Song of the Navigator (13 page)

The marshy lands seemed to dip down into a steep valley on one side of the road, but on the other side Tover could see the Harmony base. It was hard to determine its distance, given its enormity—the translucent shell around the structure towered over the landscape and seemed to stretch into the upper atmosphere of Carida.

“Shit!” Cruz slammed on the brakes and Tover flew forward, barely bracing himself before hitting his head against the dash. Cruz yanked the nave right, straight into the slushy marsh by the side of the road.

“Lay down, hurry!” Cruz hissed.

Tover saw another nave heading toward them. Nothing about it seemed particularly sinister, but the panic in Cruz's expression was enough to convince Tover to follow along. He lay flat on the bench seat of the nave.

Cruz climbed on top of him.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Tover cried.

“Shut up. Kiss me,” Cruz demanded.

Before Tover could respond, Cruz leaned down and kissed him. Tover's voiced protest was muffled beneath Cruz's lips. He struggled and tried to resist but Cruz was stronger, he pinned Tover with his body. Tover felt Cruz along the length of him, the hot press of Cruz's groin against his thigh. Cruz slid one leg between Tover's, and against Tover's wishes, his body began to respond.

Cruz's arms were trembling as he covered Tover with his body, something Tover had never noticed him do before. Tover opened his eyes and looked at Cruz as they kissed. Cruz looked afraid.

Tover heard the crush of rocks under the tires of the nave. It sounded as though the other vehicle stopped on the road beside theirs.

“Is that you, Arcadio?” someone yelled.

Cruz intensified their kiss, pushing his tongue against Tover's mouth until he opened. Tover let go and was surprised by the relief he felt as he let Cruz inside.
Too long,
he thought.
I've waited too long for a kiss…

“Arcadio!” the man yelled.

Cruz broke their kiss and glanced up, lips swollen, looking a little stunned. He hovered over Tover, concealing him from sight.

“Go away,” Cruz growled at the man. “I'm busy.”

“Who you got there?” the other man asked.

Cruz grinned lasciviously. “Just a fuck.”

“Pervert,” the man mumbled. “You screw every guy you meet?”

“Haven't done you yet, Peres. Want to try? I can make it feel good.”

The other man made a groan. “You sick bastard. I'll see you tonight. Tony and Leah are up the road, say hi to them.”

Cruz gave a quick wave then kissed Tover again. Only once the tires could no longer be heard did Cruz stop. His left hand had curled around the butt of his pistol.

“He's gone?” Tover whispered hoarsely.

“Yeah.” Cruz seemed to sag a little. He rested his head on Tover's shoulder.

“He's gone,” Tover said again, a little more angrily.

Cruz let go of Tover. As he sat back up on the bench seat Tover could see the pronounced bulge in Cruz's pants. He glanced down and saw his own thin trousers did a poor job of hiding his own reaction. He turned from Cruz, embarrassed that his body forgot who his true enemies were.

“We can't go to the base now.” Cruz ran a hand over his face. “Tony is too close to Ramirez and will question us being alone. We'll have to try again another time.”

Tover's heart raced in his chest. The idea of being caught again by anyone, especially the enemy Pulmon Verde, terrified him.

“I'm sorry that didn't work out.” Cruz cleared his throat. “We'll have other chances. I'm winning my argument with los jefes, that it would be better for you to become part of the movement than sold for the profit.”

“Wow. Great. Thanks so much,” Tover said bitterly.

“Sorry. It's not much, I know, but if I can get you rights as an activist on our side, we can stop the patrols and get you to the base.”

Tover nodded, feeling stunned and scared and disappointed, all at once. Freedom was right over that marshy plain, close enough to touch.

“Is there something I can do, to help you navigate?” Cruz asked.

Tover's hand reached toward his throat. “No.”

“What if we fed you a lot, made you big and fat before you jumped?” Cruz had a small smile on his face.

“Fattening me up isn't the issue.”

“They hurt you. When they made you jump.” Cruz stated it, not a question.

Nausea welled through Tover. He nodded.

