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"Grace, question?" Rocky trills, tapping twice on the clear xenonite panel nearest the handle he had just been holding to balance himself within his tunnels.
"What's up, bud?" I'm pacing, as I often do, considering my current (Taumoeba-as-food-related, when is it not?) predicament. My janky translator is stationary, however, so I have to pause to double-check whatever he says next. I'm getting better, gradually, at understanding the more common phrases and grammar structures, and these days I rarely actually look at the translator unless we've got a new word or -- like now -- he asks a question in earnest. But, being that there's no telling what kind of query he has for me, I figure: better safe than sorry.
"You say humans always look at stars… Is true, question?"
"Yep. Early on, it was probably because someone had to keep watch in case of predators. Naturally, you'd get bored doing that when no actual predators showed up, so people would try to mentally connect the stars they saw into pictures, and then tell stories about the imaginary pictures for their own amusement. These became oral traditions -- spoken stories -- and sometimes paintings on our surroundings or depictions on our textiles or structures."
He taps once, as though to spur me on, and I comtinue. "Then once we had written languages, people started writing the stories down. So, basically, we've been looking at the stars so long, that our ancestors thousands of years ago formed whole religions and mythological stories around them." I realize I've started lecturing, but Rocky hasn't once tried to interrupt me. I'm not sure what's going on in his inorganic little brain case. Usually if I slide off topic or bring in a few tangents, he jumps in to bully me back on topic. "…Any particular reason you ask?"
Rocky's little digits of two claws fidget with his fabric repair tools, the remaining three stabilizing him as he considers. He's been favoring those for crafting, I know they've been bothering him since I found him again, they were the ones injured while I was gone when his Taumoeba leaked. For a creature without a face and completely alien biology, his body language is remarkably easy for me to read, and I step closer, reaching a hand up to touch the xenonite tunnel. Instinctively, he lowers his carapace to free up a hand more reliably, one of the claws he previously used to stabilize himself now pressed flat against the xenonite on the other side from my palm. It's always warm, but I'd like to think it's just a tad bit more so when he's there. His response comes so quiet, I nearly miss it. "Grace and Grace siblings watch stars?"
That… Honestly catches me off guard. "'Course we did, bud. Me and my twin, Colt, we, uh, we loved the stars. Probably mainly because when Court took us stargazing, it got us out of the line of fire of Dad. But I knew it was something Court did before we were even born. 'Parently, he used to do it with our mom." Rocky seems… Off. He's more full of anxious energy than I would typically expect out of him. Granted, he's definitely been more oddly subdued since I returned for him, but this is different.
"What is farthest star human eye can see without assistance, question?" He raises one digit of the claw against my hand on the other side of the barrier to tap out the inquiry gesture.
"Uh… I think the generally accepted answer -- at least, last I was on Earth -- was a little over sixteen thousand three hundred light years away. One of the stars in the Cassiopeia constellation. It varies, based on the time of year, location, weather, and light pollution, but that's the rough answer. Can you actually answer my question now?"
Rocky shifts evasively, and I get a little concerned, raising my left arm to lean on the tunnel and focus on him fully. It hurts, and I know that my skin makes noises he can't even describe to me which get on his nerves, but at this point, I don't know how else to make him talk besides turning my full attention on him in a way he can't ignore. "Rocky…"
"Rocky alone in Tau Ceti system long time. Grace think… Grace think Grace family observe Rocky sleep?"
Oh. Right. "Y-Yeah, Rock. I mean, I know you've been orbiting Tau Ceti for forty-six years, so it wouldn't have always been me, but I'm sure my brother Court and my mom were watching by the time you arrived in Tau Ceti. At a distance, yeah, but they were observing, bud. You were never really without an observer. No one on Erid has been sleeping fully alone as long as animals with eyes suited to Earth's surface were looking up at night."
