friend. Please forgive me for not accepting you as I should have." Adrian said, and if Ryland was reading their tone correctly, they sounded truly apologetic.
"I don't believe you've done anything wrong, but I accept your apology regardless. I admire you and your commitment to Rocky and I know how important you are to him. I want us to be friends, Adrian." Ryland said, hoping that they understood his sincerity, even if using the Eridian keyboard meant he wasn't able to really add emotional weight to his words the way a real Eridian would.
Adrian bobbed their carapace up and down in the equivalent to a nod. "I would like to be friends with you, Grace."
**********
In the end, Ryland didn't have to worry about the Eridians taking Rocky away from him. His family just grew with the addition of Adrian and he became friends with several of the other Eridian crew members as well. Rocky and Adrian lived with Grace for the rest of his life, supporting him as he gradually lost human members of his family. Eventually he experienced his own version of the loss that his family had when he was sent to space. The difference this time was that it was a natural loss, one that followed a lifetime of love and happiness. It was the kind of bittersweet goodbye of knowing your loved one is tired and ready to go, not that they were dragged kicking and screaming away from you like he had been once. Still, Ryland had to learn how to live without his twin and eventually without his husband as well. He felt as if it was his turn to be missing his sunshine.
When Ryland's time came, he was surrounded by his nieces and nephew, their spouses and children and grandchildren. Rocky and Adrian and several other Eridian friends were at his side. He was assured that they would share their memories of him with all of Erid, so they would know the human who had been their planet's greatest friend.
As Ryland Grace drifted away, the last words he heard were Rocky singing to him, "You sleep, I observe."