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There is a parable parents sing to their young: The Eridian Who Spun Up the World.
“Slow down! Why are you running?”
It’s a bedtime story, a mealtime prayer. Comfort and caution entwined, blankets woven for the restless and never-hushed.
“And where on Eart — where are you going? Mary isn’t that big!”
The newly-hatched Eridian finally found their balance. Eager to take advantage of all five legs, they began to turn, dance, spin.
“Rocky, I know you can hear me. That’s your whole thing. What — ow, stupid door — what is going on?”
Their parents warned them. They couldn’t spin forever.
“Are you — running away? From me?”
Their siblings warned them. Their friends warned them. Their teachers and classmates and thrummates warned them.
“Shoot, did I — did I say something wrong? In front of your parents?”
But the Eridian spun, spun, spun. They picked up speed as they grew, getting faster and bigger until one day…
“I — hey, I’m sorry. If I did that. I don’t know… you gotta tell me what I did wrong.”
The Eridian spins on their axis, spins ‘round their star. Their tenorite, hematite, magnetite carapace Erid’s crust; their quicksilver blood Erid’s molten core. Erid and Eridian, world and self, one and the same. Care for them both and find balance, find center. Slow down, or be lost to the silence.
“Was it the sleeping thing? God, it was the sleeping thing, wasn’t it? I knew I translated something wrong there…”
Rocky hates that parable. Spin begets stability, orbits scale from electron to planet. To have angular momentum is to conserve effort; to spiral is to have direction.
“Next time I see them, I’ll apologize! You have nothing to worry about. Promise.”
And Grace is Rocky’s world, now.
That world finally catches up to Rocky, squats outside the tunnel. Lays a hand on the tunnel wall, fingers splayed and palm flattened. Five arms from a center, outstretched to pull Rocky home.
Rocky can’t lose him.
“Grace not say anything wrong,” Rocky says.
Grace draws back. But leaves his hand on the tunnel, lets Rocky hear his whole body loosen. “Oh. Really?”
“Really.” Rocky picks up the xenonite suit and puts it on — thorax first, align each leg, zip up the sleeves; always ordered, always careful — then steps towards the exchange panel to begin nightly checks. “No need to apologize.”
Grace follows Rocky out of the tunnel, down the hallway, into the lab. Trips over himself once. Their taumoeba silos — empty calories to supplement Grace’s dwindling food — are full, their population stable. “Oh,” Grace repeats, with a wipe to the whiteboard. “Uh… cool.”
Rocky huffs, then moves to the Hail Mary’s airlock and triple-checks each seal. Mary’s hull is flush with Erid’s elevator dock, her echoless chamber secure against her cabin. “Grace could sound more excite.”
Grace snorts. “Yeah, okay.”
In that chamber, Grace’s xenonite shell rests atop a pile of EVA suits, sharp edges cushioned in spun nylon, ready to wrap Grace in sterile safety in an instant. Both of Earth’s astronauts have outlived their duty and then some, used their own life to foster Erid’s, and Rocky loves Mary, too —
“Is everything with your parents… alright?”
— but if Rocky can only save one, it’s Grace every time.
“Obvious is alright. Everything with Grace parents alright, question?”
Grace wipes the board again as Rocky checks the seals. Again. By parents, they mean different people — the two humans who raised Grace as offspring, and the six Eridians at the head of Rocky’s birthplace, only one of whom shares Rocky’s DNA — but there’s sameness in that difference, dotted and dozened and still to be discovered, like stars in the night sky. “I… don’t remember.”
But… he does.
He does, and Rocky knows because Rocky remembers. Remembers this tone in Grace’s voice, the heavy lustre it takes on when he speaks of family and loved ones: detached from pitch, just south of sincere, no longer the root note that pulls all the cosmos’ chords into tune.
Rocky abandons the airlock, steps towards Grace instead. “Grace is lying. Can tell Rocky what is wrong. Is okay.”
Grace smiles, then turns to the cockpit and beckons Rocky to follow. “I’ll tell you if you tell me what’s wrong after. Deal?”
“Nothing wrong,” Rocky says, skittering past Grace into the pilot’s chair. The repairs on its joints hold; they’re Eridian steel now, not that Earth junk forever weakened after one heavy strain. They can support more weight, bear heavier loads. “Rocky aye-okay.”
“Fine.” Grace shrugs. “Then Grace aye-okay too.”
Rocky groans. Watches Grace check each panel carefully, starting from the center and spreading outward like a blooming plant, a swirling seashell. Taps two claws together and shifts in the pilot’s seat, all whines rebuffed by Grace’s feigned disaffect. “Grace.”
“Rock.” Grace turns, peers over his glasses, holds out one balled hand. “Deal?”
