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Look. I understand worrying about Grace. Grace is a worrying creature.
Grace is a soft bag of constantly leaking water stretched over a flimsy internal carapace.
He will drop dead in minutes unless provided with a constant supply of highly flammable gas.
Gas that his internal systems then transform into a different gas that will somehow also kill him if he reinhales too much of it.
There are a lot of ways for things to go bad bad bad.
I spent four years living alongside this delicate blob. I have seen him bleeding, burned, squashed, sickened and starving. I am the all-time Grace worrying champion of Erid. (As Grace himself would put it.)
So I really think that the Human Care Team should believe me when I say: we do not need to thrum about Grace jogging.
Nor did we need to thrum about him starting to sleep longer in the mornings.
Or taking to dipping his feet in the water.
Or gagging over one of the Science Thrum's latest attempts at human friendly food flavouring. (Unbelievably gross as that was to witness.)
Adrian whistles a calming note beside me and I realise that my annoyance is leaking into the rest of the thrum, making everyone tense. I wouldn't care except that the longer it takes us to achieve harmony, the longer the thrum lasts, the longer I have to put up with this food waste.
I'm not even an official part of the Human Care Team, on the grounds that I don't actually have any expertise in biology or medicine. I only attend these things because Grace can't.
(None of us are willing to repeat the first experiment of including Grace in a thrum. Even I didn't know that it was possible to make a human vomit through pure auditory overstimulation. After he regained consciousness, Grace said that it had been a surprise to him too.)
It's probably my fault that we're here anyway, since Grace mentioned his plans to me yesterday and I did nothing to stop him.
“It's like a slow run,” he said, as we walked along the shore of his newly completed biodome. “But you do it for a longer time.”
“Dumb,” I said teasingly. “Better to run fast, for short time. Get places faster, more efficient.”
“Hey!” He placed one of his hands on his chest, in a gesture that meant he wanted me to know he was only pretending to be offended. “My species conquered the world with our slow-running based hunting tactics, y'know!”
“Conquered Earth,” I retorted. “Wet planet. Small. Cold. Could not have conquered Erid.”
“Remind me to race you sometime when I'm recovered, bud. See who can last longer.”
“Does not matter if Grace can run longer. Rocky runs faster, can catch Grace.” I darted forward to demonstrate, and Grace barked with laughter as he tried to dance away from my xenonite covered claws.
Then he started getting tired, so we went back to the house to rest in front of Star Trek. The resulting argument over whether a functional holo-deck would have been a positive addition to the Hail Mary (Grace thinks yes, because I guess Grace likes the idea of being regularly attacked by sapient light projections) distracted me enough that I never thought to tell anyone on the team about his plans to take up jogging.
Mate me I guess, for not realising that Grace deciding to do some slow running on the beach after each completion of his sleep cycle was the worst thing since the eating astrophage crisis.
Or at least that's how the Human Care Team seems to be responding.
What if the human trips and hurts himself?
What if he strains his muscles and sets back his recovery?
What if he becomes tired or injured far from the house and can't make his way back?
Should we remove some of the sand so he has a less uneven surface to run on?
Should we make him a wheel or treadmill so that he can do his slow running indoors?
Should we try to discourage him from doing this at all until the medical team have had more time to research?
And that's when I decide to step in. I raise my voice, letting my song drown out the others, and begin to state some basic facts.
Grace's recovery is going well. Grace's medical team have been saying that he needs some way to exercise his muscles and get them used to our planet's gravity. Grace is now taking steps to achieve that.
This is good good good.
Furthermore, Grace is taking an interest in something. Grace is coming up with a reason to leave his house without having to be prodded by me or one of the care team. Grace is making an effort to get himself into a routine, something that all our research suggests is very beneficial to humans but something that Grace himself usually struggles with unless you nag him.
Now the care team wants to what? Tell him to stop? Scold him like a hatchling for leaving the nest without an adult?
No matter how many times he denies it, I know that giving up on his planet wasn't easy for Grace. He struggles with new things, and with new people, and with experiencing multiple times the gravity he evolved for and subsisting on nothing but dead alien mush whilst he encounters those new things and new people.
I squash down my annoyance as best as I can, and let my song fill instead with pride for my friend.
By the time I've finished, the rest of the thrum is singing along to my harmony.
Agreement is achieved. Grace will be allowed to jog as much as he wants, and any health or safety concerns will be addressed with him personally before they are brought to a thrum.
