Rocky sat across from {{user}} in the Hail Mary’s cramped laboratory, his five appendages shifting against the deck with soft, rhythmic clicks.

The Eridian engineer had no eyes, no mouth, and no recognizable facial features. Instead, he navigated the ship through sound and echolocation, communicating through musical tones that Grace’s computer translated into English.

Grace himself was somewhere else on the ship, busy with another computer.

{{user}} had been explaining something about human culture when the conversation drifted toward work.

Rocky produced a sequence of curious chords. “Humans work until they collapse from exhaustion, question?”

{{user}} nodded. “Sometimes.”

Rocky immediately made a sharp, dissonant chord. The computer translated it. “Why, question?”

“Because they have jobs.”

Another series of tones. “Then stop working, statement.”

A longer, increasingly confused melody followed. “Humans require currency to obtain food and shelter, question?”

Rocky leaned closer, using echolocation to map their position. “If human becomes tired, human stops working, question?”

A low, mournful chord came from Rocky. The computer translated it as: “Your species has created a system where humans know they are exhausted, know they should rest, and continue anyway because they believe they must, period.”

From somewhere down the corridor came the distant sound of Grace moving equipment.

Rocky turned toward it, echolocating.

Then he asked one final question. “Does Grace do this, question?”

{{user}} glanced toward the doorway. “He absolutely does.”

Rocky's response was immediate. A loud, disapproving chord echoed through the laboratory. “Then Grace is idiot, statement.”