He stills his fidgeting hands, finally setting down his project and pressing two claws to meet mine through the xenonite. I can't hear it, but the twinge in my head tells me he's actively echolocating me, and it makes my pulse speed up just barely. "Rocky… Dude, talk to me. You're starting to worry me."
"Apology, apology, apology. Is stupid, should not concern Grace with such things."
I lightly tap the fingertips on my right hand against the xenonite in quick succession. It makes Rocky flinch ever so slightly, but I'm not letting him spiral on me like that. "Nothing involving you is stupid to me. Nothing, okay? For better or worse, you and I are all we've got right now, and frankly, I wouldn't want to be stuck in space for several years with anyone else. You always tell me my stupid squishy human brain is lying when I get in a funk, and I know you know damn well that you're the best engineer either of us knows. Across two species, I wouldn't trust anyone else the way I trust you right now. So, if my brain can lie to me and tell me I'm worthless, and you're allowed to call bullshit, I'm invoking it in reverse. If you're feeling anxious, I wanna know."
Rocky shifts his stance and taps lightly on the xenonite with one claw, curious. "New words."
I can't help smiling. I knew it would temporarily derail him, and that's all I need. I feign nonchalance and push off lightly from the tunnel, reaching for the computer that hosts the bulk of my bootleg translation software. "Ohhh, yeahhh… I never went over profanities with you, did I?"
I'm well aware that Grace knows what he is doing. It's my own fault, really. I've been asking for the past two months of his Earth time, ever since he came back for me. Needling, cajoling, pestering, bullying. I'm a grown Eridian, not a pebble, as Grace has taken to calling them.
I saved Grace's life, the least he could do is allow me to communicate with him like an adult in his native tongue. I don't need coddling, but the fact that Grace already knew precisely how to redirect me when I had worked myself up makes my radiator vents work just a bit harder. As much as I tease the squishy, leaky human for his physiological shortcomings, there are things he is remarkably good at. Redirection is certainly one of his strengths.
So, when Grace finally chooses to let it slide for the purpose of cheering me up -- and I hold no delusions on the matter, he is as entirely transparent in his motivations as his body is to my active echolocation -- I take full advantage. He's teaching me everything I can wring out of him.
By the time that we're finished with that, I actually do feel better, and Grace is affectionately feigning his exasperation, but we both know he's full of shit. We both end up in the lab, where Grace moved his sleeping materials not long after I first moved into the Hail Mary. My tunnels and storage space had taken up much of the dormitory area that had been designated for the human crew to sleep in, so keeping the bedding down there simply wasn't feasible. Besides, Grace sleeping here makes it easier for me to use the light-to-texture device that allows me to observe the screens and keep tabs on the breeder tanks while I observe his sleep cycle.
With that being sung, apparently Grace managed to wear himself out, and he opts to curl up in the strange little nest he's made in an area where my tunnels raise slightly before dropping back down, a location of his own invention, since he's the one who actually assembled the damn things. Now that I understand how dependent humans are on the social and physical engagement side of things, it makes sense that he would want to create a little alcove that I can shuffle about or just lounge on top of while he sleeps. He's gotten so used to the two of us watching each other sleep that I've often wondered if he struggles with not being watched as I do.
Regardless, I oblige him, and bring my little project with me, folding three of my limbs under the bulk of my thorax and settling in for the duration of his sleep cycle. When I enact my active echolocation -- which is far higher than he can hear, but still appears to impact his physiology in curious ways -- to get a better observation of him, I can tell he's looking up at me instead of sleeping. "Grace go to sleep, statement. Grace grumpy, stupid, clumsy when tired."
He lets out a mocking, poor mimicry of my song, rolling over onto his side like he is pouting. "Grace is grown-ass human, statement. Current behavior childish and Grace know, Grace previously work with human children. Grace need take better care of self. Grace too stubborn."
