Aboard The Avery
At the turn of the century, there wasn’t much to say for the state of the world. Cars crawled through the ground-kept streets, pried their way through the debris in the streets in the wake of war and impoverished coming-of-ages. The knowledge of the scientist fell to the wayside as the Artificers became the way of the world, as light and wind were harnessed in ways as yet unknown to man or beast, as Man took to the sky.
The dirigibles-the airships-were the first great invention of the nineteenth century, they said, and even a hundred year later, as other technologies ground to a halt and the dirigibles continued their radical flights, people believed. People understood. And people took to the skies on ships that knew the heart of Men.
The only invention to eclipse that of the dirigible-and even then, it was not a sharp, all-consuming eclipse, just a minor blip and mention in the history books-were the androids. The AI were all consuming in their hunger for business and work where the artificers could not be used, but by the later end of the nineteenth century, their interest had been relegated to the seas and the highest mountains where Man could not go.
And Man survived, a simple existence like they had sustained for thousands of years.
But there were always exceptions to the rule. The name of the ship was scrawled on her side in slanting, beatific font, reading in red on the cream, The Avery. Jonathoa had never seen a ship look quite so beautiful, tethered at a floating dock in Sri Lanka and glimmering pale and metallic in parts in the clean, clear summer air.
Jonathoa had been watching The Avery for the better part of her dock-and-repair time-and a whole six weeks, now-and as he stood there, staring at the tethers and watching a glint of light off a particularly shined piece of steel on her body, he thought he might have the courage to leave Sri Lanka for the first time since he had arrived at the age of seven.
The only problem-and there were three of them, to make up the singular-was the crew.
The Avery was not a large ship, though she was beautiful, and was manned by a three-cast crew. Admittedly, Jonathoa knew from watching, one of them was capable of the work of twenty, never having to rest for longer than a few hours, never having to consume anything; that was the Android Jonathoa had seen upon The Avery’s docking, a half-finished, terrifying thing with surprisingly soulful eyes for a construct. The other two were just people, though; the pilot, a woman, and her baffling, long-haired companion, a man who Jonathoa assumed to be the maker of the ‘droid for he wore the patches of an Artificer and the ‘droid was rarely out of his line of sight for very long.
Jonathoa knew, from experience, that he could hide from the captain and the Artificer. People were easy to hide from: a simple flick of the wrist and quiet words was enough to make them glance over him as if he were nothing but the air itself. But Jonathoa didn’t know if such a trick would work on a ‘droid.
He had been in Sri Lanka for twelve years, though. Resolved, Jonathoa made for one of the tethers. Even if the ‘droid did find him on The Avery, Jonathoa was certain he could talk his way out of any disastrous situations. The first three hours of their flight out of Sri Lanka, Jonathoa struggled against being sick.
The next three he spent locked up in a brig-like room without light, the ‘droid watching him with sleepy, glowing blue eyes and tapping long, unfinished fingers against a seemingly too-huge, heaving chest plate. The Artificer stood behind the ‘droid, scowling and untrusting and chewing on a piece of leather he’d cut from a length he kept around his waist. Jonathoa thought he’d never been quite so terrified in his entire life.
“Who are you working for?”
“Nobody,” Jonathoa reiterated for what must have been the fifteenth time since the ‘droid had found him in the hold. “I’m not working for anybody. I couldn’t afford a ticket out of Sri Lanka, and I didn’t think anybody’d notice.”
“I’ve seen you busybodying around the dock, kid,” the Artificer snapped. “You’re pretty well dressed. And you say you couldn’t afford a commercial ticket? Who are you working for?”
“Nobody!”
The Artificer looked at the ‘droid, expectant and brutal. The ‘droid stilled-everything, not just the obsessive, nervous fidget of its unfinished hand, but the heave of its fake breast and the flicker behind its eyes. Jonathoa shifted uncomfortably in the chair they’d put him in.
“He is not lying,” the ‘droid said after a moment, and Jonathoa thought he’d never heard a voice so lovely come from any courtesan he’d ever met. The flickering came back to those glowing eyes. “But that does not mean he is telling the truth.”
“It is the truth!” Jonathoa assured.
The Artificer scowled, leaning forward with his arms crossed over his chest. “You’re a well-dressed sorta fellow, aren’cha? Probably got some papers on you. In that big, unsightly bag you brought with you? So’s we know what country to pitch you out over.”
“I haven’t got papers, and I haven’t got money. It’s why I couldn’t leave Sri Lanka!”
“He is not lying, or else he is impeccable at lying,” the ‘droid said, soft and sibilant. Jonathoa shook his head, shaking a little.
“I’ll work. I won’t make a sound you don’t want to hear. I promise not to slow you down.”
“What work,” the Artificer barked menacingly, leaning back and towering, “can you do, kid?”
