Chapter Text
Nobody in the tower module moves. Nobody even hums. There’s silence as the low fidelity radio message plays on a loop, the strange voice repeating:
“Hi. Rocky go far, far, far, an’ come home now. I am new friend. Know small talk aaa-mount. Bring Rocky an’ get thing for home from far, far, far place. Is safe thing, good thing that help Rocky home… uh, ⬤ ▉⬤≋✦ ✦⬤☰ ❋⬤ ◥ ≋∘⬤ ■✦◥≋ Please help. Sick. Rocky is sick. Need help. Please please help... Hi. Rocky go far-”
“What is that,” the senior radio technician whistles, crouching low to the floor. “Why does it sound like that. Why is it talking like that?”
The question has no answer. The radio continues to play the bizarre statements over and over, the strange voice’s simple speech and other sounds filling the control room. The approaching ship had been pinging the space elevator tower for nearly a trimest- no one had caught it until now, because no one was expecting there to be an update on the doomed star-saving mission this many revolutions passed.
Now there was a strange ship playing a strange message only several rotations out, and they needed answers. Badly. Who are you? What help are you requesting? What are you trying to bring us? They tuned to the strange signal and sent a response.
A return message would take several hundred seconds, but they waited. And soon, another transmission was picked up.
“Hi. Am Grace from far far far far far home. Rocky is my friend from this home. Rocky is sick, hurt, an’ sleep… uh, four rotations, need help please. Rocky an’ Grace leave home ‘cause home is get cold. Wanna help home be not-sick. Help home be, uh, warm an’ good. Rocky Grace do good, an’ go to Rocky home now with good help for home. Yes.”
The tower buzzes with suppressed excitement as a dozen eridians begin low singing their emotions and short thoughts.
“Far far far far far home…? An alien? It can’t be-”
“What else would sound like that? It’s not an eridian!”
“- the one named ‘Rocky’ has been asleep for 4 days? Is it dead?-”
“... sounds like a gen-forsaken baby–”
“Is it talking about the star-sickness? Does it have a cure onboard???”
“Speculation helps no one,” the acting tower command conductor hums decisively, cutting through the control room’s chatter. “We need to determine if it is safe to approach our planet, and then if it is possible for it to dock with our station.”
The group is quiet for a few seconds before erupting into even louder, direct questions. This was at least a little bit more productive.
The best place for the alien to dock is determined to be the satellite launch module slash drydock at the terminal void-facing end of the station. The foreign ship is close enough for radio transmissions to be only a handful of seconds delayed now- the tower manages to convey the angle and speed needed to get into the correct orbit above the counterweight station, and the airy voice of the alien tells them “‘kay. Gonna do it.”
It navigates and orients its ship well enough, but to dock with the counterweight station, small adjustments were needed. Thankfully to whatever god it worshiped, the alien understood both the mathematical and directional terms for navigating, even if it could not repeat them. It responded to every command to adjust with its strange, childish affirmations. “‘Kay,” it would say, then roll or pitch its strange cylindrical ship a half a degree planetside, or wherever it was directed.
It was harrowing. One wrong move and the ship would ‘coast’ directly into the counterweight station. And the capture tethers and berthing arms were designed for Eridian satellites and crafts, not whatever was hurtling towards them currently. But there was no time for major alterations. They would have to make do with what they currently had at the station and simply hope for the best.
Soon the ship was approaching the capture range. The alien craft coasted precisely where it was told to go, the malleable tension arms engaged and the soft-capture graspers unfolded, and-
“Brace,” the conductor calls over the radio.
Even with the sound muffling the mechanism was loud. But the capture system worked. And miraculously, it didn’t tear the ship in half.
A cheer goes up. The strange ship was held fast, and a soundproofed berthing arm was mobilized to help bring it into a more accessible range.
The robotic operations team stood ready in their module, eager to continue. There was no question on if xenonite adhesive would work with its hull’s component materials- there were signs of a smaller tunnel having been cut from the ship already. All they needed was the signal to go, and they would move from arm contact to tunnel construction.
First real contact with alien life was just seconds away…! The control room resonated with excited emoting. They unsuccessfully try to quiet down as the command conductor contacts the alien by radio again.
“You have navigated well. We will now connect to your ship’s airlock with a tunnel and enter-”
“No!” the alien interrupts, voice loud and strange. Upset, likely. The control room stills, voices dying out as everyone focuses on the radio transmission.
“No no no, no, bad bad bad-”
“What is wrong?” The conductor sings, voice instinctively scooping up into the placating tones one uses for a scared infant. “We will not connect until you say so. Please, be calm.”
The alien calms, going quiet. It makes several of its vibrating monotone sounds before making a strange exclamation and finally responding in its childish Ran again.
“Yes. ‘kay. Sorry. Sorry. My, uh… My this,” it starts, then abruptly stops. The radio signal only transmits a strange airy sound, like wind between filterbushes, before resuming, “is bad scary for Rocky home.”
The conductor signals for the broadcast to stop temporarily. The technician mutes the line.
“My This is bad scary for Rocky Home,” a ring-mining operative repeats, baffled. “My this. My what?”
“It sounded like blowing wind?” a satellite coordination attendant posits, hands clicking in thought. “Like it was fanning air into the microphone, or something like that.”
The conductor was not just chosen for their outstanding shell composition. They make the connection instantly, signaling for the transmission to go live before singing, “Air! Do you mean to say that your air is dangerous? Your ship's atmosphere?”
“Yes!” The alien’s response comes, airy and high pitched with excitement. “My ≋✦◥❋ ∘■✽⬤≋▃▉◥▛! My ∘▛! That! Dan~ger to you. Dan-ger danger danger. My ∘■✽⬤≋▃▉◥▛☰ ∘▛ is dannn-ger an’ cold ‘n’ is small.”
