Work Text:
It only took Grace two months of travelling, and a few too many games of I Spy—a game that he somehow still couldn't beat Rocky at—for him to come to a decision.
“I'm going to write a paper.”
Rocky stopped searching the ship for something starting with aluminium-alloy (letters were a tricky standard to work with when you didn't share a writing system) and tilted his stance. “No understand. Paper is material. How write material, question?”
“Oh, no, it’s printed on paper—or, well, they used to be anyway—but it's more like, uh...” He tried to find a word in their shared vocabulary. “An essay. Or a report. Essentially, it’s just putting together research into a whole bunch of words for other people to read and see your ideas, which might in turn help with theirs.”
“Ah. I understand now. It is like ♬♪♩.”
Grace perked up. The two of them had been practicing talking without the translator the last few weeks, and for the most part, they'd been getting by pretty well. It had been days since the last time he'd been unable to understand one of Rocky's words. He reached for his laptop and opened up his translation program, which had been running without audio in the background just in case he needed it. The program also hadn't been able to translate the word, which meant it was a new one.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“On Erid, we have meeting places where Eridians gather to speak and combine knowledge to figure out problems together. Is how we came up with plan for Tau Ceti. Many great minds in unison.”
“Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Grace said, nodding. He knew Eridians had a writing system of some sort—the engravings on Rocky's arm were proof of that—but they were an audio-centric species; of course they'd prefer speaking about their ideas over writing about them. “Like a TEDTalk.”
“Is that human word?”
“Eh, not quite. Let's just go with ‘forum’ for now.” He typed in the word and set the computer to the side. He’d probably find a better word for it later. “Did you ever speak at one? I bet you would’ve been quite the Archimedes. Or maybe Socrates. Wait! No! Rock-crates!”
“Grace is speaking gibberish again,” Rocky muttered.
“It was a pun, and it was hilarious.”
“Doubt.”
“It was! Other humans would think it was funny for sure!”
“Much doubt.”
Grace crossed his arms. “You're just mad I didn't get your joke about the whale video I showed you yesterday, aren't you?”
“They made sound like word for ground. But they were in water!”
“Hm.” Grace made a face and shrugged exaggeratedly. “Still not funny.”
“It is funny in Eridian!” Rocky said, lifting his carapace defiantly higher as he stomped twice. He settled down after a moment. “Why is Grace writing paper, question?”
It was a good question. Even Grace wasn't sure exactly why he wanted to do it. It wasn't like there was anyone else around who could read it, and the last paper he wrote had helped to blow up his entire scientific career. It was also the reason that...
He shook the thought away. “Something to pass the time, I guess,” he said. "We still have a long way to go, afterall.”
Almost 94 trillion kilometres to go in fact—just under 3 and half years of travel at their current speed of 1.5g—but hey, who was counting.
“Grace is bored, question?”
“Not bored, just...” He fidgeted with his sleeves. “I like having something to keep my brain busy. A problem to figure out, or a project to work on. A scientist needs to science, y’know.”
“Understand. What will you write about, question?”
Grace hummed. “Maybe about Astrophage? I was a world leading expert there for a while, you know. About time I wrote something about the little guys. Heck, maybe I'll throw the Taumoeba in there too, just for fun.”
“I don't see how is fun. Throwing Taumoeba in very difficult. They are very small.”
“It's an expression, buddy. Just means I might talk about them a little too.”
Rocky made a warbling sound not unlike a groan. “Human sayings make no sense.” He turned in a circle. “Is it a microscope, question?”
“Huh?”
“Our game. Is what you spy a microscope, question?”
It was, damn it. Grace huffed. “How are you so good at this? You can't even see.”
Rocky wiggled proudly. “Grace is very good at colours. But Rocky is better at textures and materials.”
“Next time, we're doing it based on shape.”
“Rocky will still win.”
“Oh, really?” Grace challenged. “Looks like I need to change your name to Cocky.”
“Then Rocky change Grace name to Disgrace.”
Grace spluttered, and shot Rocky a wide-eyed look.
“Is pun!” Rocky declared cheerfully.
“Yeah, I got that.”
“And funnier in English too!”
“That's a matter of opinion,” Grace grumbled as he reached again for his laptop. “Anyway, I think I'm gonna get started on my research now. For the paper.”
“Rocky can help!”
Grace shook his head. “No, uh, I always kinda worked on papers by myself. Sorry.”
“Is okay.” Rocky sat himself down on the edge of the enclosure, right next to Grace's head. “I can watch.”
“It'll be very boring.”
“Do not mind,” Rocky said. “Will be like watching sleep.”
“You'll have to be quiet so I can focus.”
Rocky dutifully said nothing back, which made Grace smile.
“Alright then,” he said, “enjoy the thrill of watching the ‘human tapping and staring —mostly staring, let's be honest—at a laptop’ show. Don't say I didn't warn you.”
Grace pulled up an empty Word document along with the Hail Mary's database, which he'd come to calling ‘Interstellar Explorer’. The text cursor in the search bar blinked eagerly at him, and he hummed in thought, wondering where best to start.
He had his own research about Astrophage, of course, not just from his time working with it on the Hail Mary but everything he put together back on Earth too. Including all of that was a no-brainer (and there was a certain joy in writing ‘source: me’). But he'd been focused on the biology and breeding of Astrophage; he needed other sources to get a more holistic view.
Even though he had everything ever written by humanity in the palm of hand, there were only a few years of the many thousands of years’ worth of documents that Astrophage was actually being actively studied in. Sure, that still meant hundreds of papers—the fate of the world really brought scientists of all kinds together on a subject—but the speed in which many of those papers were written meant there'd be plenty of inaccuracies. He would have to check everything to make sure it was all correct, maybe even do some experiments.
It was safe to say, he definitely had his work cut out for him. Good. He needed a challenge. And it would be good to have something to focus his brain on. He flexed his fingers and pulled the laptop closer.
“Time to do some research.”
“I hate doing research,” Grace groaned as he shoved himself away from the laptop and flopped down onto the ground.
Rocky looked up from his own project, which seemed to be the beginning of another xenonite suit, this time shaped for his own body. He'd never admitted to being bored, but the fact that he'd taken to multi-tasking after only a few hours of watching Grace study certainly suggested that even he had limits.
“Then why doing it, question?”
Grace sighed. “Because I want to. And because I like doing it.”
“Like and hate, at same time, question? Hm. Very strange.”
“Yeah, yeah, it's another weird human thing.” He turned to face Rocky. “Speaking of, I have a question for you. What’s your word for kindness again?”
“Kindness,” Rocky said, the sounds automatically translating in Grace's head to their English equivalent. He replayed the warbling sounds over in his mind, focusing not on what the word meant as a whole but on the different notes that made it up.
Linguistics was a tricky thing when you a) still weren't fluent in the language, b) didn't know its contextual history, c) had to rely on musical knowledge to even attempt parsing the language's complexities, and oh yeah, d) weren't a linguist, but hey, it wasn't impossible. You just had to find the consistencies.
“That first part sounds like your word for 'watch',” he said slowly. “The next part almost sounds like 'sleep', but not quite. Not sure about the last part. But I'm guessing the literal definition is something to do with watching sleep?”
