That’s what I’d loved most about being a librarian in my other life. There was nothing like bringing joy to someone through a shared love of the written word.
Closing the door, I shift my focus from work to my other labor of…something like love: Oz. He is going to sleep tonight if it’s the last thing I do. And I have a fool-proof plan.
First, I go to the Nutrition Bay and load up a tray full of all of his favorite things. My forearms strain when I’m done. Whatever he doesn’t eat will serve as my dinner. I wave to the other morts and their mates and head for Oz’s workshop. It’s become our routine for me to bring him food in the evenings because otherwise he’d simply forget to eat. I can relate because sometimes that’s how I am when I’m reading a good book. Days can pass and I’d finish and realize I haven’t eaten or gone to the bathroom in much longer than I’d like to admit.
I find him cursing at a mangled pile of metal in front of him, or at least I think it’s cursing—I haven’t quite decoded the entirety of the Mortuuan language yet. He’s peeled down the top half of his suit again and his pale white skin glistens under a sheen of sweat. I nearly swallow my tongue and forget how to convert oxygen to carbon dioxide. I only remember to move because Legolas, who is sitting in his customary position on my shoulder, twitches.
Spotting me, Oz turns off a machine and places it back on his worktable. I can’t tell because of the pallor of his skin, but I think he has shadows underneath his eyes. His cheeks are sunken with hunger and even though I’ve only known him a short time he seems smaller, somehow. Like he’s wasting away in front of my eyes.
Somehow, his eyes are bright despite being black as pitch. He crosses to me and takes the tray from my hands, setting it aside. Legolas skitters down my arm, hops to the floor and races to the little web he’s built in a corner.
“Whisper. There you are. I think I’m close. The calculations seem accurate, but I won’t know until the first tests are complete. I’ll need more haxagranules to be certain, but I’m close. I have to be.”
I want to tell him to slow down, that I can barely understand what he’s saying because he’s speaking too fast, but then he’s drawing me over to his worktable and pointing at various contraptions.
“This was wrong in my initial conception. Wrong as rogshite, hahaha. But I recalculated and recalibrated and it’ll work this time. It has to work. It has to.”
He seems to forget I’m there and he smashes goggles back on his face. They must be some sort of magnification lens, because the piece he lifts up to observe is the size of a small insect. “This is it. This is it. We’re going to blast those mortarekkers from the sky.”
“Oz,” I attempt. “Oz, honey, maybe you should eat. Come with me.” I speak to him like I might a wounded animal. I don’t think he’d hurt me, but he doesn’t seem to be in his right mind either. “Let’s get some food in you. You’ll feel better after you eat.”
“No time,” he mutters, “no time.”
I reach for his arm and he pushes me away reflexively. The movement is so swift it catches me off guard and I stumble over my own feet, landing hard on my ass with an, “Oof.”
The door to his workshop slides open and Galen appears. My stomach sinks. This is not the time for them to have one of those weird claiming arguments. With Oz in the state he is, it would end badly.
Galen’s eyes go to me on the floor and they harden, followed by the popopopop sound that signifies their growing temper. “The rekk did he do?” he asks, more like growls.
I shoot to my feet, trying to hide the wince at my aching butt. “Nothing. He didn’t mean it.”
“He hurt you?”
“Ha! Look at this,” Oz says, drawing both mine and Galen’s attention. Oz doesn’t seem to remember I’m there and hasn’t noticed Galen’s arrival. “It’s working.” The little module in his hand lights up, though I don’t know what it means or what I’m looking at.
“Oz!” Galen says sharply and I suck in a breath, waiting for Oz to snap.
“Stop it,” I say. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He needs to eat and some rest. Don’t provoke him.”
“He’s as dumb as a rogcow,” Galen bites out. “He should be sedated…after I plant a fist in his face for putting a hand on an alien.”
“You’ll do no such thing. I had it handled.” He gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe me, which I ignore. “Let me take care of it.”