Some of those words were probably for air and atmosphere. They could hash out the specifics later- right now they needed to know just how dangerous the ship they needed to enter was, exactly.
“Your air is dangerous and cold, we understand. What do you mean by small?” The coordinator asks, plucking a request onto the message line for the chemical analysis team several modules above them to pay attention to the alien’s words. They would need their expertise shortly, if their spleen feeling was correct.
“∘■✽⬤≋▃▉◥▛ is, uh… one… mmm. Grace home ∘■✽⬤≋▃▉◥▛ is one. Rocky home [atmosphere] is more big. Thirty.”
They mentally pin that alien sound as its word for atmosphere. And it was doing a comparison. Directly comparing its air to the atmosphere on the ship of ‘Rocky’, which is apparently at an unspecific ratio of one to thirty… Times concentrated? Degrees of temperature? Percent more saturated with an element?
“Do you mean concentration?” asks one of the battery runners.
The alien makes another alien-noise before chirping “Um, yes an’ no.”
“Pressure, maybe?”
“Yes!”
Victorious stomping came from the power measuring module. “Our air is high pressure, thirty times your air. Correct?”
“Yes yes!”
That’s one mystery down.
“Very good. Can you tell us what your air is made of?” The conductor asks, fingers plucking the message line intermittently.
“Can try.”
This might be hard for someone with limited vocabulary. The alien knows more than it can say, so maybe they can just do an elimination panel. “It’s not ammonia, is it?”
The radio line crackles with an airy staccato sound. Is it laughing? “No. Is not… uh! Um! Know this! Rocky [air] is ◆✦✽⬤✸⬤∘. Aaa-mo-nyuh. an’ umm-onnn-ya is small thing six an’ one!”
There is a beat while the room absorbs the clue before the message line vibrates excitedly. The conductor reaches out a claw and listens to the communication-
<MOLECULE OF AMMONIA COMPOSITION IT KNOWS ELEMENTS ASK WHAT ELEMENT NUMBERS ITS AIR IS>
Their claw wraps around the still vibrating communication cord. “Are you saying Rocky’s atmosphere is ammonia, made of elements six and one?”
The alien makes a loud untranslatable sound. “Yes! Yes yes yes!”
“Then what element or molecule is Grace’s air composed of?”
“Eight!”
There is a slight pause as the control room considers that. From several floors above, no message line needed, they hear the agonized shout of several chemistry lab technicians in unison.
“OXYGEN?!”
The alien lived in dioxygen gas at a temperature and pressure that would kill them instantly if they entered it. Or, more accurately, they’d catch fire and freeze simultaneously which would likely kill them painfully after enough time passed, and no one was super excited to experience that. So while the robotics operations team worked on the tunnel, some extra hands in the fabrication labs were tasked with thinking up a solution to allow them access to the ship’s interior.
Luckily that, too, was something the alien had a solution for. Or, to be more specific, that ‘Rocky’ had found a solution for, and that the alien was attempting to relay to them.
“Rocky make tunn-nel-zz an’… go-thing. Rocky get in an’ go in Grace ship.”
“Is it possible to describe the ‘go-thing’ Rocky used in more detail?”
“Uh…” the alien paused, humming its little sound that indicated thought. “dunno... I can bring!”
“What do you mean you can-”
The satellite tech is interrupted by the sound of clamoring motion as the alien scrambles around its ship. There was a click, and then the voice of the alien sounded closer, somehow, as it continued, “I bring go-thing to tunn-nel.”
“Oh, well-”
“Make no [air] in tunnel. Zero. I bring to you. Hear go-thing!”
“... Can you,” the tech hesitates, “Survive in a vacuum? Is this safe?”
“Grace have go-thing, too,” it says, and at that moment the tunnel struts connect.
The tech had been listening to the countdown, of course, but it was one thing to understand ‘we are about to hear the inside of an alien ship’ and another to actually hear inside an alien’s ship.
The feedback through the tunnel wall was bizarre. The ship’s shell was easy to feel, but the inside was not- the thing was insulated with a bizarre muffling medium, but sound still seeped through various areas. And the noise leaking out was both fascinating and utterly mysterious. The buzzing of unshielded electronic components was omnipresent, and there were so many liquids vibrating within the center pillar- and some internal parts of the thing were in motion, various rhythmic mechanical processes they could only guess at, something hissing like a fuel propulsion intake and something that beat irregularly like trapped prey- and then an external door within the xenonite tunnel swings open and-
Oh, right. The alien.
“I go now,” it breezes into the radio line.
Nobody moves.
The figure exiting the circular hatch was hard to hear unless it was directly touching a wall. Its tether only gave it a faint connection to a sound conducting surface, so when it pushed off of the tunnel wall its form was revealed to the station crew in flashes.
A lumpy five-point body plan.
Four long appendages, one short.
A soft insulating covering over something fleshy and alive.
Holding something large and made of xenonite.
The longest, clearest view of the being is when it presses the xenonite object onto the tunnel wall close to their entrance. It makes some involuntary sounds as it makes sure the ball is stuck in place, giving the motionless eridians in the tower a decent scope of the alien’s body. It is very soft inside its protective shell. It isn’t very dense. And it is absolutely packed with fluids.
It is… very interesting.
“This is go-thing. Rocky make. Go inside an’,” the alien voice cuts off, gesturing with its limbs oddly. It looks almost like its imitating the bipedal gait of a poolwalker, its longer pair of limbs cutting back and forth while its shorter pair move in opposition. Maybe it was imitating walking. The message was clear in that case: ‘Rocky’ would enter the xenonite container and move around the ship in a (relatively) safe, non-explosive ammonia environment.
“Rocky would enter the object and move around the ship. Is that right?”
