Chapter Text
After passing along what little they learned from the pebble to ♬♪♫♫, ♩♫♭♭♫ was told to take +IV and try to calm down. As if ♬♪♫♫ wasn't just as panicked by news of a pebble being on that ship and who had apparent access to the controls of the ship.
When they returned to the communication room +I∀ seconds later, more of the thrum had joined ♬♪♫♫.
♩♫♭♭♫ spotted their thrum friend near the radio and sided up to them. "What did I miss?"
"♬♪♫♫ talked the pebble out of trying to dock the ship at the elevator until Rocky wakes." They paused. "Grace is a smart pebble for their age."
"They were born into the Great Emptiness." ♩♫♭♭♫ hated to think of it, but it would explain why the pebble had at least an idea of how to fly the ship. The poor thing had probably been forced to grow up too fast if it was just them and Rocky for who knew how long. They only hoped the pebble would be able to adapt to life on Erid and have something of a normal pebblehood after this. "Has anyone contacted the crew's families yet?"
"Only Rocky's mate. They're waiting to find out who's pebble it is before contacting anyone else."
The chirps and whistles of the pebble brought the conversation to a quick end, "♫Rocky is waking up."
♩♫♭♭♫ felt the shift in the atmosphere.
"Did they say ♫?" someone whispered in shock off to their left.
"Rocky is the only one with the pebble; it might not mean anything," someone else argued.
They had a point. The use of a close cluster modifier didn't mean Rocky was one of the pebble's hatch parents.
♬♪♫♫ motioned for quiet before sending a message back. "Please put Rocky on the radio, Grace."
"Yes yes yes, Grace bring Rocky. Rocky speak."
The room waited, silent except for the low buzz of the machines and occasional clicks of claws against the floor.
"This Rocky." The multilayer tones of the adult brought another shift to the room, even if the speech pattern was off. Hearing he was alive was one thing, but hearing him alive... Pebble aside, the air felt lighter. One of their crew had returned.
"Rocky, this is ♬♪♫♫, what is your status?"
"Grace is sick. Need food. Need proper atmosphere to come down from ship."
Confusion rippled through the thrum.
"No come up to ship. Ship filled with oxygen."
Why the fuck was the ship filled with deadly explosive gas?! ♩♫♭♭♫'s thought was echoed throughout the room, even before ♬♪♫♫ repeated the question less vulgarly.
"Hail Mary alien ship," Rocky explained while explaining fuck all, "Grace breath oxygen. Rocky build special tunnels on ship."
♩♫♭♭♫ tried to sort through that information. Rocky built the tunnels, so did that mean the rest of the other crew was already dead by the time he met the alien ship? And Grace breathed the alien atmosphere.
(Intelligent aliens were fucking real! And seemingly not evil!)
Oh. Fuck. Did Rocky mate with an alien?!
How?! "Did Rocky go in the alien environment?" they blurted, too loudly apparently as ♬♪♫♫ pointedly took their claw off the radio's transmit button. ♩♫♭♭♫ sunk down to the floor.
"Yes, yes, Rocky willingly went in Grace atmosphere. Long time ago. Burns healed. Not important. Erid need to help Grace."
Fuck it all. Rocky mated with an alien. In a deadly atmosphere.
Their surviving engineer was fucking crazy. Statement.
♬♪♫♫ didn't let their professionalism slip. "Erid will do all it can to help the pebble Grace. What are their needs outside of oxygen?"
There was a slightly long delay before Rocky started listing off Grace's needs. Someone started making notes, and ♩♫♭♭♫ cringed at the length of it and how hard it sounded like it would be to complete. No hard metals? They did not envy whoever had to pull that off.
Whatever the alien Rocky mated with was, they clearly had the stronger genes because Grace did not sound anything like an Eridian when it came to what they needed to survive. But he was still a very young pebble. A pebble of the survivor of their lost crew, Erid couldn't let them starve.
At some point, Rocky pivoted from Grace's needs to their current health problems. There was not a single Eridian is the room that did not feel horror that the pebble had been without the right food for over λ∀V days and had been surviving off of the solution that would kill the star eater. Grace's innocent voice interrupted to assure them they'd had plenty of the 'star eater eater,' as if it was the fear that they wouldn't have any to send to Threeworld that would be their worry.
And, okay, maybe it was a little. But Rocky was quick to point out they'd already stopped by Threeworld and dropped off the solution before coming to Erid and that 'Grace was being dumb dumb dumb.' ♩♫♭♭♫ hoped Rocky didn't normally talk to their pebble like that, even if it did sound fondly teasing. ♩♫♭♭♫ knew their cluster mate would smack them if they ever called any of their pebbles dumb in their presence.
♩♫♭♭♫ and some of the other thrum members were shooed out of the room to go contact the correct Eridians to have things prepared for the pebble when it came time to walk them though the process of docking with the space.
♩♫♭♭♫'s thrum friend stayed at their side. "I am not telling Rocky's mate they fucked an alien. Rocky can explain that theirself."
And ♩♫♭♭♫ had to agree, but they'd love to be a ♫♩♫ on the wall when that conversation happened.