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Chapter Four

T awny

Devi and Thantose knock on my door just as I’m pulling my t-shirt over my head. They bring me to the kitchen where we’re served heaping bowls of what Devi calls sumra . It’s noodles in a faintly sweet milky concoction. Kind of tasty.

“Not exactly like my mother used to make, but close,” he praises Destin, a young crew member who seems thrilled that Dev likes his cooking.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Call me Devolose, or Dev.”

“Yes, sir,” the young male says, then winces at his mistake.

We all laugh. I catch the look on Devi’s face—he’s laughing, too. I’ve never seen his lips turned upward in a smile, never even seen his face calm or placid. I breathe a little easier, believing maybe for the first time, that he can recover from almost ninety years of torment. I don’t, for a moment, however, believe the same about myself.

“My cousin tells me you wish to go back to your home planet, Tawny. I’ll have you speak with our navigator. You can tell him the coordinates and we can take you home. Perhaps we might make one or two detours to plunder a ship or two along the way.” He smiles and winks at me.

“Devolose doesn’t speak for me, Thantose. Thanks, but I have no desire to return to Earth. As I explained to him, there is absolutely nothing for me there. I’ll be clear,” I turn to Devi as I keep speaking, “No family, no friends, no job, no pets. No. Desire. To. Go. There!”

Thantose laughs out loud and spears Devi with a hard look. “This syndrome, cuz, it causes the female to scold the male in public? Perhaps I misunderstood.” He good-naturedly shakes his head. “She doesn’t seem all that confused to me.”

“I don’t have the syndrome,” I chime in. “It’s a bullshit explanation for the fact that I like hanging out with Devi.”

Thantose laughs again and slaps the table with one hand. “Maybe it’s this syndrome that makes Tawny sound like she knows exactly what she wants. What say you, cuz?”

Dev scowls at both of us. The lightness of a moment ago is lost. My chest tightens. Will he never believe my feelings for him are real?

Devolose

I didn’t invite Tawny to medbay with us. She asked to go back to our room rather than explore the ship on her own. I wonder if she’s been enclosed in a small cell for so long she’s uncomfortable with open spaces, or maybe it’s all the large, colorful alien males wandering around.

Thantose escorts me to medbay and introduces me to Seneca, an older male beginning to show the signs of age. He amiably welcomes me, grasping my wrist in greeting the way non-kinsmen do to honored guests on Primus.

“My cousin has a serious health concern.” Thantose gets down to business, closing the door to the tiny, sterile, metal-walled exam room. He looks at me, letting me know it’s up to me to proceed from here.

I remove my pants and sit on the exam table. The cool metal is a shock to my balls. After showing myself to my cousin, it appears I’ve discovered the best way to do this is the wordless reveal.

Seneca displays his annums as a medic by the stoic expression he presents. Not a muscle in his face even twitches. He just pulls up a rolling seat and scoots close between my legs.

He dons sterile gloves and touches around the opening I piss out of.

“How often do you get infections?” his tone is all business.

“It was hard to tell the passage of time in the dungeon. About once an annum .”

“I may be able to have the medbot do a surgical revision to reduce the likelihood of infection. I could do additional research into a prosthetic that will give the look of an actual penis. The last article I saw in a journal showed some very realistic pictures.”

He rolls a few fiertos back, pulls off his gloves and tosses them in the receptacle. “The prosthetic will never have feeling; you’ll never be able to get an erection. I don’t predict the science will advance that far in your lifetime.”

He looks at me and continues, “Your testicles are healthy. It would be an easy procedure to harvest your sperm to accomplish impregnation. Tell your female it would be a quick, painless procedure to do that...well painless for her, a slightly painful procedure for you.”

I quickly tell him, “She’s not my female. She doesn’t want my sperm,” before I take a moment to consider the full impact of what he told me—that there is no hope for me to be a complete male. It’s not news to me; I’ve never dared to hope for that.

I scoot off the table and climb into my pants.

“Thanks, Seneca,” Thantose says, getting ready to hurry me back to my room. Perhaps he assumes I want solitude to mull over this information.

“Thantose,” the medic says, “I respect you a great deal. You’re a good captain, an excellent leader, and you’ve made me a rich male. But, you can be…sardonic at times. I have something I want Devolose to hear. I’d appreciate it if you would treat it seriously.”

I half expect Thantose to lighten the mood, make a joke, deny his tendency to tease, but he pulls up his chair, sits down, and looks expectantly at the medic. I sit on the edge of the exam table, my arms crossed against my chest.

“I was a young male. It was my first assignment. I was newly enlisted—just learning comms, not allowed to do much. I didn’t take medic training until decades later. We were in the Ariz sector which had never been fully explored.

“We were severely low on rations, especially food and water. We stumbled upon an uncharted humanoid-supporting planet and took the risk of exploring for food sources.”

The medic seems so serious. I assume he has something important to say. I also assume it’s about me—otherwise, why are we having this discussion? I have no idea why he’s drawing out this story; perhaps it’s a symptom of his age.

“Some of the males who grew up in rural areas were sent on a mission to find and kill local game. City dwellers like myself and a few others were allowed to explore for recreation.

“A first- annum mechanic, a cook’s helper, and I separated from our friends and stumbled into a wooded area that butted up against the side of a mountain. A double waterfall flowed off the top in two streams. It splashed into a calm, blue pool at its base, and then merged into a meandering river. The planet was lovely. I always refer to it in my mind as ‘Paradise'.

“We shucked our clothes and lazed in those azure waters for several hours, then returned to the vessel.”

He pegs me with a serious gaze. “The reason I tell you this is that two weeks later when that young cook handed me my portion of food one evening, I noticed the two fingers of his left hand that had been fully amputated in a cooking accident had grown completely back.

“He was happy to show me his hand. Even the nails had regenerated in perfect condition. There was no scarring, no mark of any kind that would indicate that the fingers had ever been harmed. He told me the only thing he could imagine to explain the regrowth was the waters we swam in on that planet.

“I always wanted to return, but I’ve never again been near that sector. I marked the coordinates in my journal, such was my desire to return one day.” He tears his gaze from mine and spears Thantose with a serious look. “Perhaps today is the day to plot our return to Paradise.”

It’s complete drack . Perhaps the medic is older than he looks and has the beginnings of the failing sickness. I wait for my sarcastic cousin to laugh and tell the doc not to joke about serious things. I scoot off the table, knowing there will be no further discussion after Thantose makes his cutting remark.

My cousin’s face is serious as he asks, “You saw this with your own eyes, Seneca? It’s been many annums, could you have misremembered?”

The medic looks at me, then back at Thantose. “I wouldn’t joke about such a serious thing, captain. I remember it as if it was yesterday.”

Thantose stands from his chair. “I’ll tell Marcus to plot a straight course to Paradise. No fun and games between here and there.” He turns to leave.

“Do I have a say in this?” I ask. Both males give me a questioning glance.

“This injury is two decades old. I am not young. My cock is not a finger. Even if I believed the story, and I’m not certain about that, the odds that this miracle would work for me are ridiculously low.” I don’t want to get my hopes up. I learned long ago that hope is a very dangerous thing.

My cousin approaches me and claps me on the back. “I’m the captain,” he says with fierce determination. “We’re going to Paradise. Sorry, cuz, you’re officially along for the ride.” He flashes me his brilliant smile. “I have a very painful hangnail on my right index finger. I want to bathe it in the waters of that splendid blue pool Seneca spoke of. Perhaps you’ll join me for a swim.” He pushes through the door and proceeds down the hall without me.