The alien smashes two of its limbs together and points at the tunnel’s entrance. “Yes!”
Someone from the materials fabrication unit cuts into the transmission. “We can make more of these to enter and examine Rocky. Is that acceptable?”
“Yes. Make wuh, with uh, eks… exaaa-ct, uh….” It trails off, body curling in on itself in what seemed like shame.
The materials fabrication engineer seems to understand, though, and asks, “Do you mean to say we need to use the exact same kind of xenonite to make more balls?”
The alien straightens, bobbing its short appendage and gesturing with one end of its short limbs. It felt like a hand, kind of, if a hand was grossly mutated and had entirely too many fingers. It extended only one digit, though. It seemed like an affirmation. It didn’t make it towards the technician just three body lengths away, though, so it was unclear if it was meant for anyone in particular or just to the tower in general.
“Yesss,” it hisses, “Same kind of xee-non-ite balll. Please. Need.”
“Can you explain why it is needed?”
“Need is,” the alien starts, “Is… ≋◢✸☰.”
It stops, clearly frustrated. Its ‘hands’ tap at its single short appendage, and it says, “Need is hear.”
“You need this kind of xenonite to hear properly?” the engineer asks, leaning towards the tunnel wall and waving an arm. The alien bobs again, oblivious to the engineer, who has started bouncing from handhold to handhold while kicking its arms in the alien’s direction to check if that was true.
“Yes. ‘Kay! Do: Make this tun-nel [air] Rocky. Get in thing. Make tunnel [air] zero. Grace-” it cuts off, pushing on the adhered ball with its shorter pair of limbs. “You go in ship, in tunnel, help Rocky.”
There is a beat of silence as the words are interpreted.
“So, if I understand correctly,” the satellite tech begins, voice incredulous, “Your plan is to willingly enclose several of the medical team into small containers, have those containers be exposed to a complete vacuum, then allow you, Grace, the alien we have just met, to take full control of their motion and maneuver them into your ship, which is filled with dangerous and volatile gas.”
Grace makes a small wet sound over the radio before replying, “Yeah.”
The conductor speaks on the radio line before anyone else can. “Unless we engineer a more elegant solution, that will work.”
They did not engineer a more elegant solution.
Despite the danger, the medical team volunteers were more excited than terrified. Three atmosphere excursion containers- two for the pair of medics, plus one ball full of equipment, were fashioned quickly enough out of the specific xenonite subcompound that the alien apparently needed to hear through. The medics were soon sealed and waiting for the tunnel to cycle and for the alien to come ferry them through the void and into its ship.
The alien ship, with an injured eridian inside.
And as soon as their ammonia had cycled out, sure enough, the alien opened its airlock and floated over to them. They had the foresight to be sealed inside their balls close to the alien ship’s entrance, several small magnets holding them in place until they could be handled.
“Hiii,” it calls, waving a limb at them. The pair of medics wave an arm each back at it. Successful communication!
The alien wiggles, struggling with some sort of handheld tool while getting something else from a clip on its midsection. Once it has the bar in hand, it sticks the magnetic end unceremoniously to the closest ball’s seam, giving the otherwise gripless container a handle for it to maneuver with.
“◆❋ ⬤◆ ▉⬤” it breezes in that strange, airy voice as it slowly hauls the first medic into the airlock. It appears to take a lot of effort for it to move them. Perhaps it wasn't very strong. That’s unfortunate. It still moves them, though, both medics and their equipment, into the airlock and safely magnetizes them to the wall.
More of the ship comes into sharp clarity. The medics begin tapping, searching for the familiar echo of an eridian silhouette within. There was the familiar resonance of xenonite, which it followed down the main cylinder of the ship until it heard the unmistakable structure of carapace vents.
There really was an eridian on board. Sleeping, damaged, or dead remained to be seen, but this ‘Rocky’ did indeed exist.
The alien closes and cycles its airlock in relative silence, the pulse of its organs audible even through its insulated shell. The junior medic pops at it curiously, feeling its tissues with more clarity now that it was so close.
“Stop that,” the senior medic whistles. “Rude.”
“Is ‘kay,” the alien states, managing to do so cutely. “Hear new thing. Unn-der stannd why want do.”
Before either of them can talk to the alien about its alarming disregard for social standards, it reaches for the interior door and opens the hatch, hauling the senior medic with it.
“Hard to mmmake go… heavy, apology,” It sings, pushing them closer to the hopefully dormant eridian.
“Tak your time,” they sing back, voice soothing. It seemed to respond well to reassurance. They had initially worried it would be taken as condescension, but it made no such indication. Of course, it might not be able to express the feeling with its limited vocabulary. But that was a completely separate issue.
“Rocky is here,” it points and the medic focuses down. Within the large echoey room filled with technology they could not recognize, there was the long isolated tube of xenonite. Inside was the eridian body. The alien pauses, pushing the ball onto the locking transfer panel of the enclosure, and before they can even worry about pathogen transfer the aperture opens and they are within the tunnel with ‘Rocky’.
The medic can finally hear the engineer with clarity. They are pinned in place on only two arms to a low-gravity-sleeping platform, the rest of their arms curled below and locked in dormant stillness. Their carapace does not appear to be cracked or damaged more than one could expect for an eridian who had spent several hundred revolutions in space- that is to say, it sounded like it was in terrible shape, and it would be hard to tell if any of those issues were the cause for its longer than usual dormancy or not. Their mission carving identifies them as the secondary engineer of the star investigation craft.
The alien is hovering at the transfer panel, posture curled and anxious. “Rocky ‘kay?”
The medic’s spleen squeezes in sympathy. “I’m not sure yet. I need my tools. Can you get those for me?”
