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It’s a sizable piece that the team has made in offering. A large thrum of animal biologists, chemists, microbiologists, biochemists, and nutritionists all offered up to Erid’s resident alien on a literal platter. The lump of muscle lays innocuously on its surface, encased in a synthesized heat-resistant package and vacuum-sealed to prevent contaminants. Only about the size of my clawed hand. Corded braids of tissue run along its length, as they once had on its host body, before the fibers had been eaten away by malnutrition.
I can practically hear Grace’s thoughts turning over and over themselves in its brain cavity, bouncing off of the sides of its endoskeletal skull as it stares intensely at the slab of flesh placed before it.
“… Maybe I can say ‘no thank you.’ Give it back to the lab and let them do… whatever they want with it. A hunk of alien flesh has to have some practical uses, right?”
“Losing your nerve, question?”
Grace deflates, in the most literal sense. Its large cavernous lungs exhaling carbon dioxide in a heavy whoosh that has always reminded me of a great gust of wind. “More like gaining my sanity.”
Since arriving on Erid, we had begun the slow, arduous process of synthesizing vitamins for Grace’s body. And I had become the de facto professional. Humans, as it turns out, are extremely omnivorous creatures. When Grace had compiled a document of data on dietary needs I thought it had been either experiencing a bizarre streak of greediness or was simply lying. Eventually I realized that there was an evolutionary advantage to this; the ability to consume a wide variety of resources increased the likelihood of survival, not needing to rely on one single resource. Unfortunately, this also meant that humans could not synthesize certain nutrients, and so filled in the gaps by consuming it from their environment. There had already been much success in that department; vitamin b-12 and c, with sodium chloride being more or less the same here as it was on earth, barring a few heavy metals that needed to be filtered out first. The thrum had already started administering these nutrients in carefully timed intervals so as not to stress Grace’s body, in a process that it had called refeeding.
It was a slow process— and we had decided that Grace should stay isolated to the Hail Mary, docked to the space elevator, until it had a better chance of withstanding Erid’s gravity.
The true caveat was protein. Grace was much more organic than anything found on Erid, and while it more closely resembled a gross sloshing blob of water, a staggering approximate 20% of its body weight was protein structures. As a species they consumed much of their protein from other living organisms, filling the evolutionary niche of opportunistic scavengers and persistence predators.
(“Ah,” I had remembered uttering, huddled next to Grace as it finished its lecture on human evolution. One of many. It had been curled up next to Mary’s port window, head turned to the vast expanse of space. Light-sensing organs -eyes- no doubt scanning a section of the stars in-perceivable to me. Searching for something. Always searching.
“What was that tone? Did I say something funny?”
I poked at its lower limbs. “Grace built to run. Purpose for unnerving long legs.”
It had thrown its head back in a loud braying laugh.)
But even if Grace could survive the crushing ammonia-filled atmosphere and fast-walk an Erid prey animal into submission, eating it would still be poisonous.
The science thrum dedicated to keeping the alien alive proposed an elegant solve for the problem: to clone digestible proteins for Grace from its own body. Only made possible because humans were in truth a complex ecosystem of single-celled eukaryotic organisms working in tandem, with most being descendants from one progenitor cell. The fascinating aspect was that (almost) every cell had a fully intact DNA strand— a built-in redundancy system that supplied the entire blueprint for every part of its body. Including muscle proteins. Extract one, make many.
It’s a wonderfully sentimental thought, I muse to myself. That my friend was only ever wholly itself, right down to a microscopic level.
But a scientific breakthrough hundreds of years and two separate societies in the making would not matter if its resident beneficiary was unwilling to sample its results.
My radiators vent a puff of steam at that, voicing my displeasure. Grace had been… apprehensive to the idea. Humans were instinctually and (typically) socially hard-wired to avoid eating each other. It had taken a decent amount of convincing, and maybe gently threatening on my behalf, for it to concede. And while starvation had done the leg work to get it the rest of the way, i could sense Grace’s squeamish stomach rearing its head once more.
