Free Shattered Sun (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 3) by Michael Wallace

his own addiction, and would have done so if not for a shortage of the antidote. The labs were producing it as fast as they could, but he’d decreed that those with the most crippling addictions would get the antidote first, and he refrained from cutting in line. Finally, it was his turn.
    The night before he was to swallow his caplet, he sat on his bed, a triple ration of sugar heaped on a piece of paper in front of him. He’d been hooked on it since human slavers raided his home world when he was a Hroomling. The humans had been driven off, the slaves freed, but Mose Dryz and many others were left addicted.
    Ferocious self-control kept the addiction at bay throughout his youth and career, and the cravings, while intense, didn’t rise to the level of screaming panic, as they did in many others. It was foolish to let his restraint slip now, but surely even tripling his dosage wouldn’t be enough to stop the antidote. Meanwhile, he wanted to feel it, needed to swoon like nothing he’d ever needed in his life. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have the courage to swallow the caplet.
    He hesitated one last moment, but a temptation, once succumbed to, could not be denied. He carefully folded the edges of the paper into a funnel, lifted it, and poured the sugar into his mouth. There was a moment where the sweet taste lingered on his tongue, and then a glorious, expanding sensation filled his head.
    In moments, the swoon would carry him away to unthinking bliss, and this time would be more intense than ever, but there were always twenty or thirty seconds where he was alert but floating. He could sense things outside his body, feel the pulse of the stars carry him into a universe that was both endless and smaller than his consciousness.
    This time, a thought came unbidden into his head, as if whispered there by Elyot Kar, the god of higher consciousness.
    Mose Dryz, why did you delay?
    “I sensed danger. It saved my fleet.”
    You turned back toward Albion.  
    “I knew there was danger from the humans.”
    And why have you kept your encounter with the birds a secret? They captured you, spit in your mouth, yet you have told no one.  
    The general tried to answer the unseen voice, but he could not respond. He couldn’t even explain why he himself hadn’t asked the same question before. It had never occurred to him. How strange.
    Never before had a discordant element entered his mind after taking sugar. Normally, it was pure, mind-expanding bliss. But this time he was squirming with discomfort. It only lasted seconds, and then the swoon carried him away, deeper, richer, and sweeter than ever.
    But when Mose Dryz emerged on the other side, he knew. The brightly colored bird had spit in his mouth. Some substance had entered his blood and migrated to his brain, where it influenced his behavior. He was repulsed and terrified.
    Sugar. That was the key. A small dose, taken with extreme control. The drug burned its own circuits in his brain, and when he took it, he could control the urges to obey the whispered commands of his enemy. Could even trick the queen commander, as he had when he’d dropped down to the planet to speak to her in person.
    He’d lied, knowing she’d never suspect deceit from a Hroom.
    Ak Ik had given him a vial of liquid to feed to Admiral Drake. A version of the mind control substance, except tailored for the human brain instead of the Hroom. He still had the vial in his possession, but only so he could hand it over for study. The human scientists were clever; they’d break it down and use it against Apex.
    But now, looking at the worried face of the colonel, and the suspicion and religiously induced hostility on the priestess’s, he didn’t see how he could explain it to them.
    Don’t worry about me. I’ve only been infected by mind-control saliva. I kept the fleet out of action when the birds were destroying our people, but I’m better now. Sugar, that’s how I do it.  
    Instead, he said, “I prayed to