The large alien bobs its body again, pushing off to the entrance to retrieve the tool-ball. The secondary medic echos down, humming, “No drilling until we decontaminate.”
“Obviously. Do you believe I am stupid,” the senior medic replies, circling the dormancy platform as best as they can from the tunnel’s small griphooks to fully scope the engineer.
“Well, no. But–”
“Excellent. Thank you for the concern,” the senior medic cuts in, “I will make sure to decontaminate everything as soon as I HAVE ACCESS TO SOME.”
The waiting second medic rather intelligently decides to stop talking.
“… Angry?” the alien hums as it floats down its hallway, pressing the toolball to the access panel.
“Not at you, do not worry,” the senior medic assures it, making sure its voice did not creep into the loud tones it had just used. “Thank you for getting the tools. I am going to start my examination now.”
“Yes. Do. Help Rocky please.”
They had the forethinking to have coated their joints with occluding gel to prevent parasite and pathogen access before even entering the shared tunnel, thankfully. Carefully, they retrieve the unmixed cleansing foam and their sampling tools and begin chiseling and rasping shell samples into pre-labeled containers.
Once they had enough dust to make the pathogen lab happy, they carefully mixed and sprayed the engineer, themselves, and the sealed containers in cleansing antiseptic. If it was a pathogen, hopefully this would prevent it from killing the tower as well. Then, and only then, did they begin the touch-echolocation exam.
The secondary nurse arrived at this point and the senior medic sprayed them down too (perhaps with more force than necessary). Wordlessly, communicating only with basic emotion and command tones, they worked to examine the unresponsive engineer. The alien hovered outside the xenonite compartment, rubbing its ‘hands’ together in what felt like a nervous way as it listened to them work.
“Hear thing bad in Rocky?”
The alien had taken part of its protective suit off. The shortest appendage was exposed, fleshy and wet and covered in small fibers. It leaked from its soft shell and the exposed organs on the appendage. It was kind of gross. How strange.
“Not yet. We still need to do some tests. Then we can look internally for more issues.”
The pair of medics continue the examination, humming a calming song for the distressed alien. It seems to appreciate it, swaying its top half and picking at the protective cloth of its limb coverings with its long fingers.
“Scared. Sad. Love Rocky. Love love love Rocky,” it croons, voice sounding wetter and sadder, somehow. Its voice was controlled by wet tubes, so it was hard to say what was emotion and what was just biology.
But the words it spoke in that sad wet voice were sweet. It was the kind of thing a child would say about a parent before they could articulate well- a declaration of caring. It was very touching, the bond these two shared. It would be a howling shame if the engineer really was dead...
The senior medic clenches a fist at the thought. With a tone of notification they alert the junior medic to their imminent action. They harmonize, handing the shell drill arm over carapace to their senior and preparing the blood stemming kit.
The alien makes a distressed sound as soon as the drill nears the engineer’s arm. The senior medic pauses, considering. It decides to explain the procedure in an attempt to make it feel better.
“This is to get a sample of blood for study. To look for disease.”
“Mmm-make, small… hole?” it breathes, and the medics are shocked still for a second. Hearing minor profanity be spoken by an alien is… something. It sure is something. The fact that it knows the word at all tells them a lot about the personality of this Rocky, as well.
“Yes,” the senior medic begins again, recovering quickly, “a small break in the shell to get some blood. Then we seal it to heal safely.”
The alien sways where it floats, its tall body curled in on itself as it considers this. “kay…”
The second the drill touches the engineer’s shell, the alien makes another wet sound and pushes away from the enclosure. It ends up several halls down, heartbeat fast and loud through the barely-there atmosphere.
Squeamish, probably. It will come back eventually. The medic drills several more blood accesses and samples them all before clotting them, allowing the secondary medic to disinfect and pack the cylinders away.
The junior medic takes the silence as a sign to start talking again. “What do you think about–”
“Stop.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask,” the junior medic whines, twisting its arms in frustration. The senior medic ignores their antics, focusing instead on threading a small gastroscope resonator into the drilled access in the engineer’s ventral seam.
“I know whatever it was should wait until we are not within the hearing range of our alien host,” the senior medic snaps, voice deep with command. “Rude. Be silent. I do not want to split my focus on a conversation while doing this examination.”
The senior medic could have held three conversations while still maintaining enough focus on the examination. But if the alien didn’t understand basic social boundaries, and the junior medic was intentionally ignoring them, then someone had to try and keep the situation from folding into an all out relations disaster.
The undermedic allowed them to examine the internals of ‘Rocky’ in silence. Rather unsurprisingly, the engineer sounded even worse internally than it did externally. Several probes were inserted and many samples were taken of various tissues, the data from the resonance imagery sorted and memorized for the report they’d make once they were returned to the tower.
It was not good data. It implied a history of disease and pain. But there was a positive chord: the worker cells could be heard moving under the amplification scope, which meant that Rocky was still, technically, alive. For now.
The senior medic removed the last instrument and handed it to the junior. Without more information on what caused the dormancy, there were no other tests that needed to be run. What they needed now was to talk to the only other being who might know something. A task that might be a little difficult, due to its, well. physiology.
“General overview: twenty-three percent shell separation, a healed break in the crown, and severe vent trauma that appears to be from oxidization. And that’s just the external carapace,” they hum, sorting the sample containers and pulling several small sealing tools from their holding cases. “Chela warping. Major wear in all finger joints. No evidence of a molt in the three hundred revolutions they’ve been gone. Malformed ventral seam depository layers, resonance indicative of major blood loss and incorporation to the shell suggesting a chronic bleeding problem, storage tissue collapse due to insufficient food intake, and a reproductive trauma that I cannot even guess the cause of that formed major scarring.”
The medic seals the ventral seam access with a decisive tap. “Any number of these could be a reason for its dormancy. The most likely in my opinion would be the crown or radiator trauma. When did these happen?”
