Chapter Text
Eridians expressed emotion primarily through sound and movement. Humans did this too, but as Rocky had learned, their primary mode of expression was through the configuration of the face, and particularly through that most peculiar of features—their eyes. Or their face-balls, as Rocky was inclined to think of them. It must be a very distracting thing, he thought, to have two wet orbs constantly moving inside one’s head.
“Does it hurt to have eyes, question?”
Grace blinked. “Uh, no, it’s usually pretty comfortable. Unless they get dry or dust gets in them. Or an eyelash. Which can hurt. So yes, sometimes.”
“Eyelash. I am unfamiliar with this term.”
“They’re these little hairs around my eyes.”
“Oh! Those, yes.”
“They help keep the dust out. But occasionally they come loose and cause problems.” His hand drifted up to absently touch his face. “Seeing is pretty useful, though, so I can’t complain too much.”
Rocky clicked pensively. Echolocation, he suspected, was a much more practical way of navigating one’s environment, particularly since Grace’s face-balls were so delicate and easily irritated, but to say so aloud seemed impolite.
At the moment, the two of them were walking side by side down the shoreline. The waves whoosh-shushed in a gentle rhythm. Sand crunched under their steps.
“When we first met, I never knew where to look,” Grace said. “You know, since you don’t have eyes. Or a face.” Grace absently traced a circle around his own face with a finger. “You were hard to read. But I feel like I’ve got a better grip on it, now.”
“Grip?”
“Mentally. When you grip something, you understand it. Hand terminology.” He made a loose fist.
“Oh!” Rocky mimicked the movement with his pincer. “I like this analogy. So you grip my feelings now?”
“More or less. When you’re excited, you move faster, you talk faster. Your, uh. Your body language. Stuff like that. It helps that the voice program seems to pick up on that stuff and translate it into tone. Easier for my tiny brain.”
“Grace’s brain not tiny. Rocky has seen it.” Rocky and his fellow Eridians had performed a thorough medical examination of Grace when he first arrived on their planet. “Grace brain quite large.”
“Well. Thanks.”
“Weird structure, though. So many crevices. Very squiggly and crumply.”
“So what’s your looks like?”
“Is beautiful. Crystal structure. Very symmetrical.”
“Hey, mine is symmetrical too.”
“Not symmetrical. Language structures all on left side. Risky to keep them all in one place.”
Grace greeted this with a short laugh-snort. “I guess you’re right. I’ll get to work on that.”
They were talking and walking like normal. The conversation flowed easily. But something felt off. Something about the eyes.
As they conversed, Rocky tried to pay attention to the movements of those eyes. Which was difficult, because they moved a lot and because his flesh-membranes were always flick-flicking noisily over them to keep them moisturized. If he could see in the way that Grace did, using photons, perhaps he would be able to discern more. But Rocky’s echolocation provided knowledge only of shape and movement. Difficult to understand what else there could be. Difficult to understand concepts like color and shadow. It frustrated Rocky, at times, knowing that Grace’s consciousness was defined by things forever outside Rocky’s grasp.
He’s not looking at me. That was what felt wrong. Normally, Grace’s eyes—despite their constant wandering—would habitually turn toward Rocky, like mountain-creepers returning to the edge of a magma pool to sip the nutritious sludge. Now, they remained pointed straight ahead.
Grace’s heartrate was a bit faster than normal, as well, though there was no clear reason why. Their pace was not strenuous.
“Is Grace-friend troubled, question?”
“What? Oh. Not really.” The corners of Grace’s mouth-muscles twitched and pulled up in a way that was intended to signify enjoyment, but the rapidity and tightness of the motion suggested the enjoyment was forced.
Rocky stopped. Grace stopped. His head turned toward the water, and he exhaled. “It’s…complicated. I’ve just been thinking. About a lot of things. About the future, and what I want, and just…weird feelings. I don’t know.”
A quiet dread slipped through Rocky. His limbs curled inward a bit. “Sit with Rocky.”
“Okay.”
They sat side by side on the sand. Rocky could feel only an approximation of its texture through the flexible, transparent shell which protected him from the biodome’s atmosphere and temperature. Grace had drawn his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, a curled posture which seemed to indicate an instinct to protect his softer parts. Though of course, all the exposed parts of him were soft. So impractical, to carry one’s skeleton inside, to walk around with one’s organs held in no more than a flexible, easily ripped casing. No wonder he felt the need to cover himself in those clothes, though the fabric offered little in the way of protection.
“Grace is—you are thinking about Earth. Statement,” Rocky said.
“That’s part of it.”