“I can mend. I can cook a little. I can-” The Artificer puffed up a little. Beside him, the ‘droid started up its nervous fidget of fingers on the metal chest plate. “I can be a help,” Jonathoa finally saved.
The Artificer sneered in the quiet dark of the brig-like room, then shook his long, ratty hair. It gave a jangle with the movement. He turned his back on Jonathoa and the ‘droid, stepping toward the door as he said, “Eight. Make sure he stays where he’s at. I’m gonna go see Carul.”
“Yessir,” the ‘droid murmured, never moving its artificial gaze from Jonathoa’s face. The Artificer stood in the doorway, silent, silhouetted against the light from a lamp outside in the hall.
“Eight.”
“Yessir?”
“No funny business.”
The door shut. The ‘droid’s eyes glowed and flickered in the darkness of the room. Jonathoa felt the rock of the ship and thought he might be sick.
With a mechanical whirring, the ‘droid moved with inhuman, otherwise silent speed to kneel beside Jonathoa and remove the ropes it had placed there earlier. Close-up, the light of its eyes illuminated most of its smooth, pale face; that, unlike most of the rest of it, was complete and almost human-looking. It smiled at Jonathoa.
“What is your name?”
“Jona,” Jonathoa whispered. The ‘droid nodded, dropping the rope next to Jonathoa’s feet. He brought his arms forward, rubbing his wrists where the rope had dug against his flesh. The ‘droid stayed crouched beside the chair until Jonathoa looked over at him and nervously asked, “And you’re Eight? Is that short for something?”
“Eight-twenty-five,” the ‘droid replied. It kept smiling. Jonathoa wondered why his heart was fluttering. They set him to cooking and cleaning, and Jonathoa learned that there had once been many more people on the ship-at least fifteen others-before the Artificer and 825 had come on board. The Artificer, he learned, was called Sir by 825 and Kegan by the captain, and had a plaque on his door that said Dr Danyas. Jonathoa wasn’t allowed to so much as touch the Artificer’s door, and he could not have been more grateful.
For the most part, he saw little of the Artificer-who seemed to spend most of his time in the navigation and engine rooms, tinkering and toiling and being what he was-and the captain-who, naturally, was at the wheel of the ship. 825, however, always seemed to find the time and inclination to find Jonathoa in a dark back hall in the belly or out on one of the decks, and would talk to him about anything that seemed to pass through the electric wiring that passed for its mind.
It was the happiest Jonathoa had been since he was six and first stepped aboard a dirigible. The captain, he realized one dark and dismal morning while 825 was flying the ship, was a smart, affectionate and altogether well-thought young woman, perhaps old enough to pass for his mother in some circles. She had a scar on her that went from below her right eye to between her breasts, and wore her hair long but back in fine braids bedecked with beads. Though she didn’t care for his interference with her normal pattern, she wasn’t cruel to Jonathoa; and on the occasion she took food in the small mess, she would smile and ask how he was.
“Oh, Miss, I’m just fine, please and thank you,” he would say, and she would laugh.
“My name,” she would always remind, “is Carul, and you’ll call me that. I’m not quite old enough to be Miss yet.”
That morning she had said nothing at all, but something in him told him to sit with her while she at. She watched him between bites of the food he’d made, and after a few minutes of only the wind and the creak of her ship, she asked, “What made you come on Avery, Jonath?”-he hated that nickname, but supposed she had a right to it, being as he had invaded her space for selfish reasons.
“I had to get out of Sri Lanka, Miss Carul. Simple as that.”
“But why Avery? Why not some other ship? Why not leave by land or sea?”
“Because The Avery’s the most beautiful ship I’ve ever seen, Miss Carul, honest and true.”
“You’re a sweet talker, Jonath,” she told him, and then frowned at him a little. “And, if you don’t mind my asking, what’s that tattoo on your face?”
Jonathoa touched the blue and black and red ink on his face. He didn’t tell her it extended down the greater part of his left half. “It’s the marks of my trade, Miss Carul.”
“And what trade’s that, that pays nothing but puts you in fine clothes?”
Then he dropped the words and thoughts that kept his clothes fine and his hair kept and his eyes brown instead of green. Carul leaned back from him, and he knew the image he was, sitting there in front of her.
“I’m a Wordsmith, Miss Carul. A magician.”
“Well,” she whispered. “That you are then, aren’t you?” “Is it true?”
Jonathoa looked away from the sea far below them and over at 825. The wind whistled over its supports, tangled a spare bit of wiring around the strong, flexible spine-structure that held its chest plate above its hips and mostly-finished thighs.
“Is what true?”
“That a magician can turn a person inside out if they wanted to?” Jonathoa flushed and stared back at the sea. “Sir told me that.”
“Don’t call him that, call him his name,” Jonathoa urged. He smiled at 825, felt a little daring. “You like him. When you like someone, you call them by their given name.”