To Tover's surprise, Cruz threw his arm around Tover's shoulder and gave him an awkward hug. “I know you'll get over it. You're one of the cockiest men I've ever met. As soon as you remember how amazing you are, you'll forget about those fuckers on Jarrow and recall all the great things you have done.”

Tover stared at his boots, feeling choked with emotion.

Cruz pulled his arm free, but not before giving Tover's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. His touch burned through Tover, reigniting his traitorous burn of arousal.

Cruz stepped from the vehicle. “Come on, let's go for that walk,” he said. “Up ahead a hundred meters or so is a beautiful valley. Let's look.” He pulled on his sunglasses and started walking toward the rocks.

Behind him, Tover saw the glistening dome of the Harmony base. He wanted to tell Cruz that he didn't need a peaceful place to return his self-confidence and abilities. He only needed to be safe.

But as Tover turned away from the Harmony Base, safety once again slipped out of reach.

Tover followed Cruz through knee-high marsh grasses into a large area populated with palms and flowering joy perfume trees. The air smelled incredibly sweet and fragrant, so strong it overpowered any sourness to the air.

It felt good to walk a difficult trail and to work his muscles harder. He eavesdropped as Cruz called home to check in and make sure Feo remained preoccupied.

The land tilted downward and looked as though it dropped off a steep precipice into a valley of rolling hills, each covered in a dense mat of trees and vines. Beneath Tover's feet, he felt movement and glanced down in time to see a small, aquatic frog leap up and out of the way.

As they approached the edge, a sound like a vessel landing filled Tover's ears and the sky darkened. He glanced up, surprised he hadn't been able to sense the presence of a ship.

Instead, he saw all light blotted out by an extraordinary flock of birds. There were thousands upon thousands of them, flying not so much in formation as in a massive cloud, screeching at each other with such harmony it formed a single noise, wavering but consistent in pitch.

Tover stared, stunned. He'd never imagined so many wild birds in one place at one time. They darkened the sky from horizon to horizon. Minutes passed and light remained blackened by their fast-flapping, massive red bodies. They were not sleek but rather bulbous, heavy in the air, and they soared with bursts of strong, rhythmic wing beats followed with a long, level glide toward the rocky valley before them.

Tover could not make out any distinction of the birds, as high as they were, but he could determine they were large, and every one of them a brilliant scarlet color that burst against the green sky like shining jewels.

The birds en masse plunged down into the ravine ahead of Tover and Cruz with a raucous screech. Cruz, who had spent the entire incredible incident reading something on his wrist pad, switched off his call and fumbled in his back pocket for a water packet.

“What…” Tover was breathless. “What was that?”

Cruz glanced up at the sky, squinting, as if he hadn't even noticed. “Those birds?”

“Yeah, those birds!”

“A flock of ruby hornbills.”

Tover stared at the trailing end of the flock, amazed. He'd never even heard of a species flocking together in the thousands.

Tover stared until Cruz snorted beside him. He looked at Cruz. “What?”

“That's the first time you've smiled in over a month.” Cruz smiled back. “You used to smile all the time.”

Tover realized he
was
smiling, grinning madly in fact. “It's the first thing worth smiling about. They're absolutely beautiful.” Tover climbed to the ledge to follow their line of flight. He spotted bright flashes of red plumage on the nearby rocks. Bundles of blue-green algae-like material seemed to spill from beneath their dark feet, and Tover suspected this was their nesting grounds. He started toward them.

“Whoa.” Cruz grabbed Tover's shoulder. “Be careful. The ground is uneven and it's a long fall to the bottom.”

Tover reached for an outcropping covered in moss to balance himself, then pulled himself over the ledge.

“You sure your knees are up to this?” Cruz asked, following Tover down the ledge.

“Do they live all over Carida or only here?” Tover asked.

Cruz frowned. “I'm not sure. I think they're found throughout the north but they seem to gather mostly in this valley.”

“What do they eat?” Tover's foot slid on loose rock and Cruz reached out to steady him, although Tover's hold on the ledge was secure enough without the support. “I'm fine,” he said.

Cruz shook his head. “If you fall I'm going to be upset.”