They pause for the alien to respond. It does not. “Grace? Do you comprehend? Do you need me to repeat any of that?”
The alien remains silent. They echo down to it and find it several halls away still, alone.
“Grace?” they call louder, again, with the interrogative tap against the tunnel wall for good measure. Still nothing.
Can it not hear? They call several more times, louder and louder until-
“Grace,” they shout. Grace’s body straightens in attention and whips its bizarrely flexible upper half towards them.
“✦◆✦ ⬤✦ ≋✦⬤■” it says, struggling with something in its short limbs and pushing off of the platform it was floating near. “Grace go now, apologee,” it calls as it approaches.
It bumps into the outside panel of the enclosure and the items come into sharper detail. They were small rough xenonite figures of what sounded like an eridian and… the alien itself? possibly?
“What do you have there?” the undermedic asks. Grace curls its shortest organ filled limb into itself and states shyly, “Rocky maked… for me.”
… toys? The engineer made it toys? huh.
“I need to ask you some questions about these injuries. Do you understand?” the senior medic asks before the junior medic can continue. Grace wobbles its organ limb again with a soft “yeah.”
“Excellent. Thank you. The engineer has a lot of healed damage. Do you know what caused the injuries to its carapace and radiator? Were any of them what caused it to become dormant?”
It rolls its organ limb side to side alarmingly. “No, no, injurees is… old. Rocky go in Grace air…”
“It entered your atmosphere??” the medic says sharply, leaning forward in alarm. The alien waves its hands at them, heartbeat racing.
“Yes, is ok, but is bad- is- Rocky- help me,” it is clearly trying to find the words it needs, but cannot. It is in distress, its body functions speeding up and getting louder, leaking more from its strange organs and skin. “Rocky help me,” it states again, grabbing at one of its limbs with its many fingered hands. Under the fabric it worries is a patch of skin that sounds changed-rough and thick, and shaped distressingly like an eridian handprint.
“It’s ok,” the senior medic soothes, the placating hum returning. “The engineer entered your atmosphere to help you. And after that, the engineer–”
“Rocky,” it cuts in. “Name is Rocky.”
The medic wiggles in apology. “And Rocky,” they sing, making sure to use the childish single tone familiar name instead of its title, “healed after that. Rocky got hurt before but was ok after?”
“Yeah,” it breezes, its organs quieting down just a touch. “Rocky hurt but ok. This injur-ree is revolution-s b’fore. Make big sleep is new in-jur-y.”
And the real struggle would be determining what it was when the one who needs to explain the medical issue barely speaks the language. The medic considers several options, body waving in thought, before the undermedic speaks up again.
“Grace, did something happen to Rocky and then Rocky went dormant, or did Rocky go to sleep with no warning?”
“Uh… happen to Rocky… then sleep,” it replies, its short limbs supporting its shortest organ filled one. The junior medic hums a thank you and continues.
“Was the thing that happened physical, like an impact?” it asks, clicking two arms together as an example. “Or did Rocky begin to act differently, like it was sick or hurt?”
“Thing no is physical… Make Rocky act sick. Un-der-stannd thing, but talk thing is… uh…”
It cuts itself off with a short noise out of frustration. Its limbs twitch like it wants to move.
“It is ok, Grace. We can keep trying. We want to help you. The injury was not physical, and it made Rocky act sick. Had Rocky eaten or slept recently?”
Grace does not answer, making an irritated humming sound and moving agitatedly. It pushes away from the xenonite, its short organ-limb rolling around in arcs. The medics listen to it with trepidation as it searches for something on its side of the ship.
“Injurr-y is…” it starts, its body undulating before it shoots across the room, snatching a ceramic vessel that was magnetized to one of the surfaces. It twists and pushes back to the xenonite enclosure with a small sound, gripping the wall and repeatedly sticking the magnetic bottom of the vessel to the magnetized connector panel.
“Is this,” it states, sounding proud of itself.
The medics tilt inquisitively. Incredulously. “It was doing recreational magnetic interference and got too-?”
“No, no,” the alien whuffs, its limbs waving wildly. “Magggg-net from not ship, is big big big magnet thing go-” it makes a whooshing noise, puppeting its arms in a wave.
“From not your ship. It was from… outside your ship?”
“Yeah! Outside ship from ≋■∘▛ magnet do ▃▉≋✦–” it does that air-moving sound again, like it is imitating wind. The junior medic clicks in excitement.
“There was a magnetic storm of some kind?”
“Yes!” it undulates in what must be excitement.
“A magnet storm. Amazing! I was not aware that was possible. Can that really happen in the silence?”
“It would explain why it remains dormant but still retains active worker cells. Fascinating…” the senior medic considers, an unfurled hand tapping a rhythm out as it reviews the engineer’s health.
All of the previously stated maladies. Plus. magnetic disruption to the point of loss of consciousness. Suggesting possible brain damage, not ruling out loss of function or eventual loss of life.
Not ideal. But. Not possible to call yet. It is completely possible they may recover.
“Ideally we would move Rocky to the medical module for immediate treatment. With their current positioning, that would be difficult. We can start intensive intervention care here, but we will need more equipment… Let me radio the tower now.”
The senior medic pulls the shortwave radio comm out and begins dictating the needed equipment. The junior scuttles on the xenonite wall, crouching in a playful way and motioning the alien closer. It tilts at them, mimicking the angle of its carapace. A smile, perhaps?
The secondary nurse trills inquisitively at the large alien. “So. How are you doing, Grace?”
Its heart- and it only has the one, so strange!- is still beating fast. Its limbs waver, signing some motion the eridian has no context for. “Uh. kay. S-sad. Rocky hurt. But also… Happy. New friends. Together.”
