“What is it?” He whirls, expression concerned.
I touch my forehead. “It’s starting again. I need the medicine.” I hope to stars he will give me the dose I need.
“Veck.” He shakes his head. “Forgive me, I forgot.”
The relief I feel at his instant response brings on a streak of gratitude. Maybe I can trust this warrior.
He turns to the console and taps then stands up and strides to a cabinet across from his flight seat. “I have your medicine supply here.” He pulls out the sleek container. “I’ll bring it to you. Sit down.”
The whisper of pain deepens, little pinpricks. I press my palm to the top of my head, a useless move. Adrenaline races through my body. “Please hurry.” My vision starts to blur. The stars outside the glass viewports, little dots of distant light, morph into blobs.
“Here.” He’s at my side. His hands are strong but so gentle as he touches my face. “How much?”
“Four drops.” I close my eyes.
The bitter taste has never been so welcome. As the liquid hits my tongue, the relief is almost instantaneous: First, the aroma of herb and earth shoots into my nostrils, and then the pulsing pain flickers and flashes out. Gone.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, licking my lips, even though he didn’t spill. I swallow my own spit once, twice, to ensure that I’ve washed down every last remnant of the drug. When I look back, he’s staring at me, brow wrinkled. Behind his head, outside in the emptiness of space, the stars are back to usual.
“Better?” He screws the dropper cap back onto the bottle. His eyes remain trained on my face, checking me.
I nod. “Yes.”
He stows the glass bottle carefully into the case. “How does the medicine work?” He sits down beside me.
I watch as the small amber bottle nestles into the padding and shake my head. “They did something to my blood vessels in my head, the vessels feeding the brain. They constrict without the medicine, and it’s painful. The antidote is made from the pollen of a flower found on Dentron. The medicine widens the vessels, but it’s temporary.”
“And without the medicine, the headaches keep coming back?” He touches my forehead softly, then pulls his hand back. Frowns. “Will they ever go away?”
Fear wells up. “Maybe over time, my body would adjust back, who knows? But I can’t bear the pain to find out.”
I think about suffering that kind of excruciating pain for many solar cycles. “I’d rather throw myself into the vacuum of space.” My voice is fierce.
He starts like this surprises him. “Kailani, we have enough medicine for a while.” He pulls the bottle back out of the case and holds it up at an angle to see how much liquid remains. “There’s…” He pauses, clearly doing mental manipulations. “Veck. Only about ten more doses.” His face grows somber. “How did they make it?” He takes my hand.
“We’d need the pollen to start.” My body feels warm and tingly because he said we. We have enough medicine. I swallow hard and press his fingers against my own. “They mix it with a few other things, but the pollen is the main antidote. Once they ran low and gave me crushed heated pollen to eat, and it worked the same way although it took a lot longer and didn’t get rid of the headache entirely. But still, it was remarkably effective even alone.”
“And Dentron? Do you know much about it?” He does something on his wrist holo and pulls up a solar map. “It’s near us.” He sounds surprisingly pleased. “Within a half a planet rotation’s flight.”
“There’s a tribe there who aren’t technical, but they’re hostile. We’d need to avoid them. Apart from that, I don’t know much.”
“They couldn’t grow the plants on your planet?”
“No. I believe the environment wasn’t right. I don’t know much about ag, and they obviously didn’t share much with me. But from what I gleaned overhearing their conversations, that was the problem.” I try to remember every fact I committed to memory about the medicine. “But it probably wasn’t a big priority, either. Without that medicine...Khrys? I’m as good as dead.”
“Don’t talk that way.” His voice is
low and fierce. “Look at me. Kailani? I’m going to get it for you.”
“But when?” I shrug my shoulders. “After you take me to your amazing planet as a slave? I don’t have that long.”
“I told you, humans have good lives there. They aren’t slaves.” His voice rises with frustration, and he pulls his hand from mine. He stands and paces.
Then he sits back down and puts both hands on my face. “Listen. Here’s how you know you can trust me. We’ll go right now to Dentron for the pollen, and seeds and plants, and whatever we need to attempt to grow it on Zandia. We have the best ag experts there, I promise. The king’s mate is human and an expert in agriculture. She’s able to cultivate crops originally grown on Earth.”
His voice is so low and persuasive. Honey and steel mixed. His eyes flash purple for a second. He sounds so sincere. “A token of my honesty, Kailani.” He pauses. “I’ll give you control of everything we collect.” He twists to grab the case of medicine and hands it to me. “It’s yours, all right? Starting now.”
I snatch it from his hands and clutch it to my chest, my heart pounding.