“Yes. Watching others sleep is very kind. Especially kind when not someone we are close with. The word comes from that.”
Ah, the last part had to be something about strangers then. It made sense that even Eridians had the concept of ‘the kindness of strangers’, but there was something especially beautiful about it being the linguistic root of the word itself. Rocky really had lived up to the spirit of it.
“That's lovely,” Grace said with a smile.
“Why question, question?”
“Well, one of our words for being compassionate is ‘humanity’. Which is also the word for our species as a whole. So if someone is kind, they're showing humanity.” He scoffed. “Isn’t that so stupid? We humans decided that kindness is a ‘human’ thing. Like we're the only ones that can do it. But you've shown me more kindness than a lot of humans. The word ‘humanity’ to describe you just doesn't fit. If anything, it feels rude! It's like I'm saying I can only relate to you because you showed a ‘human’ trait, but it's not a human trait, it's a—”
“Grace need to breathe,” Rocky said.
Grace stopped in place with a blink. Oh. He hadn't realised he'd started pacing. Or that he hadn't drawn a single breath the whole time he was talking. No wonder he felt winded. He inhaled deeply, held it for a few seconds, and then let it out again. As soon as he had, he sat back down.
“Sorry,” he said. “Guess I got a bit in my head there.”
“Is alright,” Rocky assured. “But why thinking about this, question?”
“I found this paper about the scientific root of human kindness, and how humans are actually biologically wired towards kindness, that collaboration is an early evolutionary trait that helped us to survive and develop our brains. But thing is, we're not the only ones; lots of animals on our planet express empathy; in fact, scientists often use it as a measure of their sentience.
“So if kindness and the desire for collaboration is just a biological process, then maybe it's like carbon; a basic building block, not for life but for sentient life.” Grace winced. “Does that sound stupid? You can tell me if I'm sounding stupid. I mean, I know you will anyway, but I'm giving you express permission to call me stupid if you—”
“No, no, not being stupid!” Rocky said. “It is like hearing same sounds. Humans, Eridians, we share similarity because it improves survival. Kindness is also another reason we are both here. Collaboration allows us to travel space. Travelling space allows us to meet each other. More likely to find those who are kind than not.”
“Yes, yes, exactly!”
“But I am confused,” Rocky said. “Wasn't paper about Astrophage and Taumoeba, question? Why researching kindness, question?”
Grace grimaced, and scratched at his jaw. “Well, it was supposed to be. It definitely was when I started. But then writing about alien life got me thinking about humans...”
“Ah. You have gone down hole.”
“It's ‘down a rabbit hole’. And no,” he said, defensively, crossing his arms as he shrugged. “I'm just pivoting. Happens all the time in scientific research. Besides, there's way more research about humans than Astrophage. We just love studying ourselves.”
Rocky approached the barrier. “Are you angry at humans, question?”
“Huh?” Grace said with surprise. “What? No. That's—no. Why would you think that?”
“You said humans had not been kind to you.”
A memory shoved itself into Grace's head like an ice pike, sharp and cold. It was one he already knew all too well now, a memory of being chased, knowing it was pointless but still desperate enough to try, to have more time, more time, only for hands to pull him down and—
“I didn't mean it like that,” he rushed to say. “I just meant in general. We humans can be real crap to each other sometimes, especially to strangers and people we don't deem as part of our ‘groups’. But despite all the terrible things we've committed throughout history, not just to ourselves but to the world itself, we really can be quite amazing.” He gestured to the ship around them. “Just look at what we put together in order to save as many people as we can.
“And that's not even talking about all the art and discoveries and stories we humans have made throughout history that are all collected right here,” he went on, tapping on the screen of his laptop. “And of course, there's the science too. It is and has always been cumulative effort. I could never have done all of this alone; I had so many people across history helping me, lending me their knowledge and discoveries. And I had...”
Another memory flashed across his eyes—a familiar face backdropped by a familiar sea, smiling at him with a rare warmth—but he quickly shoved it away. He did not want to think about that right now. He wanted to think about this paper.
“Had what, question?” Rocky said.
“It's not important,” Grace said with a shake of his head. “I'm going to get back to writing.”
“Grace should eat. Been many hours.”
“Later, later, I want to get something down first before I forget. I...oh.” Grace straightened up. “Forget...Huh. Now that could be interesting.”
“What is interesting, question?”
But Grace didn't answer, lost once again to his research.
The next two hours passed quietly, up until the point that it didn’t.
“You are making strange face,” Rocky said.
“This is my thinking face,” Grace answered without looking up from the computer screen.
“Thinking face like annoyed face.”
“...there is admittedly some overlap between the two.”
Rocky made an unhappy hum. “Grace doesn’t look like having fun.”
That finallly got Grace to look up from the laptop, making a point to lighten his expression in the process. “Well, then, you’d be wrong. Learning new things is great fun. You know, that’s half of the reason I liked being a teacher; something that seems mundane to you is something brand new and exciting to a kid. When I saw their eyes light up with each discovery, it was almost like I was learning it all over again myself.” He perked up. “Oh! Actually, that ties in a lot with what I’m reading about.”
“Kindness, question?”
“No, no.” He turned the laptop around towards Rocky. “Memory.”
Rocky paid the screen no heed. “You’ve switched topic again. Very indecisive.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but it’s not like I was actually going to write a paper about the link between sentience and compassion. I’m no anthropologist. Or, I guess, xenopologist?”
“Not mind scientist either.”
Grace tilted his hand to and fro in a so-so gesture and hummed. “No,” he drew out, “but neuroscience does have some basis in biology. The brain is part of the body afterall.”
“Some,” Rocky repeated, his melodic tones somehow coming across as deadpan.
“Okay, fine, so maybe it’s not my field of expertise, but I have personal experience! I had amnesia!”
Rocky was quiet for a moment, his claws tapping with thought. “Is research to understand own experience better, question?” he asked, his voice soft.
“I...yeah, I guess it is,” Grace said. He rubbed at his temple. “The people working on the Hail Mary knew comas can cause memory loss, but they didn’t really leave anything to help us with it. If I'd just had some, I dunno, message to assure me when I woke up, maybe it would have been easier. Or maybe I would have been like ‘shut up, stranger, you’re talking nonsense’.” He sighed. “Amnesia is always so much cooler in the movies. Makes you all mysterious and everything. Turns out in real life it just makes you stupid.”
“I cannot imagine,” Rocky said sombrely.
“You can’t imagine being stupid?” Grace said with a grin.
“Oh, yes, very hard to imagine.” There was a light trill in his voice, betraying his amusement. “Stupidity very human thing.”
“Uhuh. Okay, Spock.”
“That...not quite my name. Is other word, question?”
“It's a pop culture thing.”
“Ah, understand,” Rocky said, easily accepting the answer.
He usually did with Grace's references; it wasn’t a capital ‘C’ kind of culture, but it still fell into the same ‘just accept this weird thing, humans hold it dear’ category that Rocky usually let them slide without question.
That said, Grace would have happily explained Spock if asked, mostly so Rocky would understand the hilarity of them sharing the same home star system. Rocky would definitely laugh at how human-looking the Vulcans were. Grace liked to imagine that, if Rocky's people had made up stories about the Solar System's inhabitants, they would have been the Eridian equivalent of slapping on pointed ears and eyebrows and calling it a day. Ha. Now that was a funny picture. Maybe he would tell Rocky about it later, just so he could find out what kind of aliens they'd imagined in their stories.