Rocky can’t lose him.
Grace smiles when Rocky’s fist meets his, more honest than before. He breathes deep, leans on the other chair. And Rocky takes up watch, then: scans the room in circles, listens to the spin of each humming motor, the twist of each screen’s liquid crystals. So long as they churn, they’re stable. So long as they’re stable, Grace is safe.
“You know how I… never really fell in love with anyone, on Earth? And… never will?”
That explains Grace’s familiar tone of voice. “Yes.”
“Well… they really wanted me to. It was fine when I was a kid, but as I got older they thought I’d grow out of that… inability.”
Rocky’s focus turns one-eighty; abandons the attitude telemetry to measure Grace’s. “Why, question?”
Again, Grace shrugs. His voice comes muted, misdirected. “They just wanted me to live a normal life. Y’know? To be normal.”
Rocky shifts. “Why want Grace to ever change, question?” It’s absurd, unfathomable. If possible, Rocky would stop time right now, would stay in stable orbit around a young, healthy Grace, would keep the Hail Mary in stable, synchronous orbit around Erid, would balance each half of the universe down to the last Eridian to waltz around its barycenter with Grace forever, but —
“Heh. Thanks, buddy. They didn’t know me like you do. No one does.”
But Rocky can’t.
And Grace spirals, too.
“Alright, your turn. You gotta tell me now; we made a deal.” Grace nudges Rocky with the tip of his shoe. “What’s up?”
“Mary hull,” Rocky says, then leaps off the chair and scurries out of the cockpit.
Grace sighs dramatically. “Rooockyyy,” he whines as he follows Rocky down the hall, through the mental health node, to their bedroom.
Rocky’s tools and toys rest on the shelf between their beds; Rocky joins them, starts tinkering. Now that they’re at Erid — now that the Hail Mary orbits the planet in the elevator’s wake, geostationary like a solid celestial sky, Grace’s refuge ‘til he’s got a habitat on the surface — Rocky could work down there. In shops, or factories, or alongside other Eridians. But Rocky’s inspiration is here, in this cross-shaped prayer, this final temple. When Grace explained places of worship he’d called them structures of devotion, and though Erid has no analog, Rocky understands — for Grace so loved his friend that he gave his one and only life, and all Rocky can do in response is build.
But…
That means Rocky is Grace’s world, too.
“This isn’t fair.” Grace flops onto his bed and frowns at the ceiling, hands his glasses off to Armando. “We made a deal!”
Deal, promise, vow. Rocky can build all night, but a broken deal can’t be fixed.
And… deals aren’t the only thing unfixable.
Rocky’s claws shake.
“Grace remember when Rocky say Eridians watch sleep, question?”
Grace turns his head. “Uh. Yeah.”
Shit. Shit shit shit.
“Not… all Eridians do that. Only crew from Blip-A. Checking during sleep supposed to prevent any more from dying.” Rocky sets the now-finished gadget on the shelf, flicks it into motion. It twirls in place, a five-sided top spinning into a blur. “Now only Rocky do that.”
“… oh.”
Grace’s mouth is open. He’s going to leave. He thinks Rocky lied about something stupid and he’s going to kick Rocky off the Hail Mary and fire his spin drives and vanish in a direction Rocky can’t calculate and —
“Is that it? I mean, I guess that explains why your parents were confused when I said you’d watched me sleep every night. I meant it as a compliment, but. Hah! They probably think I’m weird even for an alien.”
And Grace is still here. The top still spins.
Rocky adjusts, takes stock of all Mary’s children. The silos are still full, the seals are still tight, the chair still stands. Erid still turns; Rocky and Grace around her, around each other.
“Grace… not mad, question?”
“Uh, no?”
“But Rocky lied. Is bad.”
Grace shrugs. He rolls onto his side, faces Rocky entirely. “It’s fine. I didn’t… I mean. You understood when I finally told you that I didn’t choose to come on this mission.”
“Still angry about that! Statement!”
Grace laughs. The sound comes up like the warmth of day, like flora at Erid’s frozen pole. So you can remember me, he’d said, as though Rocky would not forever feel him in the regrowth of Erid’s saved star, would not have been desolate in missing him like the side of Erid in eternal night. Maybe Rocky is part planet, after all.
Rocky picks up Grace’s gifted beanbag. Squeezes it. Relishes its resistance against each claw. “Will never not be angry about that.”
“Yeah, I know. Thanks, Rock. You’re a real one.”
Rocky tilts forward. The what brought Rocky Grace, and the why’s obvious, but the how…
Rocky grips the beanbag. It’s a habit picked up at the edge of space, time, being; exercise heals Eridians, facilitates repair. So Rocky’d circuited through reps and sets aboard the Blip-A, when the taumoeba’d eaten her fuel, when her engines took their last gasping breath, when Rocky’d lost her to the silence.
