I know it doesn’t seem like much, but this is a huge deal. Rocky and I are astronauts. If we’re going to talk, we’re going to talk science. And just like that, Rocky and I have established a fundamental unit of time. Next up: length and mass!

No, actually. Next up—a nap. I’m so tired. I pull my clock off the wall, circle the “2” with my dry-erase marker—just to be as clear as possible, then tape it back in place. I wave. He waves back. Then I go back for a nap.

This is ridiculous. How can I expect to sleep? How could anyone under these circumstances? I’m still wrapping my head around what’s happening. There’s an alien out there.

And it’s killing me that I can’t find out what he knows about Astrophage. But you can’t talk about complex scientific concepts with someone via pantomime. We need a shared language, however rudimentary.

I just need to keep doing what I’m doing. Work on science communication. The verbs and nouns of physics. It’s the one set of concepts we’re guaranteed to share—physical laws are the same everywhere. And once we have enough words to actually talk about science, we’ll start talking about Astrophage.

And in “VVℓλI” Eridian seconds I’ll be talking to him again. How the heck can a guy sleep at a time like this? There’s no way I can just—

Chapter 11

My timer beeps at me. I’d set it for a two-hour countdown. It just reached zero. I blink a couple of times. I’m floating in a fetal position in the control room. I didn’t even make it to the dormitory.

I am not rested at all. Every pore of my being yells at me to go back to sleep, but I told Rocky I’d be back in two hours and I wouldn’t want him to think humans are untrustworthy.

I mean… we’re pretty untrustworthy, but I don’t want him to know that.

I trudge (can you trudge in zero g? I say yes) through the airlock. Rocky is there waiting for me in the tunnel. He’s been busy in my absence. There’s all sorts of stuff in there now.

The Eridian clock is still ticking away—now mounted to one of the lattice poles. But more interesting to me is the box that’s been added to the dividing wall. It’s a 1-foot cube and it juts out into my half of the tunnel. It’s made of the same transparent xenonite that the rest of the wall is made of.

On Rocky’s side, the box has a flat panel door with an opaque xenonite border. Also, there’s a square hole with a perfectly fitted square pipe leading away.