Rocky had been preparing himself for this. Of course Grace wanted to go home. He’d remained this long on Erid out of attachment to Rocky and desire to learn more about Eridian society. He had a scientist’s curiosity, after all. But humans—like Eridians—were social and emotional creatures. They craved the company of their own kind. Human lifespans were shockingly short, but Grace was only halfway through his. Grace probably still hoped to find a new mate, to raise a family. There was no possibility of that if he stayed here.
“Your ship is ready,” Rocky said. “For whenever you wish to return.”
“That’s the thing. I’m not sure I do.”
Rocky turned toward him. Hope fluttered and began to uncurl within him.
Grace’s tongue crept out to wet his mouth-flaps—lips. He hugged his knees tighter. “I think about going back, and…what am I going back to, really? My teaching job? I have a teaching job here. There’s no one on Earth that I’m really close to. I mean, sure, I liked Carl. And I thought Eva and I were friends, for a while, but she…” He trailed off, gave his head a small shake. “There was nothing that felt…stable, you know? I miss being around other humans, but just in a general way.”
Rocky remained still, listening. When Grace didn’t continue, he ventured cautiously: “Grace stays, then? For good?”
“There are a lot of days when I lean toward that. But then I think…am I seriously just never going to see another human face for as long as I live? And if I’m okay with that, what does that say about me? I feel like by staying here, I’m running away from something.”
“I don’t understand.”
Grace heaved air out of his chest—sigh—and rubbed one hand over his forehead. “Me neither.” After a brief silence, he said, “I know this makes no sense. Like, what am I even upset about? I can do whatever I want. I guess…I’ve never been very good at making big life choices.”
Rocky rubbed one foot in the sand. “You miss humans. This is natural.”
“There are certain things I miss, yeah.”
“Sex?” Rocky ventured.
“Uh…” Grace vibrated his throat. The blood-flow to his face increased.
The two of them had discussed the basics of sexual reproduction for their respective species. Humans, Rocky had learned, were sorted into male and female with occasional ambiguous individuals, whereas Eridians were cosexual. Humans gave live birth, where Eridians laid eggs. Grace possessed only male gametes, a condition which struck Rocky as tragically incomplete, but which did not seem to bother Grace. Grace never showed any reluctance to discuss the general subject of sex, but when the subject of his personal sexual feelings came up, he often exhibited odd behavior. His heart-rate increased, his movements became twitchy and erratic—responses which Rocky had learned to associate with distress. So he generally avoided bringing the subject up. Perhaps the lack of a mate, the reminder of what he lacked, was distressing. Or…perhaps he found sex itself distressing?
“Apology,” Rocky said. “Bad subject, question?”
“It’s not really…bad,” Grace mumbled. “It’s just…” Another throat-vibration. “This is kind of embarrassing. But the truth is that I didn’t have a lot of sex back on Earth. Not at all since my wife left. And even when we were together…it wasn’t that often. Hard to miss something that was never a big part of my life in the first place. I miss just…closeness, I guess. Touch. I miss…” He put his hands over his face and dragged them down. “Man.”
Rocky clicked inquisitively.
“I miss cuddling,” Grace mumbled.
“New word,” Rocky said.
Grace’s pulse remained elevated. “It’s like, being near someone. Usually laying down or sitting next to them, with their arms around you and their body against yours.”
“Like ‘hug,’ question?”
“It’s kinda similar, yeah, but cuddling usually goes on for longer. And there’s usually some movement involved. You just sort of…burrow into each other. Not literally.” He scrunched up his face-muscles. “I’ve never really tried to describe it before.” He pulled up the corners of his mouth again. Another smile-not-smile, which disappeared quickly. “Before I left Earth, I wouldn’t have said I was a very touchy-feely kind of person, but being alone on the ship for so long…I started to fantasize about that kind of thing. When I met you, it helped a lot, but…even now…”
Rocky looked at his own pincer, encased in the clear, shiny material.
Rocky inched closer, lifted his forelimbs, and wrapped them awkwardly, stiffly around Grace’s torso. He felt Grace’s muscles tense, felt his quick intake of breath. Rocky rubbed one pincer up and down Grace’s back. Grace’s gulped. “Wh-what are you—”
“Cuddling. You wanted. Yes?”
Slowly, Grace raised his arms, wrapped them around Rocky. “Yes.” The pressure was perceptible through the flexible shell of his suit. There was a brief, instinctive desire to struggle against the sense of immobilization, but it passed quickly. He focused on the internal rhythms of Grace’s body, the beating of his heart, the swell of his lungs with each breath, the steady whoosh of blood through his veins, like the waves against the shore. Then Grace’s whole body began to vibrate oddly. His arms tightened around Rocky. He made an odd noise, almost a pain-sound.
