Atmospheres

“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.

There’s more stuff inside. I shake the model and another necklace floats out. I take a look and it’s identical to the one I just inspected. I keep shaking and more and more necklaces come out. Each one the same. I collect them all and stuff them in my pockets.

“This reminds me of something…” I thump my forehead. “What does this remind me of…?”

Rocky taps his carapace with a claw. I know he’s just mimicking my movements but it feels like he’s saying, Think, dummy!

What would I tell my students at a time like this?

Why did I suddenly think of my students? I got an image of my classroom. A flash of memory. I’m holding a model of a molecule and explaining—

“Molecules!” I grab the handcuffs and hold them out to Rocky. “These are molecules! You’re trying to tell me something about chemistry!”

“♫♪♫♫♪.”

But wait. These are some weird molecules. They make no sense. I look at the handcuffs. Nothing forms a molecule like this. Eight atoms on one side, eight on the other, and connected by…what? Nothing? The connector string isn’t even coming off a bead. It’s just teeing off strings from the two circles.

“Atoms!” I say. “The beads are protons. So the circles of beads are atoms. And the little connectors are chemical bonds!”

“Okay, if that’s the case…” I hold up the handcuffs and count everything again. “Then this is two atoms, each with eight protons, connected to each other. Element number eight is oxygen. Two oxygens. O2! And it was in the Hail Mary ball.”

I hold it toward Rocky. “You clever fellow, this is my atmosphere!”

I grab the other set of beads. “So your atmosphere is…seven protons connected to three individual atoms with one proton each. A nitrogen attached to three hydrogens. Ammonia! Of course it’s ammonia! You breathe ammonia!”

That explains the pervasive smell on all of the little presents they left me. Residual traces of their air.

My smile fades. “Yikes. You breathe ammonia?”

I count all the little ammonia necklaces they gave me. I only got one O2 molecule, but he gave me twenty-nine ammonias.

I think about it for a moment.

“Oh,” I say. “I get it. I see what you’re saying.”

I look to my alien counterpart. “You have twenty-nine times as much atmosphere as I do.”

Wow. Two things come immediately to mind: First, Eridians live in immense pressure. Like—similar to being a thousand feet deep in the ocean back on Earth. Secondly, xenonite is some amazing stuff. I don’t know how thick that wall is—half an inch, maybe? Less? But it’s holding back a relative pressure of 28 atmospheres. All while being a big, un-reinforced flat panel (the absolute worst way to make a pressure vessel). Heck, their whole ship is made of big flat panels. The tensile strength of that stuff must be off the charts. No wonder I couldn’t bend or break the things they sent earlier.

***

Chapter 10