The alien spins arms, and this the junior medic recognizes. Body language! And it considers them friends, as well. How delightful.
“We will be able to listen to Rocky’s brain soon,” they call out to their alien friend softly. “This will help us understand what happened to them.”
“Ohhh, kay. Good. Good. Listen to Rocky brain yes.”
It does seem calmed by this. Its heart slows, and its air processing- breathing, probably- slows down. Its very complicated fingers grasp and relax, rolling the xenonite toys between its hands.
“You said Rocky made those for you?” the junior medic asks, pointing towards the toys. The alien huffs, clutching them tight before extending them out for clearer hearing.
“Yes. Rocky good at make thing. Make for me. Make Grace happy.”
“You like Rocky a lot,” they coo. The alien squirms, folding its limbs around itself and its organ-appendage.
“▉⬤❋ ⬤∘✦” it breathes into its stiff limbs before they relax. “Yeah. love love love Rocky.”
The junior medic tilts joyfully at the alien. “That’s wonderful. Can I ask you a question, Grace?”
It bobbles its organ-limb. It does this when it says yes, so they take it for an affirmative answer.
“How old are you?”
The alien leans back a little, wrapping a limb around itself and touching its face with another. “Um… Grace is, uh… Is more Rocky home amount… Grace is four-tee two home revolution old.”
The senior medic stops talking. The junior medic sways on their handholds. They had a spleen feeling. Sounds like it was correct.
“Grace is forty two revolutions old?” the senior medic asks, voice a touch louder than intended.
Grace waves its hands again, shaking its body. “Is Grace home number,” it insists, faster than it usually talks. “Is not… uh. Not same Rocky home number. Grace is Rocky home revolution… uh, waiting-”
It pushes away to where the ceramic was magnetized, picking up a tool and writing something inaudible on the surface. It continues for nearly one hundred seconds, its implement squeaking on the smooth surface as it mutters to itself in its own language. Eventually it makes a sharp noise and hits its hands together, singing, “Grace is this many second old!”
It then proceeds to say a string of numbers in a row. 5, 5, 1, 9, 4, 0, 4, 8.
There is a moment of silence as the calculation clicks. The senior medic’s carapace scrapes the floor, they buckle so low.
The alien is only 36 revolutions old.
“Amazing! Thank you for telling us, Grace!” the junior medic sings, voice still in its placating tone. Grace preens, hiding its organs with its hands and muttering something in its language.
“What was that?”
“✸▉✦ Need sleep,” it breathes.
Oh, the poor thing. It had been up for who knows how many days with no rest, taking care of its sick shipmate, piloting the ship- actually. Hold on.
It piloted the ship. This infant piloted the starcraft successfully and docked it with the counterweight station. How did it not blow itself up-?
Before the senior medic can contemplate this much further, the main access tunnel to the ship starts to depressurize. The vibrations from the air cycling out are loud enough that Grace can hear them. It turns, facing its soft organs towards the tunnel. Is that how it hears? Oh, so many questions. None of them as pressing as what an infant was doing in charge of a spaceship, but still.
“Grace go get things?” it asks them, reaching for the magnet handle and the floating piece of its protective suit.
“Yes, thank you Grace. We appreciate your help.”
It pushes off down towards the airlock door to wait. The medics begin whispering as soon as it leaves its limited hearing range.
“A NYMPH,” the senior rasps, vents flaring. “THAT CANNOT BE RIGHT. 36 REVOLUTIONS?”
“It’s a really big nymph if it is one,” the junior medic replies.
“It is so big. It’s so fucking big,” the senior whines, claws of two free hands scratching at the xenonite wall beside them.
“Language,” they laugh, stomping in delight. “Cracking my shell about being rude but here you go cursing-”
“How can you be so composed about this?” they cry, raising their chela at them. “We are in an alien ship with an enormous baby in charge of our wellbeing. It is a child, it is alone, it can barely speak to us-”
“Let’s be calm,” the junior soothes in the same tone it used on Grace. Unsurprisingly, this does not calm the senior medic down.
“DO NOT PATRONIZE ME-”
“We don’t even know if it IS a baby, for one,” they continue as if the senior medic is not seconds from beating them through the hull. “Maybe its kind develop fast. Maybe Grace is an adult. Isn’t that a possibility? We truly don’t know.”
Their arm lowers slightly as they consider this. Yes. Grace could be a fast developing animal. It may not need specialized care despite its vulnerable shell and tender age. Its progenitor is not around because it isn’t needed, and not for an unimaginably tragic reason.
“... Do you really believe that?” the senior asks, voice vibrating with suppressed emotions.
“Oh no, absolutely not. I fully believe Grace is a juvenile. My specialty was in Egg and Hatchling Development before I switched to General Medical Studies, and the way Grace speaks and acts are all hallmarks of early nymph behavior-”
The senior medic’s claw rises. “Why even bring that up, then-”
“Well, I love to present all sides of an argument even if they aren’t necessarily what I agree with-”
“Ohhh,” they bleat, snapping at them, “I just know you were a pain in the mouth at your debate hive-”
[Did you mean to leave your transmission live,] the medical conductor says through the radio comm. Both eridians go silent. No. The button stuck in the on position because it is a piece of shit transmitter that needed to be replaced revolutions ago.
“Yes,” lies the senior medic, tones professional and at an appropriate volume. “I thought the tower might want to know about the… situation. That we just discovered.”
The tower takes several seconds to radio them back.
[… Right. We are aware now. Please continue to monitor the situation and begin the care plan for the engineer. We will ask for more information regarding Grace at a later time. Radio back when necessary only. Much appreciated.]
The primary medic scrambles for the comm and clicks it off. Their undermedic hoots and dodges the jabs of their senior’s claw as they swipe furiously at them.