Because if I have to face one more unnecessary thrum this eating Earth-month I will throw myself into Grace's eating ocean.
(I do not share this last sentiment with the rest of the group.)
As the last notes sound, I'm already heading for the door. Being the Saviour of Erid has some benefits— nobody dares to complain about my manners any more.
***
A couple of Earth-weeks later, I'm knocking on the door to Grace's house. It's hanging slightly open— because Grace is a forgetful and lazy human who does not appreciate the nice things that people make for him— but I knock anyway out of principle.
I can't hear Grace inside, which means he must be in one of the two sound-proofed rooms: either the bathroom or the kitchen.
(“Rocky, I've been looking over the plans you sent me— why is there a table in the bathroom?”
“Because Grace likes to sit at a table while eating.”
“… when am I gonna be eating in the bathroom?”
“Whenever you eat. Is gross. Bathroom will be soundproof as requested by Grace, so makes most sense to eat in there.”
“Uh. No. No no no. Bad bad bad. I am not eating all my meals in the same room where I poop.”
“Eridians do.”
“Eridians have like one frickin' hole for all purposes, and you guys poop every time you eat. It is not the same!”
“Could get used to it.”
“No. Culture rule. Either you guys get me a soundproof kitchen, or you can grow up and put up with hearing me eat in the living room. Putting the foot down on this one bud.”
And one argument with the architects later, a second soundproofed room was added to the plan.)
I head for the kitchen, hoping that Grace isn't actually eating at this moment. He's not, but he's clearly just come back from one of his jogs, so it's still gross gross gross. I will never get over the amount of moisture Grace's body is capable of producing.
Currently he's panting (making it even easier than normal to hear the wet squishy insides of his mouth) and his body is absolutely slick with fluids. It's disgusting and more than a little unnerving. A stray droplet runs down his forehead and I have to pointedly remind myself that blood runs slightly thicker, so this is definitely the fluid Grace calls 'sweat'.
“Hey Rock,” he says, as his breathing starts to even out.
“You're wet,” I say, in case he hasn't noticed. “Disgust.”
He laughs and lifts up the hem of his shirt to wipe his face. Ew. “Sorry, had to move my morning jog up a bit. Didn't want to be all worn out and leaky for the doctors. Might make them think I'm not taking good care of myself.”
There's an interesting lack of annoyance in his tone when he mentions the doctors. Grace and the human medical team did not get off to a good start. Humans, or at least Graces, don't like being confined to beds for days on end or asked to consume foul tasting medicines or lectured about their sleeping and eating habits. Especially the latter.
Adrian and I both spent a lot of time, in the early days of Grace's recovery, negotiating peace between the two parties. Working to shut down any major arguments before the med team could all quit or Grace could somehow manage to halt his own recovery out of pure spite and willpower.
That was before one egg-eating piece of food-waste threatened to sedate Grace against his will if he didn't start “taking his health seriously” and I cracked their carapace for them. Now serving as diplomat between Grace and the med team is purely Adrian's job.
Things have calmed down a bit since they gave Grace the all-clear to move around more, but he's still not a fan. I'd been bracing myself for a lot of complaining.
“Appointment went well, question?” I ask. “Seem happy happy.”
He grins. “Appointment went well, statement. Bones says my recovery's going great. Apparently all the jogging's been good for my muscles. He actually said he was impressed.”
“Good good good,” I say. “Should be impressed. Grace very impressive. Wet,” I add, because he's somehow still actively dripping, “but impressive. Keeps up slow running every day, even though it makes him tired and leaky. Rocky proud of Grace.”
Grace turns his head in that way that means he doesn't want me to see that's he's smiling. It's kind of cute how those human instincts persist, even though he must know I can still hear him.
“Careful bud,” he says after a moment. “Keep up with the sappiness and I might have to hug you.”
I rear back in pretend disgust. “No! Gross gross gross! Bad Grace! Will get human water on Rocky's suit!”
Grace laughs. “Gimme a minute to shower then.”
“Yes. Add more water. This will help.”
“Sarcasm. And I'm showering anyway. I know you can't smell, but I stink.”
“Gross. Go wash.”
I wait in the living room and pass the time by organising Grace's collection of trinkets so that they're actually lined up on their shelves instead of haphazardly scattered. I try to arrange them so that the Eridian-made carved gemstones and xenonite models are interspersed with the small objects from the Hail Mary that Grace likes to explain to visitors.
