Song of the Navigator

by Astrid Amara

  Tover’s body shuddered against his restraints. He leaned over and threw up, a mixture of his rich diet and blood, and he couldn’t help but cry now. He begged for mercy as Savel beat him, he felt his bones crush under the weight of the swings, and Savel began to shout, calling Tover a whore and shrieking profanities as he hit Tover again.

  Blackness circled the edges of his vision, and Tover mercifully lost consciousness.

  Tover fantasized he was home.

  His large white foam bed and plush duvet was warm, and artificial starlight shone from the false windows of his Oasis suite. An oily sensation lingered in his gut, but the warm room felt nice.

  Something black corroded the edges of this memory, but he didn’t focus on it. He focused on the feel of body-warmed cotton sheets beneath his bare leg, the pocket of heat under the blanket, where his hand rested.

  Blackness coiled in from the edges and blotted the vision. A distant pain seemed to call to him. Something hurt, but it was far away. Not connected to him, although it began to pulse so badly even he could feel it, even though it belonged to someone else…

  The room was freezing now, but his bed was still his. He clenched his eyes shut. He wanted to keep sleeping. He begged himself to keep sleeping. But the pain grew so big it filled the room, turned everything black and shaky.

  Tover opened his eyes.

  Pain screamed through his body, and he writhed in agony. He was alone, in his cell again. His wrists weren’t cuffed to the wall but they didn’t need to be.

  Tover’s face felt heavy, the skin stretched. He tentatively bent his head to brush his cheek against his shoulder, and felt his jaw was several times its normal size and his left eye swelled shut. His nose felt broken.

  But his arms. They hung limp at his sides, swollen and misshapen, pitiful things. The warped shape of them, the blackened bruising, it made him sick, and he nearly vomited again.

  When they had first thrown him in this cell, Tover had promised himself he wouldn’t cry. But he wept at the sight of his arms, destroyed in front of him. He felt like he’d cried all night but no one came, and no one answered his pleas for water.

  He willed himself back asleep, but the pain was too much so he lay there, trying to focus on something else.

  Cruz’s face. That little smile he had. It had been so charming. Tover imagined killing him. Dirtbag interrupted his dark fantasy, laughing as Tover tried to pull away from him. He dropped a plate of food beside Tover and a jar of water. Tover tried to sip from the straw but his lips were swollen and it hurt to swallow. He lay there, feeling sorry for himself for a long time, and they left him alone. They didn’t bother feeding him again, although another day passed. The small cell stank of his sweat, waste, and blood.

  He had to think of pleasant thoughts.

  Cruz’s smile, the look in his eyes as he came…

  No. Tover had lost those fond memories too. Cruz could no longer be his fantasy, not when he was the reason Tover lay there.

  He thought about his aviary instead. It was the only image he could conjure that brought any sense of peace. He focused on his birds, cataloguing his species: green-cheeked conures and gloster consort canaries, white-bellied caiques and grand eclectus parrots. He drilled himself on their scientific classification. Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata, Class Aves, Order Psittaciformes… He detailed their habitats and diets, he thought hard about their colorations and birdsong. Any time his mind wandered, it drifted to his pain, like a moth to flame, so he forced himself back to the beginning. Animalia, Chordata, Aves, Psittaciformes, Psittacidae, Psittacini, Psittacus, P. Erithacus…

  At some point he fell asleep and was woken abruptly with a kick. He sobbed into the floor, terrified of being moved. Cherko leaned over Tover’s curled body and hauled him up, and Tover cried out as the man cruelly touched his arm.

  He was dragged into a bay of shower stalls and hosed off with cold water. He shuddered on the floor, eyes clenched.

  Animalia, Chordata, Aves, Piciformes, Ramphastidae, Ramphastos brevis…

  Cherko shoved him into a narrow, brightly lit room. The layout of medical beds and equipment suggested he was in the ship’s infirmary, but the place looked stripped of all but essentials. Tover recognized the white plastic box in the corner, the contours of a medical bone knitter, but the realization of what was about to happen didn’t sink in until Cherko pushed him inside.