“You better hope they packed the coagulant powder because you’ll need it after I rip one of your stupid arms off-”
“Don’t be mad at me, please!” the junior laughs, scuttling away from their furious coworker and avoiding their grapples with practiced ease. They were so easy to rile up. It was very endearing. They chirp and grovel, dodging another swipe from their coworker’s claw in delight.
“- toss you through the hull. Into the silence. You will enter the gravity well of our star and your body will float in a lonely orbit-”
“Oh! Playing?”
Grace is back. It is hovering near the entrance with yet another toolball- larger this time, oblong and filled with specialized equipment for long term sleep care.
The junior nurse coos an overly kind affirmation to it. The senior takes its stillness as an opportunity to grab the junior’s closest leg- they don’t rip it off, but they do grasp it with enough pressure for them to feel it through the shell.
“Yes, Grace,” the senior medic sings, matching the other’s tone. “We’re just playing.”
It hums in a knowing way and presses the transfer panel to the matching enclosure dock. “Rocky play with Grace. Unnn-derstand.”
The medics untangle, mutually deciding to stop flirting in front of the enormous child and focus on work.
Unresponsive comatose patients need food to recover. The vibrogram performed earlier showed their last meal was completely processed, and the waste would need to be extracted so they could replace it with medicated protein paste. Luckily for the engineer, this did not need gravity at all- they would pump and wash the stomachs, then fill with the medicated food. Their body would not be able to heat the food, but the protein paste was pre-heated and sterile. There would be no issue if the heating process did not happen.
As the more experienced practitioner, the senior performed this procedure. A second vibrogram once done confirmed that the stomachs were sealing properly. Excellent. Its body was still functioning. The brain would hopefully follow.
The crystal resonance scope was another thing that did not require gravity. The tuning vibration allowed them to properly hear the crystal brain matrix of the engineer, and besides some minor anisocrystalization at the terminal points of the radial fringe, there was nothing alarming about its brain. There were no fissures or breaks, no broken shards floating in the colony blood, and the core structure echoed perfectly clear.
The conductivity test was… abnormal. But not to the point that either believed recovery was not possible. So called ‘brain-scrambling’ from high powered magnetic fields could cripple or kill an eridian, but the risk was usually paired with long term abuse. A single powerful impulse would be bad short term, but with time and help, they would recover.
This meant the issue was something they could not fix. With time, the engineer would either regain its functions and awaken, or it would not. Their job was to keep it alive until it did that, or until its healthcare guardian decided it was not happening and allowed it to pass on.
They would maybe… not share the last part with the alien child it had bonded with.
Said alien was sedately floating nearby, a cloth wrapped around its exposed organ limb and half of its suit-covered body. Its functions had slowed to nearly half of its typical rate. The medics had been humming to it as they worked, and it seems to have calmed down greatly. That, or it had entered some form of rest, which was also possible. They had barely any idea of how its biology worked.
“Grace,” the junior medic calls. Its heartbeat increased and it grabbed at its cloth wrap clumsily. It vocalizes a few things in its airy language, then seems to remember who it is speaking to.
“Yeah,” it breezes, tugging the cloth free of the limb. It focuses the organs in their direction. They chirr, bobbing their carapace invitingly at the alien and listening as it tracks them with the organs. Definitely hearing organs, then. They begin to speak in a soothing voice.
“Rocky is still dormant, but they are responding to our treatment. They have no audible brain damage. We will continue monitoring them for now, but they have been medicated and received nutrients. Do you have any questions?”
Grace pauses, its fingers folding into the loose cloth around its upper limbs. It whuffs air a few times before tentatively speaking, “No damage in-side rocky brain? Rocky is good?”
The senior medic twists a hand. “Rocky has no damage we can hear, but we can’t say much on their brain function until they wake up. Without knowing the strength or duration of the magnetic interference… their continued condition is not something we can predict for certain.”
There is a moment of relative silence before the alien begins to generate various liquids of different viscosities at alarming speed in its organ appendage. They don’t know what that signified, but the heartrate and air exchange speed increase with them makes them believe it isn’t good. The junior medic clacks their chela at the senior in admonishment and rushes to soothe the enormous child.
“Grace! It’s ok! Their recovery is possible! Rocky is not dead yet! Please do not worry!” they chitter, wobbling in alarm. They have no real way of comforting the alien from their separate atmospheres. Words will have to be enough.
“Rocky is healing! Rocky will be ok. Rocky-Friend will wake up and play with you again. I promise!”
The alien child sucks in air, making several miserable sounds before it wipes the liquids from its limb. “Mm. mmm. Kay,” it hums, voice thick as it fights against all the extra fluid in its speaking tube. It’s still making them, but at a slower pace. It seems to be drying down. Hopefully that’s good.
It pushes off of the surface it had anchored a limb to and approaches the three eridians. With a slightly damp sound it presses its body tight against the xenonite walls over the engineer like it was trying to crush them. With another wet exclamation it opens its speech orifice and begins talking in its native language. The only word the medics can really understand is the engineer’s informal name repeated throughout- Rocky. Rocky. Rocky.
Whatever it is saying, it’s working. Slowly, the liquids stop flowing. Eventually its organs sound close to normal speeds. The air intake is slower, calmer sounding. Less choked by viscous secretions.
“What are you singing?” the junior medic asks softly.
The alien hums a nonsense sound before speaking. “Talk Lover Rocky to wake up.”
The medics freeze. Carefully, without changing tone, the junior medic asks, “What did you say? Can you please repeat your sentence?”
Grace shakes its organ limb. “Lover Rocky. Speak to wake up.”
“Oh,” they hum, alarm making the supporting notes a little brittle. “I think you are misspeaking. Do you mean to say you love Rocky and want them to wake up?”