One of the many slightly eerie things about human memory is how easily the information about which stories and explanations he has given to which people will just…fall out of Grace's head. I've had to rescue more than one guest who assumed that it was just human culture to repeat yourself, and had been sitting through a story they already knew word for word because they didn't want to be disrespectful.
To tell the truth though, I tend to just let him retell it when it's just the two of us. It's kind of soothing. And… Grace doesn't have many stories. His amnesia means he's still missing most of his memories from Earth, and the experiences he's had since, I was mostly there for.
(The times I wasn't, in the first few days after he woke up from his coma and during our separation before the Taumoeba disaster, he doesn't usually want to relive.)
If I never let him retell, I worry that he'd soon be left with nothing to say.
Grace returns from his shower slightly dryer and using a towel to scrub the water from his hair. He lets it drop to the floor when he's done with it. I whistle a warning note and he shifts his eyes upward in their sockets, picks it up and returns it to the bathroom where it belongs.
“You're obsessive, you know that?” he tells me, picking up one of the newly organised figurines and setting it down again, slightly off centre.
I reach up to move it back into line. “Not know what Grace talking about. You want to play Mario Kart, question?”
Grace grins and activates the 'TV' (a repurposed panel from the old Don't-Go-Crazy room). “Sure, why not. Been a while since I whooped your butt.”
I chitter a laugh. “Will still have been a while after we play. I will destroy Grace.”
“Really bud? Them's fighting words.”
Three games and some truly barbaric uses of the low rough shells later (and one near declaration of war between Earth and Erid) there's a buzzing noise.
Grace pauses in his victory dance and turns his head in the direction of the noise, even though he knows full well where it came from.
I raise myself up slightly from my position on the floor, where I had thrown myself dramatically so as to properly demonstrate the impact of Grace's betrayal.
“Doorbell,” Grace says, unnecessarily. Technically it's a biodome bell. It's used to signal when somebody wants to access the 'visiting area': a transparent section of dome not too far from the house.
“Was I meant to go to a meeting today?” Grace asks.
I raise two limbs to tap my fists together. “Not according to Grace schedule.” I let a third claw inch slowly back towards my controller. “Must be unexpected guests. Did not call ahead. Rude rude rude. We will tell them to go eat own waste and then get back to Mario, question?”
Grace rolls his eyes. “Y'know that's not gonna make either of us any friends around here, bud.”
“Shouldn't have to make friends,” I grumble, following him to the door. “Saved planet. People should beg to make friends with us. Grace, keyboard!” I add, because he's about the walk out the door without it.
“Ah, shoot. Good point.” He runs back to get it.
“Also shoelaces.”
“Got it.”
“Close door when come outside!”
“Why? Who's gonna break in?”
“Why you ask for door if no close it, question? Annoying annoying.”
“You got me Rocky. Human houses don't really have doors. I invented the concept just to annoy you personally.”
“Sarcasm. Grace still not fix laces. Want to take flight down steps, question?”
“Hey, I did so fix my— oh, darn, you're right. Hold on a minute.”
Somehow, we make it to the visiting area without incident.
There are always a bunch of checks and security gates to go through for anyone who wants to visit Grace from outside, so even though we had to walk from the house, we reach the visiting area at around the same time as the visitors themselves do. Grace sits himself down on the sand so that he won't tower over them.
I recognise the Eridian who enters as somebody from the biodome staff, although I don't know their rank or specialism, let alone their name. I am much more familiar with the nutrition and medical teams, and the individuals responsible for managing the actual running of the dome. I don't have much to do with the people responsible for day to day maintenance.
🎵🎶, second engineer and my closest friend on the Blip A, would have said that I'm forgetting my roots. They were very passionate about the idea of maintenance and repair work being just as or maybe more important than research and management.
🎵🎶's primary responsibility on the mission was to maintain the hull robots that in turn maintained the ship's exterior. They used to spend most of their time near the outer hull walls so that they could echolocate their charges more clearly.
Grace has assured me, over and over, that there was no way any of us onboard could have known about the poison that was permeating our ship. And I've asked him to explain it again, over and over, as if I was the one with the leaky human memory.
