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It took almost two years for me to notice.
Honestly, that sounds like I’m oblivious, but I’m not. I spent most of those two years nearly starving to death, then recovering from suffering almost every form of nutritional deficiency known to humankind.
And, by the time I’d recovered, I’d already internalized a lot of things about my new home.
But I still noticed. Something was happening to me.
I just didn’t know what.
~~~
We’d arrived at Erid two years ago, with enough taumoeba to immediately seed Threeworld’s atmosphere, and take half back to Erid proper for the Eridian scientists to work on.
It had been a whirlwind since then. First, to get the taumoeba safely delivered, then to explain what I needed, both nutritionally and environmentally, to survive, then to explain what radiation is, watch as the sun recovered, and finally, just trying to survive until the Eridians could create something safe for me to eat.
They’d succeeded, and I was mostly recovered. I was fairly certain that I would have some health problems later in life, and the double gravity wasn’t going to be doing my joints or heart any favors, but I was still alive, and… well.
Rocky had helped, so much. Rocky, and so many others.
But now… I was sitting on the beach in the biodome that the Eridians had created for me, and I knew, down to my bones, that something was happening to me.
It didn’t feel like a bad thing, but it was something. Or maybe I…
I couldn’t feel like it was a bad thing. As if something was preventing me from thinking it was bad. What, I didn’t know, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to explain it to anyone who asked, but I knew I wasn’t the same man I’d been when we’d arrived.
I turned my head as I heard someone walking on the sand toward me. “Hey, Rocky,” I said.
“Grace,” Rocky replied. “You’re thinking about something.” In the four years it took to travel to Erid, I’d managed to learn Rocky’s language fluently. I couldn’t speak more than a couple words- it just wasn’t possible for human vocal cords- but I understood it completely.
“Just remembering,” I said. Something in me didn’t want to scare Rocky. Or maybe I was worried about his reaction. I’m not sure.
I looked out at the artificial ocean. “Just remembering.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
I sighed. “I’m just figuring something out, Rocky, I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”
Rocky grumbled something that probably should have been inaudible to me, but I heard it, though not clearly enough to know what he said.
And that was only the first symptom. My hearing was much, much better than it should be.
“Are you upset about something?” Rocky asked.
I sighed. “No, no, it’s not that.” I looked up. Rocky was the best friend I’d ever had, someone I trusted with far more than my life. “I just… I think I’m changing, physically.”
“Yes, you’re recovering from nearly dying,” Rocky responded.
“More than that,” I said. “I heard you, a couple of second ago. When I clearly wasn’t supposed to.”
Rocky paused. “What?”
“Just before you asked if I was upset about something, I heard… you said something. I couldn’t hear it clearly enough to know what, but you definitely said something.”
Rocky didn’t move for a long moment. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.”
“It doesn’t seem like a bad thing,” Rocky said. “If you can hear more.”
“No, but it’s…” I paused. “I guess it just seems weird.”
“Weird is going to another star system and finding life. Weird is a leaky space blob and a scary space spider becoming friends.”
I laughed. “I guess so,” I said, and dropped the subject.
~~~~
I’ve noticed something else. I always knew who was near my biodome. Most often, of course, it was Rocky, but also Adrian, and a lot of the scientists I was working with. And the kids, of course, every other day, when they came for class.
Except the kids weren’t as obvious to me. Somehow, they weren’t as clear. I knew they were there, but it was a more diffuse knowledge.
I was right there in the city, and I always knew there were a multitude of people there, and that didn’t bother me at all.
But somehow, the fact that that I knew who was nearby did bother me. Except it didn’t. It should. But I wasn’t concerned. I should be.
I was still changing. I should be concerned. I should be. And I wasn’t.
~~~
I dragged out the whiteboard from the Mary and set it up in my living room. I had to do some brainstorming. I knew something was going on, and I knew I should be worried. But somehow, whatever was changing me was also keeping me from worrying.
I really didn’t like that. But those feelings were somehow distant. I felt like I should be upset about it, but I wasn’t.
So, I did what I always do- I turned to science. Evidence. Experiments.
I starting writing down everything I noticed. The better hearing, the strange knowledge, and… and I didn’t have anything else to write down. I knew there were other symptoms.
There were. I just couldn’t figure them out.
Something was happening to me, and I couldn’t figure it out, and I couldn’t be afraid of it.
I stared at the whiteboard for a long, long time, before erasing to the two short sentences I’d written.
Something was happening to me, and I couldn’t worry about it, and I knew deep in a part of me that had nothing to do with empirical evidence, I couldn’t talk about it to anyone. Not even Rocky.