I need Grace to not back down, now. I need this to work, so I steel myself for the next words I utter.
“Thrum would be more offended at the expense of resources,” I drone in a flattened tone, hoping the shift in volume comes across to Grace’s dulled sense of hearing.
I did not want to stoop so low as to underhanded tactics. In truth, the protein synthesis thrum would find a use for its discarded flesh. It would not matter. And even on a good day I knew that Grace wrestled viciously with its self-worth, having previously voiced that it felt akin to an ectoparasite on myself and my species. It made sense, I suppose; Grace tried to complete its mission knowing it was going to die. Grace turned back, setting its sights on my stranded ship knowing it was going to die. It did not seek me expecting salvation. Any action to prolong its existence after that fact must feel like a step too far. I knew, with a cold certainty, that my tactics were digging into an old and deep wound.
But the hour is late, and there is no longer any high road to take.
And I know that it works on Grace, because i can hear what is left of its muscles coil together self-consciously. Shifting noisily over its frail bones, tendons straining under the pressure.
“Geez, Rock. Cold-blooded.”
The alien lifts a limb to scratch nervously at its fragile skin with spindly, articulated digits. For a moment I fear that its hard keratin claws might rip open its outer layer. It wouldn’t be the first time. “It’s different when I’m… looking at it. Thinking about it. Do I need to tell you again about the whole ‘taboo’ thing? I can go over it again.”
“And I watch you. We are already several layers deep into taboo.”
“I would be eating myself!”
“Grace,” I can’t help but stamp a claw for emphasis. It needs to listen, “your body is already eating itself.”
And it was true. I have long known Grace to be a creature of play- all restless energy. Every action that it took spontaneous and explosive. Jumping, dancing, twitching. Even while asleep, it twisted and fidgeted alarmingly, as if its own inertia compelled it to be in constant unconscious motion. But that is no longer the case.
Grace sleeps longer, these days. Deeper. Sprawled out on a flimsy foam mattress laid across the ground, because crawling into its bunk takes too much energy that it simply does not have. What’s left of its muscles twitch sporadically from electrical misfires due to the prolonged lack of electrolytes. Heart spasming and struggling to right itself with each skipped beat. The contours of its endoskeleton are more defined now, protruding sharply where its legs meet its middle and along its chest. Individual ridges that rise and fall laboriously as its lungs expand with oxygen. Grace’s body has traded soft tissues for thin skin and brittle bones.
The liveliness that captivated me is no more. It is still, now. So very still. In its body. In its mind.
It took a shameful amount of time for me to realize that this was a product of Grace’s worsening nutrition, wasting away in the vacuum of space. The forgetfulness and loss of focus a symptom instead of Grace’s meat brain being baseline inefficient. That the human’s body had already started the slow and painful process of cannibalizing itself.
The alien hangs its head limply, the bottom of its jaw pressed to the top of its breastbone. It’s body sways in a haphazard pattern as it thinks, and I cannot help but mimic its movements in sympathy. In the wake of its nutrition deficiency it has lost much of its coordination; It’s clever fine motor skills and the advanced depth perception that comes with being able to perceive spectrums of light. For all I know it’s not even aware of its own motions. I hear Grace’s nostrils flare with another harsh exhale of air, rattling in its chest on the way out. Resigned. Not happy, but accepting.
“Let me go find a pan.”
———————————————
Grace had dug out what it called a Bunsen burner from within the depths of Mary’s lab, panting from exertion all the way, and I had trailed behind like an anxious parent in my articulated xenonite suit. Waiting for the horrifying moment where its weakened body would finally give out. But it hadn’t, and now we were here, Grace fiddling with the gas burner to waste time. It turns to me and grimaces in a wide display of teeth.
“Maybe I should put my safety goggles on. Make this a real official science experiment.”