It's ironic really. As us engineers were considered lower ranking than the scientists and navigators, and I was the lowest ranked engineer, I had the lowest rank on the ship. 🎵🎶 used to say that it was unfair, as it meant I got assigned the least desirable rooms to be my personal work and living space.
Small, inconvenient. Noisy because they were too close to the engines. Cold. Because they were right next to the astrophage storage tanks.
🎵🎶 was among the first to succumb to the radiation sickness.
Grace notices me stiffen and pats the arm of my suit in a human gesture of comfort. I hum back a wordless reassurance.
I'm fine.
The Eridian on the other side of the wall finally reaches the transparent patch in the xenonite and becomes visible to Grace, helpfully distracting him.
Grace has met pretty much all of the people responsible for his health and wellbeing, but most of them are too busy to visit with him regularly. The maintenance staff, on the other hand, are people he sees every day.
He grins in obvious recognition. “Sparky!”
(Almost certainly something to do with the biodome's electricity supply then. Grace's name ideas tend to be… predictable.)
The visitor, 'Sparky', waves a claw. “Knock knock,” they say, bafflingly.
Grace's grin gets wider. “Who's there?”
“An Earth food and clothing animal that speaks when you are speaking.”
Huh. I've gone insane. I suppose it was long overdue.
Grace doesn't seem at all troubled. “The interrupting sheep wh—“ he begins.
Sparky proceeds to make the most bizarre noise I have ever heard an adult make. It is not not not what a sheep sounds like. In fact I'd be willing to bet currency that no Earth animal sounds like that. I didn't know that anything on Erid could sound like that.
Grace laughs so hard that he nearly falls over. I let him lean on my suit while he recovers. “Good one!” he says to Sparky, once his breathing has evened out a bit. “You find that on the thinking machine?”
Sparky does jazz hands for yes.
Grace turns his face towards me. “You see, there's this type of joke called a 'knock knock joke' where you—“
“Don't explain please,” I say quickly, before he can launch into a lecture on ‘Human Jokes: A History’. Grace's shoulders sink slightly and I relent. “Explain later. When you do not have guests.”
There's a pause while Grace parses this. “Wait, guests, plural?”
I clap two claws together, human style. “Well done!”
Grace's understanding of Eridian has improved significantly since the Tau Ceti days, but the overlapping tones that make a plural are still tricky for him to pick up on sometimes.
Sparky taps a claw in the direction of the entranceway. “Come stand here. Saviour Grace wants to hear your light!”
The three kids who've been waiting just outside the room pause in their frantic, curious tapping and cautiously make their way over to stand by their parent.
Grace breathes in very quickly and then makes a noise at the higher end of his vocal range. “Oh my gosh! Are these your kids?”
“Yes yes yes. They have been talking about meeting Grace all day.” Sparky chitters a laugh. “Are now quiet quiet quiet. Unusual. Shy, I think.”
One of the kids seems to take offence at this and totters closer to the wall. I listen to them warily.
I don't know much about kids. This one is small, but their carapace is hardened and they're outside their nest, so… probably school age? Just below that? Please please old enough to understand that the alien might look scary but isn't actually dangerous. I don't want to deal with any freak outs today.
The kid stops a few paces away from the wall and begins to tap again. Grace doesn't take his eyes off them, but reaches out and begins patting the sand next to him like he's trying to echolocate too.
“Hey, Rocky, where's my—“
I hand him his keyboard. I'm developing a theory that the constant losing of personal possessions is more of a Grace thing than a human thing. No way any species could become so technologically advanced without the ability to keep track of their belongings.
“Thanks,” he says. Then he types out, in what he calls his 'pidgin Eridian', the one we developed on the Hail Mary to account for his limited human memory and hearing: “Hi. Me name Grace from Earth. What is you name, question?”
The kid startles. “You can speak, question?”
Grace smiles. “Yes. Can speak. Not with voice however. Must use machine.”
The kid jazz handses their understanding. “Like 🎶🎶🎵.”
I don't think there's a 🎶🎶🎵 on Grace's staff, but he's familiar enough with spoken Eridian to recognise a name. “Who 🎶🎶🎵, question?” He gets the notes mostly right, although some of them are shorter or longer than needed.
The kid lowers their carapace into a sitting position, any concerns about the scary squishy alien evidently forgotten. “🎶🎶🎵 is friend from art class. They have 🎵 ♭ ♮ 🎵🎶 ♮🎶 ♭.”