“No,” Grace says in its strange voice. “Uh. Yes an’ no. Love an’ want Rocky wakeup yes. But mean Rocky title-name. Rocky teached me mate title for when Rocky Grace play.”
“Hmm!” they sing, alarm fully crashing the bottom notes out of its hearing register. “Okay! Rocky taught you that title for when you play? What games did you play with Rocky?”
“You know play,” Grace states, its heartbeat thudding louder. “You play with ■∘✽. I play with Rocky.”
The medic pauses. “Who do I play with?”
Grace points to the senior medic, then at the junior. “That ■∘✽. You ▛◥☰▛. Give names for Grace talk. Apology.”
It named them! It’s almost fascinating enough to derail their horror, but not quite. The junior medic, or ‘River’ as grace called them, tilts in what is supposed to be a disarming way. “That’s ok, Grace. I like the names you gave us. They are very symphonic. But what do you mean, I play with Tam?”
Grace raises a limb and grasps at nothing. The senior medic, or ‘Tam’, whistles in understanding. “Do you mean play like this?” they ask, twisting and grabbing River’s closest arm with their chela. Grace nods.
“Yes! You play with River. Tam and River play. Grace and Rocky play. Tuhh, touch. Touch-ing,” it says in its airy, gravelly voice. “Rocky touch play with Grace. Lover. Lover Rocky touch me. I touch lover Rocky. Is good. Is- love. Grace love Rocky. Love love love Rocky.”
Grace hides its hearing organs with its upper appendages, its fingers scrubbing down its prickly skin. As if it was hiding from them. Embarrassed. Like it knew what it was saying was bad. The two of them are so shocked they cannot speak. Grace keeps talking to fill the silence.
“Is lover not good word? Is bad word? Rocky teach Grace speaking bad inn-ten-tion’ly?”
“Yes,” Tam clicks, “Yes. Rocky taught Grace a very bad word. You should not call Rocky that.”
Grace slumps against the glass. “Mnnnn…. Mean to do,” it wheezes, trailing off with more words they could not understand.
The medics tilt towards each other, sharing an infrasonic mum. They need to talk about this. Immediately.
“You said you needed sleep, Grace. Is that right? Do you still need to sleep?” River asks, carefully keeping their tone bright and cheerful.
It bobbles its wet organ limb, hitting it softly on the xenonite once. It hisses in annoyance. Aw. it was kind of cute when it was exhausted.
“Do you have a bedcubby on the ship? We can watch you from in here, or you can take me closer in one of the balls,” they continue, crawling under the alien’s loud center. “Would you like to take me to watch you? Or will you be ok with us observing from here?”
“You c’n stay,” Grace hums, rubbing at its hearing organs. “Is ok. I need no be watch’d sleep.”
And that makes them want to jump into the ball and demand to be in the room with them. But if the child sets a boundary, then by the blood of the land they are going to comply. Clearly, the engineer had not. They would earn Grace’s trust by listening. Even if it tore at their shell to obey.
“Okay, Grace! We will watch you from right here. Safe rest!”
Grace coos something back at them, lingering by the xenonite above the engineer before pushing away and into the room it had been hiding in. The medics listen to its organs as they slow, its heartrate cutting in half as its body mostly goes slack.
The pair of them stand in silence for a moment.
Touching. The engineer touched the alien child flirtatiously. Often, despite the danger, and it called this act ‘playing’. It made the child call it ‘lover’. This is not normal behavior by any stretch of the word. This is- they hope they are miscommunicating somehow. Because if they are right, then.
Well. They hope they are wrong.
In a register high enough the alien would not be able to pick up on even if it were awake, Tam asks River, “What do we do???”
“Why are you asking me?” they cry, flexing anxiously. This is- it is so far beyond the scope of what they thought they would be doing today, and that scope included first contact with an alien. They are not exactly calm.
“You took the nymph development retainers! Were there any hypotheticals about abuse? Can we, I don’t know, apply any of them to this?”
“Oh! Yes! Let me just,” they freeze, their arms tapping furiously as they recall their child safety lectures. Some of them would have to apply to this situation, even if the child was three times the size of an adult eridian and also an alien.
As the memories flash through their mind, the pluck the most relevant ones. River straightens, bouncing from their handhold and towards the supply ball. “Yes! Ok. We need to separate them, somehow. Remove Grace from Rocky’s presence. Keep them calm. And then determine the extent of the abuse.”
“They are in separate atmospheres, but I assume you mean we need to get Rocky out of the ship.”
“Exactly. Either that, or we get Grace out of the ship, somehow. Whichever one can be done easier. One of us will stay with each, for security, which means one of us needs to leave.”
“I’ll go back,” Tam states, no room for argument in their voice. “You are better with Grace than I am. And I’m better at getting the shit-spilling idiots in the materials lab to make what gets requested. We'll figure something out.”
“Amazing. Ok. Don’t-” they stop, their voices cutting out. “I don’t- I don’t know if we should tell the conductor yet,” River says, uncertainty bleeding into their tone. “This is… it’s a really delicate situation and we don’t know everything. But you need to tell the medical director. We have to let them know we suspect abuse.”
Tam sings half of a comfort song at River. They harmonize, filling in the rest of the melody. “I will only tell the director for now,” they soothe, one voice speaking as they duet. “But I have no control over what they do with that information. I agree.”
The duet finishes with a beautiful coda, and the pair of them click in reserved joy. River passes the comm to Tam, who fiddles with the tuner until they have the appropriate channel.
“Matlab,” Tam begins, clicking the comm on. “Have you finished those pressure suits yet?”
[Just finished testing them,] a stannic voice answers. [Why do you ask?]
“I need to be picked up,” they reply, their chela flexing menacingly. “I have a report I need to give.”