Queen of Denial (16 page)

Stasha met her gaze and nodded. She moved quickly and took her mother's arm and led her towards her seat and away from Drew. The only chair empty was the one next to the husband person.

Drew sat down hard, and she must have looked as green as she felt.

"Are you all right, dear?" Zarco asked.

"All right! All right? Do you realize that I went through a whole closet! A fucking roomful of clothes, and there was not a damn thing there I would be caught dead wearing? I'm wearing the fucking sheets off my bed. I have a fucking dresser; like I need any help wearing my sheets! There are bunnies on my walls. Bunnies! Last time I saw one of those, I was eating it, and spitting the gristly bits at the humans sitting at the bar. Kidnapped by fucking Lockhedes, forced to crash land in the desert. I lost my fucking ship. Hell, I lost two ships, both swallowed up by the Galdart sands. Attacked by giant Hurtellas, then we get to plow our way through a riot. Did you people really have to rescue me?"

Drew jumped up and started to run out the door, but it was closed, and she hit the wall in several places trying to find the button. There was a hand on her shoulder.

"You feel better now, Drew?" Stasha asked.

Drew turned to look at her. She was smiling. Drew shrugged.

"Not really. I could do with a drink about now."

"Let's go get something to eat."

Stasha looked around the room.

"Come on, let's go, I'm famished." Zarco said.

Stasha reached for Drew's hand and Drew let her take it and lead her out.

"I'm sorry about the clothes. It was stupid of me not to realize that in five years your tastes might have changed."

Lillith must have overheard. "The dress I picked was suitable. Whatever you've been doing, Taralin, you must realize that as Queen, you have certain duties and responsibilities. You can't walk about the palace in riding boots and your bed sheets!"

"Mother!" Stasha started to protest.

"If I'm the fucking Queen, I can run about buck naked if I want." Drew spit back venomously.

"Well, at least that hasn't changed. You still have a mouth on you."

"If I didn't, I'd look funny eating. 'I'm sorry my Queen but you've got a lovely piece of lettuce in your ear . . . Oh a thousand pardons I forgot you don't have a proper mouth.' I need a drink." Drew mumbled and made her very best stupid face.

"Oh, very funny, Taralin," Lillith said hotly. "You always have to hurt my feelings."

"I don't even know you." Drew spat back. "And here I thought all this brain sucking was a bad thing. I need a fucking drink."

"Tar, what's fucking?" Lillith asked the father person.

Stasha chuckled.

"It's, ah," the father person smiled and looked embarrassed. "It's a slang term meaning . . . I'll tell you later, dear."

Drew excused herself after breakfast, and Margot followed her.

"I thought you said she was a little over-bearing. At no time did you say that the woman is a flaming bitch," Drew said accusingly.

Margot smiled and shrugged. "I don't know what that is. Lillith has always been nice to me, but . . . Well, you and she never did get along. You got along a little better after you married Zarco."

"Yeah, I imagine that pleased the status-climbing old whore. She probably really loved me only after I had been abducted."

She shook her head. "Erik told me that my parents were Salvagers like me, and that they were slaughtered by space pirates. I had this vision of my parents being bigger than life; bold and brave. Then when they told me I wasn't really Drewcila Qwah, I pictured my father as being the sit-on-his-lap type, and my mother as the home-baked-cookies type. Instead, we're talking the Ice Man and Super Bitch. Do you know where my crew is now?"

"In the guards' quarters. This way."

Margot led her down yet another hall. At the door, the guards bowed, then started to follow them.

"What do you think you're doing?" Drew asked, stopping and turning to face them.

"Our orders are to go with you where ever you go," they said in unison.

"Paranoia in stereo," Drew mumbled. "Tell you what. Let me see that laser rifle."

They both tried to hand her their weapons.

"Just one." She smiled and took one of the rifles.

"OK. This is my rifle now, and I'll guard myself."

"But, my Queen, our orders . . ."

"I un-order you," she said with a smile.

They must have accepted that, because they stayed at their post.

"Do you know how to use that thing?" Margot asked in shock.

"Use it, hell! I cut my teeth on one of these suckers."

Margot led her to the guards quarters. They were warm, and not uncomfortable looking, but nothing close to the splendor of the palace. Van Gar was laying asleep on a lower bunk. Drew crawled into bed with him. Much to Margot's horror.

"Van," she said softly.

No response.

"Van," she said a little louder, shaking him a little.

He still didn't stir.

"Van, damn it, wake up!" she yelled, shaking him as hard as she could.

He startled awake, and sat bolt upright, hitting his head on the top bunk.

"Fuck!" He rubbed his head. "Damn it, Drew!"

"Where's the dweeb?"

Van Gar shrugged.

"Do I look like a monkey keeper?"

"Do you want me to answer that?"

"If you say yes, I'm going to rip your head off and shit in the hole."

"My, aren't we in a lovely mood?"

"Well, I just love it when you scream me awake, and it just really makes my day if I can follow it up by giving myself a concussion."

Drew rolled over onto his leg.

"Why don't you just use the weapon and get it over with?" he grumbled, rubbing at his knee.

"Ah, quit being such a pussy!"

He saw Margot cringing against the far wall. Obviously, she had never seen anything that looked like Van Gar.

Drew followed Van Gar's gaze. "Margot, I want you to meet my pilot, Van Gar. Van Gar, this is Margot—she's my dresser."