“But, to make clarification,” Rocky said. “Cannot imagine no memory. It sounds...terrifying.”
“Yeah,” Grace said, his mind sobering at the reminder of those first few hours after waking up on the Hail Mary by himself. His hands fidgeted in his lap. “Yeah it was.”
“But you are recovered now, question? Memory fixed, question?”
“Uh.” Grace considered it, before shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so. Not entirely, anyway. There’s these...gaps. I know they’re there because they’re like missing teeth, really obvious in their absence, and just like missing teeth, I keep poking—”
“Need word. Missing what, question?”
“Oh, er, the bones in my mouth.” He bared his teeth and gestured at them. “We have a set when we’re kids that fall out as we get older and get replaced by adult teeth, which don’t grow back. I have to look after them to make sure that they don’t rot or hurt me.”
Especially now that he didn’t have a dentist for the foreseeable future. Maybe Armando could help with that? It was a medical bot afterall. Though, there was also the issue with his dwindling toothpaste supply; he tried his best not to think too hard about that. That was a problem for Future Grace to solve.
“Another gross human thing,” Rocky said with a light shudder. “Can’t replace when adult? Very bad design.”
“Hey, can’t argue with you there. Even we think it sucks.”
“Hm. You said gaps in memory,” Rocky prompted. “What is missing, question?”
“Uh, well, I don’t know exactly what I’m missing. That’s the whole point. But...” He hesitated, a heaviness coming over him. “I can’t remember what my parents looked like. I can’t even remember where I grew up, or the friends I had, if I even had any. It’s all...hazy, or, worse, just completely blank.
“And it’s not just my childhood either; I’m missing names of kids I taught, that I know I would’ve remembered. And there’s parts of the Project that I can’t seem to recall either. I remember going to Antarctica but I don’t remember why. I remember having an argument with someone about Astrophage biology, but not who that someone was.
“There’s still so much I don’t know about my own life.” He ran his hand through his hair, and laughed bitterly. “It’s infuriating.”
“Can gaps be fixed, question?”
“Now, see, that,” Grace said, clicking his fingers as he pointed to Rocky, “is what I’m trying to find out.”
He lifted the computer up onto his lap and scooched forward, closer to where Rocky was.
“There's been quite a lot of research into memory loss after comas,” he said, tapping at the screen. “And also memories during comas: apparently you can have vivid dreams and hallucinations while under. Man, I'm glad that didn't happen to me, that—”
“Too fast. Need new word.”
“Hallucination? Uh, it's kinda similar—”
“No, no, other word. Thing that hurt memory.”
“Oh, coma? It's like sleeping for a human, but not one we can be woken from easily. More like how you sleep, in a way. We need others to watch over us and keep us alive with technology. Humans can be in a coma for a long time, and it can be caused by heaps of things, but for me, it was...done on purpose.”
“...humans put you in long sleep, question? You not aware on journey here, question?”
“No. I was in a coma up until I arrived.”
“For how long, question?”
“Just about four years.”
Rocky went quiet, his carapace lowering. “Long time for human life. Long time for no one to watch.”
“Yeah. Uh.” Grace cleared his throat. “But, anyway, memory loss. I had that. Obviously. I’m lucky in that all my amnesia seems to be just retrograde. Only forgetting my past,” he clarified, knowing Rocky wouldn’t know that word.
He gestured to the screen. “Lots of coma patients, from what I’ve read, can struggle with memory problems and impaired cognition after waking up. My brain seems okay in that regard.”
Ignoring all his moments of stupidity, but that could mostly be blamed on sleep deprivation and panic.
“But my amnesia was more severe than most deal with,” he went on. “I couldn't even remember my name at first.”
Rocky made a horrified sound.
“Yep,” Grace said, “it was bad. It was only when Mary said it that I remembered. Even then, it took me a while to, I guess, feel like that was me. You know, I don't even think of myself as Ryland anymore. I...oh.”
He hadn’t even realised that until just now. That...that was sad, wasn't it?
“...is word other name, question?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
“Can find word to share. Can call you that.”
But Grace shook his head. “It's like I said, I don't really think of myself as Ryland anymore. There's a disconnect in my head, like it was never really mine.” He chuckled weakly. “It's not like anyone really called me it anyway. I haven't been Ryland to anyone for a long time.”
Rocky made a low mournful hum, and pressed one of his hands to the xenonite barrier.
“Fun fact I learned today,” Grace said before Rocky could speak. “There was a soldier once who returned from, uh, fighting with no memory of himself. He couldn’t remember where he'd come from or even his own name, so they gave him one: Anthelme Mangin. Grieving families all across the country wanted to claim him as their missing relative. Eventually, after sixteen years, they found the soldier’s real name, Octave Monjoin, and his family, his brother and father.
“The two found him very different to the man they’d known before, and they even struggled to recognise him, but they still knew him. But other families continued to fight to claim him as their own, a fight that went on for years and years. By the time the soldier could go home, his brother and father were dead. So he never got to go back. And he never remembered what he lost. All he ever got back was his name.”
“...not fun fact,” Rocky said quietly.
Grace sighed. “No, I guess it’s not. The point is, memory is an important part of self identity for humans. Take that away, and you take away a lot of who they are.”
Like vinegar poured into a baking soda volcano, the words made a memory erupt inside his head.
He was back in that room, the last room he'd ever stood in, and she was there, looking at him with a sadness that only made her cruelty worse. He'd seen this scene before, played it over and over again, desperate to figure out what he could have said to change her mind but knowing nothing ever would've.
But this time, like a puzzle piece slotted in, a new sliver of the memory played. A promise that when he woke he would not remember this, for his own sake. For everyone's sake. It was for the best, it was for the best, it was—
“On purpose,” he whispered, the scene washing away. The panic, however, lingered long past its welcome.
“What on purpose, question?” Rocky asked, his voice sounding strangely distant.
Grace curled in on himself, a thread of horror running through him. “Oh my god.” He pushed a hand through his hair, gripping at the strands as he did. "Oh my god.”
There was a hum of familiar sound beside him, but it was drowned out by the thud of his heartbeat, its frantic pace enough to make his head ache.
She'd hadn’t just taken his future. She'd taken his past! Let some chemical rip apart his own brain, his own identity for, what? To keep him blissfully ignorant and on task? Oh god, what had she'd given him? Were the effects permanent? Would he ever get those missing pieces back? Would—
A harsh tapping managed to break through his thoughts.
With some effort, Grace turned his head towards Rocky, who was scuttling to and fro along the border in distress. That only made the ball of anxiety lodged under Grace's diaphragm grow in size. Rocky shouldn't be distressed. Everything should be fine. They'd done it. They'd saved their worlds. The past didn't matter. He’d survived. He was fine.
Problem was, his body wouldn't listen to his thoughts. Nausea decided to join the bandwagon, and he groaned. Stupid body. Stupid brain! Why couldn't they get the dang memo?!
There were more sounds beside him, and after a slight delay, he was able to translate. “Grace upset! What wrong, question?”