“Stalling.”
“You’re no fun, do you know that?”
At this particular moment I do know that, but Grace doesn’t need to know that I know. I can only chitter the plates of my carapace in satisfaction as I hear it cut open the bag and empty its contents out onto a heat-conductive metal dish. It makes a distinctly meaty thwack against the pan, and my satisfaction turns into a flinch of disgust. Out of all of our crossing of cultural bridges, of connection, eating remains the hardest. The protein synthesis thrum had all but shoved the bundle of tissue my way.
(“The sample.”
Biologist ♫♩♬ gestured to the vat of cultivated cells. They swung their arm back towards me. “Ready for testing. Please deliver to Friend Grace and note any abnormalities while it feeds.”
I felt my legs fidget restlessly. “Will you not be there to note them yourself?”
Their plates vented a puff of self-conscious steam, one leg swinging back to scratch at the ground. “You know its behavior best; do not want to stress it unnecessarily.”
“Grace is starving. It’s already stressed.”
♫♩♬ tilted their carapace. “More efficient this way. We eagerly await your report.”
The unspoken sentiment I heard loud and clear, ringing like a bell through my brain as I exited the facility.
We know you’re the only one with a stomach for it.)
The cold hard truth is that I am the only one. I cannot lie that it is still an act I find disgusting on some level, but spending several years in space with an organism that loves to eat has sanded down some of those edges.
Or rather, loved to eat. It was hard to get Grace to eat anything, these days.
The human turns on the burner and holds the tray over its open flame, and not for the first time I find myself marveling at the casual handling of fire in its flammable atmosphere. Cooking,I remember dimly, it wants to cook its food. The process of heating meals before consuming them to eradicate pathogens and parasites. I am struck once again by how horribly inefficient the human body is. An Eridian body had this process built into its physiology; internal temperatures rising to kill unwanted organisms. Humans were far too cold for such an elegant system, and so had a naturally occurring low pH acid in their stomachs. Which killed most things, but not everything. So they cooked their food outside of their bodies.
In truth, there was nothing preventing Grace from eating the tissue raw; it was grown in a sterilized lab and free of contaminants. Supposedly some humans even preferred to consume some meats raw. A preferential byproduct of their strange sense of taste.
Regrettably, my human was not one of them.
“Cooking take too long.”
“Hey,” Grace is agitated, its monotone voice sharper than usual, “I don’t tell you how to eat. Just let me do this. Steak preference is super personal human thing, I’ll have you know, and I’m a medium rare kinda guy.” It snorts, and then frowns. I do not ask why.
“True. You just demand to watch me eat.”
“If you harp on that again I’m throwing myself out of the airlock.”
I tap the floor anxiously, but say nothing. The meat begins to sizzle in the pan, liquids seeping out and evaporating against hot metal. A fizzling static crackle that bombards my senses. Searing flesh. It makes me twitch, a creeping sensation that runs the length of my limbs. A specific breed of panic that I cannot identify until a memory surfaces, preserved forever in the confines of my crystalline brain.
I have heard this sound before.
I cannot deafen my senses like my strange friend can, so I shake myself briskly to dislodge the feeling of dread.
But Grace’s body seems to be having the opposite reaction. It stills, leaning forwards now, senses fixed intensely on the pan.
The human body is a loud and obnoxious beast.
When we had first met, a million miles away and a lifetime ago, it was one of the first thoughts that filtered through my mind as I watched this large spindly thing crawl out of its second skin to reveal an amalgam of soft flesh. It’s obscene. It’s captivating. A creature turned inside out, vulnerable yet intimidating in its frigid flammable atmosphere. And every bodily function in its system is laid bare for me to witness, whether I like it or not.
Lungs that breathe and muscles that snap loudly over each other. Every vertebrae in Grace’s spine like a link in a long elegant chain, popping as it twisted its large frame this way and that. The thing huffs and sighs and squeezes air over the stiff muscles in its throat to talk; its voice is strangely monotone and rough, almost aggressive-sounding.
