Song of the Navigator (4 page)

Now, shivering on the metal grate of his cell, Tover wondered how much of that had been a setup. Was that the information Cruz had wanted? If so, he waited long enough for it. He could have asked him those questions after their second night together. So why had it taken over a year of clandestine trysts?

Fury boiled through Tover. He had been such a fucking idiot. There were obvious gunshot wounds scarred over on Cruz's left arm, and Tover had let himself believe Cruz when he said they were from a hunting accident. Cruz told him the nasty slash across his abdomen was a result of a helicopter crash on Arland, and Tover had bought it, hook, line and sinker.

What fucking bullshit
, Tover thought, angry enough at himself to focus on the wire around his neck, focus on the pain in his cuffed wrist. He needed to remember this. This was what happened when he let himself be lured by expectation. When one was naïve enough to fantasize, imagining some day forming a whole life with a person, travelling with them, sharing experiences with them, falling in love—one deserved the harsh lesson in truth: affection was transitory.

His boredom ate at his nerves. Tover didn't do well alone. He hated the roaring mechanical sounds of the vessel, the sound of footsteps against the grates. Someone on the floor above his had the worst taste in music, and kept listening to the same Slavic dance song, full volume. A toilet somewhere in the distance ran all night. He hated the cold. He got sick of the food, as important to his recovery as it was, and his mood soured to such a point that he found it a relief to finally be led from the cell, albeit with his hands cuffed behind his back, and given a chance to view something different.

The Baroque
was a massive vessel, and Tover recalled that most barges had their cockpit not on a separate floor but rather in the actual cargo bay where navigators could switch between generating orbifolds around sections of the loading bay, or the ship. Now that
The Baroque
was welded to the rogue satellite, the amplification zone would only move goods. As Cherko jerked him down long corridors, Tover glanced around furtively, trying to remember the layout of the ship in case he had to flee on foot. They passed crew quarters and a room which stank and made Tover suspect the sanitation recycler needed replacing.

They took an industrial elevator down four floors and emerged in the prow, looking back at the enormous cargo hold of the vessel. The space was predominantly empty; a few boxes of goods lined the hull, and a single container was aft. But Tover instantly recognized the yellow demarcation line in the center of the cargo hold, surrounding several pallets of cargo flats. This line marked where the navigational speakers were set to form an orbifold. These were the goods the smugglers wanted him to move.

Cherko shoved Tover forward, and they passed along a cheap carpeted walkway to the cockpit, which was nothing more than an area of the cargo hold separated by a waist-high steel wall and full of piloting technology. The entire area tucked into the side of the space like a forgotten necessity. But it made sense for these older, inelegant shipping vessels—after all, views weren't necessary. A navigator didn't need to see.

Traditional combustion-engine ship controls filled a console that ran along one half of the wall. The other half was the navport console, complete with coordinate readout and medical cuffs.

Tover noticed the location where the navport chair would normally be was barren, only a few stripped bolts in the floor to show where the seat used to be. He glanced up. The ceiling for most of the cargo deck was voluminous, nearly too high to see, but in the cockpit section a ceiling had been welded on to contain the amplification system for the navigator.

Cherko pulled Tover to a halt in front of Savel and three other smugglers. Tover shook with the humiliation of standing naked in front of all these fully clothed men, and he avoided eye contact with Dirtbag, who reeked of vodka and had a perverted gleam to his eye. Fear dried Tover's throat, and he tried to swallow to generate moisture, but every move of his Adam's apple hurt.

Savel motioned to the navport console. “Let's start small,” he said. He pointed to the collection of pallets on the other side of the low wall. The plastic crates were dark blue and their contents a mystery. Tover tried to sense what was inside. He could detect metals—an alloy of some sort—but no specific material.

“I want you to send those boxes to our warehouse in Reeva.” Savel tapped his finger against the console, pointing to the coordinates.

Tover swallowed, trying to force saliva down his parched throat. “How the fuck…do you expect me to jump anything with this fucking wire around my throat?” he complained.

Savel smiled. “Oh, we'll take it off, once we have you nicely plugged in. Then you can't go anywhere alone, can you?”

Fuck
.

Cherko demagnified the cuffs. Tover immediately shoved his back into the man, knocking them both down. Tover scrambled to his feet. After so many days of limited movement, his balance wavered. Dirtbag grabbed his arm and twisted. Tover tried to yank free but one of the other men kicked him in the groin and Tover fell to his knees, pain radiating through him. The wire made every breath a ragged gasp. They forced him to his knees in front of the console. Cherko and Dirtbag each grabbed a hand and jerked his arms onto the console, locking him down in the wrist restraints.

Instinctively, Tover pulled his arms back, trying to break free. He couldn't, and it was with chilling realization that he understood the more nefarious purpose behind navigational “medical” cuffs. He pulled back until he broke open the scabs around his right wrist and blood covered the metal. But he couldn't get his hands out. And with his arms stretched out on the console, locked down, they all stepped back, no longer needing to restrain the rest of him. Tover kicked his legs and tried to stand but he was locked down at this uncomfortable angle where the only comfort could be found kneeling. Why the hell had they taken away the chair?