  For a moment, Tover felt absolute, pure relief. Bone knitters repaired broken bones, torn ligaments and internal injuries. They were going to heal him.

  And then as Cherko strapped him down, and Tover glanced around and saw no anesthetic, he understood they were going to reknit his bones while he was still conscious.

  Pure terror seized him, and he tried to break free of the restraints, heedless of his broken limbs.

  Savel leaned over the plastic edge of the box, looking displeased as he turned on the scanner.

  Tover panted in fear. Knitters were brilliant devices when it came to bonding broken bones but you were supposed to be unconscious, because they did nothing for nerve damage, and everyone knew they hurt like a motherfucker unless you were out cold.

  “No! Please! No!” Tover screamed.

  “Remember how this feels,” Savel told him. He shut the clear plastic lid of the box, trapping Tover inside.

  Long ago, as a teenager, Tover had broken a toe playing soccer with other navigational trainees. After being put in a bone knitter he’d been amazed by the technology, but also curious about how it would feel to be awake during the procedure.

  Now he knew how it felt. The moment the engine switched on he writhed and screamed until his voice was gone, the pain bright and hot and all-consuming. It felt like burning alive, and deep within that pain, shattering moments as bones shifted and snapped back together.

  When Savel reopened the knitter, Tover sobbed, hysterical, and despite himself he promised Savel he’d do anything, anything they wanted, to please just make it stop.

  Savel unfastened the straps, and Cherko leaned in behind him to haul Tover out. Tover’s bones had rebonded but the repair was fragile, and it would take weeks to fully heal. His skin was still swollen and the nerves damaged, so when Cherko reached for his arm Tover instinctively recoiled, pain shooting through his body.

  “Time to work,” Savel said.

  “No, please! Please give me…a moment…”

  Cherko roughly shoved Tover ahead of him, back to the navport in the ship cargo hold. On his knees in front of the console, Tover had to choke back his tears and concentrate on not blacking out from the pain as they yanked his barely healed arms into the port cuffs, and he let them hook on the helmet and stick the pipe in his throat again. Tover made a horrible gagging noise and couldn’t breathe. They cut the wire, but it didn’t matter. Fear made him vomit, and he choked until Savel barked something, and Cherko pulled the helmet off.

  Tover threw up on the console.

  “You’ll clean this up later,” Savel told him. He nodded to Cherko, who once again replaced the helmet. Tover pulled back, his throat constricting against the invasion.

  The pain burned down his throat.

  “In front of you are three boxes. I want you to take them to the following coordinates…”

  Tover tried to concentrate, his consciousness fading in and out. He was so scared his teeth chattered against the pipe in his mouth. His whole body shook.

  “You hear me, you little fuck?” Savel yelled. The helmet muted some of the anger in his tone. Savel repeated the coordinates, and Tover listened carefully. He would do whatever they asked. He couldn’t get in that knitter again. He couldn’t.

  Without thinking about anything, he closed his eyes and hummed. His throat ached with it, and he felt his orbifold manifest and collapse, repeatedly, as his navigational cords struggled for the right vibration.

  Once he had a ti
ght orbifold around the small pallet of goods, he quickly jumped it. He sagged against the helmet strap and the pipe, exhausted beyond anything else.

  Cherko yanked free the pipe. As soon as the helmet was off, Savel retied the restraint wire around his neck and patted Tover’s head.

  “Good dog,” Savel said.

  Tover closed his eyes and wept.

  Chapter Four

  “What do I get if I win?”

  Cruz smiled mischievously as he kicked the soccer ball in a zigzagging pattern, searching for a gap in Tover’s defenses.

  Tover breathed hard, hands on his knees, but he grinned. His body ached with that serotonin-rich sensation of exercise for pure pleasure. His shoes squeaked against the hotel’s gym floor. The room wasn’t designed for soccer, but when Tover reserved the space for his own purposes that afternoon, Oasis staff had been accommodating, going so far as to erect a makeshift goal.

