Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Lomax

W hen I opened my eyes, I didn’t recognize the ceiling. I stared at it unblinkingly. It was too nice to be some roach motel ceiling, and it definitely wasn’t my apartment ceiling, so where the heck was I?

I inhaled deeply, vaguely relieved that it didn’t hurt my chest for the first time in ages, and my confusion grew. The scent was a weird mash of antiseptic and gallberry juice.

“Hello, human.”

Sigan’s face blotted out the ceiling, and I blinked at him. “Sigan?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not dead.”

“You are not. Although, technically, you did die. Your heart stopped twice before I could get you here.”

I stared at him. “Wait, what? My heart stopped?”

“Twice.” He held a small silver box and waved it over my chest until it beeped. He studied the screen on the box.

“What is that?” I asked.

“A pleirdox,” he said. “I am going to sit you up. Tell me if you feel faint.”

He pressed a button on the bed, and with a low mechanical whir, the upper half rose slowly. Sigan gave me a questioning look, and I shook my head. “No dizziness. For once. I actually feel… great. Like I could run a marathon great.”

“What is a marathon?” Sigan asked.

“A foot race,” I said. I studied the IV in my hand and the bag of pink liquid it was attached to. “I guess I know why I feel good. That’s gallberry serum, right?”

Sigan nodded as he pushed a few buttons on the pleirdox.

“I think I might be the first lower in history to get serum,” I said. “Only the uppers can afford it on Earth.”

“I have given it to other lowers here,” Sigan said distractedly.

I had no idea what he meant by that, but I was more concerned with what he’d told me earlier. “Did my heart really stop twice?”

“Yes,” Sigan said. “Once at your home and once in the havoc cruiser.”

“Do you carry gallberry serum and an IV in your pocket or something?” I asked.

“No,” Sigan said. “And even if I did, once you were dead, the serum would not have helped. Gallberries heal, but they cannot bring back the dead. I performed CPR and brought you back.”

I blinked at him. “CPR. You know how to do CPR?”

“I learned how to do it from watching holograms,” Sigan said. “Thank Krono, I did, or you would be dead, human. It almost did not work, and I broke some of your ribs.”

A memory of being on the ship, of the terrible pain in my ribs and the tightness in my chest, flooded through me. “You had to do CPR twice?”

“Yes. I restarted your heart in your home, but it stopped again in the havoc cruiser on the way to the docking bay. I performed CPR a second time, and to my surprise, it started again.”

Sigan spoke casually as if it were no big deal that he had saved my life twice. He made a soft sound of surprise when I leaned forward, threw my arms around him, and hugged him hard. “Thank you, Sigan.”

He patted my back awkwardly. “You are welcome, Lomax.”

I continued to hug him, and he gently pulled away. “I need to remove your IV. You will feel a slight pinch.”

He removed it and taped a piece of gauze to my hand before walking to the far end of the room and returning with a bottle of gallberry juice.

Steeling myself for the answer, I said, “So, how much extra time will the serum give me?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, handing me the juice bottle. “Drink this.”

I took a sip, surprised that I only had the faintest of cravings for it. “How much extra time will the serum give me? Do you think maybe a month?”

Christ, I hoped it was a month. If I felt this good for an entire month, I’d have no problems fucking the Draax. I could build up a reserve of juice for when the effects of the serum wore off.

“You are completely healed,” Sigan said.

“What?” I paused with the juice bottle halfway to my mouth as an emotion that felt a little like hope sparked in my belly. “How is that possible? I know the serum is strong, but my heart disease was advanced. A few hours of IV couldn’t be enough to heal me, could it?”

“You have been in the infirmary receiving gallberry serum for three days, Lomax,” Sigan said.

My mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding me.”

“I am not,” Sigan said. “Even with the serum, I was not sure you would survive. Your heart was weak, and the disease had progressed to the point where it was almost too late to reverse, even for the serum. But your will to survive was strong, and your body healed. Your heart disease is completely gone. You have a healthy, normal heart.”

I stared in silent shock at him as adrenaline spiked through my body. My heart pounded, and I waited for the tightness in my chest, the skipped beats, and the sinking feeling of the clock running out whenever I made my heart work harder than it should.

Instead, my heart beat steadily, and I could breathe normally and holy fuck… I was cured.

I whipped back the covers and slid out of the bed. With a loud whoop, I grabbed Sigan and hugged him before giving him a hard, smacking kiss on the lips. His startled yelp made me laugh, and I released him with another whoop of happiness before dancing and shimmying around the room to music only I could hear.

Sigan’s nonplussed look as he watched me dance brought more laughter from my lips, and I danced back to him, grabbing his hand and twirling myself before waving my arms in the air and gyrating my hips. “I’m cured! I’m fucking cured, you beautiful, giant man!”

“I am not a man,” Sigan said. “I am a Draax.”

“The most beautiful fucking Draax on the planet!” I shouted.

“Hardly,” he said. “Most find me ugly.”

“They’re wrong!” I grabbed his face and gave him another hard kiss. “You’re fucking beautiful.”

“Please stop kissing me,” Sigan said. “I am happy you are alive, but I am still not attracted to you, human.”

I stopped dancing. “Wait, so you don’t want me to fuck you in exchange for the serum?”

He made a face like he’d just stepped in dog poop, and I would have been a little offended, but the guy had just saved my life… multiple times.

“I do not,” he said.

“Okay, well, what do you want?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Sigan said.

