Queen of Denial (6 page)

Drew looked at Taralin.

"Now how the hell am I supposed to protect him if he's way up there?"

"You're supposed to protect her. I can take care of myself," Facto assured her.

"In that case you're not as stupid as I thought you were, Fuckto."

"Facto, my name is Facto."

He stopped and turned to face her.

"You are the most irritating . . ."

"Facto!" Taralin put a hand on his shoulder. "We're almost there now. Just ignore her a few more minutes."

Facto nodded, turned and started to walk again.

"How can he ignore me when it's so obvious that he wants me? He yearns for me. My warm sensuous body pressed close to his—my squirming hips playing against his."

"Enough!" Facto screamed; his face burning bright red.

"Chill, baby."

Drew strode forward, kissed him on the lips, and then walked towards the door of the hotel they had stopped in front of.

"Look! We're here. And tomorrow I'll just be a warm, wet memory."

Facto walked up beside Taralin and they started into the hotel.

"I am not attracted to her," he assured Taralin.

"It's OK, Fuckto."

Drew opened the door and the other three walked in.

"It's not easy to be an object of desire. I live with it . . . Bar!" As if she were steel, and the bar a magnet, she let herself be pulled in the direction of the hotel bar.

"Come back here!" Facto ordered.

"You said to the hotel. We're in the hotel, and you're out of money. You're on your own."

Facto looked appealingly at the Chitzky, and he shrugged.

"Bar," he answered. As if that explained it all.

He took Taralin's hand and kissed the back of it.

"It was a pleasure to serve you."

"Thank you," Taralin said. "For everything."

"Facto," the Chitzky held out his hand, and Facto took it reluctantly. "Learn to loosen up, dude," he winked at the man and then ran to catch up with Drew in the bar.

Drew sat at the bar.

"Blow Me Hard And Often—with a twist," she ordered.

The bartender nodded and went to work.

Van Gar came in and sat beside her.

"Brown noser," she accused.

"I was just being nice," Van Gar defended. "I know that's hard for you to recognize."

"I'm nice," Drew protested.

Van Gar just laughed.

"I am!"

The bartender put her drink in front of her.

"Thanks," she said. Then turned to Van Gar.

"See?"

Behind them, a man's voice boomed through the crowd.

"Taralin! My love! My life!"

Drew turned to see the long-awaited reunion, and a strange man threw his arms around her, spilling her drink.

"Fucking idiot!" Drew swore, pushing the man harshly away, and wiping the drink off her jump suit. The man looked deep into her eyes. At least he tried to; she didn't cooperate.

"Oh, Taralin! At long last!" He pulled a very surprised Drew into his arms, and kissed her on the lips. Drew pushed him out to arms length and held him there.

"Listen, jerk. I know it's been a long time, so I'm going to let you live." She pointed to where Taralin stood across the room looking hurt. "That's yer old lady over there."

Zarco looked from the woman in front of him to the trio which stood in the door. His face fell.

"You . . . you really don't remember, then? Not me? Not any of them?"

"No. She don't remember you. But I don't guess that matters too much, since you don't remember her either. I am Drewcila Qwah. I'm the Salvager that Fuckto hired to haul your wife here."

"His name is Facto, and it is you who are my wife. My wife, Taralin Zarco."

"Buddy, I don't know you, and you're starting to piss me off big time. First off, you spilt my drink."

Facto and the others joined their King then.

"I am sorry for the deception, but, well, you were so changed, my Queen. We didn't know how to make you believe us."

"I am your sister, Stasha," the woman who had called herself Taralin announced.

Drew took a step backwards and hit the bar. Suddenly, she didn't feel so good. A wave of nausea washed over her, and sweat gathered on her upper lip, so she took a long sip from her drink. Feeling somewhat calmed, she said carefully, "I am Drewcila Qwah, I am a Salvager. I am not now—nor have I ever been—anyone's Queen."

Van Gar looked at Drew for a long moment, and then at the others.

"Drewcila was in a pirate raid five years ago, and she suffered complete amnesia—or so she was told. She has no idea what her life was like before that. She doesn't even remember the raid."

Drew gave him a betrayed look.

"You might be this person, Drew. Wouldn't you like to know? Once and for all, wouldn't you like to know who you were before?"

It took some doing, but they finally talked Drewcila into going back to the suite with them.

"I'm sure this must all come as a big shock to you," the one called Fitz said.

"Well, this may come as a big shock to all of you, but I ain't goin' nowhere with you bunch of wackos."

She pulled her hand away from Zarco for the fifteenth time.

"You should listen to them, Drew," Van Gar said.

"Why? This is their fairy tale, not mine. Fucking queen of some country! We all know who I am."

"Taralin Zarco," Zarco answered. "My queen and my love." He took her hand and kissed it.

"Would you stop doing that!"

Drew pulled her hand away. She glared at Van Gar as if he had forced her to commit some terrible and unnatural act just by helping them to convince her to come here at all.

Zarco got up and moved across the room. He could not be so close to her and not touch her, and it was obvious that it was distressing her. Zarco sat across the room and stared at his wife. She looked like Taralin. Except for the hair cut. She had cut her hair in some strange alien fashion—short on the sides and back-long on top. It was attractive, but he missed her long, flowing mane of jet-black hair. Still, the woman he sat across from looked exactly like his wife.