  Cruz’s almond skin glistened with sweat. At some point he’d taken off his shirt, and now Tover found himself distracted by the sight of that muscled torso, flexing and bending, as his lover looked for the advantage in sinking the ball.

  “You get the galaxy’s best blow job,” Tover promised, and Cruz’s laugh bounced off the gym walls, and his eyes sparkled. He kicked the ball hard, but Tover could sense where the ball headed and he blocked it in time.

  Cruz shook his head. “No fair using your superpowers,” he complained. Tover kicked the ball back to Cruz and wiped sweat from his forehead.

  “What do I get if I win?” Tover asked.

  Cruz didn’t hesitate. “I’ll fuck you so hard you won’t be able to stand for a week.”

  Desire flooded Tover’s body, and he shuddered in expectation. Despite the fact that they had screwed only two hours before, his cock twitched in his shorts. Cruz smiled, brushed back his black hair with his hand, then put his hand down the front of his own shorts.

  Tover watched, excited, wondering what he’d do next.

  Cruz kicked the ball, and Tover, distracted, missed it. The ball shot into the goal and Cruz raised his arms in triumph.

  “Ha ha! Blow job!”

  Tover shook his head. “That was cheating.”

  “I can’t help it if you’re easily distracted.” Cruz grinned.

  Tover approached Cruz, and his heart did a little flip as Cruz pulled him in the rest of the way, kissing him deeply, his body sweaty and musky, heat radiating from him in delicious invitation. They kissed for a long time.

  “Do you have time for a rematch or do I need to get to your prize right now?” Tover asked.

  Cruz sighed. “I need to be at customs in an hour. My ship leaves on the next pulse.”

  Tover pulled away, looking for his sweat towel. He felt disappointment building inside of him. Even though these were only flings—pure sex, nothing more—he found it harder and harder to say goodbye every time Cruz left. Tover would simply have to deal. It wasn’t like Cruz would stay on the station for him.

  Not for the first time, Tover considered asking Cruz to go with him on vacation. Tover had hundreds of vacation hours saved up, but he found he disliked travelling alone, and he had quickly tired of the company he’d brought on previous trips.

  But he knew he wouldn’t get sick of Cruz’s companionship. Cruz’s mysterious silences were a welcome reprieve from the lovers who had talked incessantly.

  Nevertheless, Tover didn’t ask Cruz. He was afraid the answer would be no, and Tover’s ego would bruise badly from it. It was better to wait, and make sure Cruz would say yes, before he exposed himself like that.

  So they took a shower, and Tover gave Cruz his winning blow job, and they talked about Tover’s newest bird shipping in from a wildlife park on Greater Arland. Tover had casually asked Cruz when he thought he’d be back.

  “I’m not sure.” He always said that. Cruz reached down and cradled Tover’s genitals in his hands. He looked into Tover’s eyes. “I’m trying to get the Carida contract,” Cruz had said. “If I do, I’ll have to travel at least once a week.”

  Tover smiled at that, and Cruz smiled back. Cruz had rested his forehead against Tover’s, and something lurched in Tover’s chest again. How the hell was he supposed to sit around and wait for this feeling indefinitely?

  Cruz kissed him, then let go of Tover’s balls, and quickly dressed. Tover busied himself, ordering a lavish meal for one to be brought up to his aviary. He kissed Cruz once more and waved goodbye. He didn’t like waiting at the door when Cruz left.

  But as Tover sat in his birdcage, listening to the sounds of his beloved pets, he couldn’t help but wonder why he never followed Cruz to the door when he departed. He suspected it was fear—fear that he would ask Cruz to stay. And what a mistake that would have been.

  Tover stared at the ripples of brown stains on his mattress, trying to block the feelings associated with that memory.

  But they came back, always. He kept reliving that last visit over and over, despite the fact that it was a lifetime ago, and he had been a different person.