825 stared at Jonathoa, then tilted its head slowly to the side, eyes flickering with light even under the steady blare of the sun. “I call you by given name. But I do not have the same reactions to you that I do to him.”
Jonathoa stared at the sea again, then looked back at 825. He stepped off the railing and said viciously, “If I wanted to, I could tear this dirigible apart. Kill Miss Carul and Doctor Kegan.”
“You do not want to?”
“It would make you upset, Eight,” Jonathoa said, and hoped that the ‘droid understood what he meant. He woke one evening to find 825 sitting at the edge of his bed. The formally unfinished arms were corded with artificial muscle-wiring and from the top of the head to the bottom of artificial ribs looked as human as anything Jonathoa had ever seen. The synthetic flesh felt real under Jonathoa’s fingertips.
“Sir does not like me,” 825 said.
“What makes you say that?”
“He finished my chest earlier. He and Captain engaged in intercourse before and after. She watched him put my skin on. They talked about me like I was not there, like I could not hear them.”
“That doesn’t mean Doctor Kegan doesn’t like you, Eight.”
825 looked at him then, eyes flickering and blue and sad. “He does not wish to engage in intercourse with me.”
“Sex isn’t love,” Jonathoa explained softly, and lifted his hand to touch 825’s cheek. It was warm under his palm. 825 turned into the touch, almost as if real.
“I do not understand.”
Jonathoa’s heart ached. “I know, Eight. I know.” “Can you do anything?”
825 was nearly complete, and Jonathoa had been on the ship six months by then. They were in Siberia. Jonathoa had fashioned himself a coat with mink on the collar; he fashioned 825 a similar one that it didn’t wear because the ‘droid didn’t understand the need for it.
The snow glimmered with moonlight far beneath the tethering of The Avery. Jonathoa balanced himself on the railing of the observation desk, no longer afraid of falling to his death like he had been before, as a child.
He pointed to the tattoo on his face. “Every time I accomplish a thing thought previously impossible, I give myself a new mark.”
“How large is the mark?”
“Soon,” he told 825, “I’ll have to start marking the right side.”
“You are over two meters tall, Jona,” 825 observed needlessly. “Is it on both sides of your body?”
“Yup,” Jonathoa murmured. The word fragment flitted away on a wayward breeze. He smiled at 825. “You want me to do something for you?”
“I want,” 825 began, then was quiet. It tapped the flexing, supple fingers of its previously unfinished hand against its light-dressed chest plate, and Jonathoa thought he knew what 825 was asking.
“Remember,” Jonathoa told 825. “I can do anything I set my mind to.”
“I want to be real. I want Sir and Captain to not talk over me like they do Avery. I want-”
“You want Doctor Kegan to fuck you.”
825 looked at Jonathoa speculatively, tilting its head to the side slowly. Jonathoa stepped off the railing into the wind, and though he sank, he held the space of mind to not fall; he turned and looked up at 825, who leaned over the railing and reached out a hand to touch Jonathoa’s hair.
“Yes,” 825 said after a moment. “I do.”
Jonathoa raised himself back onto the deck and began toward the door to the body of the ship. He wasn’t sure if he was cold from Siberia or jealousy. “I’ll see what I can do.” The first time Jonathoa saw 825 undressed, he was surprised to see that the Artificer had gone to great lengths at being accurate, for someone who had no interest in that sort of activity with men or boys. 825 didn’t understand modesty: he stood in the middle of the hold, centered in a ring Jonathoa had earlier etched with the captain’s permission but without the Artificer’s.
“Will it hurt?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Jonathoa said, and etched a red-ink mark onto his right big-toe. When he left the ship, he would worry about a real tattoo; for now, he imagined it into place and watched the ink sink peacefully below the skin. He smiled at 825. “It will be like going for a rest.”
“And when you wake me up?”
Jonathoa touched 825’s face, felt the texture and warmth and imprinted that into his mind. “What do you want your name to be, as a man?”
“I have not an idea.” 825 shook its head. “Name me.”
“Yeshua,” Jonathoa said after a moment. 825 tilted its head to the side slowly. “It’s Hebrew for God is Salvation.”
“Yeshua,” 825 murmured.
And then slept. He was in the mess when the storm hit.
Yeshua was sobbing, trying to pull his arm away from the Artificer, who held him like he was a rag doll. The captain was shortly behind them, holding no sides and standing with her arms over her chest. Jonathoa wondered who was piloting the ship, if the four of them were all together.
“What did you do, Wordsmith? Is this some sort of game to you? Put it back the way it was!”
“Why?” Yeshua shook and tried to tug his arm away from the Artificer; the Artificer tugged hard enough that Jonathoa worried the arm might come out of the socket. “He knew what he was asking when he asked for it. It was my privilege and duty to oblige.”