But appearance was where it stopped. Taralin did not walk or move the same way, and she certainly didn't talk the same way. Her voice had taken on a harsh raspiness, and every other word out of her mouth was alien profanity or slang no doubt picked up in her travel from spaceport to spaceport. In spite of all this, it was more than he could handle to have to look at her and not touch her. Because this woman—however strange she may seem—was his wife. The only woman he had ever loved. He only prayed that they were all wrong, and somewhere in her mind was locked away some memory of him and of their love.

"Quit staring at me. Yer giving me the creeps," Drewcila ordered. "Who do I have to kill to get a drink around here?"

"At once, my Queen," Fitz bowed low and ran off to a liquor cabinet. He opened it and peered inside. "I'm afraid it is not well-stocked. Does my queen have a preference?"

"Well, I've always found myself hopelessly attracted to men, though of course there were a couple of times when I was really drunk that . . ."

"He was talking about the drink." Facto sighed.

"Oh. Anything. Something in a bottle," Drew said.

She watched as Fitz pulled a shot glass out and started to pour a shot from the bottle.

"No, no just bring me the bottle."

He looked unsure but brought it to her all the same.

Drew put the bottle to her lips and downed half of it before coming up for air.

"This has got to be a mistake. I could never be anything like you stuffy bunch of pin heads. Nothing personal." She belched loudly. "I'm sorry you lost yer queen, but I ain't her." She belched again. "Hey! This ain't bad shit!"

"I couldn't agree more," Facto said. "And I'm not talking about the liquor."

"We know that she is Taralin, Facto. DNA doesn't lie. She is our queen." Fitz said.

"Oh, I have no doubt that this is Taralin's body. But I have been with this woman for the better part of a day, and there is no part of Taralin in her. Not one trait of our gentle queen is present in Drewcila Qwah. This woman is a rude, loud, drunkard, and a slut. When they removed part of her brain, they removed Taralin. They killed her."

Facto looked appealingly at his king.

"My King, bury Taralin's memory and find a more suitable mate than this Salvager."

"There can be no one for me but Taralin. What has happened to her is my fault. All our faults, because we cared more for our country than we did our kin."

"Sire, you did the only thing you could do. No one could ask you to act differently. You sacrificed your own happiness for the kingdom. You have punished yourself enough. Don't punish yourself or your country by bringing this mockery of Taralin home. Don't let this woman ruin your people's memory of a kind and noble Queen. What has happened is done, and nothing can undo it. I wish I could tell you truthfully that you could turn this thing back into Taralin, but in all truth I think it would be more suitable to put the crown on a Dridel Beast."

"What are you suggesting, Facto?" Stasha screamed. "That we leave my sister here to play Salvager—to the tender mercies of a Chitzky?"

She looked at Van Gar.

"No offense meant."

"None taken," Van Gar said with a shrug.

"Your sister is dead, Stasha. I can't believe that you wouldn't be sure of that, having spent time in the company of Drewcila Qwah."

"She is my sister, Facto. They may have removed her memory, but her basic traits—the part of her brain that made her what she was—that is still there, still the same."

"How can you say that? This woman waded into her hold with a weapon as big as herself and brutally killed people."

"She protected what was hers. That was very like Taralin." But now Stasha sounded unsure and defensive.

"She killed them, and then she came back to the bridge bragging about what she was going to get off their ship, and she ate a sandwich!"

"I was hungry," Drew said, defensively.

"I don't consider it a bad thing to kill pirates," Stasha said. "They would have killed us if they got a chance."

"She's a crook. You heard her on the docks. She's completely unscrupulous."

"Enough, Facto. I will not hear you talk of my wife—your Queen—in such a manner. You've said your piece, and we have heard it. No more. Taralin will return to her throne beside me where she belongs, and we will make her remember who she is and how to act."

"OK! Hold it right there!" Drew yelled. "If you guys could just stop talking about me like I'm not here, and calling me dead and implying that I'm walking around with half a brain, I've got a couple of things to tell you bunch of coconuts, then I'm going to make like a baby and go."

She waited to make sure she had everyone's attention.

"Now listen, cause I am only going to say this one more time. My name is Drewcila Qwah. I have always been Drewcila Qwah. It's true that I was in an accident and I suffered amnesia, but I have my whole brain, thank you, and I know who I am because they told me. Everyone knew me and everyone still does. I'm a Salvager, my parents were Salvagers, and their parents before them. That is my heritage, and I don't appreciate you saying Salvager like it was a dirty word. It is an honorable and useful occupation, as well as a profitable one. Unlike being some do-nothing Royal fuck. I have worked all my life. No one ain't never give me shit. And if I talk a little too rough for you, or act a little strange in your eyes, or put a little too much store in trash, maybe it's you that's fucked up and not me. I have my memories."

"Which were mostly fed to you by Erik Rider."

Van Gar looked at Zarco.

"She doesn't remember shit past five years ago. There is a scar on the front of her head, just under her hair line which Erik said was caused from impact, but it could have just as easily been caused from an operation." Drew gave him a heated look.

"Drew, if you're this Taralin person, this is your family. Aren't you even curious?"

"If this is my family I prefer the dead one. You know how I feel about these Royal shits. Living off people they look down on. People like you and me who keep the universe going."

Drew downed the rest of the bottle.

"Hell, these people don't even know how to make a decent drink."

"Sire, surely you can see that she can never be one of us again," Facto said in a pleading tone. "Would you really trust her to lead beside you? To give her control of all the kingdom's wealth? All the riches of the palace—all the treasure of your fathers?" Drewcila's eyes grew wide, and she smiled.