  Details about his penthouse suite, the people he worked with, even the artwork on his own walls, were fading. It felt like a year had passed since his sale into slavery, so he had been shocked when he saw one of the smugglers reading an e-paper in the cockpit and noted the date. It had only been three weeks since his birthday. Yet parts of his old life were already slipping from memory.

  But not Cruz’s face. Not that smile.

  Tover forced himself to purge Cruz from his memory. He needed to look at the oily markings on his bed and remember that he had shed tears of joy when they had given him this old, smelly mattress, and when they had dressed him. His leather pants were long gone—his current ensemble was a synthetic blue material with an elastic waistband that looked like prison clothes from some colony.

  It didn’t matter, because he had been grateful for these as well, and the man Tover was now, a man who jumped contraband goods for criminals in exchange for the use of both his hands didn’t deserve to be thinking about the past. That person was dead.

  He used to be someone respected. Now he was nothing more than a tool to be used and tossed. This was made clear by Cherko’s brutal treatment with the helmet. Gull had such a gentle touch, a smooth way of helping the helmet throat pipe connect to the navigational cords, which made plugging into the amplification system effortless. Tover had never noticed the invasive nature of the helmet until now. But the malice with which Cherko shoved the pipe down Tover’s throat frightened him, to the point that he gagged every time.

  Tover turned over on his mattress, trying to get comfortable. He wanted to purge his mind.

  Because thoughts of home led to thoughts of escape, and he knew that was hopeless after two failed attempts to flee.

  The first time had been after a day of several shipments, and Savel had seemed unusually grateful for Tover’s work and had given Tover a pocket-sized electronic magazine to take back to his cell.

  As soon as he was alone, Tover turned his back to the security camera and smashed the magazine display, examining the microchip for parts he could use to hotwire an escape.

  But he had been a fool. He only knew how to rewire a navigational console. He deluded himself, thinking he could break free of this cell with a simple electronic device.

  He remembered Cruz saying he’d been in the prison block of DK Station. Somehow, Cruz had broken loose from a facility far more secure and armed than this one.

  But Cruz was a trained terrorist, one of the bad guys. Of course he knew how to break out of prison. Tover, on the other hand, had never purposefully broken a single law, other than the fact that he had sexual encounters with men. And that wasn’t illegal, it was merely frowned upon amongst Harmony executive culture. It wouldn’t land him in jail, only on the Harmony Board of Directors’ shit list.

  Was that why his rescue was so
slow?

  He shook his head. The very idea was absurd. Forty-two total improvisational navigators in the entire universe… Harmony wouldn’t abandon him because of his predilection for anal sex.

  He wished he could be noble and kill himself like the heroes in old telecasts. If he couldn’t take the torture, he should die for his principles.

  But Tover didn’t want to die. He didn’t like the options for how he would die. He simply wanted to go home, go back to his old life.

  His second effort to escape was more effective. He had surprised Dirtbag and the sickly looking smuggler as they led him back to his cell. He headbutted Dirtbag and yanked himself out of the other man’s grasp and dashed up the stairs.

  He had managed to get all the way to the top floor before Cherko caught up with him. His escape attempt had lasted only minutes, but the punishment for it had stretched over days. And when Tover was finally left alone, his cell stripped of the few comforts he’d previously earned, he knew he could no longer delude himself into believing he could simply go back to his old life.

  Because what the men had done to him had forever changed him. He would never be the same person he was before he had arrived on this satellite. Until that moment, he might have recovered. If he had been rescued, or escaped, he would have moved on, and his life could have resumed as normal—perhaps he wouldn’t ever trust a lover again, but at least he would have a chance at happiness once more.

  Now there was no going back. He was a broken man, and since he wasn’t the same person anymore, he abandoned his hope of resuming the life he once took for granted, and jettisoned his delusions of being the kind of man who would rather die than give in, and just gave in. It was easier. It hurt less, and it didn’t matter. Improvisational Navigator Tover Duke was dead.

  So he stared at the stains on his mattress and purged that last, sweet memory of Cruz’s kiss from his mind. Never again would he indulge in such traitorous fantasies.