He shook his head. He didn't want to think about this. He didn't want to think about her. It was...it was just too much right now. He just wanted to be a scientist, teaching others about wondrous things. That's all he'd ever wanted to do.
“Grace!” Rocky called again.
And that's what he was going to be. No more prodding at the wounds. Just bandage it and keep going. No need to scare Rocky over something that couldn't be fixed.
“It's. It's nothing.” He cleared his throat again. It felt like a marble was rolling around in there, heavy and suffocating.
Rocky stomped. “Not nothing. Heart went fast. Breath went fast. Grace not okay.”
“It was just a bad memory. You don't need to worry, okay. I'm fine now, see.” He took in a deep breath, and let it out. “Breathing fine.”
Rocky tilted to and fro indecisively. “Grace definitely not having fun now. You need to eat. Need to sleep.”
The thought of eating food right now, with his stomach still feeling as nauseous as it was, was not an appealing one. “I’m still not hungry.”
“Grace—”
“I'm gonna get back to researching,” he said, turning the laptop back around to face him. "I would like a bit of quiet, if that's okay. To help me focus."
Rocky swayed his carapace side to side irritably, clearly not happy with the decision. “Okay,” he said. “I will give you quiet. I will check on Taumoeba farms.”
Grace hummed in acknowledgement and waved a distracted goodbye as Rocky scuttled off, his eyes already back on the computer. Focus. That’s all he needed to do. Focus on something else.
When Rocky returned from his checks some time later, Grace was splayed out on the floor, the laptop much the same way beside him.
“What has happened now,” Rocky said. If the clipped sound of his words hadn’t made the ‘oh, what now’ in his tone obvious, the lack of a ‘question’ sure did.
Grace rolled his head to the side. “So, I may have pivoted again.”
“I was gone 36 minutes.”
“It was a busy 36 minutes.” He gestured to the whiteboard on the other side of the room. “I drew a dog.”
“A what, question?”
Grace sat himself up, baffled. “Wait, I haven’t told you about dogs yet? Man. I gotta tell you about dogs. They’re like if small kids were four-legged, furry animals. We keep ‘em as pets.” He faltered. “I mean...I never did. But that's not important.”
Rocky came to the closest part of the xenonite barrier between them, and tucked his legs under himself. “Is that what you are writing about now, question?”
“Uh. Well. No. I’m writing about the history of space exploration now.”
“Oh! Excitement! Good topic change. I would like to hear human space history!”
Grace blinked. “I, uh, yeah, sure. Yeah, let's do it.” It would be fun to do some more teaching. It wasn't like the essay writing was helping anyway. Well. Essay pondering. He hadn't written anything yet. Story of his academic life.
He pushed himself up to his feet, and went over to the whiteboard and tapped at his drawing. “So it started with a dog.”
“Ah. See connection now. Did animal teach humans space travel?”
“Ha, can you imagine? Hey humans, go fetch that big ball in the sky.” He mimed throwing a ball, only to realise how nonsensical that would be to someone who had only just learnt in passing what dogs were. He shook his head. “But, uh, no. And space flight didn't technically start with dogs”—but talking about the V-2 rocket would mean talking about World War 2 and Grace still wasn't keen on getting into that with Rocky just yet—“but it's as good a place as any to start.”
Rocky wiggled with delight. “Hold on, hold on, want to get closer.”
He scuttled away down the barrier to his airlock; moments later, he returned in his ball, rolling it forward until he was sat in front of the whiteboard. He'd grabbed his camera somewhere along the way and once he was settled, he held it up towards the whiteboard.
“Oh, that is bad drawing,” he said bluntly.
“Hey!” Grace said. He was no artist by a long shot, but he'd drawn enough fun doodles on the classroom whiteboard for his students to at least be decent. “This is a perfectly good dog.”
“What is wrong with back arm? Why so small, question?”
“It's a tail.”
“No understand word.”
“It’s, uh.” At this point, he really needed to get a thesaurus. Describing a word without using the word or the usual Earth context clues was starting to feel like a particularly tricky version of the game Taboo. “An extension of an animal’s body at the back. Lots of animals on Earth have them. Dogs use them for balance and communication.”
“Mm. Strange.”
Grace raised an eyebrow. “Can I start now?”
“Yes, yes,” Rocky said. “Tell me about human space history.”
“Alright, so,” he began, clapping his hands together. “There was, uh, let's just say a competition between two countries on Earth. They both wanted to get to space first. We called it the Space Race. But no one on the planet had ever left the atmosphere before, so they needed to test if it was even possible for humans to survive in space. So, for the first orbital flight, they decided to use stray dogs.
“There were a few dogs they chose, but the one who got to go up first was called Laika. She got picked because she'd behaved well in their tests. There was another dog that almost got picked, Albina, but she'd just had puppies—children for dogs, basically—so they thought it would be cruel to send her.
“You see, they were on a deadline, so the ship was rushed; they didn't build a suitable environmental system or even plan any kind of means for re-entry. They just didn't have the time or technology for it. Laika made it to space, just like they wanted, but she never made it back. She died up there, scared and alone, just like they always knew she would.”
Rocky made a low whistling sound, one that didn't have any definition, but one that Grace could still translate easily: it was a sound of sorrow.
“But hey,” Grace said with a tight laugh, “everyone remembers her for what she did. The first creature in space! What an accomplishment, right. I'm sure she would have picked burning to death over chasing squirrels and sleeping in the sunlight and eating good food and not dying and—”
Rocky straightened up. “Is Grace okay? Your eyes are—”
“I'm fine,” Grace said, rubbing at his face. “I'm fine. And I'm not even close to finished.”
He went to the board and rubbed off the picture of Laika, and instead drew two cylinders and two radar dishes, and then an antennae for each one. They weren’t accurate depictions, but they got the idea across.
"Almost twenty years after Laika, and just a few years after we landed on our planet's moon—which I’ll get into another time, don’t you worry— we launched the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes. A few years after those, the Voyager 1 and 2 probes. They’re intergalactic scouts basically, that we sent off to photograph the outer planets and fly out beyond our star system and into interstellar space. But! That wasn’t the only reason we sent them.”
He hopped across the room and pointed down the ladder, down to the space where the golden plaques were transfixed. “The probes had their own versions of those engravings, depicting human bodies and Earth’s placement in regards to our Sun. The Voyager probes even have an audio recording of sounds from planet Earth. The reason was, if by some small chance aliens ever found them, they’d know it was from us, where we were, and that we existed. The probes were, I guess, another kind of Hail Mary we threw out into the universe, hoping someone out there would hear us.”
Rocky stood tall. “I hear you,” he said.
Grace smiled at him. “Heh, thanks pal. I'll have to show you the Golden Record at some point; it deserves at least one alien listening to it.”
“So...” Rocky paused, trying to find a word. “Travellers did not find anyone?”