“It’s a gorram machine, Wordsmith!”
“Not anymore,” Jonathoa bit back cruelly. The Artificer’s eyes bulged and his nose flared and he tugged at Yeshua’s arm, making him cry out. Jonathoa shoved the Artificer with his mind, sneering. “When you let it do as it pleased, when you fashioned it in your own likeness, Eight ceased to just be it. You did this to yourself. What glory hath God wrought!”
Yeshua fell to his knees, shaking and looking miserable. The Artificer dropped his arm, and Yeshua cradled it to his chest, moaning and mumbling. The captain unfolded herself a little, clearly expecting an out-and-out fight; Jonathoa would have welcomed the confrontation.
“Fix it,” the Artificer hissed, “or destroy it. It’s useless now.”
“Sir,” Yeshua bemoaned from the floor, just as the captain said, “Kegan.”
The Artificer left the mess, and the captain, with a sigh, followed him. Yeshua sobbed on the floor, and fell into Jonathoa’s arms when he went to the floor beside him. Yeshua’s skin was still pale and too perfect, feeling flawless and just-barely warm under Jonathoa’s fingertips.
“I am not a construct,” Yeshua whispered into the air between them, soft and breathy and perfect, and Jonathoa wasn’t sure if the words were for his benefit or Yeshua’s, so he ignored them. He slid the shirt he’d given Yeshua off the young man’s shoulders, and felt old and wise in the face of Yeshua’s sudden modesty and obvious innocence.
“No,” Jonathoa agreed after a moment. “You’re not a construct.”
“But I will not break,” Yeshua assured, grabbing Jonathoa by the wrists and stepping back toward the bed. He sat, eyes wide and no longer glowing and flickering but just blue, and pulled Jonathoa atop his lap. “Do you love me?”
“I think I must,” Jonathoa whispered, leaning his forehead against Yeshua’s. “I’ve never been in love.”
“Do you want to engage in intercourse with me?” Yeshua whispered, and Jonathoa could feel the blush on Yeshua’s face, hot and beautiful and so very real and human. Jonathoa kissed him then-he’d kissed many before, and knew he was likely to kiss many after, but kissing Yeshua felt different somehow; special, perhaps, because it was Yeshua’s first-and touched his shoulder blades gently with the tips of his fingers.
“It’s called sex,” Jonathoa corrected when he pulled back.
“You called it fucking,” Yeshua accused.
Jonathoa chuckled, self-deprecating and hateful. “I don’t like Kegan. He would’ve fucked you, if he liked boys.”
“Do you like boys, Jona?” Yeshua asked, wrapping his arms around Jonathoa’s waist.
Jonathoa’s fingers skated around, slid down Yeshua’s chest between their bodies. “No,” he whispered, and touched between Yeshua’s thighs; Yeshua’s breath rushed in and shivered out as Jonathoa whispered against his lips, “I like men.”
“Do you want me to have sex with you, Jona?”
“Yes,” Jonathoa whispered, and moved his fingers over the hardness under his hand.
Yeshua moved just as fast as if he still were a construct, and Jonathoa whimpered softly as Yeshua held him down with his wrists pinned beside his head on the pillow and asked, “Do you want me to fuck you, Jona?”
“Yes,” Jonathoa groaned, hissing, pressing up against Yeshua’s firm, long body.
“I,” Yeshua whispered after a moment, the vigor gone out of his voice to be replaced with worry and fright. “I do not know what to do.”
“It’s alright, Yesh,” Jonathoa murmured, and pulled his hand away to touch Yeshua’s face again and kiss him once more. “I’ll show you.” They made berth in Paris, amid the whirring propellers of aircars and dirigibles and a thousand other Artificer things that Jonathoa had seen before but Yeshua clearly never had. The Artificer lurked in the shadows of the tethers on the dock while the captain stood before them. Jonathoa’s things sat at Yeshua’s feet; the single bag was all they had between their names.
“It’s the last of the regular circuit stops,” the captain explained gently. “I hope you can find your way to wherever you’re headed from here.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Jonathoa told her, and she nodded. The Artificer glowered from the shadows; Yeshua stared at the bag and the bangles he wore on his wrist that Jonathoa gave him before they’d entered French airspace. “Thank you for what you’ve done. For both of us.”
“Don’t thank you just yet,” the captain groused. Jonathoa remembered then an old adage from before the dirigibles, something sea-captains would say to each other.
“To when we meet again, I will thank you with plentiful hearth and heath.”
The captain laughed-threw back her head and shook with it-then turned away. The Artificer watched them, and after a moment straightened from the shadow. Yeshua looked up expectantly, but did not look at the Artificer as both the man and Jonathoa seemed to expect him to do.
Jonathoa smiled as he followed Yeshua’s gaze.
“It looks different from here,” Yeshua said.
“You never looked at her name before?”
