The navigator, p.2
The Navigator, page 2
Something dug into Petal's side. She reached back and pulled a pistol out of her waistband. She set it down next to Junk, who mumbled something while dreaming.
Petal watched the waves crash on the beach and tried to drift off to the white noise. When she closed her eyes, she returned to a familiar vision. She was naked and everything around her was covered in snow. The white powder burned her skin and stung her eyes. The sky above her glistened with a painted sunset. The sparkling ice reflected the dusk in a brilliant orange, as the wind howled harder than a hurricane.
Petal was back in the hidden land where the snow kissed the sky, and the ice twinkled in tune with the stars.
- 4 -
Naris's ship continued to rise and fall with the ocean. The water had grown peaceful during the night, but the swells returned with the break of dawn.
Quill was still at the bow, watching the waves smash against the bulkheads. The sea looked pink under the morning sky. The sun had barely risen over the horizon. She peered down her telescope. The instrument was inlaid with gold. Her name was engraved on a placard near the eyepiece. It was a rare and expensive piece of Hesperian craftsmanship. She'd stolen it from the Academy, just before her expulsion.
At the moment, she had the telescope trained on Torfu, a dot of swirling red and yellow gas that lay just to the left of the rising sun. The gas giant was the morning star, the first navigational marker she'd been taught to remember.
Quill squinted at the speck through the long telescope. She pictured what Torfu must look like up close from space - its brilliant, billowing red atmosphere - its Ea-sized storm clouds - its unimaginable gravity that pulverized entire moons into space dust.
As she became mesmerized by the faraway orb, she heard footsteps on the deck behind her.
Giles was peering over her shoulder. Annoyance and contempt twisted his bulldoggish face. He was using his arm to coil a thick length of yellow naval rope.
"Sea's been gettin' choppier." Giles spat off the bow and scratched his scalp. "Bet we've been drifting back, into the squall."
Quill lowered the telescope.
"We're passing the current line. This is where the Northern Current circles the Kanya Lull. The waves will settle down after we pass through. The fallen star should be in the Lull, where the water is calmer."
"We shall see dry foot. We shall see. . ."
Quill rolled her eyes. "See that star up there, a little to the left of the sun? That's a planet, Torfu. It's twenty-eight degrees from the horizon - one finger-width and rising. That means we're on course, we're not drifting."
"I don't need you to teach me about planets," Giles scoffed. "I grew up watching the sky. Sea people know every speck up there by memory. We spend our childhood counting stars, instead of climbing trees and playing in mud."
Quill tried to ignore him.
After a few moments, the boat began to settle. The bow stopped bobbing up and down.
Quill turned back to Giles with a wry smile.
"Why is it so hard for you to believe that I could be good at my job? Because I'm from land or because I'm a woman?"
"A woman? What are you, twenty-two, maybe? That's a good ten years from being a real woman. But no, not really. We could have hired an experienced hand to guide us. One the whole crew trusted. Instead we're stuck with a runaway. A junky."
Quill wrinkled her face. She flashed Giles the finger.
Giles laughed off her reaction. "And why should I trust a dry foot to guide me across the ocean? Because she went to some fancy academy? Because she can point out a planet?" He leaned in closer. "Because my captain is screwing her?"
"I know what I'm doing, and I'm doing a good job." Quill trained her telescope on the horizon. "At least Naris can see that. . .and he's the one paying me."
"You get us to the damn thing, you brag all you want, dry foot." Giles began to walk back to the wheelhouse. "Till then, don't talk about how good of a job you're doing."
Quill scanned the ocean's surface. After a few minutes, she saw something twinkle to starboard. At first, she wasn't sure if it was a wave or a piece of debris, but as she looked closer, it came into focus - a grayish glint in the churning blue.
"Giles!"
Giles poked his head out of the wheelhouse door. "The fuck now?"
"I can see something, up there." Quill waved him over.
Giles plodded up next to Quill. She handed him the long telescope and he peered down the eyepiece.
"Right below the horizon – see it bobbing up and down?"
Quill strained to make out the far-off object with her naked eye. It blended in with the glare of the sun shimmering off the water.
Giles watched the grayish cylinder roll with the waves several miles ahead of them.
"I see something. . .could just be flotsam or a raft. . .too far to tell."
"The fallen star, maybe?"
"Fuck if I know." Giles handed the telescope back to her.
Quill folded it up. "So you don't know what we're looking for either, then?"
"Get Naris to take a look at it. He's down in the galley. I'll take us closer." Giles scurried back to the wheelhouse.
Quill hurried down the stairwell. The inside of the ship was dark and musty. Her eyes took their time adjusting. She fumbled her way down to the very bottom of the hull.
