Grace being kind of a pushover due to a combination of conflict avoidance, low self-esteem and the amount of stuff he had to put up with while working for Stratt (eg, “you live on this aircraft carrier now”).
Rocky and Grace being in some kind of meeting with the science thrum on Erid's surface (Grace in his xenonite suit), shortly after they arrive, when Rocky notices that Grace is being even more clingy than usual. Like he's constantly got at least one arm on Rocky's carapace, and has not moved away from Rocky since the meeting started. He's much stiller than he usually is— even accounting for his weakness from the malnutrition— and his light sensing organs keep rolling around in their sockets, meaning that he's anxiously scanning the room.
Rocky begins to worry. Is Grace getting sicker? Is the higher gravity having a worse impact than they thought? Or is he just nervous to be around strange Eridians? (Though he hasn't had this reaction to anyone else? Is there something up with the science Thrum??)
Rocky is like spiralling into anxiety until they have to move to a different part of the room for some reason and Grace, slowed down by the suit, briefly loses his hold on Rocky.
Immediately, he crashes into a table. And then backs into a wall. And then nearly knocks over some important Eridian science equipment. And then stands in the middle of the room, looking confused and slightly freaked out, both hands stretched out in front of him, opening and closing like he's grasping at the air.
Wait.
“Grace.”
“Yeah Rock?”
“At which point during meeting did light emitting devices in room stop working question?”
“Uh… like two minutes after we got in. Sorry, didn't want to be a bother.”
Never mind. Turns out humans are just idiots.
Humans see light bouncing off things, eridians hear sound bouncing off things. An eridian wouldn't do well in a space with no sound, and without any way of producing it themself
They should do a simulation for the science team, so they understand. Which probably entails a xenonite suit in a room that's a vacuum, in zero g, so they're not touching and feeling vibrations through the ground.
their perception will end at the limits of their body/suit. There's effectively nothingness beyond that, even if there's furniture and equipment and lots of things Grace can see no problem with the lights on
I assume this is part of the human sensitivity training all the Eridians working around their planets resident human have to go through