I never quite got used to its hugs, reminiscent as they were to a large predator grabbing and restraining its prey, but during the trip to Erid a favorite pastime of Grace’s was to drape its large form over my xenonite ball. Its loud organs pressed too close for complete comfort.
And I have never become accustomed to the idea that Grace’s stomach vocalized hunger, like its own body was verbally begging for food; but that is certainly what it is doing, now.
Its insides have started grinding against each other, squirming in a way that makes me nauseous. Like living things crawling around in its body. Grace inhales sharply, and the pleasant thump of its heart picks up. I realize that it’s tasting the air, passing molecules through the sinus cavities in its skull. A sense that helped its species find food, or water, or avoid danger. That bizarre function that it called ‘smell.’
A bead of liquid drips from its head, running down the length of its jaw. Saliva pools in its mouth. Grace’s joints crackle in its hands, flexing against the fabric of its clothing. Closing and unfolding— shaking.
“… Screw it.”
I jump as Grace’s hand strikes out to grab the seared flesh, shocked by how fast it had moved. Its skin comes into contact with the tissue. Grazing the heat from the burner. A cold terror grips me, claws scrabbling against the floor. Burn! It’s going to burn—
“Grace. Grace!—“
Grace is not listening. It tries to pry the flesh away from the pan and hisses at the prolonged contact with the heated metal. I flinch as I hear the distinct sizzle of its skin blistering along the edges of its digits— the sound layering on top of a memory with my claws wrapped around its forelimb. The human lets out a ragged snarl deep in its chest and pulls its hand back, gravelly and aggressive. Mouth twisted into something that’s all teeth. Grace yanks the tray to the side and dumps the half-cooked meat onto the counter with a sickening splat, flinging the metal from the table. The tray clatters sharply against the ground next to me, vibrations disorientating me with their sharp metallic clangs.
I hear the human grab its flesh from the table, sticky strands of liquid tearing away from the clean surface. Grace’s heart is hammering in its chest— excited, barely contained within the cage of its ribs. Thumping against its bones. It lifts the meat to its mouth and—
Bites down. The squelch of flesh being cut apart by its teeth sends an involuntary shiver through my carapace. Of fluids leaking out from its mouth. Grace snaps its jaws around the chunk again and pulls in the other direction, fibers splaying and ripping under the strain.
I’m shocked into silence, transfixed by the sudden violent display. I feel myself take a few steps back, but only dimly. My senses engulfed by the biting tearing ripping snapping—
It’s-
Revolting.
All I can hear is bones on meat. Grace’s blunt claws digging in between the strands of muscle. Tearing into its cultivated flesh with its teeth. It swallows without chewing, the muscles in its throat straining to work its food down. Grace coughs and sputters and almost chokes, sucking in a ragged gulp of air as it catches its breath before continuing its visceral display.
And then it’s finished.
I’m still… dazed, standing stock still a few feet away. Limbs locked up. I can barely parse how fast the sample had disappeared into the alien’s body.
Grace swallows roughly- lets out a stuttering breath through rattling teeth, it’s chin still dripping from its meal. It pants shallowly, leaning against the table before pulling itself upwards, spine creaking at the effort. The human raises a shaky hand to swipe at its jaw, mechanically, as if its mind is light years away. Its diaphragm spasms sharply; a small ripple that evolves into a full-on shudder as it sinks to the floor slowly, spine pressed up against the counter.
I hear the breakdown before it happens. The quick succession of shallow breaths, that evolve to body-wracking sobs that echo through its fragile frame. One trembling hand pressed to its head.
I raise a limb hesitantly, standing on the terrifying precipice of wanting to soothe and being thoroughly daunted by its behavior. I feel disoriented. Why? Why do I feel so timid?
Because it is a desperate, starving animal from a star system away.