While Naris's ship had a twelve-man crew, most of its interior wasn't devoted to comfort - it was stuffed with provisions, ammo, and looted cargo. The mess, where the crew came to eat and relax, was a cramped little corner of squat tables and wooden chairs that had been nailed down into the bulkheads. Every free inch of legroom and overhead had something shoved into it.
The galley lay just next to the mess. It was a tiny nook, lined with dirty pots and rusty pans.
Naris was standing next to one of the burners, stirring buttered shrimp into a pot of simmering rice for a seaman's breakfast. He barely reacted as Quill came up behind him.
Quill put her arms around Naris's waist. She stood on her tiptoes to peek past Naris, into the pot. She watched the water bubble and boil.
"I spotted something."
Naris switched off the heat. "You found it, did you?"
"Dunno, but there's something strange floating in the water."
A huge smile pulled Naris's face taut. He reached over and gave Quill a quick kiss.
"Then you did great - led us straight as an arrow. If only those pricks at the Academy could see you now. They'd be begging for you to come back to Kudu."
Quill tried to force a smile. Inside, the mention made her feel hollow. She sank into herself and backed away, inching toward the stairwell.
"Where are you going?" Naris snatched his jacket off a nearby table.
"Going to help haul it in."
"Why don't you stay inside?"
"Why?"
"You've been topside all morning, choking on spray. Go lie down in my cabin and get some sleep. The rest will help keep you beautiful." Naris licked his lips. "Besides, got enough big lugs around here to do the heavy lifting. What help would you be with these brittle star arms?"
Naris grabbed Quill's left arm and gave it a teasing jiggle.
Quill looked unconvinced. She pulled away from him.
"I'll come get you when we bring it aboard; if you're so curious. Don't worry." He squeezed his way past Quill. "You'll get a good look at it. I promise."
- 5 -
Quill plopped down in her seat and pulled out her thick binder. She was sitting in a four-hundred student lecture hall, in Hannan Auditorium. Professor Qutub was late again, as usual. The room was hot and stuffy from gossip and body heat. The rising temperature was making the crowd rowdy.
Quill tried to drown out the nauseating noise of all the intermingled, surrounding conversations by picturing herself floating in her rowboat, back on Lake Stillwell.
Lake Stillwell was only a mile from Quill's old house. She used to walk there every weekend and relax on the water. In her mind, it was early afternoon on the lake – a warm September day. The sun was at its zenith. Its glow tingled on her lips. A light breeze made tiny ripples in the water and her boat rocked ever so gently. She sat up and adjusted the straps on her bikini top, not wanting to come home with tan lines. She watched the sunlight sparkle across the surface of the lake. The water soothed her. Its gentle sway made her yawn and close her eyes. She felt like a baby being rocked in its crib. She wanted to spend the rest of her life like this, cuddled by the waves.
Quill was jarred out of her daydream by the sound of Professor Qutub exhaling into the microphone.
"Ahem, if we could all settle down now please." The beady-eyed professor admonished the auditorium. "I apologize for my tardiness."
The ambient murmurs died down after a muted protest.
Qutub stroked his silver goatee. "You're all in for a treat, actually. Today we are going to take a step away from the standard curriculum and discuss several of Gaveovelli Giovanni's old texts on Terra Australis Incognita."
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Ugh," Quill turned over in Naris's bed and squeezed her eyes shut. She'd been in the middle of a dream.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
"Naris?" Quill rose from the bed. She grabbed her blanket and wrapped it around herself. The knocking continued at a frantic pace as she went to answer it.
A man began to push the door open, directly into Quill's body.
"Wait a minute, I'm coming!" Quill pushed back against the door, slamming it shut. She then pulled it a crack open. "Who are you?"
"I'm Diggs." A short, spry man peered back at Quill through the doorjamb. He reeked of dead fish and body odor. "We've met."
"What do you want?" Quill recoiled from his stink.
"Naris said to come fetch ya."
Quill tightened her grasp on the blanket. "How did you get this door open? I remember locking it."
"Hehehe." Diggs had an impish little cackle. "That lock's been broken for weeks. Sail hasn't gotten around to fixing it."
"Naris hasn't had his own door fixed?"
Quill went over to the bed and started to unwrap the blanket. She glanced back and realized Diggs was still ogling her.
"We're a tight crew, ya know? Not so big on privacy." Diggs smiled. "We share everything with one another. . ."
"Well could I get some privacy?" Quill pointed down at her clothes, shooing him away with a scowl.
"Yeah, yeah." Diggs lingered. He slowly closed the door. "I'll tell em you'll be up in a tick. . . ." His voice trailed off to footsteps.
"And don't knock so loud next time." Quill rubbed her forehead. "You'll give me a migraine."
Quill got dressed and began to climb the stairs. She'd always wanted to know what Naris was searching for. He'd called it a 'fallen star' ever since they set sail but always refused to elaborate. Whenever she pressed him on it, he would give her a boyish smile and tease her that she didn't need to know what it was to find it.