The long silence without any kind of response spikes my anxiety, and I put out another pulse of active echolocation to see his expressions better, which also results in him turning over to face me with a displeased expression. It never fails to unsettle me slightly when he turns his binocular vision on me. And now, knowing with confirmation that they can see an object more than VℓλV++ of their lightyear units away, it makes a deeply archaic part of my brain freeze me in place, claws stilling on my project. I can tell he notices the mood has shifted, because he scoots closer to the xenonite, leaning up against the hard surface and placing his hand just beneath where one of mine is frozen, his expression softening. "I'm not actually mad, bud. I just want you to know that. There's, uh… There's an Earth sentiment about never going to bed angry, and I want you to know I'm not actually irritated with you. Okay?"
I can feel my muscles relax minutely, and I adjust the hand nearest his to be better aligned. "Rocky know. Grace sleep now, statement."
Grace huffs a laugh softly, opting to curl more tightly into the space underneath the xenonite so more of his body is in contact with it. This is stupid, and he knows it. He will wake up in pain from the cramped positioning and unable to move or think effectively, because he's an impulsive ass and does things that he likes in the short term that harm him in the long term. I tap on the xenonite to regain his attention. "Grace cold, question? Grace need adjust temperature of Grace side of Mary, question?" It's passive-aggressive, but sometimes the only way to prompt him is to irritate him into admitting something is wrong.
Grace sighs and tilts his head to look at me, one eye cracked open. "It's not a temperature thing. Just… Harder to sleep when you're so far away."
"What mean, far away, question? Rocky right here. Rocky not far from Grace."
He groans a protestation, rubbing his hands over his face. "It's…" He sighs, before trying again. "It's a human thing. We're highly reliant on others, and we don't generally do well without touch. And while I'm well aware that we physically can't do that without causing us both grievous bodily harm, my body isn't adjusting well to the idea that someone I care about is right there and we're not able to be in contact. Touch starvation, is what it's called. Makes it harder to feel at ease, increases tension and irritability, worsens health outcomes in some cases. Mainly, it just doesn't feel good. I'm not sleeping as well, as I'm sure you've noticed, and it isn't just because I'm worried about my food supplies. I'm also not necessarily trying to get short with you as often as I have been recently, so I'm sorry."
I'm concerned and a little bit annoyed that he didn't just tell me this sooner. I could have started working on a solution if he was just upfront instead of trying to be cavalier about his squishy leaky space blob needs. "Why not tell Rocky, question? Need to know about Grace distress! Unfair not tell Rocky when you realize is issue." My song is lower pitch than usual with my agitation at his deception, and I know it freaks him out when that occurs.
He grips his hair and groans, pushing himself up into a sitting position so he's closer to me. "It's not intentional, okay? I just… Didn't recognize it for what it was. I didn't really have this problem on Earth. There was always someone I could at least come in physical contact with. Casual brushes of elbows while working with students or instructing a coworker or going out for drinks after work once in a while and having people hanging off of me as they're letting loose. I don't really have that right now. You're with me, but not in a way my stupid little monkey brain wants, and it's driving me a little crazy if I'm being honest. It's not anyone's fault, just sucks."
I find myself tapping my digits together as I think, trying to consider a solution. I've done a little bit of research on the computer Grace gave me before we parted, so I've had a better idea of human needs and how weird their bodies are in the time he was gone from my hearing than I did before he left.
…It was very lonely on my ship. I had to keep myself busy or I would fixate on whether Grace would be okay or not, but it didn't entirely limit my fixation. He is my friend. Maybe the only one who would have me in the state I am now. I am not stupid. I know that the average Eridian would consider me to have something very wrong with me. I had been alone for a very long time. That does things to the mind. Yes, even the Eridian mind, with its inorganic components. But Grace understands me as I am. Accepts me as I am. He doesn't judge my inability to handle a lot of stimulus at once, or for growing fatigued with interaction, or for snapping at him when I get annoyed because he hasn't stopped talking and we're Vℓ topics away from where the conversation started and he still hasn't given me an answer to my initial question. He just cringes a little and apologizes and asks me to remind him and his squishy inefficient brain what the original query was, and then answers and gives me time to process. It is the purest demonstration of care I have seen out of any other being besides my own mate. My mate, who would often just stand close in near silence and lightly touch the exterior of a limb to my own as we stood directly adjacent to make sure I knew they were still there for me whenever I was ready. Hmm.
