5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Zuri

Trying to hold back her tears, Zuri walked to Jalin’s enclosure. He shared the enclosure with two other men, but she hoped to find him alone or talk him into going for a walk with her.

“What—oh!”

A body knocked into Zuri, sending her tumbling. She landed painfully on her hands and knees then rolled over on her butt. Jalin and Aspin were staring down at her with identical expressions of surprise. It was so adorable that Zuri started laughing.

“I’m so sorry, Zuri!” Jalin said, sinking down next to her. “Are you hurt?”

“Don’t worry, the cobblestones broke my fall,” she joked, making both men laugh.

“Aspin! Jalin!” a voice called out.

“We were going to join a group to play ground-ball,” Jalin explained as he tugged the hem of her wrap up to reveal scrapes on both knees.

“Great, I have the knees of an active ten-year-old child,” Zuri quipped, trying hard to smile. “Sorry about being an ambulatory speed bump. You guys have fun.”

Jalin’s eyes narrowed on her before he looked up at Aspin. “You go play. I’m going to take Zuri to the infirmary.”

Aspin looked in the direction of the voice then back at them. “Maybe I should take her? I’m the one who knocked Zuri over.”

“I played yesterday, and my legs are still a little sore,” Jalin said, making a shooing motion with his hands. “Go have fun, I’m going to take it easy.”

That’s all the encouragement Aspin needed. “Sorry, Zuri!” he said as he jogged away.

Once he was gone, Zuri met Jalin’s eyes. “I’m not going to the infirmary for a little cobble rash.”

Considering Kasium was living there now, she might never visit the infirmary again.

“Of course not,” Jalin agreed as he stood up. “We’re going to walk over to the pond and chat, like we used to do on Omanal.”

“Except there we walked to the edge of the bog,” Zuri reminded him, accepting his hand to help her stand.

“I like the pond better. It doesn’t stink,” Jalin commented as Zuri tested her joints. The pain was minimal, no real damage had been done. “And we don’t have to watch out for hungry tweshi.”

“Is there such a thing as a full tweshi?” Zuri asked, picturing the deadly bog beast.

They bantered about tweshi, bogs, and life on Omanal until they reached a stone bench sitting on the edge of an artificial pond. Brilliant flashes of color came close to the surface and disappeared again as specially engineered fish swam the pond's borders.

She’d been told they planned to expand the pond into something the humans could use for swimming, but that had to wait until the necessary building was done.

“What’s really going on?” Jalin asked once they were sitting side by side on the bench.

Zuri kept her eyes focused on the pond. “Kasium moved out.”

Jalin sucked in a breath. “He broke up with you?”

Sniffing back a tear, Zuri shook her head. “Can you call it a breakup when you were never really together?”

“That male is an idiot!” Jalin declared, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“You’re right, but that doesn’t change anything,” Zuri got out before the tears started falling. Back on Omanal, she and Jalin had shared a house. He was her best friend, and now she regretted being so quick to move into the cottage with Kasium.

“Tell me everything,” Jalin demanded.

Zuri spent the next two hours telling Jalin about her relationship with the healer, starting when she first met him on Falsof Station and ending with their confrontation that morning. By the time she was done, her eyes were sore and her nose was stuffy from crying, but she felt calmer.

Jalin hadn’t interrupted once and made soothing sounds and rocked them a little the entire time. Once she was done retelling her sad story, he gave her a little kiss on the top of her head.

“It hurts now, but it’ll get better.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” she said.

“We’ll keep you busy,” Jalin said. “It’ll help. Drew and Aspin are constantly organizing games. We could work on your distillery or help Emery with the epic history they’re trying to write.”

“Will you move into the cottage with me?” Zuri didn’t expect those words to come out of her mouth, but the moment she said it she liked the idea. “There’s plenty of room.”

Jalin looked dubious. “Don’t you have the distillery taking up a bunch of space?”

“Yeah, but it’s only one room. The other room has two beds.” She sighed and dropped her head sideways to rest on Jalin’s shoulder. “Well, a bed and a nest because Kasium acted like I was contagious.”

“The only thing contagious about you is drunkenness,” Jalin teased. “No one leaves your place sober.”

She grimaced. “Don’t remind me. I might have consumed a bit too much last night.”

Jalin pretended to gasp. “You overindulged and I wasn’t invited?”

“If you lived with me, you’d always be invited,” she pointed out.

“Then I guess I don’t have a choice,” Jalin declared. “You’ve got a new roomie, Bootlegger Zuri. I’m claiming the bed, the nests Talins put together are way too soft for me.”

“I’ll even throw in a rock for a pillow at no extra charge,” Zuri said with a watery laugh, relief making her feel light. “Let’s go move your stuff.”

Kasium

The screen of text in front of Kasium kept blurring, forcing him to blink rapidly and move his head back and forth until he could bring the words back into focus. He should try to rest again, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw Zuri. His mind would swirl with memories of her, his chest would tighten, and he’d feel short of breath.

