Rocky could not recall a time when he had been more impatient.
And he figured, Yeah, you’re alone in space this long, you have a right to be a little fidgety and stir crazy. But the problem was, he couldn’t afford to be sloppy. For himself. For his people back on Erid. For . . . whoever or whatever might be in this vessel that had only recently popped into existence nearby. Quite literally, too—no exaggeration. Rocky was pretty sure he would’ve noticed another space-faring vehicle closing in on him way before it was right beside him, but there it was.
Days had passed since the (admittedly tiny) ship appeared. And in those days, among a series of overly excited, curious, unabashedly thrilled advances, Rocky had been making efforts to contact what he assumed had to be a form of life inside. “Assumed” here was a generous way of saying “hoped.” Desperately hoped. Because he didn’t want to be alone anymore, and if these efforts ended up fruitless, well . . .
Best not to think about it.
He’d eventually given up on the whole “communication” thing. When you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself—even more true, in his current situation. Without the ability—or desire, really—to toss himself into space to reach this foreign object, he’d settled with bridging the gap. Literally. Tiny as that gap was (the strange ship had quite nearly crashed right into his!), constructing a tunnel hadn’t taken too much time at all. It was a meticulous, precise business, dealing with something of that size, but rarely were his calculations incorrect in cases like this.
. . . especially when his life (and that of the stranger he’d convinced himself was on that ship) was on the line.
And there!
Just then—!
Rocky heard a sound.
He worked faster. A smaller version of the robot on his hull, fit to work within the tunnel while Rocky remained safe on his side, melted the noticeably thick metal of the other vessel. Rocky couldn’t begin to understand what the stranger might have said to him, but he called back in an excited layer of trilled notes, “Hello! Hear you! Step back, please. Atmosphere need equalize on you side. Then safe to enter tunnel.”
For all he knew, whoever waited for him on the other side could very well not be friendly . . . especially after some alien blasting a hole in their ship, but—
Well, if they didn’t want that, maybe they should’ve answered his calls sooner.
