the splash zone

I resist the urge to reach under my sleeve and rub my arm. The skin still pinches and pulls uncomfortably sometimes, even all these years later. I started washing with cold water years ago because it's so sensitive to heat. Makes me feel like I should be drinking a kale smoothie and teaching yoga.

I roll my chair over to the keyboard and play: "well, a long time ago, I was exposed to your atmosphere." I make sure to add just the right touch of good-natured annoyance. They should really be working, but I just can't turn down a good biology question.

That gets their attention. If Eridians could gasp, I'm assuming this would be a gasping type scenario. Leia—who asked the question—puts down their modelling clay. A few kids sway their carapaces. I've clearly got their attention.

"You've already been through the basics of human biology before you got here, yes? I key.

"I forgot," chimes a kid near the front with a green-hued carapace. I call them 'Oscar.' Creative, I know.

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. I've never known any Eridian to forget anything.

"Alright," I key in, accepting defeat. There's no way they'll let this go now. "Can anyone tell me what temperature my biosphere is kept at?"

"22℃!" a kid near the back chimes. In Eridian units, of course.

I point to them. My suspicion that they've been pestering my life support team has been proven correct, but we don't have time to get into that today.

"Right. Humans can't survive temperatures above 60℃."

There's a bit of shuffling. I guess a lot of them didn't realize just how cold my biosphere is. xenonite really is amazing stuff.

"Now, the human body is pretty great at maintaining internal temperature. when it's too hot, we sweat. when it's too cold, we shiver." massive oversimplification. We haven't gotten to the circulatory system yet. We're supposed to be studying earth—heh, Erid—science right now, for Pete's sake. (turns out kids everywhere love learning about volcanoes).

"Why didn't skin protect you question?

Right. Why wouldn't my kids would do the Eridian equivalent of anthropomorphizing me? It's a logical fallacy we both have in common. You are a thinking creature like me, ergo we must be just alike.

I stretch my fingers before keying: "because my skin is mostly living tissue. Individual cells aren't so good at regulating direct contact to high temperatures." might as well get it all out of the way now. "Besides, your atmosphere is highly corrosive to me."

There's a long silence. Two littler kids near the front hunker down and pull their arms up around them. There's some anxious chirping near the back. Their writing pads are entirely forgotten. Oh boy.

I try to approximate a consoling tone with the modulation tools available to me. Even after all these years, tone is difficult to grasp in the Eridians' beautiful, complex musical language.

It's occurred to me that I'm sort of like their equivalent of Stephen Hawking.

"It's alright," I quickly key. "There was medicine aboard my ship to help me heal and stop the pain."

This doesn't seem to help. The kids are still upset, and now they know it hurt.

"How did this happen question?"

"Did your habitat fail question?" Another kid asks. This sends a melodic, anxious hum through the whole class.

I sigh and wheel my chair over to my blackboard. It's not really a blackboard, of course--the kids wouldn't be able to see chalk smeared over slate, but that's what I call it. It actually more like a etch-a-sketch. I can use a series of dials and joysticks to control a magnet, in order to manipulate iron filings to create drawings my kids can actually see. It took some practice at first, but I'm pretty good at it now.

It takes me the better part of the class period to recount the story of the dangerous tailspin the Hail Mary experienced over Adrian. Side note: class periods where a whole issue when I first decided to resume teaching on Erid. The science cluster wanted five hour classes. I said 'absolutely not,' and managed to haggle them down to an hour and a half. A short class by all accounts for an alien with a crystal brain, but for me and my mushy bowl of salt and potassium it's more than enough.

"Teacher Grace is a hero," Oscar says quietly. The whole class is quiet. I guess it never really occurred to them before. It's been long enough that these kids were only infants when the Hail Mary came to Erid. To them, I'm probably just their kooky alien teacher. They never thought too long about how I actually got here.

They don't even remember astrophage, I think wonderingly.

That thought is what makes me stop. A strange feeling is growing in my chest. Grief? No, I'm happy. I'm happy they never had to go through that gut-wrenching, existential fear. But there's a bittersweet tinge to it, something I can't quite name. I blink rapidly. There's a burr in my throat.

"You save all of us." It's Leia. The kid with the modelling clay, the one who first asked the question about my arm. Their voice is solemn.

"Yeah. Well." I clear my throat, blinking my eyes clear. "You can thank this old man by working on your volcano assignment for the rest of the class. Quietly."