"Your dresser!" Van raised an eyebrow. "And did she dress you in this lovely little frock?"

"This 'lovely frock' happens to be the sheets off my bed, smegma breath."

"Sheets!" Van ran his hand over the fabric, apparently oblivious to the fact that it also happened to be her tit.

"This is real silk, Drew! The real shit. Do you have any idea what the re-sale value would be on this shit?"

"The shit that I'm wearing on my disappointing body?"

"I said I was sorry." Van Gar sighed.

"Apparently I'm the one who's sorry. Anyway, I'm wearing about seven hundred iggys in thread."

"Wow!" Van looked mightily impressed.

"You should see the shit I threw on the floor. There was enough fine cloth there to keep us in beer for ten years."

"Then why are you wearing the sheets?"

"This was funeral shit, Van. Long flowing gowns and drek like that. Nothing I'd be caught alive in."

"You mean dead in," Van corrected.

"No. I mean alive. When I'm dead, you can put me in anything. As long as I'm breathing air, I ain't wearin' none ah that shit."

"Queens don't wear sheets, not even silk ones," Van said.

"Yeah. Well, I ain't cut out ta be no Queen, either. Zarco, he thinks he can kiss me any time he likes, and my parents! You wouldn't fucking believe them. My dad is like some stone soldier, and my mother!" She sat up and threw up her hands.

"What's she like?"

"Imagine Erik in a dress, only a tad bit ruder."

Van Gar made a face.

"Yeah, not a pretty picture. My room you would not even believe. The wall paper has flowers and bunnies on it. And get this; I supposedly picked this shit out myself! It's just too scary."

"Bunnies? You mean those horrid creatures from Earth that almost ate Deltoid 4?"

"One and the same."

"Hell, the last time I saw one of those, we were eating it and spitting the gristly bits at the humans in the bar."

"Exactly! Now you can see why it's so important that we get all we can and get out of this place."

She remembered Margot standing there.

"Margot, could you give us a moment?" The dresser bowed and left the room.

"I gottah get outtah here, or I'm gonna go nuts. I want you to go to the spaceport. Not right away, but in a couple of days. Find out what ships the kingdom owns. I figure they owe us at least two, but we'll shoot for three and a bunch of loot."

"What are you going to do?" Van Gar asked suspiciously.

"When I get done with them at the palace, they're going to be praying to get rid of me. Zarco is going to want a divorce, and I want to know what to ask for in the healthy settlement I plan to collect."

Van Gar smiled and nodded.

"So, basically, you want me to go shopping."

"Hey! This is one of the hardest jobs I've ever done, and it's going to have to have a big payoff to make it worth all the trouble."

"I still don't buy that you're just in this for the money."

"Well, buy this then, baby. My curiosity has been satisfied. I know just enough about Taralin to know that I don't want to know any more." She walked over and opened one of the lockers.

"By the way, you're moving up to the palace. You can bring your monkey if you want."

"Ha, ha."

Drew opened another locker.

"You can rest up in luxury for a few days, and then you can head out to the spaceport in the biggest baddest limo we can find. We might as well live this shit while we can."

"What's all the noise and rioting? You know anything about that?"

Drew shrugged.

"The natives are restless. Who knows. It's a bunch of government shit. As far as I'm concerned, it's just one more reason we need to get the hell out of here. My guess would be that the country is suffering from a post-war depression. And if I'm right, we need to get out while the gettin's good."

"Can you do that, Drew?" Van asked. "Can you cash in while your people are cashing out?"

"These aren't my people. They're just some chumps ripe for the picking. Right now we don't have a whole lot of options. We are shipless. And a shipless Salvager ain't worth a hell of a lot in real space. I don't think we can count on Erik to set us back up. What with him bein' dead, an all. The way I see it, Zarco and his precious people let this happen to me. So, if what I have become eats his lunch . . . well isn't that just kind of poetic justice?"

Drew met Margot outside the dorm, wearing one of the black and red guard uniforms.

"You can't wear that!"

"Ah, so now the little dresser girl thinks she can tell me what to wear. Not fucking likely. I like it, it fits me, and it goes with the gun," she said, pointing to the laser side arm which hung in a holster strapped to her hip and leg.

"But that's a guard's uniform!"

"And I love it. See, the tight black pants with the red piping up the sides. And I love the way this shirt buttons here and then here to give it that double-breasted effect. It's black on the outside and red on the inside. So that if you leave it open like this, you can see the red, and it just looks so . . ."

"Scant. You can see most of your cleavage."

"Can you really?"

"Yes."

"Then this is just one of the greatest shirts I have ever worn."

They had reached the palace, and the door guards.

"Well, hello, boys."

They both gave her a shocked look.

"Listen, I left your rifle in the guard house. When you go get it, would you be so kind as to retrieve my bed sheets?"

"Your every wish is my command, my Queen."

"And look here." She unbuttoned one of the guard's shirts so that it hung open, exposing his hair-covered chest. Then she walked over and undid the other fellow's shirt. She stood back and admired her handiwork.

"Oh yes, that's much better. Now listen. As of now, all guards working at the palace must wear their shirts undone in this manner."

"What, my Queen?" the hairy one asked, thinking that he must have misunderstood.

"You heard me, man. By Royal Decree. Now, go on. Carry out my orders. I want to see the chest of every man in this palace by sundown tonight."