It was another two days before Sana got her "intelligence potion" brewed up. She asked him to check with Petra first; she didn't want the alien device to decide that she was poisoning him or anything. Nick wasn't quite sure how much Petra could understand of that, but he did his best. Sana told him that the "potion" effects would last roughly three hours, and that he might have something like a hangover for a day afterward.

A small price to pay, he thought.

Sana was visibly agitated when he lay down on the examination table. He wasn't sure whether it was nervousness or excitement, though. "I will watch very closely," she promised. "I hope this is very good for you."

She checked and rechecked a small cylinder in her hand. "Are you ready?"

"Go ahead. Yes, I am ready." It felt as if he were constantly rephrasing his words to head off communication failures.

"Ride the beep." She pressed the cylinder against his bicep and there was a hiss, just like in science fiction shows. "Um, that means good luck."

Nick waited, wondering how long it would be before he felt anything. "So far, so good." He watched Sana, her gaze fixed on displays showing arcane things about his body from the sensors. He smiled, looking her body up and down. Her uniform didn't show much of her red skin, but it displayed her curves very nicely when she bent over like that. Abruptly, he realized that she was doing it deliberately, and his grin widened.

Then, he shivered and felt a tingling sensation all over his body. "I'm feeling a l-l-l-l-little b-bit s-s-strange..." His jaw was trembling, and his teeth were chattering uncontrollably. "Is-s-s th-th-this-s-s sup-p-p-posed to h-h-h—?"

"Open!" Sana snapped, her hand moving towards his face. With difficulty, he forced his mouth open and she shoved something small inside. A moment later, he got an instant pressure headache as what felt like a small airbag suddenly exploded, filling his mouth completely. Before he could even start worrying about suffocating, it deflated and shrank, coating his teeth with a rubbery cushion.

The mouthguard from outer space, he mused, as his chattering no longer felt as if he were risking chipping a tooth. The pressure headache mounted in strength, though. Am I supposed to start feeling smarter soon, or what?

Nick grabbed his tablet and typed with shaking fingers, < Did you account for my medication and my depression? >

"Yes, yes, yes!" the doctor snapped. "I am not a dumbass! But I do not know what is wrong!"

< My doctor on Earth said too much of my medication causes seizures... > Petra highlighted the word she couldn't translate. Nick erased it impatiently and tried again. < ...behavior like this. Over 450 milligrams is too much. >

Sana looked at him in surprise just for a moment. "This is normal for humans?"

< Humans with too much of my medication, yes. It is unhealthy and can cause damage. > Nick was getting frustrated with how many typos he had to erase. His hands were trembling something fierce. He tried to think if he knew anything else to help the doctor figure out what was going on.

Suddenly, he remembered his pill bottle, as clearly as if it were still in his hand. He quickly read all the fine print visible, and then remembered the one time he had tried to read the whole pamphlet that came with his medication. It all came back to him, every word he had read before he gave up. A few points might be relevant, but he lacked the vocabulary to translate the concepts to Goldaskian.

Clearly the brain boost is having some positive effect. Improved recall, detailed access like someone with an eidetic memory. He struggled to type.

< It is working. Improved memory. I am smarter in some ways. >

Sana pulled her head back from an image on the display and swore abruptly. "You don't have a beep!" He could see that she was looking at anatomical scans of his brain, searching again for something that wasn't there. "Humans don't have beeps!?" He could see her mind racing as she stared at nothing for a moment, then she punched her palm.

She typed furiously for a few moments, read the result, then ran to one of the many drawers in one wall of the Sickbay. She quickly retrieved something like a hair net with attachments. With an expert twirl she tossed the thing and caught it through two holes with her index fingers. She took a step towards him, then looked at the large holes in the mesh. "No horns. Adhesive! Stay good, Nick, I am coming."

She dropped the mesh, grabbed a small tin of something and an applicator. Quickly, she painted his temples where horns would be on a Goldaskian. "Hold your fur back!" With effort, Nick reached up and pressed his hair back against his scalp, away from the adhesive. A moment later she was carefully putting the mesh on his head. "Yes, let go now."

She was carefully avoiding the glue herself, tugging on the mesh to keep it taut across his forehead for several seconds. "I can beep for your lack of a beep with back signals, to beep...to make zero signal."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Could be TCMS, trans cranial magnetic stimulation; she wants to make destructive interference with the seizure signals. Smart of her to think of that so quickly, especially as it was a surprise to her that it was needed. Nick could remember reading an popular science article about TCMS in high school, when he and his friends were curious about having drug experiences without actually doing drugs. He could remember the smell of his sneakers and the feel of his clothing. This must be what flashbacks are like, you are really reliving the past, only I know it's the past and I can pick the memory, but it's too intense, I didn't want to remember body odor along with the rest.

Pick the memory...