“Nope,” Grace said. “They're still out there, flying on and on, for hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of years more. We’ll probably never know what happens to them, or if we’ll be around when they get found. Not that there’s really any use for them anymore anyway; they’ve been flying for almost 50 years and they’re barely a light-day away from Earth. This ship flew for 13 years, and I got 11 light-years away. Heck, I met you long before they even got the chance. At this point, the probes are only flying because they can't turn back. They don't have a purpose beyond that anymore. It’s pretty sad, when you think about it. If I found out that my mission was—”
He choked on the word, as if his very body was repulsed at the idea of saying such a thought aloud. An awful hollowness took over his gut, swallowing and warping everything inside him like a black hole. No, not this stupid feeling again! He didn't want to feel this. And yet he couldn’t help picking at it like a wound, tearing at the bandages and stitches he himself had put in place. Why couldn't he just leave it be?
Rocky rolled closer, all of his earlier excitement long gone. “Grace?”
“And, and, and then there were the Mars Rovers!” he went on brightly, focusing everything he could on his words and not the cloud chamber of stupid stupid feelings inside him.
He rubbed out the probe drawings, and drew in their place a very rudimentary version of a rover. “We sent them to one of Earth's neighbouring planets and then just left them there until they ran out of battery! Because that was always the plan. That’s always the plan with these kinds of things. There are no rescue missions; simply a mission that you do until you can’t.”
“Grace...”
“Space exploration is built upon a foundation of one-way trips. There always has to be a canary in the coal mine to pave the way for everyone else. But it’s got to be something expendable, right? Something that won’t be missed too badly if it never comes back. A stray dog, a probe, a rover, a...”
He furiously rubbed the last drawing off the whiteboard and drew in its place a human figure.
“Grace,” Rocky said again as he approached slowly. “I think I’ve learnt enough. You can stop.”
Grace turned around to him. “What? No, come on, we have to keep going.”
“You are upset again.”
“I’m not upset,” Grace said. When Rocky’s reply was simply a very pointed silence, he added, “Don’t worry, this is all just part of the writing process.”
“Has any writing been done, question?”
Grace waved dismissively. “That’s beside the point.”
“I think you should take break. Drink, eat—”
“No, no, I want to keep going.”
“No! Not good for Grace, need to—”
“Hey, you know what, why don't I choose a different topic? I'm not much of a historian anyway.” He made his way over to his laptop. “Let's get back to some good ol’ biology. That's what I'm good at.”
“...will that make Grace happy, question?” Rocky said.
But Grace didn't answer, already falling deep into the comfort of distraction.
“Cooperative breeding!” Grace shouted out.
Across from him, Rocky pushed himself to stand; he’d been sitting quietly for the last hour, his earlier project left forgotten to the side as he’d done nothing more than watch Grace. The intent focus had been strangely unnerving, but Grace had done his best not to pay it too much mind. He was doing science!
“New topic?” Rocky asked, his voice almost tentative.
“Yes!" Grace sprung to his feet. "Did you want to hear about it? I can do another teaching lesson! That'd be fun.”
After a moment, Rocky gave a noise of affirmation. That was all it took to get Grace going.
“So,” he began with a clap, “when we humans were first figuring out the workings on evolution, there was this man who came up with the idea of natural selection: animals with traits that make them better adapted to their environment are more likely to live to pass them on, and so those traits will continue down the generations. Another man decided to call it something else: ‘survival of the fittest’. Like it was a competition, and that an animal’s imperative was to survive long enough to find a good mate and keep their species alive.
“That idea,” Grace went on, beginning to pace to and fro as he spoke, “of course, is complete baloney. Mostly baloney. Whatever, point is, there’s more to it than that. And that’s where we come back to cooperative breeding,” he said, clicking his fingers. “Cooperative breeding is something that has been exhibited in many kinds of animals all across Earth, from insects to birds to mammals. Essentially, it’s when an animal, instead of producing their own offspring or seeking out a mate of their own, helps care for the offspring of others in their group. We call them helpers.
“Now, these helpers don’t get much benefit from doing this. It doesn’t really help them survive any better. In fact, sometimes they have to share their own resources or put themselves in harm’s way in order to provide help. But they still do it. Not from themselves, but for the kids. By helping them, and ensuring their survival, the helpers end up helping the group as a whole.
“But to many it probably doesn't seem that way. They're just a helper, right? Get rid of them, and the breeders will still breed, and the population will go on. Sure, maybe less kids grow up happy, or parents struggle more to raise them, but it's not like the helper was really contributing. They didn't do what you're supposed to do to survive. They didn't do the expected thing. Buy a house, get married, have kids, tick all the boxes that deem you irreplaceable. You can't just be a helper. That's not enough. It’s not enough. Why wasn't it enough?”
Rocky fidgeted, but before he could speak, Grace continued in a rush, like an unstoppable force caught in the throes of inertia.
“I looked after my kids with everything I had,” he said, his voice gaining in volume. “I was happy with that. So what if I didn't own a dog? Or if I didn't have a partner. Why should that matter? Why should my worth be about the people around me? Was my life alone not enough? Why did having no one to stay for mean I wasn't allowed the choice? Why—”
“Grace,” Rocky managed to cut in. “Need to breathe.”
Grace barely heard him. “She said I had no one! No family, no friends, no one. I must have been stupider than I thought, because after everything we did together to save the Earth, I thought I at least had h—”
He froze. It was there, with that unfinished word, that his brain finally ran into the immovable object he'd been avoiding all day. Turns out, he wasn't as unstoppable as he'd hoped; the emotional crash was enough to send him staggering in place, his breath heaving in and out.
“Grace?” Rocky said, the worry in his voice all too clear.
“Uh. Um.” Grace blinked. “Sorry, I...”
He tried to focus back on the topic—what was it again? Did it even matter, so long as it was anything other than this?—but no matter how many times he shoved his thoughts towards science, they only shoved back harder, reminding him again and again to please stay calm, I have to do it, don't make this harder, please understand, it is for the best, you will be remembered as a hero, you will—
Grace gasped, shaking his head as his eyes began to sting with a vengeance. He couldn't be here. He didn't want to be here.
“I, I need to go,” he said, stepping back.
“Go?” Rocky said. “No, don't need to go. Can stay, can—”
But Grace was already stumbling away, his hands to his chest as he struggled to breath.
He rushed up the ladder, ignoring the frantic calls of Rocky behind him. Hearing his friend in such distress only made him feel worse, but right now, there was nothing he needed more than to get away.
“Welcome back to the Mental Health Node,” Mary said by rote when he reached the top of the ladder. “What would you like to see?”
The room lit up with scenes and sounds of Earth, which Grace frantically waved away.
“No! I don't want to see any of that now!”
The screens went black. “Dr. Grace, you seem to be upset. Would you like the assistance of a crewmate? Speaking with others can—”
“Not now, Mary! Go away! Er. Dismissed! Turn off!”
“Very well, Dr. Grace.”
The room fell into darkness, but it was still not enough. He stepped off the platform and tucked himself into one of the corners of the room, wrapping his arms over his head as he curled himself in tight.
The silence, unfortunately, was not as comforting as he'd hoped. If anything, it seemed only to make him feel more and more hollowed out, which only made the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad feelings grow in size, filling up the hollow space like air rushing into a vacuum. He tried to settle himself and stop his tears, taking in deep breath, letting it out, counting to ten, just like he'd taught his students.
One day that trick was going to work. Unfortunately, today was not that day.
“Could you not,” he muttered to his body for its betrayal.
Ha. Betrayal. Doesn’t that remind you of a certain some—
“You too!” he snapped at his brain. “Just stop!”
