I don't know who to share this with, so I'll write it to you.
I was just thinking about what Rocky ate in the book, why his food looked the way it did, and how it was preserved. And I've come up with some interesting theories.
First off, Grace described his food as small stones that, when cracked open, had something resembling meat inside. Obviously, what Rocky opened was a preserved carcass of an animal from Erid. But why did it look like that? We have no idea about the creatures from Erid besides the Eridians themselves. But it's likely that at least some of Erid's fauna works similarly to the Eridians. For starters, what Grace called "meat" probably wasn't meat at all, but internal organs. The carcasses had no limbs—likely because they were cut off, since there's no organic matter inside them (Eridians have inorganic muscles, and it's probably the same for at least some of their planet's fauna).
So how did the carcass not rot over decades of spaceflight? Probably, there were no microorganisms inside the shell that could break down the organs. And thanks to the airtight seal of the carcass's shell, bacteria couldn't get in.
So what would the preservation process have looked like? I think it would be pretty cruel. First, they'd cut off the creature's limbs. Once the shell sealed the wounds, they'd empty the stomach, and then they might subject the creature to high temperatures to kill it without breaking the shell's seal. The result is a meat stone that won't spoil as long as it stays intact.
That do you think about it?
The problem with Erid (as is presented to us) Is that we can only speculate on other organisms based on eridians. Imagine knowing nothing about Earth and having to speculate based only on humans, we are pretty unique compared to most animals.
Anyway I read that chapter again, and yeah it is painfully vague.
The problem with food rotting is that we don't have any clue as to how bacteria works on this planet. But considering the abridge temperature is 210c, eridian microbes are probably pretty comfortable at high temperatures. Wouldn't it make more sense then to freeze-dry food?
Hopefully freezing wasn't as painful for the little creature that had to die for the greater good.