No, sleep was impossible. He needed to work himself into exhaustion, so he’d drop into slumber the moment he lay down.

“Kasium?”

Pivoting on his stool, Kasium found Rossimun standing behind him. “Yes?”

The other healer sounded a concerned rumble. “I called your name several times, but you didn’t respond to me until I was right behind you. It’s quiet in here. How did you not hear me?”

He reached for the most plausible explanation. “I was engrossed in my research.”

Rossimun glanced at the screen he’d been struggling to read. It was a comparison chart from Aubrey’s tests over the last solar, including markers indicating medication changes. He’d been trying to overlay it with Zuri’s chart, but the simple action had proved impossible in his current state.

Perhaps he should think about using a mild sedative to initiate sleep. His current state wasn’t safe for anyone who might need his skills.

“Has Aubrey declined recently?” Rossimun asked, still staring at the data.

“She is perfectly fine. I’m attempting a long-term study.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He’d been studying Aubrey’s condition since meeting her, but what he hoped was to find some correlation between her and Zuri. That would give him a reason she’d suddenly decided to reject him, and it could be fixed with medication.

“Excellent research topic,” Rossimun said, moving to another workstation in their infirmary. The two of them were the primary healers for all the humans. Normally a place like this would have two or three healers-in-training assigned to each healer, but he and Rossimun made do without. They had to be careful who they let spend large amounts of time in the compound or risk being found out.

Sitting at the workstation, Rossimun started reviewing tests and charts. There was no one in the infirmary at the moment, but there were several appointments for later in the day. The load was light enough that Kasium might claim eye fatigue and retire to the small living quarters.

“I noticed Zuri and Jalin walking toward your cottage,” Rossimun commented as she got up and walked to a cabinet.

Kasium’s heart sped up at the sound of Zuri’s name. “They are good friends. They both came from the farming planet Omanal. That’s the one that suffered from unstable terraforming.”

“That explains why they were carrying Jalin’s possessions to your cabin,” Rossimun said, opening up one of the cabinets to inspect their supplies. “We should order more numbing medications. I also think we should special order beds with removable side plates. Some of the humans are very active in their sleep.”

Her words were registering in his earholes, but he couldn’t understand what she was saying. Not after the revelation that Zuri had invited Jalin to live with her.

“Are you sure they were moving his things?” he asked. He couldn’t even make any sounds, his backplates felt frozen in place, and his chest was too tight to rumble.

“When I crossed paths with them, we spoke for a few submarks,” Rossimun said without turning around. “Zuri looked fatigued and perhaps a little pale. Has she been ill recently?”

“Alcohol.” The one-word explanation came out hoarse.

“Ah,” Rossimun murmured, moving a few things around to look at the back of the cabinet. “That explains it. Humans are their own worst enemies. It’s a good thing they have us now.”

Clearing his throat, he tried to think of how to ask questions without making Rossimun suspicious. “Has Jalin been suffering from loneliness?”

Rossimun sounded a rumble of amusement. “The opposite, I believe. He’s sharing his enclosure with two other males, so it’s rather crowded. With Zuri being alone most of the time because you’re here, Jalin moving in will no doubt serve two purposes. It will reduce crowding in the enclosures and give Zuri a friend and potential mate close by.”

Kasium stood so abruptly his stool toppled loudly to the floor. “Mate?”

Rossimun sounded a rattle of surprise and turned to face him. “Kasium, are you well?”

Realizing he was acting irrationally, he tried to calm himself. After a few submarks, he realized his heart and adrenal system refused to abide by his brain’s demands.

He needed to isolate until he had his emotions under control. Emotions were the enemy of science. He was a healer, he needed to be cool and collected at all times.

“I believe I’m suffering from eye fatigue,” he said, pointing to the display behind him. It was a common malady among Talin and if not addressed, could turn into crippling nerve pain. “I’ve spent too many marks focused on my research.”

Rossimun sounded a soothing rumble. “You should medicate and rest, my friend.”

Kasium sounded a rumble of agreement. Without another word, he sealed himself into the small private quarters in the infirmary. His emotions were so close to the surface that if he didn’t do something immediately, he’d storm off to confront Zuri and Jalin.

There were a few vials on the small table in the room. Pulling off the sealed caps, he downed them all, one right after another. He didn’t need to read the labels, he recognized the color combinations of the vials.

As he hoped, the chemicals hit him fast, and he started feeling unsteady before he even got to the bed. Collapsing down, he rolled on his back and stared up at a ceiling that moved in and out of focus.

One of Zuri’s wraps lay on the pillow next to him. He drew it over his face, letting the smell of her fill his nose slits. If he focused really hard, he could pretend he was in the cottage, and she was asleep in her nest on the floor next to him.

“I’m in control,” he whispered to himself. “I’m in control. I’m in control. Tomorrow I’ll fix everything.”