But he knew it was pointless. It was his body. It was his brain. He was the problem. He was the one that was breaking apart.
“I just wanted to be okay,” he whispered to no one but himself.
Well. He tried to, at least.
“Grace will be okay!”
Ah. Right. Super-hearing.
A familiar banging—which had been up until that point distant enough that he hadn't paid it much mind—began to fill the room. Sure enough, when Grace looked up from his knees, he saw Rocky rolling in. The confusing thing was that he seemed to be rolling in from the level below.
With the now permanently vertical layout of the ship thanks to their constant acceleration, it was much more difficult for Rocky to get around in the ball. At first, the two of them had designed platforms for him to roll up, reverse-Donkey Kong-barrel style. It was incredibly impractical, and in the end, they'd found it was simply easier to have a ball sitting near a xenonite-airlock on each level for Rocky to transfer to when he wanted. The platforms, however, had remained, just in case.
Why Rocky had decided to use them at this moment, Grace could not understand. But right now, he was not in the mood to ask.
“I'm sorry, buddy, but can I have some space?” he said, his voice croaky.
“Grace has lots of space.”
He sighed. “I just want to be alone for a little while. I'll be fine soon, I promise.”
Rocky only rolled closer. “But not fine now.”
“No, I am, I am.”
“Grace is crying.”
“Yeah, well, you know me, I cry over everything.” He smiled, even as tears kept spilling down his cheeks. “You really don't need to worry. Just go back, and I'll—”
“I spy cylinder.”
Grace blinked. “What?”
“Is game. I spy cylinder. You find.”
“Like...right now?”
“Yes. Important.”
“Uhh. Okay? Is it...” He looked around the room, which didn’t have much in it beyond the screens. “The ladder rung?”
“Yes, yes, ladder handle!” Rocky waved his hands happily. “I go again. I spy circle.”
“The...floor?” Grace said uncertainly. It felt too simple, especially for Rocky; he always chose the most bizarre things. Then again, this wasn’t exactly the best room for this game. The lab was much better.
“Correct. I spy ball.”
Grace sniffled, and rubbed at his nose. “Hey, come on, when do I get a turn?”
“Soon. I spy ball.”
“Your ball?” Grace said, with a raised eyebrow.
This time, however, the simple answer wasn’t the correct one. “No,” Rocky said. “Close. Look again.”
“Hm.” Grace glanced around the room again. The room wasn’t quite ball-shaped, so he could rule that out. As he searched, he noticed in passing that one of Rocky’s hands was pressed against the filmy panel to the right of his ball, his claws seeming to be wrapped around something. With a frown, Grace titled to the side to get a better view. As soon as he did, his breath caught in his throat at the sight of a familiar shade of blue and green.
“Earth,” he said. “It's Earth.”
“Yes,” Rocky said. He manoeuvred his ball so that the exchange panel was facing Grace, and in turn, the crocheted Earth. “May hold.”
Grace reached for the toy, and pressed it to his chest, closing his eyes as he wrapped himself around it. The tears he’d been fighting viciously again pricked again at his eyes with a vengeance. He wasn’t even sure what set them off, if it was the reminder of the home he’d lost, or the simple act of kindness Rocky had shown in giving it to him. Whatever it was was enough to make his forced smile fall away completely.
“Heartbeat calmer,” he heard Rocky hum. “But still sad sad sad.” He rolled close enough that the edge of his ball pressed against Grace's leg, the pressure just light enough to be soothing. “Rocky can listen.”
Grace turned his head away, despite knowing it would do him no good. “I'm...not so good at the talking part.”
“Is fine. Say what is easiest.”
“None of it’s easy,” he said with a wet laugh.
“Then say what will let sad out.”
Grace looked down at the Earth in his hand, rubbing his hand along the fabric. He sighed. No more running. He had to face this head on, or otherwise it would just keep eating him up from the inside.
“There was someone back on Earth. Stratt.” He paused. “Eva. She was my friend. One of my only friends, really. We were nothing alike but...well, you spend enough time with someone, and that kinda stops being a problem. She was nicer with me than she was with other people, warmer. And I felt comfortable around her; I wasn’t exactly great with people, but she didn’t seem to care. She believed in me, more than I ever did. She believed in me so much that she did not let me have a choice.”
“She made you go on ship against will.”
Grace blinked. He hadn't once spoken to Rocky about that, at least not in any clear terms. “How—”
“Angry words when writing paper made very obvious.”
Grace curled his hands. “Yeah, well, I am angry. I'm so angry, and it hurts. It hurts because she didn't even do it to be cruel. She did it to save everyone. She did it, because one life wasn't worth the cost of everyone else. I know all that. I know why it had to be done. But that doesn't make what she did to me any better. I, I didn't even get the chance to—”
He choked up again, his hand tightening around the toy. He thought of classrooms and kids smiling at discovering something new, of waves crashing on the beach as seagulls cried overhead, of foggy mornings enjoyed with a book in hand and good cup of coffee, of looking up at the stars and seeing a thousand years of stories, of all the many many things that had made up his life. It hadn’t been perfect, his life on that pale blue dot, but it had been enough for him.
When he could speak again, he said, “She took a lot of things from me. Things I can't ever really get back, even if I did go home. And I don't think I can forgive her for that.”
Rocky tapped his hands together. “This person was on other side of video?”
“Yeah,” he said.
"Did you tell person bad feelings?”
Grace shook his head. “No. I didn't want my last words to her to be in spite. I wanted to say goodbye, because that felt more final. I wanted to leave her in the past. I wanted to leave what she did to me behind.” He shook his head and sniffed. “But...I can't. I can't, no matter how much I want too. She changed the trajectory of my whole life. I can't untangle her from it.”
“Does Grace miss person, question?”
He grit his teeth. “No,” he said sharply. But then, after a moment, he added, with a softer voice, “I don't know. I don't know what I miss.”
“I think Grace does not miss person. Grace miss friend. Miss when it was happy.”
Grace went to protest—because how could any of it had been good? How could he ever remember any of his time with Eva as being good when the ending was so terrible?—but the words fell away before he could even form them. He knew that, just like he was so often, that Rocky was right.
He wasn't just angry. He was mourning.
Eva hadn't just taken his home and memory away. She'd taken away their friendship too.
The ending may have changed what it meant to him, but it did not change that they’d shared it. The same Eva that had him chased down like a wild rabbit was the same Eva who looked into his eyes as she’d sung to a room of people and promised that it would be alright. Who had opened a door for him when everyone else had shut him out. Who had always been the first to clap for him, so that he wouldn't be left to stand awkwardly in the silence. Who had been there for him, until the day she had to be there for the rest of the world.
Because the fact of the matter was this: he'd had a friend. She had been kind and weird and she'd understood him. She had hurt him more than anyone ever could. And now she was gone.
“I wish I could've had more time,” Grace said with a sigh. “More time on Earth, more time to say goodbye. Sometimes, I imagine what I would’ve said to her, if she'd followed me to the fence that day. What she would have said to me. If that would have made any of it any better. Probably not but...I still like imagining it.”
Rocky shuffled inside of his ball, his claws tapping together in thought. After a moment of silence, he spoke.
