semnai

Martin Blackwood



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    “Proof of concept,” ♫♬♯♩♩♫ says. “We’ve tested it thoroughly to ensure it fits the specified nutritional profile, and several members of our team have ingested small amounts of it to ensure there were no adverse effects.”

    “You ate some of it?” I ask, rudely. I’m too irate to mind my language. Who do they think they are? That meat is for Grace. In a way, that meat is Grace.

    “Yes,” ♫♬♯♩♩♫ says. They and the rest of the human life support thrum know better than to be offended by my occasionally strange behaviour. “Obviously we weren’t going to risk the life of Honoured Grace on a completely untested technology.”

    That doesn’t mean much. There’s a lot of things that are safe for ingestion by Eridians that would outright kill a human.

    Trust Grace, I remind myself. He’ll have thought of all this.

    (OR: Grace's meburgers from the book epilogue. Let's talk about those!)

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    12 Jun 2026

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    Grace clings to the zenonite ball as tightly as he can, trying to trick his mind into believing that the smooth, warm surface was what it was after. That this hug shared between two species unable to coexist in the same environment is enough to satisfy his human instincts.

    His skin prickles. The tears keep falling. It isn’t enough. And it will stay that way for as long as he is away from Earth.

    A shudder runs through the man at this bleak thought, the ever-expanding pit in his chest feeling as though it’s swallowing up his entire being.

    As if he heard the emotional casam split further, Rocky’s warbles take on a mournful croon. “Grace, tell Rocky what wrong. Please?”

    Grace presses his tear-stained cheek against the warm surface, sighing miserably.

    “I’m touch starved.”

     

    Or... Grace's years of isolation from humans result in severe touch starvation. Rocky takes one look at this problem and says, "Hold my minerals."

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    24 May 2026

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    “Humans will pack bond with anything, y’know,” I say. “It’s actually kind of embarrassing.”
    “Everything human Grace does is embarrassing. Need definition.”
    “Pack bonding?”
    “Yes.”
    “Sharing affinity with and building collaborative relationships and even unbreakable bonds with other species or things. Human kids will humanize or anthropomorphize rocks and take them as pets, for example."
    “Grace.”

    Or: Punch drunk midnight conversations aboard the Hail Mary.

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    05 May 2026

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    The biodome is, at last, finished.

    Grace runs.

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    05 May 2026

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    The capsule touches down on Erid about a decade and a half after I do.

    There's a message inside translated into fourteen different languages. Y'know, just in case I've taught myself - and then the Eridians - Afrikaans.

    Hey, it reads. Can we have our ball back, please?

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    30 Apr 2026