Under the direction of the Admiral, the Eridian engineers got to work extending a docking tunnel to meet a hatch on the Nokva'ar. Grace, meanwhile, went through the texture plates Olive and their assistants had taken of the fourth planet in the system. Sure enough, a hundred and eighty hours ago it had to all appearances simply winked out of existence.
"What happened to its moon?" Asked Grace. The planet had one large one, covered in ice.
'Orbiting sun now, we think,' said Olive. 'Will pass very close, probably melt. Get good spectrum.'
'Excited,' one of the assistants agreed. 'Close enough that Erid theory of gravity and Earth theory of gravity give different answers. Get to test!'
"Oh, like the orbit of planet Mercury in our system," said Grace. "Before we discovered relativity, we thought its motion must be due to another planet even closer." Come to think of it, that hypothetical planet had also been called Vulcan.
'Will find out at perihelion,' the astronomer promised, as if it were a wager.
'Grace,' Rocky said, 'Admiral say docking tunnel ready.'
"All right." Grace stood up from where he'd been crouching to look at the texture plates. Rocky was now in his own xenonite suit, prepared to enter an alien environment - the Eridians would have been able to tell, from the sounds the tunnel made at contact, what conditions on the Vulcan ship were like.
'Grace scared of Vulcans,' Rocky said, as they headed for the hub. 'Dangerous, question?'
"Not dangerous, I don't think," said Grace. "I'm not exactly scared. The thing is they're... well, they're not real. They're something somebody made up. I don't think I ever showed you any Star Trek." Even back at Tau Ceti, he'd figured Rocky would find the series' human-like aliens silly. "We've got a set of stories in which they live at your star, although that was before we knew anybody was actually here. They look a lot like humans but they have green blood and pointed ears. They're supposed to be friendly, but they're not real."
'Universe is very big. Everything real somewhere,' said Rocky.
Yeah, they'd discussed infinity and its implications. Rocky hadn't liked it much... a number that couldn't be slotted into equations and manipulated was something Eridians found quite uncomfortable. But that was theoretical, an 'infinite monkeys with typewriters produce Shakespeare' sort of thing. Something that was supposed to be so unlikely it would never impinge on the real world, no matter how badly a subset of fans might want it to.
"Not THAT big," said Grace.
The Eridian space station generated artificial gravity the same way the Hail Mary had - by spinning. That meant rather than walking to the Nokva'ar, Grace and Rocky had to climb down a ladder to reach the hatch on the top of the ship. The atmosphere exchanged, and Rocky plucked a note on the mobile communications device he'd been given.
"We're ready," Grace said to the Vulcans. "You can let us in."
The hatch opened inward with a hiss, revealing a circular opening about three metres across. Grace swung his legs over the edge and dropped, then moved aside to let Rocky fall after him, the heavy Eridian landing with a thud and denting the floor. Both picked themselves up and looked around.
They were in a dimly-lit hallway with walls that sloped towards the ceiling, and both in front and behind were people in bronze and grey uniforms, waiting for them. At a first glance these would have looked like humans, but a first glance didn't last very long. The second look made it obvious that something was... off.
One stepped forward. It was a woman, as tall as Grace. She was olive-skinned with straight black hair in the classic Star Trek bob, but there was something not at all right about her colouring. Her skin had a greenish cast that only properly belonged on a corpse. The bones in her face weren't right either, particularly the ones in her cheeks and brows, which were sharp-edged and angled in a way that made the tilt of her eyebrows seem almost natural. And her ears did indeed come to slightly curled points at the tops.
Feeling like an idiot and yet unable to stop himself, Grace raised a hand in the Vulcan salute. "Um. Hello," he said.
The woman returned the gesture. Her ring finger was noticeably longer than the middle one, and the green colouration was very strong on the palm where there was less pigment. "Greetings, Dr. Grace," she said. "And your companion." She looked him over, taking in the orange coverall under the faceted Eridian environment suit. "For someone familiar with Vulcan customs, you seem very surprised to see us."
Grace had assumed this woman was T'pir, but she didn't have the accent. He lowered his hand. "I've never actually met a Vulcan before," he said. "I've just heard about them."
