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There was a small, logical part of my brain that quivered under the wave of anxiety, calmly noting that in the past, these intense surges of panic only happened when I tried to get off the meds, that maybe the situation was quite the way I was thinking of it, and maybe if I had just snapped off a piece of the pill bar and popped it before getting in the ship, I would be looking at things differently.
But that part of my brain was swept under by a tidal wave of panic.
I screamed.
[ 11 ]
AESON
An alert flashed on the screen to my right.
I was in the middle of programming in the route back down to my mate’s domicile. It was easier for my ship to go straight up and back down then to wiggle around in the atmosphere of Earth. Several of the other species currently in this system had evolved with slower modes of transport. My species had their own way of doing things.
I glanced over at the alert.
It was for my mate’s chair.
The chair was reporting physical distress, rapid heartbeat, and struggling.
There was something wrong.
I put the ship in a holding pattern and released the impact webbing that held me secured in place. As I released it, I sank down through the mesh to the passenger section of my ship. As soon as I passed through the mesh, I heard a horrible sound.
My mate was screaming.
I dropped down until I was in front of her.
Liquid was streaming down her face, her eyes wide, her face puffy and red. She was shaking and sweating. She looked at me, her eyes going wide like they had the first time she had seen me. She let out another scream, struggling back and forth in her chair.
“LET ME GO!” she shrieked.
I reached forward and slid my hand under her palm, pressing down on the release. The chair solidified, pushing her up to the surface as it returned to its static state. She put her feet down on my tail and stood. She looked down.
I had changed the view setting to full so we couldn’t see the floor of the passenger section. Instead we had a beautiful view of the space around us and her planet below. She stepped backwards off my tail back onto the chair, and perched on it like a primate, both of her feet going to one of the arms of the chair as she curled up in a ball, her breath coming in rapid pants.
She stared across the room at where her purse was lying on the floor, looking as if it were floating in space. I must have knocked it with my tail in my hurry to get back down.
She closed her eyes and let out another sob, shaking.
I reached out and picked up her purse and held it out to her. She didn’t open her eyes, so I pushed it up against her hand. Her eyes snapped open and she clutched it to her chest, her hands shaking as she opened it, grabbed something from inside it, and popped it into her mouth, her eyes still closed.
I watched her quietly, not making any sound.
There was something wrong, but I had no knowledge of what it was. I couldn’t move the ship without her secured in her chair, but her going back in the chair was not an option right now. All I could do was try to change the environment. I reached out again for the arm of the chair she wasn’t perched on and depressed the controls for the visual environment. I turned off the view settings.
The stars blinked out, replaced by the normal prismatic walls of my ship, displaying a bland uniform color.
Jessica was taking deeper breaths, and she sank down from her curled up position so her bottom was on the arm of her chair. She shifted her feet down to the seat of the chair before turning to look at me.
Now felt like a good time to speak.
“There is a human expert medical professional on the Norratar flag ship,” I offered. “I can change our trajectory from your house and request permission to dock there.”
“My house is on Earth,” she whispered.
“Yes.” I waited for her to elaborate.
She didn’t say anything, just stared at me.