“Doing it wrong, question? Is hurting Grace-friend?”
“N-no, it’s not…you’re not hurting me,” Grace said, his voice very faint. He hid his face against Rocky’s carapace. Rocky heard the thin membranes—eyelids—squeezing shut, and a few drops of water fell out, splashing against Rocky’s close-fitting suit. A minute ticked by, then another, and it occurred to Rocky that after spending so much time with Grace, he had begun to think in Earth-units of time. Grace was still vibrating against him in a way that usually indicated he was either cold or frightened. He made another pain-sound.
“Temperature of biodome needs adjusting, question?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then…Grace is scared, question?”
“N-no. I mean…not really. It’s hard to explain.” He sniffed once, hard, and pulled back enough to wipe one arm across his face. Both his nose and eyes were emitting fluids, which Rocky had learned to recognize as a sign of powerful emotion, though not necessarily negative.
“Grace is crying.”
“I’m just being dumb.”
“Pain is not dumb.”
Grace’s arms slipped away. Rocky took that as a signal to end the cuddling, though he found himself strangely reluctant to withdraw his own forelimbs. “This place,” he said, his voice a little stuffy and thick. “It’s a paradise. It’s perfect. We won. We saved the stars. There’s nothing to cry over.”
Rocky slowly traced patterns in the sand with the tip of one pincer. “You have endured much. We both have.” He spoke slowly, carefully, not wanting there to be any misunderstanding. His body emitted low, gentle tones which the translation program shaped into words. “We have both received psychological damage from our experiences. I am home, now. I have my people to help me. I can try to help you. I want to. Very much. But…I fear that I don’t always know what you need. Not as well as another human would. Grace needs human touch. Rocky understands this.”
“If I went back to Earth, I would never see you again.”
“Yes. Rocky…make peace with this.” Of course, Grace had told him that when people said they made peace with something, they were usually lying. “Rocky want—I want Grace happy. If Grace happy faraway, that is enough.”
Grace’s face was wet. Rocky could smell the salt of his eye-fluids. He could hear the dampness of his blinks. “Can I tell you something I probably shouldn’t?” Grace asked, his voice faint.
“Yes.”
“I feel closer to you than I ever have to another human. I feel like you understand me better than another human ever has. Is that…weird?” While Rocky was still trying to formulate a response, he continued, “I know it’s not really the same for you, and that’s fine. You’ve got Adrian. You’ve got a whole society. You probably only visit me so often because you feel responsible for me.”
“Untrue.” Slowly, he reached out and placed one clawed foot on Grace’s back. Rub-rub. Rub-rub.
Another sniff. “That’s nice,” he murmured.
“I could cuddle you more, if you like.”
He made another sound. This one, Rocky was fairly sure, was laughter. But it was breathless, strained, almost pained. “Maybe later.” He’d curled into himself again, pulling his knees to his chest, as though trying to hide or protect something. Another small vibration gripped his body, but it subsided quickly. The waves licked the sand near his feet.
Grace made the rough sound which indicated he was clearing matter from his throat. “So, um. How is Adrian? It’s been a few days since you’ve talked about her.”
This was a subject Rocky would have preferred to avoid, but he answered, “My mission…it was a long voyage. We agreed it was necessary, but he was unhappy about it, and my absence hurt him. I knew it would, I knew that it would not be easy, but I didn’t understand what it would mean.”
“Wait, ‘he’? Adrian’s a guy?” Two seconds later: “Oh, right. You don’t do the whole gendered pronoun thing and I kind of made ‘he’ your default. Jeez. I feel like I just introduced patriarchy to an alien civilization.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Human stuff. You were talking about Adrian.”
Rocky shifted. “He has changed. Rocky has changed, too. Much time pass. Not the same.”
“Shit, are you saying—did you guys break up?”
“We are—how would you say it? Taking a break.”
“God. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Slowly, he reached out to rest a hand on Rocky’s back. “Are you okay, man?”
“When I am with you, here, I am calm. I think only of Grace.”
Grace’s unsteady respiration filled the silence. “Do you—do you think you’ll get back together? With her?”
“Uncertain.”