Savel gripped his hair and yanked Tover's head back, forcing Tover to stare at him. Savel looked pissed.

“Did you hear a fucking thing I've told you all week, you dumb fuck?” he hissed. He slapped Tover's face, and shock more than pain kept Tover silent. “You are outnumbered and outgunned, so do what you're fucking told. Jump that shipment.”

Savel let go, nearly slamming Tover's head into the console. Tover felt weak with fear.

Cherko moved to Tover's side, and Tover tensed, but Cherko didn't touch him. Instead he reached up and yanked down the navport helmet. It attached to the system above their heads by a wire with a great deal of tension to it. Tover collected navigational helmets and could tell by the design it was a Navamp first-generation 1200. This technology would barely be able to amplify his signal out of the nearby system, let alone another galaxy.

The helmet was in the original style, utilitarian and plain. There were plastic straps to tighten the helmet to the navigator's head, and a mouthpiece attached by an electrical cord that hung from the front. Cherko grabbed Tover by the hair and pulled the helmet over Tover's head, snapping the throat straps shut. The tension in the cable pulled the helmet up and the throat strap added pressure under Tover's chin, but it was nothing in comparison to the wire.

Tover tried to get comfortable, arms stretched out, neck pulled up, when Cherko suddenly shoved his fingers into Tover's mouth, and Tover opened in surprise. Cherko pushed the cold metal pipe of the mouthpiece down Tover's throat.

Tover gagged and fought back vomit. The icy-cold pipe tasted like rust or blood. He wondered how many other navigators had had this thing shoved down their throats, and the thought made him sick, and he fought against his building nausea. The only one who would suffer if he threw up was him. He focused on trying to breathe.

Relief came instantly as someone pulled taut the wire around Tover's throat and cut it free. He breathed through his nose and luxuriated in taking a full breath, grateful that at least this one pain was gone. He wondered what his neck looked like.

But now that the amplification tube contacted his navigational cords, any orbifold he made would form around the amplification zone, not himself. He would not be able to escape.

Tover couldn't see anything. The Navamp 1200 didn't have informational visors.

His captors let him alone, and Tover spent a minute or so trying to settle himself, relax around the pain in his wrists, the bad taste in his mouth. His groin still hurt, and the air was cold against his naked skin.

“This is very simple.” Tover recognized Savel's voice, right beside him, slightly muted by the helmet. “Move the contents of the pallet to our dock at Reeva. Do it now.”

Tover recalled the location codes and stretched out his mind, feeling for the Reeva dock. He sensed it there, its form a sensation, a space cleared amongst other shipments. He knew exactly where these crates were meant to go.

He thought of DK Station and wished he could send their contraband bullshit there instead. That would serve them right, trusting him. He would have given anything to be able to jump the cargo to the peacekeeper station, let the soldiers wonder how the hell the goods got there. Maybe they'd even be able to trace the contraband back to its source, and rescue Tover.

But Tover knew the Navamp 1200 system was too limited for a jump to DK Station. Little existed in its range, but Reeva assuredly did—clearly these pirates knew the capabilities of their own stolen ship.

But there was another peacekeeper base, not far from Reeva. A shipyard on Trinity had a fort nearby for training, and if Tover could jump the stolen goods to the base, he would not only fuck over his captors, but he would be turning in contraband goods.

For a moment, Savel's warnings echoed through him. Tover knew if he did this and they found out, he'd be fucked. Royally. But he wouldn't be their trained pet. He was a fucking navigator, and he had his pride. They had hurt him. They were going to pay.

And he knew they wouldn't kill him. It was their one weakness. No matter how much he pissed them off, he was worth too much alive.

So before he lost his nerve, Tover closed his eyes and concentrated. He sensed the crates in front of him and created an orbifold. He could feel it form around the pallets, large but trembling slightly. The amp system was weak. He hummed to keep its structure, thought of the base on Trinity, and jumped.

Instantly, he knew he failed.

The amplification was too limited for Trinity. The smugglers' goods scattered in every direction of open space, crates drifting apart into oblivion.

Oh, shit.

Silence filled the room. Tover couldn't see anything. But he heard a comm ring.

“Yeah.” Savel answered the call. “Is it there…right. Okay…
Fuck
.”

The silence lengthened. Tover tensed.

It continued. He breathed out. Maybe they didn't notice—

Someone smashed Tover's right arm with a pipe. He shrieked around the metal in his mouth. Nausea welled up his throat and he began to choke. Pain blossomed and grew, exponentially, and they smashed his elbow, breaking it, and he nearly passed out.

Tover writhed in his restraints. The pain was unlike anything he thought possible. It never leveled to a bearable volume, it kept expanding. Dazed from the agony of it, he felt them tie the wire around his throat again. He gagged. Someone jerked the pipe out of his mouth carelessly, and the edge caught the lining of his throat and tore skin. Blood filled his mouth. The light of the room blinded him, and he saw Savel's cruel grimace for a second before the man smashed a short, thick metal pipe into Tover's other outstretched arm.

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.