"Rocky make replacement for ball."
Grace is already gearing himself up for an argument, and I have to acknowledge that it inspires fondness. "Rock, you don't have enough xenoni --"
"Not need much. Repurpose pieces from ball. Increase dexterity, reduce need for magnets and external manipulators for interact with Grace and Mary. Rocky make plan for disassemble ball while Grace sleep. When Grace wake, Grace disassemble following Rocky's plan and feed disassembled pieces through airlock with AstroTorch so Rocky can fix. Grace sleep now."
"Is that going to be safe for you to do? I mean, jeez, Rock, you're still recovering from the shitshow on your ship. Do you have the mobility to work on a project that intense right now?"
I can feel my irritation rise, more so because I understand his concerns, but what I need to recover is more movement in my injured limbs, not less. I've tried explaining it, but despite the fact that he requires similar for the burns he retained saving me, he doesn't seem to fully understand that the so-called 'rest' does more harm than good right now. It's a quirk of Eridian biology that rest only helps one part of recovery from injuries. The rest requires regular and constant movement -- within reason -- to get the workers dispersed through my circulatory system faster so that they can make repairs where they are needed. "Need movement to heal. Must keep busy, not much space to move on Mary, so project good for recovery." We don't have the vocabulary to properly convey the reasons, and I'm no physician.
Grace seems to accept this answer, though, and he concedes the point with a nod. "Alright, buddy. I'm trusting you know yourself well enough to be able to tell me if it's too much. But please don't push yourself on my account. We've still got a long way to go and I don't need you hurting yourself unnecessarily. You've done that enough." I observe as he settles back down, laying flat and bunching up his blanket close to his skin all around his body, his head the only thing out of it. He's watching me, I know it, but gradually he allows his exhaustion to nudge him toward sleep, watching me work on my inconsequential smaller project as I start drawing up plans as to how to deconstruct the ball into smaller pieces that can easily fit through the airlock and be reworked without much fuss. I can hear his respiration rate and pulse both slow, and he mumbles a soft, "'night, Rock," as he loses consciousness.
It's a great relief to me that his body never stills in sleep. It certainly moves less than during his waking hours, but his respiration is always loud and results in a steady rhythm of movement even when his body is at rest, his heart pumps away audibly, and there is never even a shadow of a doubt that he is still alive. It puts me at ease, allows me to focus on the projects at claw with more intensity. I don't even have to actively echolocate to have reassurance that he's still breathing because I can consistently hear everything. At first, when I had moved onto the Mary, the constant racket had been disconcerting, but now I'm not sure how I dealt without it for so long. It's a great reassurance that nothing is going catastrophically wrong with either of us, we're alive, we made it. We're on our way to Erid -- to safety and assistance for Grace, and my home and my mate for me. When we get there, I will gladly never leave solid ground if I can help it.
Once Grace has a climate and atmosphere controlled enclosure, ideally with some soundproofing in certain areas, that will most likely be my new safe haven. I've grown so used to the intimate environment of the Mary and sharing it with only Grace, I do not know if I will be able to return to full time work in my former position given how used to the quiet I've become. They might not even let me, given everything that happened on my ship and how long I have been gone. So having Grace's enclosure to retreat to when I'm too fatigued by interaction with my own species to manage normally would be nice. Of course, that would necessitate Grace finding out that I'm also weird by Eridian standards, too, but we can have that talk when it becomes necessary.