“I do not like what she did. That was bad bad bad. Grace did not deserve.” Rocky tapped his hands some more, fidgeting for just a moment. “But I am also happy it was you that came. You that found me.”
Grace turned to Rocky in a rush, guilt lurching through him. He'd just gone on and on about not wanting to leave Earth to Rocky, who he’d only met because he’d left Earth. He might as well have said ‘man, it sucks that I had to meet you’. God, he was so stupid!
“Oh man, I'm sorry, Rock. I didn't mean to make it sound like I don't want to be here. I do. It may not have been my choice to be on the ship, but it was my choice to meet you. And I'm so glad I did. I’m glad I came back for you, and—”
“Do not need to explain,” Rocky said, waving a claw. “It is okay to miss Earth and be excited for our journey. To be angry about stolen life but also glad about new one. Feelings can live together. Just like I am very very very sad my crew died. Wish did not happen. But is also reason I meet Grace. Bad thing led to good thing. Can feel both sad and happy. It is okay.”
Grace's eyes widened, the words striking a spark inside his head. “Like a rainbow,” he whispered.
“No understand.”
“A rainbow, it’s, uh.” He made an arc with his hands. “When it rains, and there's just enough sunlight coming through the clouds, the water droplets can scatter that light and make it so that our eyes see an arc of many colours across the sky.”
“Human eyes amaze. Arc must be beautiful.”
“It is.”
Grace closed his eyes, and remembered once again those last few moments on Earth. In all that horror and terror and sorrow, there had been a rainbow. Looking at it now, it almost felt as if the world itself was smiling through the tears as it said one last thank you, goodbye, I loved you, I'm sorry.
“It is,” he said again.
“Understand now,” Rocky said. “There is rain but in rain there is also beautiful colours. Will always be sad about crew. But I will always be happy happy happy that Grace my friend.”
Grace smiled, the tears in the corner of his eyes no longer of the sad variety. “Me too.” He placed his hand atop Rocky's ball. “I'm really happy about that too.”
“Happy together!”
“Just like 'The Turtles',” Grace said with far too much emotion.
Rocky shifted slightly. “...understand words. Do not understand sentence.”
“Pop culture thing. It's stupid. I don't know why I said that. I say weird things when I'm emotional.”
“Must be emotional all time.”
“Ouch, that hurts.”
Rocky scrambled closer in a panic. “Where hurt, question?”
“No, no, don't worry, it's only imaginary hurt. I'm okay. Mostly. Argh,” he said, his voice thick and phlegmy as he rubbed at his face. “I'm such a mess, I'm sorry.”
Rocky settled back down. “No apology. Human leaking is like Eridian black substance. It helps heal.”
“Yeah, I know,” Grace said with a sigh, having said something very similar to many a crying kid. “I just hate crying in front of other people.”
“But you do it often.”
“I know! And it sucks. I can't even look cool in front of aliens.” He rubbed at his face again; the tears had stopped at least, but he was still a bit snotty. “I don't even know why this is all hitting me right now. It's been months. I thought I'd moved on.”
“It is calm. Quiet. Quiet make feelings louder,” Rocky said, a whole octave lower. “Understand very much.” Brighter, he added, "But Grace not alone. Grace have Rocky.”
“Yeah. You’re right, I do.” Grace wrapped his arms around Rocky's ball, sinking as best he could into the faint warmth of the xenonite. “Thanks, buddy.”
Rocky leaned towards where Grace was, no longer one to hesitate when a hug was given. “Grace feel better, question?”
“Much better,” he said.
“Not just pretending, question? Is truth, question?”
Grace rubbed at the crochet ball in his hand. There was still a hollow ache in his chest, and an uncomfortable lump at the back of his throat, but the pressure that had been building and building up inside of him had been released, leaving him with enough room to breathe. It would take more than one conversation to deal with the whole bundled mess of emotional wires buzzing around inside of him but...he'd get there.
“Is truth,” Grace affirmed.
“Good. Can talk to Rocky when not truth. I can help fix.”
“And I can do the same for you. If you ever need it. After everything you’ve done for me, it's the least I can do.”
Rocky trilled. “Do not owe.”
“No, I know, it's not out of duty or anything. I want to be there for you too. Help needs to go both ways to work for everyone, right?”
“Oh! Like bridge!”
“Exactly.”
Rocky nudged his ball into Grace's chest. “Lie down,” he instructed.
“Oh, uh... okay?” He eased himself down onto his back. It was only when he was lying down that he thought to ask, “why?”
“Grace sleep now. Been long time no asleep. It will help.”
“But—”
“No argument.”
“Not even some argument?”
“No argument.”
“You’re so bossy.”
“Close eyes,” Rocky said, not even trying to protest the accusation. Probably because he knew that was one argument he'd never win. Or maybe he would, just through sheer bossiness.
Grace, who would never win an argument through sheer bossiness, closed his eyes as asked.
“Good,” Rocky said.
“What if I told you I was hungry?”
“Too bad. Sleep time now.”
“Your bedside manner needs some work, pal.”
“Quiet now. I will help sleep.”
“Oh?”
Rocky rose himself up, and began to sway lightly to and fro. “♩♫♩,” he said. “♫♩.”
“...I don't know what you're saying.”
“Is song,” Rocky said. “No need to understand. Just listen.”
“Oh!”
Despite everything that had happened today, delight still managed to bloom inside of Grace. He hadn't heard any Eridians songs yet. He'd often wondered what they'd sound like in a culture that spoke in musical tones. Their whole body was an instrument! Who knows what kind of music they'd make. He was delighted to finally get the chance to hear proper, authentic Eridian—
—aaaand that was definitely the chorus to Eye of the Tiger. Yep. That tracked. But hey, you know what, he'd take it. A song was a song, no matter the origin. Besides, he couldn't pass up on hearing the first ever Eridian cover, now could he?
And yet, even as he endeavoured to listen, he felt his eyes grow heavier and heavier, and his focus drift in and out like a radio. The song slipped away somewhere distant, hazy.
It didn't take long after that for Grace to follow suit.
A repetitive humming brought Grace stirring back to consciousness. Sleep lingered like a heavy weight, still not quite ready to be shaken off. He wanted nothing more than to fall back asleep, but the humming would not relent.
“Five more minutes,” he murmured, patting beside his bed to turn his alarm off. His hand instead smacked against a panel of glass.
He frowned, and peeked his eyes open. Even in the hazy just-woke-up-and-don't-have-my-glasses-on-yet blur, he could easily make out the familiar figure of brown standing beside him, enclosed inside the pale sheen of the xenonite ball. Around the same time, Grace's brain finally woke up enough to translate the persistent humming into words.
“Grace, Grace, Grace, stop sleeping, Grace, Grace—”
Ah, right, not an alarm clock. Just an alarm Rocky. If he wasn't so tired he’d laugh at that. Instead, Grace pressed his face into his makeshift pillow that was his jumper and groaned.
“Alright, alright, I'm up.”
“Still on ground,” Rocky pointed out.
“I'm getting up.”
“You are not moving.”
“I will be getting up,” he said. “In five minutes.”
There were a few urgent stomps. “Want you to see. Rocky wrote paper.”
“No, no, I told you, paper beats rock,” Grace said sleepily. “Rock beats scissors.”
