Shortly after that, the two males finished their conversation and Drung came tromping down the hall, shaking the ship with his footsteps. Lan’ara held her breath as he passed by the alcove but he didn’t seem to smell her—possibly because she’d been in his room and the awful stink had rubbed off on her.
Just thinking of that made her want another shower but there was no way she was taking one now. She would take a bath and just deal with the wash blossoms. The minute the Trollox was safely in his room, she ran down the hallway on quick, light feet and locked herself into Need’s quarters.
It wasn’t until she was safely locked away with her heart still pounding that Lan’ara remembered she hadn’t put her file back where she’d found it.
Well, Drung’s room is such an awful sty, he probably won’t even notice it! she told herself. But she couldn’t stop the feeling of unease she got as she filled the tub with warm water and got in to wash the awful stink of the Trollox off her skin.
She had a bad feeling this wasn’t over yet.
Forty-Four
It seemed to take forever and a day to get things sorted out with Myakk. A tiny bit of the drug had worn off by the time Need got back to him—enough to let him recognize Need as a friend and not a demon come to take him to the Seven Hells. But it was clear the other male was still seeing horrible things as the bad yarrow root trip distorted his vision. Even his own tubb-oh apparently looked menacing and dangerous and Need had great difficulty convincing the other male to get inside Velda as she snorted and stamped nervously.
“It will carry me to the Abyss!” Myakk moaned, struggling as Need hoisted the fish half of him into the slippery interior. He was nearly dried out, with his scales cracked and shrunken for want of liquid. Unfortunately, the little bit of blue fluid still sloshing around Velda’s inside didn’t do much to help.
“It will carry you to your ship,” Need corrected him firmly. “Come on now, Myakk—remember what I told you. You’re not in any of the Seven Hells, you’re just on a bad yarrow trip. Things are going to look fucking awful but none of it is real.”
“Oh, that’s right…that’s right.” The other male had nodded and allowed Need to get him fully situated in the tubb-oh. Velda snorted and shimmied from side to side, but seemed happy enough to be carrying her master again instead of a stranger.
“Now, we’re going to go to your ship and finish the deal we started,” Need told him sternly. “At least we don’t have to worry about testing the product again—we sure as hell know it works,” he added in a mutter to himself.
“Ah, yes, so it does—it works!” Myakk moaned, catching his words. “It works too well—you can have the yarrow root, my friend. I never want to see any of it again!”
“You can’t just give it to me,” Need protested. “This is a business deal and you’re going to need credits to live off of for the next year, while you get the root out of your system.”
They had come to an agreement at last and Need left the other male locked safely in his ship, still moaning miserably. Damn, he really didn’t envy the poor bastard! A bad yarrow trip was no joke and Myakk would be dealing with it for the entire next solar year. That was going to be no fun at all, for sure and there was only one good treatment, which was damn expensive.
If he had enough credit, Myakk could go to a sleep-away clinic on Tallor Prime—a planet that specialized in dealing with addictions of all kinds. There he would be placed in a medically induced coma, deeper than sleep, which would allow him to pass the rest of the year in peace until the drug wore off.
This treatment was so costly that it often took the patient’s entire life savings to afford. Yet Need had heard that people thought it was worth it not to have to live day and night with the horrible, hellish visions the bad trip caused.
Ultimately, the decision would be up to Myakk, but Need had at least insisted on paying him a fair price for the rest of the powdered root. Hopefully the other male would have enough to afford the sleep-away treatment if he couldn’t go on and decided he needed it.
He let himself into his quarters with a weary sigh, glad to be done with the dirty dealings. He never liked it when Captain Glo’ll decided to take on a shipment of illegal recreational substances. He had no use for drugs himself, preferring to live a natural life other than the occasional shot of fireflower juice.