“Long story. Here,” he said, casually withdrawing a small ampoule filled with liquid from a pocket. “Naecia solved faster-than-light. Problem is it makes us all sick. Deadly sick. Take this. It needs time to work. Quickly, please.” He cracked the end off of it, handed it to me, and repeated, “Quickly.”

I was coming down from the nectar and things were still confusing. “I need to drink this?”

“Drink, stab, doesn’t matter.”

“What about me?” asked Patton. “I need one too, right?”

Oush’s face went blank for a moment – like he’d had a lapse of some sort. “Of course,” he answered. “Uh, Aptat has extra doses. There was only so much and... honestly, we weren’t sure we’d find you.”

“No offense taken,” said Patton, actually meaning it.

I stared at it.

“If you want to live, you’ll take that right now,” Oush repeated, forcefully.

I’d already abandoned my friend once. I wasn’t going to do it again. “I’ll wait until Patton has his,” I said, offering back the tiny vessel. “Unless we can split it?”

Oush’s eyes grew wide and they shifted nervously to the fissure Aptat’s flame had begun to create in the membrane. A noise came out of the helmet. Oush held it up to his face and spoke into the neck opening. “We’re fine,” he murmured. “Under control. Someone’s being a little stubborn.” Then, to me: “That was Naecia. It’s her machine that will get us out of here. She insists you take this. It’s dangerous to go without.”

Even in my drug-marinated state, alarms were going off. I stepped backward. “You guys must have used the machine at least once without the medication, before you could have known you’d need it, right? Doesn’t sound so bad compared to what Patton and I have been through here. I’ll deal with the sickness.”

“Yeah,” said Patton. “He’s been throwing up this whole trip.”

Oush snatched the ampoule from my hand and launched himself at me. We pounded the ground. The snap of a rib cracked in my ears. As if triggered by the impact, the floor opened and the food eel unfurled itself from within, then slithered aimlessly away.

Oush weighed a ton even without the Vortu suit. I held his arm back with both of mine, dodging locks of his golden mullet, as he thrust the ampoule down toward my neck which made me start to think the stuff wasn’t actually for motion sickness. At the same time, his weight threatened to suffocate me. I really started to worry when the skin of his face opened and blood poured out.

“What the fuggggllg,” I gurgled.