“I suppose I never realized,” Yeshua murmured, “how beautiful and loved the Artificer’s constructs were.”
Jonathoa touched Yeshua’s arm gently, and led him away from the berth.
The dirigibles-the airships-were the first great invention of the nineteenth century, they said, and even a hundred year later, as other technologies ground to a halt and the dirigibles continued their radical flights, people believed. People understood. And people took to the skies on ships that knew the heart of Men.
The only invention to eclipse that of the dirigible-and even then, it was not a sharp, all-consuming eclipse, just a minor blip and mention in the history books-were the androids. The AI were all consuming in their hunger for business and work where the artificers could not be used, but by the later end of the nineteenth century, their interest had been relegated to the seas and the highest mountains where Man could not go.
And Man survived, a simple existence like they had sustained for thousands of years.
But there were always exceptions to the rule. The name of the ship was scrawled on her side in slanting, beatific font, reading in red on the cream, The Avery. Jonathoa had never seen a ship look quite so beautiful, tethered at a floating dock in Sri Lanka and glimmering pale and metallic in parts in the clean, clear summer air.
Jonathoa had been watching The Avery for the better part of her dock-and-repair time-and a whole six weeks, now-and as he stood there, staring at the tethers and watching a glint of light off a particularly shined piece of steel on her body, he thought he might have the courage to leave Sri Lanka for the first time since he had arrived at the age of seven.
The only problem-and there were three of them, to make up the singular-was the crew.
The Avery was not a large ship, though she was beautiful, and was manned by a three-cast crew. Admittedly, Jonathoa knew from watching, one of them was capable of the work of twenty, never having to rest for longer than a few hours, never having to consume anything; that was the Android Jonathoa had seen upon The Avery’s docking, a half-finished, terrifying thing with surprisingly soulful eyes for a construct. The other two were just people, though; the pilot, a woman, and her baffling, long-haired companion, a man who Jonathoa assumed to be the maker of the ‘droid for he wore the patches of an Artificer and the ‘droid was rarely out of his line of sight for very long.
Jonathoa knew, from experience, that he could hide from the captain and the Artificer. People were easy to hide from: a simple flick of the wrist and quiet words was enough to make them glance over him as if he were nothing but the air itself. But Jonathoa didn’t know if such a trick would work on a ‘droid.
He had been in Sri Lanka for twelve years, though. Resolved, Jonathoa made for one of the tethers. Even if the ‘droid did find him on The Avery, Jonathoa was certain he could talk his way out of any disastrous situations. The first three hours of their flight out of Sri Lanka, Jonathoa struggled against being sick.
The next three he spent locked up in a brig-like room without light, the ‘droid watching him with sleepy, glowing blue eyes and tapping long, unfinished fingers against a seemingly too-huge, heaving chest plate. The Artificer stood behind the ‘droid, scowling and untrusting and chewing on a piece of leather he’d cut from a length he kept around his waist. Jonathoa thought he’d never been quite so terrified in his entire life.
“Who are you working for?”
“Nobody,” Jonathoa reiterated for what must have been the fifteenth time since the ‘droid had found him in the hold. “I’m not working for anybody. I couldn’t afford a ticket out of Sri Lanka, and I didn’t think anybody’d notice.”
“I’ve seen you busybodying around the dock, kid,” the Artificer snapped. “You’re pretty well dressed. And you say you couldn’t afford a commercial ticket? Who are you working for?”
“Nobody!”
The Artificer looked at the ‘droid, expectant and brutal. The ‘droid stilled-everything, not just the obsessive, nervous fidget of its unfinished hand, but the heave of its fake breast and the flicker behind its eyes. Jonathoa shifted uncomfortably in the chair they’d put him in.
“He is not lying,” the ‘droid said after a moment, and Jonathoa thought he’d never heard a voice so lovely come from any courtesan he’d ever met. The flickering came back to those glowing eyes. “But that does not mean he is telling the truth.”
“It is the truth!” Jonathoa assured.
The Artificer scowled, leaning forward with his arms crossed over his chest. “You’re a well-dressed sorta fellow, aren’cha? Probably got some papers on you. In that big, unsightly bag you brought with you? So’s we know what country to pitch you out over.”
“I haven’t got papers, and I haven’t got money. It’s why I couldn’t leave Sri Lanka!”
“He is not lying, or else he is impeccable at lying,” the ‘droid said, soft and sibilant. Jonathoa shook his head, shaking a little.
“I’ll work. I won’t make a sound you don’t want to hear. I promise not to slow you down.”
“What work,” the Artificer barked menacingly, leaning back and towering, “can you do, kid?”
“I can mend. I can cook a little. I can-” The Artificer puffed up a little. Beside him, the ‘droid started up its nervous fidget of fingers on the metal chest plate. “I can be a help,” Jonathoa finally saved.