Grace’s hand remained where it was. Eridians did not typically use physical contact as a comfort method; they consoled each other through soothing tones, which Grace was incapable of producing with his human vocal cords. But it helped, just knowing that the light pressure on his back was intended to offer comfort. “What can I do?” he asked. “If—if you want to talk about it…”
“Not much to say. Sometimes, life hard. No one fault.” Rocky made an awkward motion with one forelimb, aware of the broken grammar. The translation program was continually adapting itself to make conversation more fluid, but there were still gaps.
“No one’s fault,” Grace agreed softly. “Even the astrophage is just trying to live.” He sniffed again, tipped his head back, his body still in that curled posture. “It’s getting dark.”
Of course, there was no change for Rocky’s echolocation. The world remained as it was. It was not strictly necessary for the biodome to have day-night cycles, but they were important for human circadian rhythms, as Grace had explained. Humans could more easily sleep when it was dark. “You wish to return to your structure, question?”
“We could sit here a little longer. If you like.”
Perhaps concern made him linger. He was probably fatigued. Crying expended energy. “I should return to my duties, as well,” Rocky said.
“Okay.” Grace rose to his feet, dusted sand off his pants, turned and began to walk.
Rocky followed. “Something else is wrong. Statement.”
The silence stretched between them, filled with a thousand tiny sounds, with the crunch and whisper of footsteps, the movement of wind like air through lungs, the heaving of the water, the flicking movements of Grace’s eyelashes. “I had a weird dream the other night,” he said. “About you.”
Rocky waited for him to elaborate. When he did not, Rocky endeavored to fill the wordless void: “Eridians dream, too. Dreams can tell us things. About ourselves. But mostly they’re just—how to say it? Brain-poo.”
A short laugh. “Yeah. Brain-poo.”
“This dream. It was scary?”
Grace walked with his hands in his pockets, his movements stiff. “It wasn’t. It was a nice dream. I guess the scary part was how I felt when I woke up. Or…more just confusing, I guess.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. I’ll probably forget it by tomorrow. Hey—you should talk to Adrian. Okay? Try to fix things. You two have been together for almost two hundred years. I know that’s not as long for you as it is for me. But still.”
“I will try.”
They reached Grace’s home-structure. Grace stopped outside the door. He started to reach out, to open it, but he froze with his hand on the knob. “See you tomorrow? If you’ve got time, I mean.”
“I have time.” He lingered. One foreleg stretched out. His clawed foot lightly touched Grace’s hand. “I always have time for my best friend.”
Grace’s fingers closed slowly around Rocky’s. “Best friend,” he repeated, his voice soft, hoarse and thick, as though there were something trapped in his throat.
They couldn’t truly touch, with the suit between them. And there was no removing it. This environment, so vital to Grace, would kill Rocky within minutes, and the environment outside this biodome was equally toxic to Grace. His world was only about ten miles wide. The ocean appeared to stretch to the horizon, but that was an illusion. He was living in a cage, albeit a comfortable and roomy one. Not for the first time, Rocky wondered if he should insist, for Grace’s own good, that Grace return to Earth. But he could not bring himself to do that. He loved this strange, awkward creature with his wet face-orbs and his soft, shell-less body and his courageous, gentle, giving soul. He loved him so much that it frightened him.
It would be easy to keep him forever, to tell himself that it was for the best. Earth had harmed him in some way; his own people had harmed him. Rocky might not know the entire story, but he could sense the shape of a wound within his friend, and older and deeper wound than the one inflicted by Project Hail Mary and the loneliness and terror he had endured aboard that ship when he first awakened. The tenderness Rocky felt toward him was so instinctive, so primal. To send him away, back into the airless and unforgiving emptiness of space and eventually to a planet in an uncertain condition, a planet filled with so many dangers, with wars and cruelty and deprivation…
It was rationalization. He knew that. Grace could not be truly happy here on Erid, could he? Rocky simply did not wish to let go.
Grace’s grip briefly tightened, then went slack and fell away. “I, um. I gotta get ready for class tomorrow. Still got to iron out the lesson plan on relativity. Seriously, how did you guys develop space travel without knowing about that? It’s fine though. I’ll tell them about Einstein. Time dilation. All that.”
“You have taught us much. We are fortunate to have you.”
“Same, pal.” He lifted one hand in a wave, that small curious gesture, both a greeting and a goodbye. And then he disappeared into his home, shutting the door softly.
Rocky remained standing where he was a few seconds longer, then turned and walked away. There was much work to be done. While the astrophage was under control, for the moment, there was always the possibility of a predator-resistant strain developing. They needed to be prepared.
But his mind kept drifting back to the sensation of Grace’s body vibrating—trembling—against his own.
Humans were so mysterious. So resilient and yet so fragile, so full of contradictions. Or…maybe that was just Grace.