Chapter Text
“Starting recording now,” says Rocky. As he presses the button, I straighten up on the lab stool and make sure to smile. This smile is the first human expression that other Eridians besides Rocky are going to see, and I want it to be good.
We’re approaching Erid now, and soon we’ll be close enough for communication, so naturally Rocky wanted to make a recorded message to broadcast towards his planet, partly to let everyone know we’ve found a solution to the Astrophage problem, and partly so they don’t freak out when they realize the ship that’s entering their system is not the Blip-A.
So, he’s making a sound recording, but thanks to Eridian super hearing it’s actually going to function more like a video would back on Earth, since they can basically “see” the interior of the Hail Mary using the sound waves picked up by Rocky’s recording device. I’ve spent the past couple of hours cleaning everything up, making sure the Hail Mary is ready to be “on camera.” I don’t want the other Eridians to get the impression that humans are always messy.
“Hello, this is Rocky, from the spaceship, although as you can tell I’m not on that spaceship anymore.” Rocky is talking fast, like he always does when he’s excited, but I can still understand him. I’ve gotten better at understanding his language during our trip to Erid, and I made him teach me Eridian grammar so I’d be able to understand other Eridians. Now he can speak naturally, rather than using broken English grammar just for my sake.
“Good news!” he continues. “We know how to save Eridani. There was a predator for Astrophage, which we’ve named Taumoeba, at Tau Ceti and we have some with us now. All we have to do is put it on Threeworld and it will eat the Astrophage. We’re planning to do that before heading to Erid.
“Bad news. I’m the only spaceship crew member who survived. Everyone else died on the way to Tau Ceti. It turns out space is not completely empty. It has very fast hydrogen atoms in it, and exposure to these fast hydrogen atoms killed everyone on the crew except me. I survived because I stayed in my workshop surrounded by Astrophage, and Astrophage blocks these hydrogen atoms. Also, more bad news, the Taumoeba ate all the spaceship fuel, so I couldn’t bring the ship back home, but good news, I met an alien named Grace. Grace, say hello.”
“Hi,” I say. I look towards Rocky’s recording device and wave.
“That hand gesture means a friendly hello,” says Rocky. “Grace is from a planet called Earth, orbiting Sol, and he’s part of a species called humans. He came to Tau Ceti from his star, for the same reason I did. He was looking for a solution to the Astrophage problem. He and I worked together to find and capture the Taumoeba, and he did a lot of work to make sure they could survive in Threeworld’s atmosphere. Then, when the Taumoeba ate all my fuel, he decided to take me back to Erid in his ship, so here we are.
“Grace worked hard to save our world, and he sacrificed his return to Earth so we could save Erid. He had a way to send the Taumoeba to Earth without returning himself, so this way both of our worlds can be saved. He can’t eat the same food we do, and he’s almost out of his own food, but we tested the Taumoeba and found out that he can eat that, so in order to keep him alive, we’ll have to breed a lot of Astrophage to feed a Taumoeba population that he can use as a food source. I promised him that we would do everything we can to keep him alive, and I now I’m asking all of you to help me honor that promise. Don’t let my alien friend die.”
It's good to hear Rocky paint me in such a positive light. To him, I’m a hero. He’s convinced the other Eridians will see me in the same way, and I hope he’s right. I think he’s right, but in the back of my mind I can’t help thinking of what might happen if our positions were reversed, and worrying that something similar might happen now. If Rocky came to Earth and he could only eat Taumoeba, humanity wouldn’t be excited about breeding up a bunch of Astrophage to help feed an alien spider, even if he did just save the world. I can only hope that the average Eridian has a more favorable view of aliens than the humans back on Earth do.
“We will broadcast this message on repeat until we hear word from Erid,” Rocky says. “When we have communication established, we’ll need to work out the details for how to connect the space elevator station to Grace’s ship. I’m looking forward to coming home, and Grace is looking forward to meeting you. End message.” Rocky taps a button on his device, then says, “The recording is finished.”
“Thanks for the good introduction,” I say.
“You deserve a good introduction. You saved everyone. Thank thank thank.”