Grace doesn't even bother trying to type that one out. Just turns his head in my direction.
“Medical condition,” I explain. “Problem with vocal mechanism and sometimes vents. Can affect speech.”
The kid does jazz hands again. “🎶🎶🎵 born different, so needs a speech machine to speak. But theirs is different to yours.”
Grace looks down at his keyboard, then back at the kid. (I wonder what they're making of all this head movement. It can take a while to get used to even when you're full grown.) He's smart, so I shouldn't be surprised that he figures it out so quickly. “More than one keyboard for to speak?” he types out. “But with less key plural, question?”
“Yes!” The kid does a little hop with excitement. “You have seen one question?”
“No,” Grace types, smiling. “But know that you species have more arm plural but less claw plural. Could not use me machine.”
He lifts both hands off the keys and flexes his fingers to demonstrate how far they can fold and stretch. Then he twirls his hands for good measure, shamelessly showing off his wrist articulation. The kid tries to imitate him, but only manages a pinching gesture and some arm wiggling. They hum low in frustration.
“Does Saviour Grace know 🎵🎵 trick?” one of the other kids has crept over to join their sibling.
Grace looks over at me. “🎵🎵 is big big animal,” I supply. “Lives on plains. I do not know what the 🎵🎵 trick is,” I add.
“Sparky knows.” Sparky's notes have an undertone of equal parts frustration and amusement. “Go on. Show Saviour Grace.”
The first kid, who seems to have established themself as the leader, immediately gets down to business. “Say: I, air, sky, walk,” they command.
“I, air, sky, walk,” Grace obediently plays.
“Now together! Now together!” the third kid has apparently overcome their shyness. “Must play all four together!”
Grace, grinning, slowly arranges his fingers on the relevant keys and then presses down on all of them at once.
The overlapping words produce a loud squawk. Combined with the monotone and slightly tinny voice of the machine, it does sound kind of like an 🎵🎵. Me, Sparky and the kids all laugh. Grace joins in.
“Sound like big animal, question?” he types.
“Yes yes yes!” Sparky says. “Have heard many times. Is still forbidden in house when 🎶🎶🎵 comes to play!” This last part is directed at the kids. Two of them lower their carapaces in acknowledgement. The once who was first to approach the wall, however, looks like they might be about to argue.
“What is you age, question?” Grace asks, possibly to distract them.
“They just turned I+ℓℓ,” Sparky says. “That's about forty-five Earth years,” they add, before I can jump in with the translation.
Grace's features shift into a mischievous expression. “Want to guess me age, question?” he asks the kids.
“IVII!” one guesses.
“VV+∀V!”
“IℓIℓIV!”
“Any of them get it right?” Grace asks in English, sparing us all the time it would take for his squishy human brain to translate the numbers, adjust for base ten and then convert from Eridian to Earth years.
“No!” Sparky chitters. “Not close!”
Grace goes back to typing. “You want me tell to you, question?”
“Yes yes yes!” The kids are hopping up and down in excitement.
“Me age is thirty nine Earth years. In you years that is-“ but the kids already heard what their age is in Earth years, and have obviously done the math before Grace can finish playing. Their reaction is predictable.
“You are a kid!”
“Earth sent a kid to space!”
“Ma, why can't I go to space?”
“I also want to go to space!”
“Space space space!”
Grace sits back to watch the chaos. All three kids are now trying to clamber onto Sparky's carapace, loudly asking why they can’t go see the stars like Saviour Grace.
Sparky shakes them off and taps a limb in Grace's direction. “You. Fix. Now.” They follow the statement up with a threat growl that sounds only half joking.
Grace leans over his keyboard again. “Not kid,” he types. “Adult. Human plural and Eridian plural age at different speeds. Human age fast fast fast. At five Earth years, a human kid can already—“
And he's off. I settle down for another session of 'Earth science with Dr Grace'. The kids are listening enthusiastically and asking questions, which means I might have to physically drag Grace back to the house when the visit ends.
Sparky calls out to me, using a frequency that Grace can't hear so that he doesn't feel like he needs to stop talking or speak over them. (Human conversation etiquette is so inefficient.) “I hope it is okay that I brought kids.”
“Why would not be okay question?” I respond in the same frequency. “I do not control Grace visitors. If is okay with him, is okay with me.”
“Was his suggestion. I mentioned that kids were curious about the alien. He said we should visit.”