"Wait a minute!" Another voice exclaimed suddenly. "You're all speaking Eridian!"
"What?" Grace looked around for the speaker, but all the Vulcans were quietly impassive, and Rocky certainly hadn't suddenly spoken English... or had he? When he looked down, Rocky was bouncing again, agitated.
"What you're hearing is the universal translator," the woman explained. "It allows us all to understand one another as we speak languages we're comfortable with."
"That's amazing!" The voice said, as Rocky wiggled delightedly. "Like your translator, Grace, but better!"
Somehow that was what did it. That was what sent him over the edge. This was really happening, he was seriously standing on a starship surrounded by Vulcans, all green blood and elf ears and the hand thing, and they had a universal translator. It was completely insane, but... he was a guy who'd been to two other star systems and in the second one hed gotten work teaching the equivalent of the sixth grade. Sure. Star Trek might as well come to life, too.
Grace couldn't help himself. He started laughing.
It was probably the worst thing he could have done, and he knew it, but he couldn't stop. He stood there laughing hysterically until there were tears running down his face, while the Vulcans exchanged some rather concerned looks. They were probably concluding, quite logically as was their wont, that this human had just gone stark raving mad. Maybe they were right.
Rocky must have thought something similar. "Grace," he said, scuttling from one side of him to the other. "Grace, this isn't funny! I don't understand human humour but this can't be funny. They said they need help. Grace, are you unwell?"
"I'm sorry!" Grace gasped out, as the giggle fit began to fade. "I'm sorry, I'm not laughing because it's funny, I'm laughing because I think I've finally lost my mind!"
"Let us know when you're finished, so we can discuss what to do next," the woman in charge said calmly.
Grace finally recovered enough to be embarrassed, and forced himself to take a few deep breaths. He desperately needed to wipe his face, but he couldn't do it wearing the suit. That ought to be okay, though. Star Trek had made it pretty clear that Vulcans breathed the same oxygen-nitrogen mix as humans. He found the right facet and pressed it, and the xenonite suit split open along its side seams, allowing him to step out and wipe his runny nose and streaming eyes on his sleeve.
"You leak when you're sad, you leak when you're happy, and now you leak when you're crazy," said Rocky, disapproving.
"I'm sorry," Grace said again, taking a few deep breaths. The air in the Vulcan ship was a bit stale, but all right. "I'm okay. I'm okay. Are you, uh..." he looked at the woman.
"I am Captain T'pir," she said, giving him a skeptical look. She still thought there was something wrong with him, and she still might be right. "This is my first officer, Tul." The man next to her was about her height and a bit overweight, with fair skin that made the green undertone distressingly obvious.
Tul raised his hand in greeting.
"Nice to meet you," said Grace, not bothering with the salute this time. "Dr. Ryland Grace. I'm an astrobiologist."
"Like the Doctors Quan," Tul observed. "They were cataloguing Vulcan microbes."
"This is Rocky," Grace added. "He's an engineer."
"And excited to meet more aliens," Rocky put in. "I'd like to see some Vulcan technology later."
"That can be arranged," said Tul.
"There aren't going to be a lot of facilities here to help you," Grace added, "but the Eridians will do whatever they can. They're a very hospitable and inventive people."
"An alien helped us. We're always ready to help others," Rocky agreed. "What do you need?"
"Our most urgent requirement is medical assistance," said T'pir. "We have already lost two people."
"That's gonna be difficult," said Grace.
"You've got that medical robot," Rocky said.
"Yeah, but he only works on humans," Grace told him. "Vulcans are more different than they look from the outside."
"They look pretty similar on the inside, too," said Rocky.
"Perhaps we can upload our medical database to your device," suggested another woman, one with long straight hair up in a severe bun.
"Would that work?" Rocky asked Grace.
"It might," he said. He had no idea. There might be translation problems. The Vulcans could probably solve those. "We can try."
They meet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhhh another peak peak peak part of the story!!!!!!!
more olive!!!!! And Grace being a little nerd and immediately doing the Vulcan salute!!!!!
“You leak when you're sad, you leak when you're happy, and now you leak when you're crazy," said Rocky, disapproving.”<- this line made me laugh so hard
Also Rocky being able to see inside them was so peak
