“Navigator? Kaza?” Lirran stood above Kaza’s limp body, trying to address her in his and her tongue. She was barely more than a lump of flesh now, even the shell plates that formed her skull and backbone were no longer interlocking properly. From her gills seeped a torrent of slime instead of what was previously barely more than a moist but firm coating, few bubbles rose from those holes at the bottom of her neck through which she usually blew air from the sacs underneath her eyes. Lirran’s heart raced. She was alive, but there was something direly wrong with her. 

He stowed the sail quickly, tried to steer the boat towards the coast what little he still could and waited for the boat to come to a proper standstill. Then, he threw Kaza into the water. Despite in her element now, she was still not moving. She just floated in the water, barely buoyant. He took off shoes and belt, then he jumped after her. He floated well, but occasionally hit the ground with his feet, the boat was being pushed away by the waves, but he did not care for the moment. 

In the water, Kaza’s slime was invisible, but with his hands he still felt it. Not knowing what to do, he began clearing the slime from her gills, those fleshy filaments that were either suspended in the water or kept wet by her mantle. He knew nothing of the body of tzappatt, but he imagined that the gills needed a stream of water like his lungs needed fresh air, so slime clogging either up was no good sign. The rest of her body was puffy and swollen, the blue of her blood shining through was more apparent now, like a swollen red face would be for him. 

“Please stay alive!” He heard himself mutter as he scooped globs of slime off her body. “Please let me know if you can hear me!” 

She gave no audible response but moved a bit, as if trying to grab him with her arms. He did not want to let her go, but he dared equally not to leave her in the dry. 

“Talk to me, Navigator!” Again, no answer came. “What made you like this? What is cursing you like this?” He thought maybe of the revenge of some spirit that make her sick when he noticed something about the slime that had clung to his pruny skin: a yellow and orange dust was suspended in it. When he looked closer in what little light remained, he noticed it coated her skin. 

In an odd reaction, he sighed with relief. Merely knowing that it was the strong spices of the land that made her body react this way put him a tiny bit at ease. Still, like a fever could either subside or kill a person, his worry for his Navigator remained. 

Knowing there was little he could do to end the cause, he knew he had to make her last through the night. Lirran looked around himself. They were at a sandy beach, not far off was a road leading along the coast and further north from their position, men stood on a rock jutting into the sea while pulling in baskets full off catch. The boat drifted not far from them, partly beached but rocked by the waves. Securing it would be of utmost importance. In his arms, he carried Kaza back to the boat, heaved her out of the water on board and with all his strength, pushed it further onto land. Without Kaza’s help it seemingly took forever, but he managed to get it far enough onto land that the tide would not take it in the night. 

With the sun having almost vanished and him being drenched wet, he needed a plan. He hauled the bucket-shaped iron stove far onto the beach and as quickly as his nervous hands could, got a fire started inside, then he returned to Kaza. 

He took her blanket and drenched it in the sea water, then he hauled her onto land. He rolled her up in the blanket for now and began excavating a depression in the sand large enough for her body. Once done, he laid her down into it, poured buckets of seawater onto her and kept freeing her from slime. Like this he continued well into the night, pouring a bucket over her, pulling strands of slime off her gills to keep them in clean water, then going back to get another bucket. When his hands became so cold that they trembled, he warmed up at the stove for as long as his nervous mind allowed, then he returned to Kaza.  

At one point, he threw a ship’s biscuit into the pot, added just some water and let it boil on the stove for a while. When the tasteless porridge was cold enough to eat, he tried feeding some to Kaza first, but her reaction was to suddenly fling herself to life and back to limp coma. Her body convulsed, the soft mass of flesh turned stiff and tense like a tensed ship’s rope, then fell down again. Lirran had troubles holding his Navigator, she thrashed and whipped herself around. It continued until a bulge formed at what could be called her neck. A thick glob was stuck and Kaza was desperate to expel it from her body, trembling and pumping with no betterment in sight. 

The feeling of powerlessness in Lirran compelled him to do something if anything at all. Carefully, he massaged her neck upwards beneath the bulge until it seemed to work its way out of her and with a sputtering of slime, large chunks of food and that cursedly yellow and orange spice spilled out of her mouth.  

Bits and pieces kept flowing out of her for a while until it seemed her body had completely rid herself of what ailed her. Lirran hauled more buckets of water and washed her clean of the stuff, lest the spice also irritate her skin. 

The moon had travelled far on the sky and still Lirran kept hauling buckets of water and clearing handfuls of slime until he noticed that exhaustion had crept up on him. He began stumbling and whenever he knelt down next to Kaza to free her of slime he felt like resting just a little bit. If it continued, he would fall asleep on the job and into dreams. If he went to sleep consciously and with enough strength left, he could at least try one last thing: help her in the mental realm. 

He tried to talk to her one last time. “Navigator Kaza? Are you awake? Can you hear me?” He stroked her forehead. He saw a scar where she had pierced her own skin when she had first separated then reunited his mind and body in that near-death experience. He thought of the exhaustion she had taken on for him, poisoning and injuring herself like this, just to induce him into the mysteries, give his life a new path. 

She raised an arm and moved it across her body, but that was it. She was alive yet could not come to the waking world. He poured one last bucket over her and filled another, then he peeled out of his wet clothes, rolled himself into his blanket and moved close to the still warm stove. Then he closed his eyes and listened to the breaking of the waves, looking out for that thin barrier between sleep and dream. 

I am coming, my Navigator. You will not be alone.