Song of the Navigator Read Online Free PDF Page B

with every bite he felt his strength returning. He drank gallons of water using a straw, grateful that, despite the fact that they had taken his clothes and left him for three days in this cell, Tover was getting what his body needed.
    Of course, that’s the whole point , he thought, as he ate another plate of mashed potatoes. They tasted bland, and lacked seasonings, but they were hot and full of calories.
    He’d already asked for a mattress and been refused. He asked for his right arm instead of his left, since he was right-handed, but they prohibited this as well. For three days he had been denied every comfort except food and water, but these were given to him in endless quantities. The minute he finished a plate or emptied the bucket of water, Cherko or one of the other smugglers came into his room with another helping of meat or vegetables. Clearly surveillance cameras tracked his progress.
    The calories returned his strength, but there was little he could do with it—standing hurt with his right arm cuffed to the base of the wall. And the calories helped with the cold, but he still shivered all the time. He hated being naked, so exposed amongst the men who came and went from his room. There were at least four of them working with Savel, and most ignored him, not reacting to his shouted insults as they dropped off food or exchanged his waste bucket for a clean one. But one of them smirked, and the one Tover nicknamed Dirtbag for the filthy stains on his military jacket made a grab at Tover’s crotch which had drained Tover of color and filled him with terror.
    For all he knew, they could be poisoning him, but it didn’t matter. If he wanted to escape, he needed energy. So he ate, fuelled both by the food and by the thought of revenge. He’d get out of here, then he was going to find Cruz Arcadio, wherever he was, and kill him.
    No, first he would torture him. Maybe tie a wire around his neck until he bled, see how he liked it.
    Then he would kill him.
    Because Tover was a navigator. He was the god of entire populations of people, the sole reason Harmony owned half of CTASA. He was worth more than anything else in this entire fucking universe, and he should have been worshipped. Instead, he slept on a hard metal grate and pissed in a bucket under the constant gaze of a security camera. It was humiliating and infuriating, and he spent most of his endless, bored hours those first days planning how he’d surprise Cruz, and kill him. Slowly.
    The cell door slid open.
    â€œHow you like the food?” Savel entered the room. Cherko stood behind Savel, arms crossed, blocking the doorway.
    Tover licked his fingers clean of mashed potato. “Fuck you.” It hurt to speak, the wire tight against his throat. He had to struggle for air as he talked. “I want my arm free. Where can I go? I’m locked in this fucking cell.”
    Savel shook his head. “One freedom at a time, Navigator. You have to earn your freedom. First successful jump, you’ll get your clothes back. Second jump, a mattress. Then both your hands. A blanket. Some utensils for eating. A shower, and a shave. Eventually, you’ll have your own quarters, your own wages, your own whores to fuck, you get me? All these things will be given back to you, but they must be earned. And every time you screw with us, they will all be taken away.”
    â€œYou think Harmony doesn’t notice I’m missing?” Tover wheezed. He pulled at the wire against his throat with his finger, but it didn’t budge. Blood encrusted the edge where it cut into his flesh. “They probably have the entire peacekeeper fleet looking for me. You’re fucked when they get here.”
    â€œYou think you’re home, being jerked off by corporate cocksuckers? You think some Stuurmanites are gonna rescue you?” Savel pointed at him. “You aren’t in the CTASA colonies anymore, you’re on the Jarrow satellite,