The Artificer sneered in the quiet dark of the brig-like room, then shook his long, ratty hair. It gave a jangle with the movement. He turned his back on Jonathoa and the ‘droid, stepping toward the door as he said, “Eight. Make sure he stays where he’s at. I’m gonna go see Carul.”
“Yessir,” the ‘droid murmured, never moving its artificial gaze from Jonathoa’s face. The Artificer stood in the doorway, silent, silhouetted against the light from a lamp outside in the hall.
“Eight.”
“Yessir?”
“No funny business.”
The door shut. The ‘droid’s eyes glowed and flickered in the darkness of the room. Jonathoa felt the rock of the ship and thought he might be sick.
With a mechanical whirring, the ‘droid moved with inhuman, otherwise silent speed to kneel beside Jonathoa and remove the ropes it had placed there earlier. Close-up, the light of its eyes illuminated most of its smooth, pale face; that, unlike most of the rest of it, was complete and almost human-looking. It smiled at Jonathoa.
“What is your name?”
“Jona,” Jonathoa whispered. The ‘droid nodded, dropping the rope next to Jonathoa’s feet. He brought his arms forward, rubbing his wrists where the rope had dug against his flesh. The ‘droid stayed crouched beside the chair until Jonathoa looked over at him and nervously asked, “And you’re Eight? Is that short for something?”
“Eight-twenty-five,” the ‘droid replied. It kept smiling. Jonathoa wondered why his heart was fluttering. They set him to cooking and cleaning, and Jonathoa learned that there had once been many more people on the ship-at least fifteen others-before the Artificer and 825 had come on board. The Artificer, he learned, was called Sir by 825 and Kegan by the captain, and had a plaque on his door that said Dr Danyas. Jonathoa wasn’t allowed to so much as touch the Artificer’s door, and he could not have been more grateful.
For the most part, he saw little of the Artificer-who seemed to spend most of his time in the navigation and engine rooms, tinkering and toiling and being what he was-and the captain-who, naturally, was at the wheel of the ship. 825, however, always seemed to find the time and inclination to find Jonathoa in a dark back hall in the belly or out on one of the decks, and would talk to him about anything that seemed to pass through the electric wiring that passed for its mind.
It was the happiest Jonathoa had been since he was six and first stepped aboard a dirigible. The captain, he realized one dark and dismal morning while 825 was flying the ship, was a smart, affectionate and altogether well-thought young woman, perhaps old enough to pass for his mother in some circles. She had a scar on her that went from below her right eye to between her breasts, and wore her hair long but back in fine braids bedecked with beads. Though she didn’t care for his interference with her normal pattern, she wasn’t cruel to Jonathoa; and on the occasion she took food in the small mess, she would smile and ask how he was.
“Oh, Miss, I’m just fine, please and thank you,” he would say, and she would laugh.
“My name,” she would always remind, “is Carul, and you’ll call me that. I’m not quite old enough to be Miss yet.”
That morning she had said nothing at all, but something in him told him to sit with her while she at. She watched him between bites of the food he’d made, and after a few minutes of only the wind and the creak of her ship, she asked, “What made you come on Avery, Jonath?”-he hated that nickname, but supposed she had a right to it, being as he had invaded her space for selfish reasons.
“I had to get out of Sri Lanka, Miss Carul. Simple as that.”
“But why Avery? Why not some other ship? Why not leave by land or sea?”
“Because The Avery’s the most beautiful ship I’ve ever seen, Miss Carul, honest and true.”
“You’re a sweet talker, Jonath,” she told him, and then frowned at him a little. “And, if you don’t mind my asking, what’s that tattoo on your face?”
Jonathoa touched the blue and black and red ink on his face. He didn’t tell her it extended down the greater part of his left half. “It’s the marks of my trade, Miss Carul.”
“And what trade’s that, that pays nothing but puts you in fine clothes?”
Then he dropped the words and thoughts that kept his clothes fine and his hair kept and his eyes brown instead of green. Carul leaned back from him, and he knew the image he was, sitting there in front of her.
“I’m a Wordsmith, Miss Carul. A magician.”
“Well,” she whispered. “That you are then, aren’t you?” “Is it true?”
Jonathoa looked away from the sea far below them and over at 825. The wind whistled over its supports, tangled a spare bit of wiring around the strong, flexible spine-structure that held its chest plate above its hips and mostly-finished thighs.
“Is what true?”
“That a magician can turn a person inside out if they wanted to?” Jonathoa flushed and stared back at the sea. “Sir told me that.”
“Don’t call him that, call him his name,” Jonathoa urged. He smiled at 825, felt a little daring. “You like him. When you like someone, you call them by their given name.”
825 stared at Jonathoa, then tilted its head slowly to the side, eyes flickering with light even under the steady blare of the sun. “I call you by given name. But I do not have the same reactions to you that I do to him.”
