“♫♫♩,” Rocky explains.

Thinking rationally, you can’t make spaceships without a civilization and you can’t have civilization without being able to communicate. So of course they have language. It’s interesting that communication is done with sound, like humans do. Coincidence? Maybe not. Maybe that’s just the easiest way to evolve that trait.

“♪.” Rocky points to the objects they left me.

“Right, right,” I say. The whole language thing is way more interesting to me, and I’d rather explore that. But for now, Rocky wants to know what I think of his presents.

I float over to the objects. They’re attached to the wall with my own tape.

The objects are a pair of spheres. Each one has a raised image embossed on it. One has the Hail Mary and the other has the Blip-A.

I pull the Hail Mary ball off the tape. It’s not warm. In fact, the tunnel isn’t warm anymore. Interesting. Maybe they noticed I like things cooler and they did something to make it more comfortable for me.

There’s a rattle from inside the ball. I shake it and listen. More rattling.

I find a seam. I rotate the top and bottom of the ball against each other and sure enough, they rotate. Left-handed screw, of course.

I look to Rocky for approval. He has no face and thus no facial expressions. He just floats there, watching me. Well, not watching… no eyes. Actually, wait. How does he know what I’m doing? He clearly knows—he waved and stuff. He must have eyes somewhere. I probably just don’t recognize them.

I turn my attention back to the sphere. I pull the two halves apart and inside is… a bunch more little spheres.

I sigh. This raises more questions than it answers.

The little beads float out and drift across my field of view. They’re not individual items. They’re connected to one another by little strings. Like a complicated necklace. I spread it out as best I can.

They look like—for lack of a better term—beaded handcuffs. Two circles of threaded beads connected to each other by a little bridge of thread. Each circle has eight beads on it. The connecting thread has none. This seems very deliberate. But I have no idea what it means.

Maybe the other ball—the one with the Blip-A picture on it—will shed more light. I let the handcuffs float and pull the Blip-A ball off the wall. I shake it and hear lots of rattling from inside. I unscrew the two halves and another set of beads comes out.

Unlike the handcuffs, there’s only one ring in this construction. And it has seven beads, not eight. Also, it has three connector strings sticking out of the circle and leading to a single bead each. Kind of like a necklace with some ornamentation hanging off of it.