“You gave me CPR twice and then enough serum - which is basically liquid gold - to heal me completely,” I said. “What do you want in return?”

“Nothing,” he said.

I stared at him as another wave of shock reverberated through me. “Ha, ha. Good joke, Sigan. Seriously, though, what do you want?”

“I am not joking,” Sigan said. “I did this with no expectation of payment, Lomax. Fucking or otherwise.”

I sat down on the bed, my heart still happily thumping away without a missed beat, and I wasn’t the least bit out of breath despite all the dancing I’d done.

“I don’t… why would you do that?” I asked.

“All females are precious,” he said.

“I’m not breeding compatible,” I said.

He scowled, his patience running thin. “I am aware, human. That does not mean your life is less.”

“To some Draax, it does,” I said.

“Not to me,” he said.

I touched his arm. “Hey, you’re not going to get in trouble for this, are you? The serum is expensive and -”

“You are on Draax,” he said. “The serum is plentiful, and there is more than enough to go around.”

“I’m on Draax,” I repeated.

“Yes,” he said. He crossed the room to a small cupboard and returned with my purse. “Aiden thought to grab this for you, but I am afraid that is all we took from your home. You were dying, and we did not have enough time to take clothes or other personal items.”

“Hey, I’d rather be alive, so it’s all good,” I said cheerfully. “I can make do with one pair of underwear for a few days. Nothing wrong with going commando, am I right?”

I lifted my hand for a high-five, but Sigan just stared at it until I slowly lowered it. “I do not know what going commando means. It will be longer than a few days. A storm arrived, and we barely survived the trip here. If Aiden had not been such an experienced pilot, we would have died in the storm.”

“How long do these storms last?” I asked.

“At least a moon, maybe more. This is a particularly bad one,” Sigan said.

“Wait, so I’m here for a month?” I asked.

He nodded before giving me a guilty look. “I had no choice but to bring you here, human.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining,” I said. “I don’t mind staying here for a month.”

If I were here for a month, I would miss my rent payment, and my landlord would undoubtedly toss everything I owned into a dumpster and have my place rented out before I returned, but being homeless was a problem for later Lomax. I was alive and healthy, and if I was really lucky, maybe I could get my old job back when I returned to Earth - or something close to it.

“Hey, where is here, by the way?” I asked.

“You are in the western province in the home of King Quillan. I am his and his family’s personal kadana, but I also help all those who live here in the castle.”

“Castle?” I said. “I’m in an honest to God castle?”

“Yes,” he said.

“That’s cool. What’s a kadana?”

“On your planet, you call them doctors.”

“Why have doctors?” I asked. “The juice cures everything.”

“I help our elderly when the juice no longer heals, I assist the little females when they give birth, and I also spend a good deal of time in the lab studying various things,” Sigan said.

“So, you’re a doctor slash scientist,” I said. “Very cool. Are you sure your king is okay with me being here? I’m not breeding compatible.”

“Yes, you have mentioned that,” Sigan said. “He is fine with you being here.”

“That’s great. Tell him I said thank you.”

“I am sure you will be given the opportunity to tell him yourself,” Sigan said.

A new thought obliterated my sudden anxiety over meeting a Draax royalty. “Oh shit! The Draax at my apartment. Regan… is he? Oh God, did you leave him behind to die?”

“We did not,” Sigan said. “Neither Thromi nor Aiden enjoyed carrying him to the havoc cruiser and onto our ship, he weighs as much as a groden, but we brought him as you asked.”

Relief washed over me. “So, you healed him?”

“We did, although he also nearly died. He would have died if you had not given him the juice I gave you.” Sigan cocked his head. “Giving him that juice almost killed you, Lomax. You realize that, do you not?”

I shrugged. “He was dying because of me. I couldn’t just watch it happen.”

“He owes you his life.”

“You didn’t tell his king where he was, did you? He told me he was from the east, and his king would imprison him if he found out he was in California.”

“We did not tell King Eastolf,” Sigan said, his face looking like he’d eaten something sour.

“That’s good,” I said. “Hey, I don’t suppose I could hologram him or something, could I? I never really said thank you for saving me.”

“It is he who should be thanking you,” Sigan said with a frown. “But you will not have to hologram him. He was fully healed yesterday and moved from the infirmary to his own quarters. I can have someone escort you to them.”

“He’s here?” I asked.

“The storm means we cannot travel at all,” Sigan said.

“Oh,” I said. “I knew you had storms in the cold season, but I thought it was just getting on and off the planet that was the problem. So, it’s a full-on blizzard out there?”

“It is fifty times more powerful and dangerous than an Earth blizzard,” Sigan said. “Most Draax would survive only a few hours in the storm, and a little human like yourself would not survive more than an hour before freezing to death.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “It’s like Hoth out there.”

He gave me a curious look, and I said, “ Empire Strikes Back ? Luke Skywalker? Han Solo? The planet Hoth? Big furry abominable snowman monster?”

“You speak like a froden,” Sigan said.

I laughed. “I don’t know what froden means, but I’ll assume it’s not flattering. Empire Strikes Back is an ancient Earth movie that’s still super popular.”

“Froden means fool,” Sigan said. “Are you hungry?”

“I could eat,” I said.

“Get back into bed and drink your juice. I will have food brought from the kitchen,” Sigan said.

I grabbed his hand before he could walk away. “Sigan, thank you so much for saving my life.”

He gave my hand a light squeeze. “You are welcome, Lomax.”