Soon after Rocky starts broadcasting the message, we get a response. “Hello, Rocky. I am ♫♬♪♫ and I have been put in charge of communication with you until you reach Erid. We’re all very happy that you returned. There’s no one on Erid right now who isn’t celebrating. We have many questions, but for now I’ll start with just two. First, is there anything else that the alien Grace needs or wants from us, aside from Astrophage ready to feed his food supply? Second, have you had any contact with other ships from Erid? Your ship was the first of four ships we’ve sent to Tau Ceti, but so far you are the only one to return. We are afraid the fast hydrogen atoms may have killed the crews of those ships as well. All the crewmates on our later ships had rotating duties, so no one would have been surrounded by Astrophage all the time. We think they’re all dead, but we need to know, aside from Grace’s ship, are you aware of any other ships arriving at Tau Ceti?”
“I never saw the engine lights of any other ships,” Rocky says to me after hearing the message. “The crews of the other ships probably all died before they got to Tau Ceti. This is very sad. More sad than I expected.” His voice is an octave lower than normal.
I nod. “That’s awful.” I don’t know the details yet, but if the other ships had similar sized crews to the Blip-A, that’s four times as many Eridians who are now dead in pursuit of an Astrophage solution.
“I’m surprised by the person they chose to deliver the message,” Rocky says. “I thought it would be one of the lead scientists from the group that sent my ship into space, but this was from someone I don’t recognize. Things must have changed a lot since I left.”
Rocky and the communications director, who I’ve decided to call Henry, continue their back and forth, with the wait times steadily decreasing as we approach Erid. After the Taumoeba dump, which goes according to plan, we set a course for Erid. We’re both excited. I’m about to meet other aliens! And Rocky’s about to come home for the first time in about fifty Earth years, according to his experience, and even longer from Erid’s perspective. He hasn’t been able to speak directly yet with anyone except Henry, but Henry passed on a message from Adrian, who, it turns out, didn’t get a new mate and is still in love with Rocky. Rocky’s become more upbeat since hearing that.
“Henry confirmed that more time has passed on Erid than on my ship, just as you said it would,” Rocky tells me. “It’s strange. I was a little older than Adrian, but now Adrian is older than me.”
“Does that matter?” I ask. “You all live so long that it can’t make much of a difference, right?”
“The older person in a couple has different responsibilities than the younger person. It’s an Eridian culture rule.”
“Ah,” I say.
“Being the younger mate will be strange.”
“But you still want to be with her, right?”
“Yes. Grace, I have a question.”
“Yes?”
“Why do you use different words when you mention Adrian than you do for Henry?”
“Huh?”
“When you asked if I wanted to be with Adrian you used one word. It wasn’t the name Adrian, but it meant Adrian. When you talk about me speaking with Henry you use a different word. Why?”
“Oh,” I say. “Pronouns.”
“What are those?”
“A pronoun is any word that we use instead of a name for someone or something, to make it easier to talk about people or things.”
Rocky tells me the word for pronoun in his own language, then asks, “Why do you use different pronouns for Adrian?”
I sigh. I should have known I’d have to talk about this sooner or later. Rocky’s species doesn’t have a concept of gender, thanks to not having separate biological sexes. When I translate what Rocky says to English in my head, I plug in whatever pronouns make the most sense to me in the moment, but the truth is there’s just one third person singular pronoun that they use to refer to everyone. “So, you know how I told you that there are different kinds of humans? That some are male and some are female?”
“Yes, small egg and large egg.” Rocky doesn’t have words for male and female in his language, so “small egg,” which means small gametes, which means male, and “large egg,” which by the same logic means female, are the closest expressions he has.
“You are a small egg human, right?”
“Yes. Well, the thing is that we use different pronouns for male humans than female humans, and most of the names we use for each other are almost always used for males, or almost always used for females. When I pick a name for someone, it’s easier to use the pronouns that go with that name. Henry is a male name. Adrian can be either one, but the reason I picked Adrian was because of a story where two people named Adrian and Rocky were, um, mates, and Adrian was female, so it’s easier to use the female pronouns for Adrian.”
Rocky thinks for a moment, then he says, “Humans are strange.”
“Yes, I know.”
“What kind of human name did you pick for me?” he asks.
“Oh, Rocky? That’s a male name.”
“So, you would use the small egg pronouns when you talk about me?”
“Yes. Do you mind that I do that?”
“No. Different words are strange, but not bad. There aren’t any different kinds of Eridians, so the words all seem the same to me. You can talk about me using the small egg words or the large egg words. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I can understand you.”
“Thanks.”