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When I enter the lab, I see Grace is sleeping in the ground again. This has began happening more and more often as Grace grows weaker. Moving between the different rooms is becoming too much stress on his body. If he is exhausted, I don’t want him climbing the ladder down to the dormitory, so there is now a nest in the lab, Don’t Go Crazy room and even the cockpit had some pillows and blankets stored away.
I am well aware of how abnormal his sleeping pattern is for a human. It has been abnormal since we met, but now it is nearing debilitating. It is a very good thing we don’t have any more big science to do.
I get into my newest xenonite suit and exit my tunnel. The most demanding need for the suit’s creation was so I can operate and pilot the Hail Mary is Grace is unable. That is the most sensible reason and the one I told Grace. The reasons I found most important were that I would be able to safely carry Grace to Armando if needed, and I could bring him anything he needed when he was took weak to move.
Grace is sleeping without a blanket. Bad. We have agreed that the desire Eridians have to have their sleep watched is about strong as a human’s desire to sleep under a blanket. Neither was a biological necessity, but something that greatly increased the sense of comfort and safety.
From the pile of bedding items I grab Grace’s favorite blanket. It is a ‘quilt,’ specifically, made up of many different patches of fabric pieced together. Some of the rectangles are textured well enough for me to see the image if I tap and focus on it. Otherwise, I can appreciate the knowledge that each patch represents a different culture of Earth, a different symbol of luck and goodwill.
The quilt is made by hand, and an accumulation of many, many hours. I believe time spent doing something for another must be the highest degree of care and respect for the humans. With their short lifespans, time must be priceless. Not only is there the quilt, but papers taped across the walls. When I have observed them with my texture monitor they remind me of how pebble trace in the ground. I have seen letters addressed to the crew written in three scripts.
The humans sent their own to die, but not without every comfort they could pack, and not without crafts quietly saying ‘We hope it brings you comfort. We spent our time on this for you. We’re sorry we stole yours.’
The quilt is large enough that I think the whole crew could have fit under it if they so desired. From what I know of Earth culture, I don’t think that they would, but my mind betrays me and wonders. If Grace was crying himself to sleep, would they have laid beside him like I do? Would they have had a period between sending off the beetles and their deaths where they let themselves pretend things were normal and huddle under the quilt and watch a movie like Grace and I do?
As I pull the quilt over my Grace, he begins to stir.
“Sleep, sleep. Body needs it.”
“Mm, fell asleep on accident,” he mumbles.
“Can tell. Sleep with no one watching and no blanket. Bad.”
“Mmf.”
I don’t think that was a word, just some verbal acknowledgement that he had heard me. Sometimes he just makes sounds the way an animal does, where the tone is what relays the message. He has been doing this more often.
I skitter to his front and he reaches out to me, grasping at air before finding one of my arms to rub his knuckles over the xenonite around my leg.
“You watch?” Grace asks.
“Yes. Always.”
I lower myself down, and scoot close to his chest. Over the quilt, I lay an arm around his back. There is some warmth that comes through my suit that is enough to ease aches. I am glad for any amount of comfort I can provide him.
I’ve never told him how much of my reasoning for the building the new suit was so he could have someone to touch, and I will never tell him of the deep and selfish part of me that simply longed to touch him.
Grace places a hand on part of my carapace, to the side of what he considers my ‘face’. He rubs his thumb over the xenonite and I wish desperately I could feel it. I have seen this is a few movies. A person leaning into a gentle touch with closed eyes. I press my carapace against the xenonite, and hum. We maybe not be able to touch, but he can feel my sound under his fingertips and I can pretend that is enough.