“...are you tired-stupid again, question?”
“And using three hands is cheating,” Grace finished in a mumble, his head sinking back into the pillow.
“Question answered.” Rocky said. “I wait until Grace smart again.”
“Hey, you’re the one that woke me.” Then, after a pause, he frowned and rolled over to face Rocky. “Wait, why did you wake me up?”
“I told you: I wrote paper.”
“You... wrote a paper.”
“Yes.”
Grace sat up. “You wrote a paper?!”
“Ears stupid too, question? I said yes.”
“How?” he said, throwing out his hands.
“With my voice.”
“Oh. Right, yeah, that makes sense. But why? What the heck did you write about?”
“Read paper. Then will understand.”
Rocky rolled over to the laptop—which seemed to be the one he'd been given, since it was sitting just outside the xenonite airlock—gesturing urgently for Grace to follow.
“Wait, I need my glasses,” he said, searching around the floor.
“On head,” Rocky said.
Grace frowned, and patted at his hair. Just as Rocky had said, they were there. “Huh. I really must have tired.”
“Yes, very tired. Glasses on top of head is weird.”
“Yes! It is!” Grace shouted with the power of a hundred unwon arguments about the proper placement of glasses. “I'm glad someone understands.”
He joined Rocky beside the laptop, and crouched down to peer at the screen.
His own word document had been blank all of yesterday, with not a single word ever being written into it. This one was filled with them.
“You really did write a paper,” Grace said in awe.
He pulled his glasses down, and began to read.
Hello Grace! I am writing paper for you because you could not. Not sure how exactly paper writing works, because Grace did not do any writing at all. But I will try.
“Starting right off with a criticism about me,” Grace said, grinning over at Rocky. "Honestly, I’m kinda proud.”
“Proud later. Read now!”
Grace conceded with a chuckle, turning back to the laptop.
I do not need to write about kindness or brave travellers or good friends. I only have to write about Grace, because Grace is all these, and much much much more.
Beginning: Grace is from planet Earth, from the system of Sol. It was home. Is still home, even though far far far away. But home does not go away, even when gone. Grace is taking Earth with him, farther than ever before. Rocky know of Earth and wonders thanks to Grace. Other Eridians will learn. Will remember. One day, we will find Earth and say thank, thank, thank, for sending us Grace.
Grace is teacher. He guide others forward with knowledge, and shares discoveries because it makes him happy. Grace gave children wonder about world and universe. Many humans carry forward lessons Grace taught. Just as Rocky will. No more Eridians will die of radiation because Grace shared knowledge. Very kind.Oh! Grace is kind. Chose to save Rocky, even if it meant long long time from home. Grace does small kindness too, everyday. When Rocky camera malfunctioned and could not watch the horror picture show, Grace acted out so Rocky not miss out. As experiment, Rocky once hid to see how long Grace would take to notice. Only took few minutes! Grace searched, and asked if Rocky okay. It made Rocky happy to be found so quick. Made feel safe and not alone. Best kindness to give.
And last: Grace is Rocky’s friend. When Rocky feel the heavy bad feelings of the many years of being lonely and missing Adrian, Grace will sing song or play game or teach new thing. Rocky not feel lonely anymore. And Rocky make sure Grace never feel lonely again either. Give hugs, and share jokes, and help make smile. Like Grace said: bridge goes both ways. Just like bridge between ships that brought us together.Rocky hope Grace will understand better now own importance and that he deserve to be happy happy happy too. Thank for reading words.
...How turn off speech writer question? Where button, question? Grace Grace Grace Grace oh wait have found
There was no more after that. Grace nudged his glasses off to hang by his ear and sat quietly staring at the screen. Beside him, Rocky tapped his claws together impatiently.
“Did I paper right, question?” Rocky said when the silence lingered for too long. “Did you like, question?”
Grace answered with a great big sob.
Rocky jerked forward in alarm. “Grace is crying again!” he shouted. “Did I say something wrong, question?”
“No, no,” Grace said when he managed to find his words. “These are happy tears this time.”
Rocky settled. “Oh. Good. Am glad. Then paper was good, question?”
“So good. And so nice. You had an experiment in there and everything,” Grace said breathlessly. “And a quote too. Though I don't think I said those exact words.”
“Close enough words.”
Grace shook his head with a laugh, and dabbed away his tears. “So. What’s the title of the paper?”
“Oh. Did not know needed title. Hm. I am bad at naming. You name.”
“No, no, no, don't put this on me, this is your work, buddy. You've got to be the one to title it.”
“How name paper, question? Like planet or ship, question?”
“No, nothing like that. The title usually just outright tells you what the paper is about, and then you just mix in a few sciencey words to make it sound impressive and smart.”
“Okay. Have idea.”
Grace smiled, and turned the speech-to-text back on and gestured for Rocky to speak, who raised his carapace up proudly, as if readying himself to speak at a podium.
“Diameter Reasons Why Grace is ♩♬♪♪ by Rocky, And Why He is A Very Good Human and Friend.”
“Diameter?” Grace repeated incredulously.
“Mix in scientific word. Like Grace said.”
He chuckled. “Not exactly what I meant, but hey, it works.”
He leaned into the computer. The word he hadn't understood had also been missed by the computer, an '[unknown]' written in its place.
“What was this word?” he said back to Rocky. “The one after my name?”
“It is word you say to those you care about, who are very important in your life. Like north, their presence comforts. Like warmth, they make feel safe. It is a word of thanks, but also promise that all those feelings they give will be given in return.”
“Oh,” Grace said, a watery smile lifting across his face. “And you're using that word for me?”
“Of course,” Rocky said without hesitation. In fact, he sounded down right irritated that he had to say so at all. “Why would not, question? Did Grace not read paper, question? You are my friend!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. It's just...that really means a lot.”
“Is there human word, question?”
“I think so,” Grace said. “It's not anywhere near as beautiful, but it shares the same kind of meaning.”
He leaned over the keyboard, and finally wrote for the first time. Only the one word, of course, but it was only one he needed to write, and one, he realised, that he'd been needing to hear.
“Loved. Grace is loved.”
“Yes!” Rocky trilled happily. “Loved, loved, loved.”
Grace smiled. He wrapped an arm around Rocky's ball and pulled himself in close. “You are too, you know.”
Rocky pressed himself against the barrier, so that his carapace rested near Grace's arm. “Had no doubt.”
They sat like that for a while, neither one feeling the need to end it. The silence was the first thing to be broken.
“So,” Grace said, “I know my paper writing yesterday was...a fiasco.”
“Not word Rocky would use. Would use much worse word.”
“Okay, okay, don't rub it in. The thing is, despite all that, I do actually want to write something. I like getting to do science, and writing a paper is just a great excuse to do a crap tonne of it. But...maybe I don't need to do it alone.” He turned to Rocky. “What would you say to working on a paper with me?”
“Write with Grace, question?” Rocky perked up excitedly. “About what, question?”
“Whatever we want. Erid, space travel, our favourite places, things we've learnt living together. It doesn't matter; it doesn't even matter if what we write is any good. It only matters that we enjoy making it. So, what do you think? Wanna give it a try?”
“Yes, yes, would like very much!”
Grace smiled and clapped his hands together. “Then let's go get started!”