second day
Gralgiranselhelrarvnir watched the human work from the walkway. He wanted to go there and be closer, but he knew he made him uncomfortable, even if he couldn’t understand why. The human, Jeremy, he forced himself to use his name. It sounded as odd in his head as when he pronounced it out loud.
The way Jeremy had looked at him on that first meeting had shown curiosity, before something pained him. He’d worked hard at hiding it, but the tension in his body had given him away. And yesterday, Gral could have sworn there had been interest in the way Jeremy looked at him, before he was in pain again. Then he avoided looking at him.
He sighed and wondered which of the Gods was responsible for this. Jeremy stirred something deep in him, something that told him Jeremy was his Heart, but if that was the case, Jeremy should feel it too. Gral hadn’t been one of those people who hunted for his Heart. He’d been content to live his life has happily as he could. He had friends, family, and a career he loved. He also trusted the Gods would guide him to his Heart when the time was right.
Had they? Was Gralgriran responsible? Or was this a one of Gezbiliam’s trick? He would have to be cautious, until he could tell. In the mean time he had work to do.
* * * * *
His first stop was the infirmary.
“How is Alix?” he asked the lead medic.
“His body is healing well,” she answered. “But the electrical shock also affected his brain. Lieha won’t scan him until he’s awake, so I can’t comment on his mind at the moment.”
“How long until he wakes?”
“I can’t say. Physically, he will be sufficiently healed in a few weeks. I’m hoping his mind will also be healed by then. If he hasn’t woken at that point, I’ll convince Lieha to scan him anyway.”
* * * * *
He walked through engineering on his way to the bridge, not quite a direct route, but he wanted to see how the work was coming along. He stopped by the generator, just as Jeremy was coming out. The human jumped on seeing him, said some words under his breath.
Thuruk came around. “We have nothing to report, captain.”
Gral nodded and left them, looking over his shoulder to see Jeremy take one of the pills.
* * * * *
“How are the scans coming along?” he asked Jurani.
“Slowly. We haven’t found it yet. We’ve had to dial down the scanner, to make sure they don’t detect it. Are we certain they have one?”
“No. That’s why we’re here. The council wants a confirmation, one way or another.”
“This will take a while. It’s a large station, and without doing something they could detect, we have to scan all of it.”
“I’m not worried about the time. Having a human engineer to repair our generator means it’s going to take longer, and we can arrange something else if needed.”
After that he went to his office to deal with reports.
* * * * * 
On his way to his mid day meal, he detoured by engineering, but stayed on the walkway. He stayed there ten minutes without seeing Jeremy. After his meal it was back to the reports. After hours of that he headed to engineering to find out how the repairs were proceeding.
He stood by the generator, waiting for Thuruk to come out, but it was Jeremy that exited it. He turned, and jumped on seeing Gral. Jeremy said things Gral didn’t understand, but the tone was harsh.
Thuruk joined them and the two of them exchanged words, Jeremy’s tone still harsh, an then the human stormed off. 
“He . . . Doesn’t want you hanging around and ‘looking over his shoulder’,” Thuruk said.
“I wasn’t,” Gral replied with a frown.
“I tried to explain that to him, but he is angry for some reason and didn’t want to listen.”
“Maybe I need to go see Lieha, so she can teach me his language.”
* * * * *
Jeremy was fuming. Why couldn’t he let him work alone. He didn’t need constant supervision, he wasn’t a kid. And it wasn’t like he’d understand what was going on, he was the ship’s captain, not an engineer.
His stomach twisted.
First in the morning, and he’d seen him watching from one of the higher walkways, then now, just looking over his work like that.
“Is something wrong?” someone he stormed by asked. Jeremy ignored him, but the person grabbed his arm forcing him to turn around.
“Damn it! What is your problem?” he yelled, at the kelsirian ambassador. He cursed inwardly. Great, had he started an inter-species conflict?
“Are you well?” the ambassador asked. “Your seem perturbed by something.”
“It’s that captain of yours,” Jeremy started, he’d asked, so he was going to tell him. “He’s constantly checking up on me. Doesn’t he have anything better to do than bother me?” He grabbed his stomach.
“You are in pain.” 
“Yeah. It’s the stress, or the anxiety, or the pressure. I don’t know anymore.” He pulled out the pill bottle, but the ambassador placed a hand on his before it could open it.
“Would you be open to an alternative?” he asked. “My people have mental techniques which can help with those things.”
“I don’t know. This things work pretty well.”
“Do they? Your pain does seem to return.”
“And your thing will take it away for always?”
“Possibly.”
Jeremy frowned.
“What do you have to lose?” the ambassador asked, “as your expression goes. If it does not work, you will always have the pills.”
Jeremy looked at the bottle. “Yeah, I guess.”

the box
“Just lay down here.” Querik said, pointing to the circular bed in the floor. Jeremy looked at it, and quirked an eyebrow. “I sleep curled up,” the Ambassador offered with a smile, “a bowl shape is more comfortable.”
Jeremy stepped onto the bed and was surprised at how much give it had. He made it to the center without tripping, and sat down then laid back, moving about until he was somewhat comfortable. The position put his rump in the middle of the depression, and his legs and torso moving up the slight incline.
“This is more comfortable than I thought it would be,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know that I’d want to try to sleep a whole night this way, but I could see myself napping like this.” He intertwined his fingers and rested his hands on his stomach. The mattress shifted and he looked up to see the kelsirian kneel down, his knees almost touching his head.