A small part of me wasn’t sure if it was because whatever was changing me wouldn’t let me, or because I knew they wouldn’t be worried.
~~~
Another strange thing is, I haven’t been dreaming. The entire trip to Erid, I had nightmares, at least two out of every five nights. And even while recovering, in the Hail Mary, I still had nightmares that jolted me awake at least once a week. But since moving to the biodome (since coming to the surface, some part of me whispers) I’ve not had a single dream that I can remember.
I only noticed when I woke up today. This is a change I’m not upset about, but…
It’s still another change. With everything, I should be worried.
~~~
I had class today, and the kids were, as usual, chaotic and smart and hilarious.
Most of them are actually right around my age chronologically, but developmentally, they’re around the same as my kids on earth. Today was the first time any of them figured out that I was actually their age, and it was all because we were going over physics and I had started with a base ten English to base six Eridian number conversion.
We’d finished the class, with classic physics equations in both base ten and base six, with about ten minutes to spare. I liked doing it that way, both here and on Earth, because it let the kids ask me questions related to the day’s lesson.
“Teacher Grace, what’s your age?” Mica asked. She was always first off with a question. “We know humans age differently, but we don’t know how old you are.”
I smiled. “Yes, humans age differently,” I told the class. “Alright. I’ll write my age in Earth numbers, I want you all to figure out how old that is, in Eridian numbers, and the difference between Earth and Erid years.”
I paused. “Just remember, thanks to relativity, and a few other factors, I’m not quite sure how old I am. I am, however, roughly…” I write 43 on the board. It’s not a whiteboard like I had back in San Francisco, but if fulfills the same function. I write down on it, and another board on their side of the room duplicates the writing in three dimensions, so they could understand it.
The class is silent for less than ten seconds before they erupt in shock.
I let them get it out for a minute, but eventually I hold my hand up. They quiet down slowly, but they do quiet down.
Lio asked me a question that I hadn’t been expecting. “Does this mean you haven’t thrummed yet too? Since we’re too young, and you’re our age?”
“Uh…” I paused. “I have not thrummed, but mostly because we’re not sure I can. Humans don’t have anything like it, and the doctors are making sure it won’t hurt me.”
The kids all seem distressed at that. “But… Thrum,” one of them said. I wasn’t completely sure which one.
“Hands up,” I reminded them. “And I know we’re working on things. We’re just not sure what will happen. But I have a question for you guys,” I added. “Why haven’t any of you thrummed?” I made sure that the tones I played were teasing and silly.
They start giggling. I knew the answer, of course. They were too young. Most Eridians literally couldn’t join a thrum until they were at least sixty-five.
At least I’d gotten them off worrying about my age.
But now I had other questions.
~~~
I walked back to my house slowly that day. I knew the doctors and scientists were trying to figure out if it was safe for me to attend a thrum. The two dominate theories were that nothing would happen and I couldn’t actually join in a thrum, or that nothing bad would happen if I did. However, no one could be sure it was safe for me, and that I wouldn’t be hurt.
I was starting to think that I wouldn’t physically be hurt by it, but that if I did join, something else would change in me.
I had a theory, I didn’t know how likely it was, but I had a theory. Thrums were a form of hive mind, I knew that. I suspected that some layer of that hive mind remained after a thrum. Rocky was probably the only Eridian who had been away from the hive mind for so long, and I had seen how he’d calmed and recovered after his first thrum after returning. He was still Rocky, but he was also different.
And it was likely that if I was able to join one, I would not emerge as just myself, but as a part of that hive mind. Still myself, but not just myself.
It should have scared me. I think, if I wasn’t on Erid, it would scare me. But something wasn’t letting me be afraid of what was happening to me. (I knew what was changing me. I just didn’t want to admit it.)
I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, if I joined a thrum, I’d be forever changed, and would never go back to being the man I once was.
I had already changed, and I couldn’t ever go back to being the man I once was. I’d never regained all my memories of Earth- I had perhaps two years’ worth of full Earth memories, and another six months or a year of fragments that made sense, but were just that, fragments.
I was not the same Ryland Grace who had been forced onto the Hail Mary. I never would be again, even if I somehow regained every memory tomorrow. I’d long ago come to that conclusion, before we even reached Erid, even, and whatever was happening now was just another change.
I paused. That… didn’t feel like me. Yes, I was changed from who I had been on Earth, but I liked who I was now. I… didn’t…
I frowned out at the ocean. I couldn’t even feel upset about the idea of changing again anymore.