But it’s not some animal, a part of myself voices dimly. Grace is my friend.
(“I dreamt of Earth last night.”
Grace was at the window again. Frayed blanket wrapped around its body. The day before it had paced the length of Mary countless times over— back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. This day it had traded pacing for inert silence. We were two years into the trip to Erid. Its clothes had started to hang loosely from its frame.
It pressed its head to the window and turned it this way and that. Rotating it from side to side, eyes closed. As if it could push its molecules through the metal and glass and float off into space, if it tried hard enough.
“Sometimes… it’s like I can still feel the sun on my skin.”)
It is so far away from its home, its culture, any semblance of food that it has evolved to eat. From a community that prized social feeding as a way to bond. That culture might be gone now, for all we know. Its corpse splayed under a distant dying star.
And it has been forced to feed on itself for survival.
A well of shame pools at my center.
It must feel so profoundly alone.
My claws click against the floor of the lab. Slowly. Carefully. As if any sudden moves might spook it. Closing the short distance between myself and the human, until I’m at its side once more. My plates chitter softly as I hum, weaving a wordless tune through the air. A soft sound that I hope Grace can sense with its poor hearing. It must, for after a moment it lifts away its hand to peer at me.
Its diaphragm contracts sharply; a soft clipped chirp at my approach. Grace sniffs and rubs at its eyes. “Sorry- sorry.. I’m sorry.”
I push the top of my carapace under one of its limbs, pressing against its fragile chest and humming gently against its rib cage. Grace is always the one to initiate this form of contact, squeamish as I am about being in such close proximity to its bodily functions. Now, I simply cannot bring myself to care.
How can I, when it needs me?
I feel the exhausted muscles in Grace’s body tense at the contact, fibers pulling taut before slackening. It heaves another trembling full body sigh and lets itself go limp against my form— lower jaw coming to a rest at the top of my suit. It’s barely a change in pressure. This alien is more than twice my size and yet a fraction of my weight. Even less so, now that it has been slowly wasting away.
Grace makes a rumbling noise deep in its throat; the sound vibrates through my body. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. I’m sorry I did that. I don’t know why I did that.” It takes a shuddering breath, wiping at its mouth again. “Are-are you okay? Did I hit you, when I threw the-“ it’s voice tapers off, eyes squeezing shut in an expression that I’ve come to recognize as shame.
It would take much more than a flimsy hunk of metal flung by a space wisp to hurt me. Or even breach my suit. I chitter softly. “Fine. Your aim is terrible.”
Grace lets out a scoffing noise, despite itself. I let it stay draped over my form, catching its breath from its frenzy. Until its lungs stop rattling against my side, and its tears slow.
“… I tasted iron when I bit into it.” The human wipes at its mouth again. “I mean that’s fine; sometimes meat tastes that way. But it was my gums. My teeth started bleeding, and I realized it doesn’t matter, anyways. It’s all just me.”
“There’s so much of me that’s missing.” It lifts a limb up, eyes shifting as it inspects itself. I can hear the tendons in its hand slide and pop under the skin. “It fell away in space, and all that’s left is bones.” Grace lets the hand drop to its head, digits pulling at its hair.
“I look at myself these days and I don’t recognize who’s staring back.”
Grace’s words make my insides twist painfully, the phantom feeling of something reaching its claws into my body and pulling. I tap a claw gently against one of its limbs. It’s too thin; too fragile. Calcium structures riddled with small holes. Empty gaps where our mission took and took until there was no more left to give. “Grace stares back,” my tone comes out in a warble; wavering octaves that whistle haphazardly through my body, “stupid, brave, clumsy, beautiful. My friend.”
A part of myself that I had never known was missing; that had chipped off long ago before finding its way back to me, hobbling along on two legs. That complained and leaked and spat and bled and breathed.