Nick thought back to chemistry class, the periodic table he had stared at a hundred times, and it leaped out at him from his memories. Son of a bitch! Not sure how long the effect would last, given that his reaction was abnormal, he started typing furiously. < Hydrogen helium lithium beryllium boron carbon N O F Neon Na na na > He felt his mental wheels spinning in place for a moment, and zoomed in on the memory. < Sodium Mg Al Si P S Cl Ar K potassium Ca scandium titanium vanadium!!! chromium manganese WTF is manganese iron cobalt nickel copper zinc... >

It was hard to keep his brain on one track. He focused on his memories of his college biology textbook, and the pages leaped out at him. Chromosomes! That was the fucking word. Humans have 23 pairs. His brain raced down possibilities, curious about whether Goldaskians had 23 pairs as well, what other factors... With effort, he jerked his brain out of a spiral.

Oh my God, I feel like my brain is exploding, how do smart people cope with all of this? Then again, this is likely atypical. Atypical. Wait, I've been neurotypical all my life unless depression counts. Is this what being autistic feels like?

News headlines zipped past his mind's eye. Garbage, garbage, clickbait, clickbait, clickbait...He snatched bits and pieces of information he had had no idea were there in his brain. I didn't realize we had found so many exoplanets from Earth orbit, the Arrurrans must have mapped a lot of the nearby systems remotely before we did our survey. Their science satellites must be boosting what they already knew—oh, that's why they already listed which systems they wanted the probes dropped in!

He started laughing as he finally got a joke that he had heard years back. That memory led to another joke, and another, and Nick was gigging hysterically while Sana was trying to tell him or ask him something. One part of his brain realized she wanted feedback, and he held up a hand that was no longer shaking. "Improving," he told her. "Thank you."

He rattled off a few dozen terms and their definitions for Petra to improve her English. He couldn't seem to get enough air, and after a few heaving breaths, Sana started him on supplemental oxygen. He figured out what he hated about certain TV shows, then considered the behavior patterns of the smartest people he knew back on Earth. Then he started mentally cataloging what he knew about fuak!a biology and the Ooafan biosphere.

His eyes widened and he started experimenting with his mouth, trying to make different sounds. The mouthguard got in his way some, but he thought he finally got how to make the ! sound properly. Then he realized that he wasn't saying Grrmyip's name right.

His brain would not stop racing. I've only got a limited time with this, so before I get dumb again, what do I most need to talk about or think about? If I study some text now, will I understand it better? And will I retain that understanding after this wears off? Mostly likely I'll keep all the deep comprehension I gain from now until about fifteen minutes before it wears off, because things need that long to firm up in long-term memory. Then again that's an approximation, possibly dumbed down for a popular news article, and the range is probably normally distributed with—focus, Nick! What do you most want to know, learn, and remember?

Fuck, I've been so stupid! Then again, my tutor in college told me that his favorite thing to hear from students was, "oh, I'm an idiot!" because that meant that the light bulb had just gone on. And boy, has my light bulb gone on! I never could wrap my head around that before...or that...or that...God, I hope I get to keep these insights! I should leave notes for Dumb Me. But it will break his heart if the notes aren't enough.

"Nick? How do you feel?"

Nick stared at Doctor Sana Vickall for a moment, and put together a few clues about what sexual kinks she might have. Interesting. Useful. I wonder what sex is like in this state? But I'd better not spend time on that, I have too many time-critical things to learn.

"This is amazing, Doctor, but also exhausting. I anticipate," Nick responded to the warning beep without breaking stride, "see in the future being depressed for a day or two, but I should probably wait a week before trying any other brain augmentation improvement. Actually there is an Earth fiction book called Flowers for Algernon that I wish I had read, that describes this kind of situation, a dramatic intelligence boost increase that wears off.

"We should probably discuss the modification change options for increasing my intelligence permanently. I should hold off on doing it for a while but I should learn the details now and see if I can retain keep comprehension understanding. I infer figure out or guess, that my reaction to this temporary treatment is atypical strange?"

The doctor blinked a couple of times. "Yes. It is usually not so beep large a change. I apologize, Nick, I thought I had done a full comparison of human and Goldaskian brains but I missed something that was right in front of me."

"The dog in the nighttime," Nick commented, then paused. "Oh. So that's what that means..." He shook his head. "It is easy to notice something strange, but harder to notice when something is missing not there." He tilted his head and looked at her speculatively. "Do Goldaskian brains have something like a grounding wire path to get rid of electricity, to prevent excessive too much activity?"

"That is a good beep, a good comparison but misses some beep, some important details."

"Thank you for compensating dealing with my seizure, you did that very quickly and very well."

"I'm glad. Thank you."

"Now. While I am benefiting getting help from this, please explain the brain augmentation methods, and I will take down notes that hopefully I will be able to understand tomorrow." Nick looked at Sana's expression, made a brief calculation, then reached out and grabbed the back of her neck, pulling her in for a passionate kiss. Once she was responding, he grabbed her horns and pulled her head back slightly, staring at her face. Her eyes were dilated, and she was trying very hard to hide her smile and her excitement.

"It can wait a little while," he informed her, then gave her what she wanted, as roughly as she wanted it.

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