~~~
The next day, I had a meeting with a few of the scientists I was working with, teaching them special relativity and other Earth physics disciplines. It wasn’t my specialty, of course, but I knew more than most thanks to the Taskforce. Rocky had joined the group, not because he was a physicist, but because he was determined to understand everything he’d experienced on the trip to Tau Ceti.
All I could say to that was “good luck.” I wasn’t sure I understood the crazier branches of physics.
As usual, the lecture/discussion went well, and Rocky stayed back afterwards.
For a moment, I wondered if I should talk to him about what was happening to me, but I decided against it. I wasn’t sure if I could handle it if he dismissed my worries.
“I have a meeting with the doctors later,” I said instead. “They’re still trying to figure out if it’s safe for me to attempt to thrum. I think… I think they’re going to try a small one today, while all the medical equipment is right there.”
Rocky hummed for a second. “Do you want me there?” he asked.
I paused and thought. Yes absolutely. Except, if it worked, he’d see…
“Yes,” said, before I could change my mind. “I want you there.”
If what I thought was going to happen happened, I wanted Rocky there.
~~~
Rocky and I spent a couple hours just being silly with each other. We hadn’t had a chance to do that in a while- we were both busy now. But it was nice to just spend some time with my best friend.
I wanted to get nervous as the doctors arrived, but I wasn’t. I was almost excited about it.
Some part of me knew it wasn’t really me that was excited, but I couldn’t help it.
After we settled in, and I got hooked up to some monitoring machines, we all paused. “Are you sure this won’t hurt Grace?”
“As long as it doesn’t get too loud, I don’t see how it could,” I answered him.
“We are as sure as we can be,” the doctor I’d nicknamed Watson answered. “There is no reason to assume that it will hurt you,” he added to me. “We’ve just been cautious.”
“And, I think,” I paused.
Rocky made a sound that wasn’t really a word, but it was something that encouraged me to talk.
“Waiting for something,” I finally managed to say.
Everyone paused. “Yes,” Rocky said, very slowly, as if he just realized it himself. “Waiting.”
The way he said it told me that Rocky hadn’t known. Or at least, hadn’t realized.
That… actually made me feel better. Even if I truly couldn’t feel bad about this, the knowledge that my best friend hadn’t been hiding something from me helped.
Rocky shook himself. “Do you want to do this?” he asked me.
“I…” I stopped for a moment. I knew this was going to change me, and I couldn’t be afraid of it. Whatever force was changing me didn’t let me feel upset about. But did I- did myself, not the force changing me, want to attempt to thrum?
The scientist in me says yes. I wanted to find out if I could. The part of me that was still Ryland Grace of Earth didn’t want to change any more. And part of me wanted to just be done with this. The speculation and the not-quite-worry. And of course, whatever is changing me is also a factor.
I open my mouth, then close it again. This is probably my last chance to stop the changes. If I can actually join the thrum, there will be no going back. I’m not sure how I know that. But I do. And I have for some time, I realize.
“Yes,” I said. “I think I do.” I’m not entirely sure how much of that answer is me, and how much is whatever is changing me. But I’m not going to worry about it.
Rocky shifted in his version of an accepting nod. “I will be here,” he said.
I smiled and reach out with my fist. He matched me and we fist-bumped.
Whatever happened, my best friend was here.
~~~
I nodded once more. “I’m ready,” I said.
And then, it started. Three of the doctors and Rocky started the thrum, while the fourth doctor (House, I noticed) remained separate, watching the monitors.
For a moment, nothing seemed to be happening, but then I felt it. I jolted, just a bit, as the sound seemed to envelope me. “Oh,” I managed, before I was swept up in the sound.
For a moment, I feel like I am falling, but then something seems to catch me and I am floating. “Oh,” I say again. This time, I have no idea if it is actually out loud.
Rocky is right there, next to me, but before us was an immense presence.
This is what had been changing me. Changing me enough that I could join in a thrum.
This, I know, is Erid itself. All the Eridians that had ever lived were still, somehow, here.
Rocky is unsurprised, and unworried. Of course he would be, this was normal for him.
I’m not worried, but I am extremely surprised. And then the presence speaks to me.
I don’t know if I can explain what it says, how it says anything. But I knew what it is offering, and why. I’ll be even more changed if I accept. I’ll still be biologically human, it can’t change that, but in every other way… I’ll be of Erid.
I accept.
The thrum lasts for some time after, I don’t know how long.
And it fades away and I opened my eyes. Rocky was sitting right next to me, and he’s almost vibrating with impatience.
I blinked at him, and then smiled. I hadn’t been afraid, of course, but it still somehow felt like any fear I had was gone.
I’ll never be alone again.