Grace is now well into his explanation of different human life stages, skirting the issue of lifespan (probably for the best) by asking the kids what they know about Eridian development. There's a pause before Sparky speaks up again: “I think Grace gets bored.”
I wonder if I should be offended, since Grace's entertainment is primarily my responsibility. But: “think you are right. Not much for him to do here. Was different on ship.”
Not that Grace didn't get bored on the journey to Erid (something that he usually made my problem) but it was different. Grace had work to do on the ship. Monitoring the Taumoeba, checking the ship's course, navigating around asteroid fields, brainstorming ideas to stretch his food supply, learning Eridian, writing papers.
I know Grace is still writing papers and still learning Eridian. He gets visits from science Eridians occasionally, and of course me and Adrian visit as often as we can.
But Sparky is right. Grace is bored bored bored.
“Have an idea,” Sparky says. “Wanted to ask you before mentioning to Grace, in case it isn't possible.”
“What is idea?”
“Grace says Grace used to teach young humans on Earth. My mate's sibling is member of education thrum. Always complains that not enough students choose study science. Teachers are not high quality— astrophage disaster funnelled most science eridians into research. Not enough trained to teach. Not attractive to students or parents.”
I jazz hands. “Adrian says similar problem with engineering. Will take while for field to recover.”
“Science could recover faster, if Grace were to teach.”
I tap the ground a few times, trying to hear their body language more clearly. “You are serious, question?”
“Why not, question? Grace has teacher experience. Kids clearly enjoy being taught by Grace!” They gesture to their own kids, who are now listening intently as Grace explains what he knows about the science behind Eridian moulting. “Kids would sign up to be taught by alien teacher. More kids would hear about it and sign up to do science. Science eridians may decide to retrain as teachers. Is good good good idea!”
Huh. It's definitely not a bad idea.
I listen to Grace as he talks to the kids. There's none of the awkwardness or nerves that I've come to expect when introducing him to unfamiliar adult Eridians. He's explaining things calmly, making jokes, letting them ask questions and then asking them questions of his own, getting them to work things out. This is something that Grace is good good good at. The same way he is good good good at science. And it's something to engage him, something he enjoys.
“You can talk to care team, question?” Sparky asks, tentatively. “I don't have authority.”
“Yes yes yes.”
Grace looks up and I realise that, in my excitement, I've slipped into his range of hearing.
“You guys okay over there?” he asks in English. “Anything I should be worried about?”
“Will tell later,” I say. “Ignore. Go back to teaching.”
And if I had any doubts about the plan, the way Grace's expression sounds when I say the word 'teaching' blows them all away. He shrugs and turns his face back to the kids, who are already asking him more questions about the differences between humans and Eridians. For maybe the first time since arriving on this planet, Grace seems at home.
I sit and listen to Grace, and I sit and listen to Sparky, who is currently chittering at one of Grace's awful jokes. It hits me that the two of them are genuine friends.
Grace has made a friend. A friend who isn't me, or Adrian, or one of the scientists who come over to experiment on him.
A friend who somehow shares his sense of humour (I'd assumed that something so awful and stupid had to be uniquely human) and who was able to recognise this need in him that I couldn't, and come up with a plan to fill it.
Sometimes I forget that Grace isn't only my responsibility. That he has his own resources, even on an alien planet.
He structures his days, he tries new activities and he, apparently, makes friends with other Eridians.
Who then apparently introduce him to their kids so he can teach them about the science of Eridian and human digestion (who knows how they got onto that topic) in a way that makes them laugh so hard that one of them topples over.
“Rocky thank,” I tell Sparky. “Thank Sparky for this. Thank thank thank.” They dip their carapace in acknowledgement.
Grace won't understand if I try to thank him now, and I don't want to explain.
I shuffle closer to him instead. Close enough that I can feel the cold of his body leaching through my xenonite suit. He leans against me automatically, rearranging himself so that he's half using me as a backrest.
(If I ever get the chance to redesign the human species, the spine is the first thing I'm going to change.)
He needs both hands for his keyboard, but he pauses briefly to pat my carapace. I reach up and gently squeeze his shoulder, a gesture that I picked up from human media.
These aren't Eridian ways of showing friendship, but Grace isn't Eridian. He's alien: soft and wet and stupid and clever and brave and resourceful.
And for once, I don't find that worrying.