Grace lets out a shallow huff, caught between a noise of disbelief and a sob. I hear its digits curl around one of my limbs, claws creaking against the xenonite. We stay there, for a moment, until the human lifts its head to thunk its nose against my suit— exhaling soft puffs of carbon dioxide against the surface in a breathy wet laugh, humid from the confines of its body. “Laying it on thick, are we?” It rolls its head over to the side, cheek resting against my mantle, “guess I shouldn’t tease; you did bring me dinner.”
Grace’s brows furrow together, its head swiveling back to stare at me. It took a while to get used to that as well. The clear indicator that its entire focus was on me. Three senses zeroed in on a single point— two of which were unfathomable to me; searching, observing. It was more than a little intense, compared to the ambient presence of echolocation.
Grace frowns. “I— I know that food and eating doesn’t mean the same thing here. But where I come from, it can mean a lot.” It’s long digits fiddle with the edge of its clothing, catching on the loose fibers, “it’s not just something that you need for survival. It’s enjoyable, it’s something that you can use to express closeness to others. ‘I wanna share this with you. I wanna provide for you. I love you.’”
The human tries to make itself small. “… I miss that, I think.” The soft malleable flesh of Grace’s nose wrinkles upwards, caught in an expression of disgust. “And you’re already doing so much for me,” it thunks its head against the suit again, eyes closing, “god, Ryland, can you be more pathetic.”
I could do more. I want to do more. I cannot leave it here like this, alone and heartbroken. No one on this planet understands Grace the way I do. I fear that no one would care to understand it in the ways that it needs to be understood.
My voice is small; hesitant. I let out a few nervous cords before continuing on. “Tell me your favorites,” I stand taller, pushing myself against its chest, “what you like. What you miss.” Grace opens its eyes again, its brows knitting together into a perplexed wrinkle. It’s mouth twitches, as if measuring its words before speaking.
“About… food?”
“Yes.”
“I— you— isn’t that a little weird for you?”
“Don’t care.” The answer is automatic; without thought or presumption. “Important to you. Will be important to me. You will talk about what makes you happy. I will sit while you eat. I will give company. I will listen.” I reach up to pick gently at the soft fibers of its clothing; my own form of fidgeting inherited from Grace’s close proximity. “Tell me, so I can make it for you.”
It’s easy to say because I mean every word. This being from beyond the stars has already given me the salvation of my species. Rescued me from the hollow grave that had become my ship. I can give a little more in return.
Grace’s face twists up into a complex expression, a multitude of muscles flexing and contracting to create something so hard to identify. I hear moisture gather at the corner of its eyes, its throat constricting against itself. I know that involuntary response well enough to understand that it’s trying not to leak. The corner of its mouth eventually turns upwards.
“You sure?”Its voice is low and rumbling, a teasing inflection running through the undercurrent, “it’ll get gross for you.”
“Already gross for me. Shallow threat.”
“I’ll start talking about cheese, again.”
“I will deal with it.”
“What will everyone else think?”
“Fuck everyone else.” I stomp for emphasis.
Grace’s face splits open with a loud barking laugh, barring its bleeding teeth and strange insides. Its noise is sharp and stuttering, rough edges at the end of every exhale. I have missed that sound so dearly.
“Okay! Settle down, tiger. I hear ya loud and clear.”
Grace taps the top of my suit gently, a gesture that it has no doubt inherited from me. It makes me happy, to know that the lines between it and myself have blurred. Two strange beings alone and together, rotating in each other’s orbit. Resonating with each other across a gap that spans billions of years of evolution. I trill softly, the two of us falling into companionable silence.
… Until a burning question fills my mind, and I tilt my carapace towards Grace. We might as well start now.
“So was it… enjoyable? Question?”
Grace presses its hands to its eyes and lets out a long droning groan. “Yes? No? There were a lot of emotions going on.” It drags its hands downwards, strange thin eyelids catching on its digits. “It kinda reminded me of steak. I don’t know how to feel about that one; ask me again in about five-to-ten business days.”