Jonathoa stared at the sea again, then looked back at 825. He stepped off the railing and said viciously, “If I wanted to, I could tear this dirigible apart. Kill Miss Carul and Doctor Kegan.”
“You do not want to?”
“It would make you upset, Eight,” Jonathoa said, and hoped that the ‘droid understood what he meant. He woke one evening to find 825 sitting at the edge of his bed. The formally unfinished arms were corded with artificial muscle-wiring and from the top of the head to the bottom of artificial ribs looked as human as anything Jonathoa had ever seen. The synthetic flesh felt real under Jonathoa’s fingertips.
“Sir does not like me,” 825 said.
“What makes you say that?”
“He finished my chest earlier. He and Captain engaged in intercourse before and after. She watched him put my skin on. They talked about me like I was not there, like I could not hear them.”
“That doesn’t mean Doctor Kegan doesn’t like you, Eight.”
825 looked at him then, eyes flickering and blue and sad. “He does not wish to engage in intercourse with me.”
“Sex isn’t love,” Jonathoa explained softly, and lifted his hand to touch 825’s cheek. It was warm under his palm. 825 turned into the touch, almost as if real.
“I do not understand.”
Jonathoa’s heart ached. “I know, Eight. I know.” “Can you do anything?”
825 was nearly complete, and Jonathoa had been on the ship six months by then. They were in Siberia. Jonathoa had fashioned himself a coat with mink on the collar; he fashioned 825 a similar one that it didn’t wear because the ‘droid didn’t understand the need for it.
The snow glimmered with moonlight far beneath the tethering of The Avery. Jonathoa balanced himself on the railing of the observation desk, no longer afraid of falling to his death like he had been before, as a child.
He pointed to the tattoo on his face. “Every time I accomplish a thing thought previously impossible, I give myself a new mark.”
“How large is the mark?”
“Soon,” he told 825, “I’ll have to start marking the right side.”
“You are over two meters tall, Jona,” 825 observed needlessly. “Is it on both sides of your body?”
“Yup,” Jonathoa murmured. The word fragment flitted away on a wayward breeze. He smiled at 825. “You want me to do something for you?”
“I want,” 825 began, then was quiet. It tapped the flexing, supple fingers of its previously unfinished hand against its light-dressed chest plate, and Jonathoa thought he knew what 825 was asking.
“Remember,” Jonathoa told 825. “I can do anything I set my mind to.”
“I want to be real. I want Sir and Captain to not talk over me like they do Avery. I want-”
“You want Doctor Kegan to fuck you.”
825 looked at Jonathoa speculatively, tilting its head to the side slowly. Jonathoa stepped off the railing into the wind, and though he sank, he held the space of mind to not fall; he turned and looked up at 825, who leaned over the railing and reached out a hand to touch Jonathoa’s hair.
“Yes,” 825 said after a moment. “I do.”
Jonathoa raised himself back onto the deck and began toward the door to the body of the ship. He wasn’t sure if he was cold from Siberia or jealousy. “I’ll see what I can do.” The first time Jonathoa saw 825 undressed, he was surprised to see that the Artificer had gone to great lengths at being accurate, for someone who had no interest in that sort of activity with men or boys. 825 didn’t understand modesty: he stood in the middle of the hold, centered in a ring Jonathoa had earlier etched with the captain’s permission but without the Artificer’s.
“Will it hurt?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Jonathoa said, and etched a red-ink mark onto his right big-toe. When he left the ship, he would worry about a real tattoo; for now, he imagined it into place and watched the ink sink peacefully below the skin. He smiled at 825. “It will be like going for a rest.”
“And when you wake me up?”
Jonathoa touched 825’s face, felt the texture and warmth and imprinted that into his mind. “What do you want your name to be, as a man?”
“I have not an idea.” 825 shook its head. “Name me.”
“Yeshua,” Jonathoa said after a moment. 825 tilted its head to the side slowly. “It’s Hebrew for God is Salvation.”
“Yeshua,” 825 murmured.
And then slept. He was in the mess when the storm hit.
Yeshua was sobbing, trying to pull his arm away from the Artificer, who held him like he was a rag doll. The captain was shortly behind them, holding no sides and standing with her arms over her chest. Jonathoa wondered who was piloting the ship, if the four of them were all together.
“What did you do, Wordsmith? Is this some sort of game to you? Put it back the way it was!”
“Why?” Yeshua shook and tried to tug his arm away from the Artificer; the Artificer tugged hard enough that Jonathoa worried the arm might come out of the socket. “He knew what he was asking when he asked for it. It was my privilege and duty to oblige.”
“It’s a gorram machine, Wordsmith!”