“Will you be okay if I am in this position?” Querik asked.
“Sure.”
“Good. Close your eyes and just breathe. Don’t worry about fast or slow, just let your breathing settle to a comfortable rhythm.”
Jeremy nodded and did as he was told.
Querik touched the human’s mind and felt it quiet down. “Now, I want you to imagine a box. We are going to use that box as a place to put your anxieties. That box is going to be special, because once an anxiety is placed in it, it will not be able to escape. The longer it remains in the box the weaker it will become, disintegrating to nothingness over time. Can you see the box?” He felt Jeremy’s mind process the commands.
“Yes, i do. Oh wow. It’s a Japanese puzzle box.”
“What is that?” Querik didn’t probe deeper to get the answer himself, he needed to remain spread through his mind, keeping note of the nuanced way the subliminal programing moved. He hadn’t lied to Jeremy when he said this was an exercise to help him build some tools to fight the anxiety, but he didn’t know the extent the human government had gone to, to make sure those fears would be ingrained deeply within his mind. He wouldn’t do the work for him, but he would help reinforce the defenses.
“It’s a box that’s locked, and the only way to unlock it is to figure out how to slide the parts of the box. It was my birthday gift, when I was eight. It took me a year to figure out how to open it. It had sixty-four moving parts, and it took a thousand and twenty-four moves to open it. In it was a figurine of a samurai, of course by that time I didn’t care about samurais anymore, but I loved that box. I hadn’t though about it in over a decade.”
“Can you open it faster now?”
“Of course.”
Querik felt as Jeremy visualized himself opening it, noting that the man’s fingers jerked with the imagined motions. He laced the motions with instructions, far more subtle that the subliminals, that would turn the visualized box into a trap for them.
“There, it’s open.”
“What is in it?”
“Nothing,” Jeremy answered after a moment of hesitation.
“Good. I want you to see the inside as being dark. As dark as you can imagine, but not only dark, also infinite.” He felt Jeremy do that and added programing to the ‘sides’ of the box to reinforce them. “It won’t matter how much of your anxieties you put in it, there will always be space for more.” He let Jeremy absorb the information as he continued to strengthened the box. “How do you lock the box?” he asked once he was done.
“I close it and do the steps in reverse.”
“Since the box is in your mind, maybe we can change that. So that it locks automatically as you close it.”
“Sure.”
“Good. The next time you feel your anxiety kicking in, I want you to open the box, grab that worry, put it in there, and close it. It won’t be able to affect you from there.” He felt his work within Jeremy’s mind, light and gossamer, but unbreakable, and then slipped out. “You can open your eyes. Can you still feel the box?” he asked, once Jeremy blinked and sat up.
“Yeah, I can. Is that really all it takes?”
“This won’t be an instant solution. Your anxieties will come back, over and over. Think of them as invaders, trying to conquer you. This is an exercise to create the habit of fighting them, instead of letting them overwhelm you.”
“I do have medication, to deal with them.”
“Yes, but medication only deals with the consequences, rather than with the attacks themselves. From what I’ve seen, your government much prefers keeping symptoms under controls, rather than eliminating the cause.” He raised a hand before Jeremy could speak. “I apologize. I don’t mean to disrespect your government. My people are warriors, even the most peaceful of us will stand and fight a problem, rather than enduring them.”
“You don’t have to worry. A lot of people on earth and the colonies feel the same. And it isn’t like we aren’t trying to find cures, it’s just that until we do, we still have to manage the condition.”
Querik nodded.
“I should head back, I haven’t eaten yet,” Jeremy said, standing. “Thanks for helping me. I hope this works.”
“I’m confident it will, and remember that whenever you need it, my counsel is available to you.”

first dream
He is standing in a field of banners. They are all around him, blocking his view, but he knows that somewhere out there, something is chasing him. He looks down and realizes that he’s holding a box. He doesn’t know where the box came from, or why he’s holding it, but he knows he can’t let go.
There’s a sound.
He spins around, trying to place where it came from. His heart is in his throat, and his legs are shaking. What is chasing him, and why? Why doesn’t he remember how he arrived among these banners.
Something rustles close by.
Jeremy can’t think, he runs, pushing banners out of his way or just going through them. He looks over his shoulder, but can’t see it. Maybe it’s not chasing him now? No. He knows it is. It’s never going to stop.
He shoves a banner out of the way and skids to a stop. There’s someone in front of him. He takes a step back, but the sound comes again, somewhere behind him, and he freezes.
The person is a kelsirian, a good head taller than him. He doesn’t look happy. His teeth are bared and claws out. He’s looking at him.
Jeremy doesn’t know what to do. 
The sound comes, it’s very close, and the kelsirian lounges at him.
* * * * *
Jeremy sat up with a jerk, and then ran for the toilet, bending over it before throwing up. After that he curled up in a ball. He had no idea what the nightmare had been about, all he remembered from it was the fear, the heart shattering fear. It took him ten minutes to be able to move off the floor. He washed his face and rinsed his mouth to get the taste out. He looked at the bed and wondered if he should risk going back to sleep. 
The clock told him it was only a few minutes after midnight. As awake as he felt right now. Once the adrenaline left him, he would be tired again. Reluctantly he crawled under the covered, and closed his eyes.