Page 51 of Seven Oars
Fighting lightheadedness, Rosamma put a hand on the wall. It was gross and slimy.
“Yeah, it ain’t hair gel. Nud uses this wall as a wipe after his private time.”
Nud slugged the one who spoke, but it was half-hearted; he was laughing too hard to be serious.
“She came to collect the dead meat defender and place himover there.” He was in stitches.
It took effort, but she tuned them out.
Phex was unconscious. He must have gotten new bruises, but it was hard to tell when his old ones were so fresh and colorful. His hair was loose, falling around his head in soft, silky strands. His bruised skin was covered in velvety fuzz wherever it was exposed. Unlike human males, he had no facial hair, just downy softness all over. Her alien.
Being the alien, he weighed three times as much as she did, and she wouldn’t be able to take him anywhere without help.Which she didn’t have.
Nud prodded Phex with a metal tool.
“He’s hurt,” she tried to reason with them, eliciting a new bout of wild amusement.
“No fucking shit he is! He lost the Program Challenge.”
“What is that challenge?” She was afraid to know.
Galan answered,“To take it like a good slave. See, all he had to do was be real still and not fight back. Reeaalll still. We would have barely slapped him around and let him go, swear to all the stars. But no, he had to flap his little arms around.” Galan clucked his tongue.“Shame.”
Rosamma’s stomach churned.And reasoning with them was a silly idea.
“Can I… sit with him?” The only thing she could do for Phex under the circumstances was to boost his body with some of her energy. She needed a few moments of skin-to-skin contact.
There was a ripple of silent communication before Ucai stepped forward.“Only if you take on a challenge for him.”
Rosamma looked around warily.“Are you… going to beat me?”
“Yes!” Nud twirled the metal tool.
Ucai chuckled.“She won’t last, and it’ll be boring.”
His words were slightly reassuring, but a nagging sense of dread wouldn’t lift. She felt watched, and from the corner of her eye, Rosamma saw the Striker standing with his legs apart outside the circle of pirates.
His chair had been empty when she walked in, and she’d assumed he was gone.
Ucai produced a flexible sack made out of some crinkled material. Rosamma recognized the sack—it was one of the contamination bags the defenders had used in the cruiser to clean up barf and such.
“You can sit with the defender as long as you like. But you’ll have to wear this. To make it a challenge, yes? When the defender wakes up, he can take it off your head.”
Dread spilled like black oil inside her.“And if he doesn’t… wake up?”
“We won’t rig the game by killing him,” Ucai promised solemnly and smiled at her with encouragement.
Everything inside Rosamma rebelled.“I don’t want to play this game.”
“Of course, it’s your choice.” Ucai stepped back.
Nud pointed the metal rod at Phex’s stomach and leaned in.
“Wait!” she cried, tears springing to her eyes. She was so easy.
Nud removed the rod.
She looked around again, her blurred gaze landing briefly on each alien face, the men grimy, brutal, and indifferent to suffering except as a form of entertainment. She skipped the Striker altogether, only glimpsing his scars.