The same silence that’d stolen her crew.
The top ricochets off the shelf, clatters to the floor. Grace jumps at the sound, but recovers quick. “Gosh. Startled me. Anyways. Bedtime?”
Rocky needs to watch Grace sleep. Needs to know he’ll wake up. It’s not every night, anymore, but tonight —
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Grace reaches out, pulls Rocky to his chest. Shuts his eyes as Mary’s lights click off, one by one. His heart beats loud and slow, with the period of a top’s fade-out, a twin centrifuge, a turning Eridian clock.
It’s impossible to defer its inevitable slow, but Rocky can try.
“Grace let unknown space monster watch sleep. Count seconds of sleep. Despite lying,” Rocky says. Shimmies closer to Grace, squeezes the beanbag. “Brave brave brave.”
“Hm.” Grace smiles. “I’m really not.”
“Grace just say no one know Grace like Rocky. Obvious Grace brave. Not allowed to fight.”
“Hey! Don’t use my own words against me while I’m tired. We’ll fight in the morning. Goodnight, Rock. Go to sleep.”
“Rocky watch Grace sleep tonight,” Rocky says, without thinking.
Grace’s brow creases.
Shit.
For the first time, Rocky’s suit’s too tight.
“No one knows me like you, bud. Can’t I know you too?”
They’re conic sections, he’d said, while plotting Rocky’s trip home. Most are. Theoretically. Our orbit around Tau Ceti’s technically an ellipse, but our eccentricity is only point-oh-two, so it’s close to a circle. You’ll need a ton of energy to get on a hyperbolic escape path. But that’s not a problem for you. You’ve got… so much fuel. Plenty of energy.
He… already knows Rocky.
Kind of a shame, though. I wish we could stay close.
Rocky spins. Perigee over apogee, vent over claw. And it keeps Grace safe, keeps Rocky safe. It keeps energy high while cycling through checks, resists gravity with its rate of rotation.
It puts them on diverging trajectories.
But if the specificity of Grace’s self — the mass of his voice when he says marriage and lover and humans were wrong about sleeping together, this is much better — just pulls Rocky in, then maybe…
Maybe Rocky’s doesn’t have to push them apart.
Rocky squirms. “Grace.”
“Yeah, pal?”
“Something… wrong with Rocky.”
“What is it? Like, right now?”
“Like always. Rocky always more… aware than other Eridians. Since coming back.” More squirming. Grace taps the suit, eggs Rocky on. “Can hear all details of all environment, all the time. Need to hear, to make sure Grace not die like crewmates. But now Rocky need to watch sleep. Maybe need to do other things other Eridians not do, too.”
“… oh.”
Rocky taps two claws together. “Should probably fix Rocky. But no want to fix, because unfixed Rocky means Grace maybe less safe.”
Grace breathes in, out. “You don’t… I mean. If you’re sick, or something, we can figure it out and get you better. But you don’t need to be fixed.”
“But maybe Grace would rather Rocky not be…” Rocky huffs. “Maybe Grace would rather Rocky not have weird Rocky awareness.”
“Rock. Hey. None of that, okay? You’re — irreplaceable. The sun literally” — Grace flings an arm towards the ceiling, away from the sun — “shines brighter because y —”
“Left.”
Grace adjusts his arm. “The sun —”
“More left.”
Again, Grace adjusts. “The sun —”
“Down.”
“The sun —”
“More down.”
“Oh my god. You get my point!”
Rocky snickers.
Grace smiles. He winds his arm around Rocky’s carapace, pulls them close enough to impress the suit into his skin. “As I was saying. The sun shines brighter because you’re you. Literally.”
Grace speaks as though Rocky is irreplaceable, but it’s only — “Because Rocky only Eridian alert all all all the time. Grace can meet better engineers on Erid.”
“No!” Grace bonks his forehead against the suit. “I mean, maybe a little bit, but not just because you’re… aware, or detail-oriented, or whatever. Because you’re my best friend. In a way I didn’t think was… even possible, before.”
Love swells within Rocky’s carapace. Grace’s parents, Eva Stratt — they added too much energy; flung Grace far outside their field of view. “Grace stupid. Too long since last sleep.”
“Yeah, but you’re still irreplaceable,” Grace yawns. “And you’re being mean to my best friend because it’s been too long since your last sleep. Go to bed.”
Rocky spins. Perigee over apogee, vent over claw. But…
Rocky can’t lose Grace.
“Okay.” Rocky sets the beanbag down, settles into Grace. Splays the freed claw upon the back of his head. “Goodnight.”
“Mmm,” Grace hums in response. His smile’s audible.
And Rocky spins down.