Page 99 of Seven Oars
“Have a drag,” he said.“Don’t be shy. I’m offering.”
Tentatively, Fawn leaned over and inhaled. It made her cough, but she worked through it under Rosamma’s concerned gaze.
Next, he waved the French horn-shaped bong near Rosamma’s face. The acrid smoke emanating from the pipe felt like raw onions stuffed under her eyelids.
“I don’t think it’s good for me,” Rosamma coughed, her eyes watering.
“I know it’s bad for you, but it makes you feel like flying. Right, Fawn?”
Thilza took a drag himself, swathing them in another toxic cloud.
“Oh, for sure,” Fawn wheezed.
“Aren’t we flying already?” Rosamma asked, suppressing another violent coughing fit.
“In this bitch of a station?” Thilza scoffed.“That’s not flying. We’ve got no destination. We’re a lost air bubble stuck in the bowels of a Gaorz alien, floating in layers of liquid shit. Did you know that Gaorz bowels take up four-fifths of their body? No? Well, it’s true. I gutted one once. Never again! So much shit. No beginning and no end.”
He sucked in more smoke.
“Well,” Rosamma surrendered to a shuddering cough.“I think… I get your meaning.”
“Good. I have a lot of important things to say. They don’t listen to me anymore‘cause it offends them.”
He propped the massive pipe on his bent knee and stretched the other leg out.
“Where are they?” Rosamma asked.
What she wanted to know was where Phex was.
“At the Engine Room.”
Just then, the“music” hit a particularly high note, drowning out every other sound before descending into complete chaos. Thilza swayed, finding rhythm in this sonic wreckage.
Fawn plugged her ears with her fingers, making him laugh.He offered her another drag and pulled her hands away, saying that she had to learn to appreciate art if she wanted to stay here.
Fawn laughed in response, while Rosamma’s mind snagged on the words“art” and“wanting to stay” there.
Thilza was clearly off his rocket, but at least he didn’t hurt them.
“And the defender?” Rosamma prompted.
“Also at the Engine Room,” Thilza said.
“Is he… alive?”
Her question surprised him.“What good would he do us dead in the Engine Room?”
Shoved into the furnace like coal?
There was no furnace, of course, but still. Some of their minds were truly twisted.
Still, a weight eased from Rosamma’s shoulders.
“He’s doing hard, dirty work, like a slave should,” Thilza said, clearly in a talkative mood.“Cleaning the valves from buildup. It’s getting too warm here. Didn’t you notice?”
Only now did Rosamma realize that she’d stopped shivering.If anything, the temperature was pleasant.
For the first time since arriving—involuntarily—aboard Seven Oars, her fingers and toes weren’t stiff from cold.