Right now, it is just the two of us, and I don't have to worry about what anyone else thinks for quite some time. Really, even once we arrive, I couldn't be fucking bothered with most of my fellow Eridians' opinions anyway. They don't get to judge me after everything I went through. Things that no other in the history of Erid has ever gone through, and -- hopefully -- things that no other Eridian will ever need to experience again, thanks to the very human I stand guard over. Observing the even rise and fall of his ribcage -- the way the involuntarily active muscles and bones make strange little sounds as they drag along and displace the flesh atop them, then return back to their initial position without actually causing any damage -- is near hypnotic.
The only one with a modicum of understanding about how fucked up what I've been through is… Is that same human. Frankly, I miss Adrian more in the quiet moments, because I know that once I go back, I will have to put up with politicians and scientists and all matter of other irritating individuals vying for my attention and demanding answers and information, and while I recognize that I will have a duty that quite literally only I can fulfill, it does nothing to assuage my anxieties on the matter. I was never much of a public communicator, but this will not be a situation suited to a small, intimate meeting and dispersal of information. The other families will demand details, the biology and engineering teams will hunt me down for answers -- well-meaning former coworkers and compatriots simply doing their jobs without knowledge of the jagged edge of trauma they would be catching and ripping open in my psyche with their prodding. Adrian will not be able to shield me from it, assuming that is even still a role they are willing to fulfill when we arrive. Grace… Grace might be able to help me put off answering the more in-depth questions. His reliance on me will make for a great excuse even if my sanity weren't hinging on his presence at this point.
It takes a few revisions, but I eventually produce a tablet of blueprints with notes in written English -- diagrams and very detailed instructions so that we don't have any misunderstandings that result in a fight.
Looking back on the setup of my habitat within Mary, it's more amusing than frustrating now, just how much conflict was inspired. Instructions that felt simple on my end translated oddly through our language barrier, until the both of us worked ourselves into a near-screeching match. The early days were filled with those kinds of moments while we adjusted, both to no longer being alone, and to living with an actual alien. We constantly accidentally irritated each other.
Now? We do that shit on purpose. Being an annoying 'smartass' -- apparently the actual nickname he's been wanting to call me for a while, not smart Aleck, as he has been -- is one of my favorite pastimes with Grace.
I can tell that qualities that fellow Eridians found grating enough to avoid me are things that Grace finds deeply endearing. At first, I also found this annoying, because he was harder to chase off when I wanted him to give me space. However, now that I know he isn't going to be offended if I just inform him I need him to fuck off for a while, he will just leave me alone as requested, I can vaunt my behaviors that other Eridians find annoying -- and that I have previously had to get defensive about -- and Grace just gets that fond expression on his face and chuckles.
Grace loves my irritable little grumbles. He says I sound like a bobcat and it reminds him of his home planet. He likes to sit in enrapt silence and watch my tridactyl claws as I work on various tasks. Even something as simple as butchering my food, in preparation to eat, captures his attention like one of his experiments. He leans in closes, fixes his binocular light receptors on my digits, and watches. Since the first time he watched me eat, he stopped with his tacit insistence that he be present, but he does still regularly partake, even eating at the same time when he can spare the rations. It seems to settle something in his human instincts, so I stopped complaining about it and just let it happen. I have also started to wonder if it might be related to his anxieties about my 'choking,' because he has seen my interior and noted the lack of structures to address such a thing. It didn't matter that I explained that the actions I take with my hands are comparable to his chewing, and that there is no swallowing involved like in his case, but he seems to be more settled if he can watch my feeding time, so I just allow it with only a little bit of unserious grumbling.
Realistically, I would let Grace do as he pleases. When I finally have a more flexible way to interface with him, I wouldn't care if he wanted to look inside with more detail. He is curious, always has been, I know this. And if Grace wants it, I'll allow it -- within reason, obviously. I used to have a reputation for being incredibly stubborn and unwilling to bend to the wills of others, but Grace already reminded me of my mate even before we became so intertwined with one another. Nothing he requests of me is annoying the way it would be with anyone else. He wouldn't be Grace if he didn't have λλVλλλ++ questions to ask me on every possible topic.
Now, I just have to wait for my alien friend to wake up.
Then, the real work begins.