When they disembarked, Quill figured Naris was looking for an island laden with treasure. However, after she spent hours pouring over current charts, she realized that Naris wanted to sail into the Kanya Lull – a blue void. There was absolutely nothing there; no islands, no shipping lanes, not even a chance to salvage something from the unfathomably deep bottom.
Quill then guessed that Naris was looking for another craft, perhaps a ghost ship caught in the calm of the Lull, mindlessly circling the stagnant sea from the pull of the surrounding current.
The lingering mystery intrigued Quill.
She lifted a handle and kicked the port hatch open.
Giles, Diggs, and an assortment of pirates whose names Quill hadn't bothered to remember stared her down as she squinted against the sudden glare.
Giles had a big smile on his face. Diggs and his beefy companions were armed with hatchets and rifles. They loomed in front of Quill, intimidating her with grins from ear to ear.
Quill scanned the deck. There was nothing on top of it except for the pirates. No hauling gear. No cargo. No fallen star.
"Where's Naris?" Quill's eyelids twitched.
"In the wheelhouse," Giles coughed. "He didn't want to be here for this."
"For what?"
"We reached ya stop." Diggs beamed. The other pirates chuckled. "Thanks so much for ya services."
Several pirates surrounded Quill. One moved in from behind to grab her.
"What are you guys doing?" Quill darted away from the dirty pirate, wide-eyed. She backed up toward the stairwell.
"This is where you get off. You're done here. Understand, dry foot? We're done with you. Naris included." Giles walked over to Quill and grabbed her by the shoulder. His fingertips dug into her collar bone. "End of the line."
"Get off me!"
Quill squirmed out of Giles's grasp. She kicked him in the shin and then spun around, darting over to the hatch that led back inside. She threw it open.
Another pirate stood in the stairwell, blocking her escape.
"Where ya going little sprite?" He taunted. "Nothing down here for you."
"Where's Naris!"
"Ya boyfriend ain't gona help ya," Diggs sniggered.
"Get back from me, everyone!" Quill spat at the crowd. She looked up at the wheelhouse and waved her arms. "Naris! Where are you? What the hell are they doing!"
"I said he ain't gona help ya." Diggs lunged at Quill while she wasn't looking. He was able to grab her arms and pin them behind her back.
Quill flailed in Diggs's grasp. Her elbow hit him in the jaw, and she managed to break free for a moment.
"Naris! Naris! Get out here you coward! Where are you! Where are you!"
The pirates backed off. They began laughing at Quill, entertained by her frantic spectacle.
"NAAARIS!"
Quill tried to catch her breath. As she did, Giles walked over to the wheelhouse.
"Come on captain, don't be rude! At least say goodbye to the dry foot."
The other pirates began to hoot and jeer. They whistled up at the wheelhouse.
Quill's fear subsided. Her cheeks went from being pale to flush in an instant. A hot flash rocked her system. She wasn't afraid anymore. She felt humiliated.
Naris opened the door and made his way down from the wheelhouse. He was almost blushing. He put his hands out apologetically.
The other pirates parted around him, allowing him to walk straight up to Quill.
"Quill." Naris looked at her with a forced smile. "What can I say but sorry?"
"You're - you're going to screw me over like this?" Quill's voice trembled. "I got you here and now you're going to kill me?"
"I really had no part in this."
"You're serious? You're serious!" Quill pushed him away.
Naris exhaled slowly, unnerved. He bit his lip.
"I like you, Quill. Believe me, I really do. . .I think you're great, smart. . .all of that. . ."
"But?"
"Well." Naris scanned the eager faces of the other pirates. "The crew-"
"Don't give me that. This is your ship!" Quill hissed. "This was all you! You fucked me!"
"Isn't the first time he fucked ya," Diggs cackled.
The crowd of pirates roared with laughter.
Quill withered under their ridicule. Tears welled up in her eyes.
"This wasn't up to me." Naris clicked his tongue. "If it were my choice, you'd be coming with us. But I answer to a higher power."
Quill wiped her face. "I trusted you. I trusted you." She repeated the words dumbly. She was so angry she couldn't think of anything else to say. "After everything I did. . .after we-"
The other pirates continued to laugh. Diggs hocked a wad of tobacco spit onto the deck with a vindictive smile.
Quill shuddered.
"This is the kind of scene I was trying to avoid." Naris gestured to his men. "Not just for me, Quill, for the both of us. Let you keep your dignity to the very end."
Quill's eyes burned into Naris. She shot her head forward and spat on him.
"Pig! Prick! I hate you!" She glared at the others. "Fuck you too! You ignorant little shits! You couldn't find water in the ocean!"
Naris watched Quill's spittle trickle down the front of his jacket. He shook his head and walked away.