“Not anymore,” Jonathoa bit back cruelly. The Artificer’s eyes bulged and his nose flared and he tugged at Yeshua’s arm, making him cry out. Jonathoa shoved the Artificer with his mind, sneering. “When you let it do as it pleased, when you fashioned it in your own likeness, Eight ceased to just be it. You did this to yourself. What glory hath God wrought!”
Yeshua fell to his knees, shaking and looking miserable. The Artificer dropped his arm, and Yeshua cradled it to his chest, moaning and mumbling. The captain unfolded herself a little, clearly expecting an out-and-out fight; Jonathoa would have welcomed the confrontation.
“Fix it,” the Artificer hissed, “or destroy it. It’s useless now.”
“Sir,” Yeshua bemoaned from the floor, just as the captain said, “Kegan.”
The Artificer left the mess, and the captain, with a sigh, followed him. Yeshua sobbed on the floor, and fell into Jonathoa’s arms when he went to the floor beside him. Yeshua’s skin was still pale and too perfect, feeling flawless and just-barely warm under Jonathoa’s fingertips.
“I am not a construct,” Yeshua whispered into the air between them, soft and breathy and perfect, and Jonathoa wasn’t sure if the words were for his benefit or Yeshua’s, so he ignored them. He slid the shirt he’d given Yeshua off the young man’s shoulders, and felt old and wise in the face of Yeshua’s sudden modesty and obvious innocence.
“No,” Jonathoa agreed after a moment. “You’re not a construct.”
“But I will not break,” Yeshua assured, grabbing Jonathoa by the wrists and stepping back toward the bed. He sat, eyes wide and no longer glowing and flickering but just blue, and pulled Jonathoa atop his lap. “Do you love me?”
“I think I must,” Jonathoa whispered, leaning his forehead against Yeshua’s. “I’ve never been in love.”
“Do you want to engage in intercourse with me?” Yeshua whispered, and Jonathoa could feel the blush on Yeshua’s face, hot and beautiful and so very real and human. Jonathoa kissed him then-he’d kissed many before, and knew he was likely to kiss many after, but kissing Yeshua felt different somehow; special, perhaps, because it was Yeshua’s first-and touched his shoulder blades gently with the tips of his fingers.
“It’s called sex,” Jonathoa corrected when he pulled back.
“You called it fucking,” Yeshua accused.
Jonathoa chuckled, self-deprecating and hateful. “I don’t like Kegan. He would’ve fucked you, if he liked boys.”
“Do you like boys, Jona?” Yeshua asked, wrapping his arms around Jonathoa’s waist.
Jonathoa’s fingers skated around, slid down Yeshua’s chest between their bodies. “No,” he whispered, and touched between Yeshua’s thighs; Yeshua’s breath rushed in and shivered out as Jonathoa whispered against his lips, “I like men.”
“Do you want me to have sex with you, Jona?”
“Yes,” Jonathoa whispered, and moved his fingers over the hardness under his hand.
Yeshua moved just as fast as if he still were a construct, and Jonathoa whimpered softly as Yeshua held him down with his wrists pinned beside his head on the pillow and asked, “Do you want me to fuck you, Jona?”
“Yes,” Jonathoa groaned, hissing, pressing up against Yeshua’s firm, long body.
“I,” Yeshua whispered after a moment, the vigor gone out of his voice to be replaced with worry and fright. “I do not know what to do.”
“It’s alright, Yesh,” Jonathoa murmured, and pulled his hand away to touch Yeshua’s face again and kiss him once more. “I’ll show you.” They made berth in Paris, amid the whirring propellers of aircars and dirigibles and a thousand other Artificer things that Jonathoa had seen before but Yeshua clearly never had. The Artificer lurked in the shadows of the tethers on the dock while the captain stood before them. Jonathoa’s things sat at Yeshua’s feet; the single bag was all they had between their names.
“It’s the last of the regular circuit stops,” the captain explained gently. “I hope you can find your way to wherever you’re headed from here.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Jonathoa told her, and she nodded. The Artificer glowered from the shadows; Yeshua stared at the bag and the bangles he wore on his wrist that Jonathoa gave him before they’d entered French airspace. “Thank you for what you’ve done. For both of us.”
“Don’t thank you just yet,” the captain groused. Jonathoa remembered then an old adage from before the dirigibles, something sea-captains would say to each other.
“To when we meet again, I will thank you with plentiful hearth and heath.”
The captain laughed-threw back her head and shook with it-then turned away. The Artificer watched them, and after a moment straightened from the shadow. Yeshua looked up expectantly, but did not look at the Artificer as both the man and Jonathoa seemed to expect him to do.
Jonathoa smiled as he followed Yeshua’s gaze.
“It looks different from here,” Yeshua said.
“You never looked at her name before?”
“I suppose I never realized,” Yeshua murmured, “how beautiful and loved the Artificer’s constructs were.”
Jonathoa touched Yeshua’s arm gently, and led him away from the berth.