“Too bad,” Tover complained. “I want to get closer.” Cruz didn't stop Tover as he carefully made his way down the cliff. It wasn't a straight drop as he had initially assumed. The ground sloped at an angle and he could descend with care.

Toward the bottom of the valley, Tover found hundreds of nests. Although they were predominantly on rocky outcroppings, several birds had theirs on the sloping ground, which suggested to Tover that they had few natural predators.

The birds watched as he approached but didn't take flight, so he moved slowly and sat down on a nearby rock, going very still. He paused a few feet from the nearest nest. He could see the birds up close now, and they were tremendous. They clearly got their name from their ridiculous beaks. Long and curved down at the peak, the beaks were a shocking pink in color. A knobby, yellowish protrusion between the eyes took up almost the same length as the beak. The birds' feathers were bright, ruby red.

Tover's presence caused a few cautious glances, but the nesting birds grew accustomed to him after a time and settled down over their blue-green nests of algae.

There were two birds per nest, both perched over an individual egg, the color of which perfectly blended with the blue-green algae. They called to each other in trilling coos, and in the distance, Tover saw more of the massive flock, calling out and circling and resettling themselves throughout the large valley.

It was a birder's paradise, and Tover remained entranced, losing track of time. He watched the pairs closely and marveled that such heavy, unwieldy bodies could take flight with such limited take-off space. As light began to fade behind the steep ledges, more birds departed their nests and circled out of the valley to fly low over the surrounding marshlands, as if searching for food.

Tover stayed.

After the final bird in his vicinity left her nest, Tover stretched up his arms and looked into the hazy sky. The light was almost gone, they'd been there for some time. Tover glanced around, feeling slightly guilty. Cruz must have been bored out of his mind.

Bitterness crept into his thoughts.
Who cares if he's bored? I was fucking
tortured
.

Still, Tover looked for him, climbing carefully. His legs shook with exhaustion and his knees ached from sitting still for so long.

He climbed halfway up the hill but couldn't see Cruz, and a hint of fear shivered through him. What if he had been abandoned again?

But as he rounded a large, moss-coated rock, he spotted Cruz, feet dangling over a precarious ledge, talking in Spanish with someone on his wristpad, thoughtlessly tossing pebbles and loose bits of moss over the ledge.

He looked more relaxed than Tover had ever seen him. This was the
real
Cruz Arcadio, the one he had never known. This wasn't the spy breathing poisonous air and trying to blend in at Harmony corporate parties or the hardened, stony-faced soldier on Jarrow. This was a man at home in the lush, toxic wild, dark, loose pants and a light shirt, hair blowing in the constant breeze of the planet's surface.

Tover cleared his throat and Cruz spun to face him. Cruz's mouth curled into an angelic smile, lighting his face.

“I'll see you later,” Cruz said into his wristpad. He stroked it to cancel the call.

“Boyfriend?” Tover asked, unable to hide his resentment.

Cruz stood and wiped loose algae from his trousers. “Mother. She wants to know when we're coming home.”

“How late is it?” Tover glanced at the sky but still couldn't tell the passage of time based on the thick light. The world itself seemed shrouded in gauze.

Cruz glanced at his wristpad. “We've been gone five hours. Feo called an hour ago to make sure you hadn't killed me, but didn't seem concerned enough to summon us back.”

“Five hours?” Tover knew they'd been out a while but had no idea he'd been in such a bird-trance for so long. “Sorry. I guess I got carried away.”

“I don't care.” Cruz put his hand on the base of Tover's back and helped him over some rough rocks as they climbed out of the valley. “It's nice to see you happy.”

“I'd like to come back, if I can,” Tover asked. “I want to bring a wristpad or recorder so I can document some of what I'm seeing.”

“Sure. Document all you like. They'll all be dead in thirteen months, so you better get it while you can.”

Tover's stomach dropped. “What did you say?”

Cruz shrugged. “Humans aren't going to be the only victims of the terraforming.” He frowned. “What did you think would happen to all the wildlife on this planet? Ruby hornbills breathe carbon dioxide like I do. Everything that is living on this planet now is going to die.”