"Why? Doesn't anyone else want to do it?" Drewcila answered, as she spun around in her chair to face her boarders. "And besides that's
Qwah
as in my
way
!"
"Excuse me?" Facto asked.
"Drew's attempt at humor, I'm afraid," Erik said.
"Stop screaming," Drew said holding her head. "I've got a headache."
"And I'll just bet I know why . . ." Erik started.
"Are you sick?" Taralin asked with real concern.
"Get Outtah The Truck Bitch," Drew answered
Taralin looked taken aback, and Erik laughed nervously. "It's the name of a drink," he explained.
"Are you trying to say that she's hung-over?" Facto asked in disbelief.
"Hey! Erik! I thought you said this guy was dumb," Drew said.
"I never said that," Erik assured Facto.
"I am Taralin Zarco, and this is my chamberlain Facto." Taralin tried to change the drift of the conversation.
"How come you get two names and he only gets one?" Drew asked suspiciously.
"Drew! For God's sake!"
Erik threw up his hands in defeat.
"I took on the name of my husband when we married . . ."
"Cause ah him being King and all, I suppose?" Drew was tired of making idle chatter. She turned back to the console and gave them directions over her shoulder.
"You'll find your quarters down the corridor and to your left. You can't miss it. There's a big sign made outtah cardboard that says 'VIP Quarters'. I made the sign myself."
There was no doubt in any of their minds that they were being dismissed. Facto grabbed the two small bags and headed down the hallway, and the Queen followed him.
"Pleasure to meet you," Taralin said, turning at the doorway.
"Uh huh," Drew grunted out.
"What the hell are you playing at, Qwah!" Erik screamed when he was sure they were out of hearing range.
"Hey! I made 'em a sign, didn't I?"
"You're a God damned smart-assed little bitch," he screamed, his face turning red.
"And you're a hairless, pencil-dicked old fuck," Drew said calmly. "But I love you anyway."
Erik took a deep breath and counted to ten. "What's that awful smell?" He asked after a second.
"Did you ever smell a Get Outtah The Truck Bitch?"
"Yeah."
"Well, that's what it smells like when it's been recycled."
Zarco had never been to Vares 7 before, and he decided he hadn't missed much. It was the least inhabited of Vares's eighty moons. Really nothing more than a spaceport, consisting mostly of hotels which had rooms which weren't much better than the accommodations on most ships. There were restaurants which looked like they might get shoveled out once a year, and there were trading posts. The trading posts seemed to have a little bit of everything. People traded what they didn't need for what they did. Or more than likely sold it, so that they would have enough money to get drunk, laid, or both at the most prominent business on Vares 7; one of the fifty clubs which littered the main street.
The only people who ever came here were riff-raff and Salvagers, if there was really any distinction between the two. Zarco didn't think there was.
Vares was a pit, a cesspool of a place on the edge of the cosmos, where the dregs of space congregated to share their diseases. But that was a large part of the reason they had decided to pick Taralin up here. He, Zarco, was dressed in normal spaceport clothes, and they were using the least impressive of his twenty private ships. He had given orders that no one was to know that he had left the palace, much less the planet. But he knew that was no guarantee his enemies wouldn't find out that he was gone. Things had a way of leaking out, even when you took every precaution. A servant told a friend. The friend told his wife. Before you knew it, everyone knew. But no one would even consider that he would be coming to a place like Vares 7. No one would believe he would come to such an awful place.
He still wished their reunion didn't have to be in such a horrible place, but he wasn't willing to take any chance that his enemies might stop his reunion with his wife. He wasn't deluded enough to believe that he no longer had any enemies. Winning a war didn't decrease your enemies, it increased them. If anything, they became more vengeful. There were always going to be those who would not admit to defeat. Those who had lost loved ones and were hell-bent on "justice". If you lost someone in a war that you won, their death seemed somehow justified. But if you lost the war . . . well, it just seemed like a waste.
Still, as he looked around him, he couldn't help but feel that meeting her in this place seemed a high price to pay for safety.
"Sire, I believe this is our hotel," Fitz informed him.
Zarco looked up at the three-storied building and frowned.
"Are you all right, sire?"
Zarco nodded yes.
"We married on the sands of Dradious, with the crystal clear waters of Uratis behind us. I just wish our reunion could take place someplace . . ."
He kicked a piece of something that might have once been fruit out of his way.
"Someplace cleaner. Less detestable." He forced a smile. "I'm fine, Fitz. I can't wait to see her again. To embrace her."
Taralin walked onto the bridge. She was fascinated by all the flashing lights, the buttons and screens. She knew nothing about how these things worked, but she imagined that it must take a certain amount of intelligence to operate something like this ship. She hadn't had much chance to travel, and this was the only time that she had felt like she had full run of a ship. Take off had been a little rough, and she had stayed strapped in her EV chair longer than she really needed to. But as soon as she'd gotten her space legs, she had started touring the ship and had finally wound up here.
Drewcila sat at the command console and pretended like she didn't see the other woman.
"How long will it take us?" Taralin asked.
"Sixteen to eighteen hours."
Drew stared at the screen harder.
"This is the biggest ship I've ever been on," Taralin said.
Drew raised her eyebrows. Now that didn't sound right. She'd seen presidential ships, and they were huge, flamboyant things. Surely a king would have as good—if not better. She shrugged—who could figure royalty?
"It's freighter class. I have some pretty big shipments. Junk takes up a shit load ah space. Bulky and heavy. The Garbage Scow is seventy-five percent hold, fifteen percent engine and ten percent living quarters."
"Where do you live, when you're not on the ship?" Taralin asked.
Drewcila looked at her like she was a complete imbecile.
"I'm a Salvager."
It was obvious that Taralin didn't understand the significance.
"Yes, so?"
"What do you live in—a bubble? I'm a Salvager. I live on the ship. I spend all my time in space, running junk from one planet to another. It would be kind of stupid for me to own a house somewhere. Not to mention boring. How the hell do you people exist in one place? It's no wonder you're always fighting amongst yourselves. You're fucking bored outtah yer skull."
"But don't you ever wish you had someplace to call home? Don't you ever long for our home planet?"
Drew thought about it for only a second and then shrugged."No. The Garbage Scow is my home, and all of the universe is my back yard. I can't imagine living any other way."
Drewcila punched half a dozen buttons on her panel, and watched the screen for the effect. She nodded in a satisfied way. She punched a button all the way to the right of her panel.
"That's got it, Van."
"Good. It's hotter than the hubs of hell down here," a voice spoke back out of the console.
"What was the problem?"
"A fucking rat chewed through a couple of the wires."
"Which ones?"
"The blue one and the green one."
"What's the green one do?" Drew asked shortly.
"How the fuck do I know? The coating was off it. I taped it, I killed the fucking rat, and I'm coming up," Van screamed back.
"Touchy! Touchy!" Drew laughed.
"Was that why take off was so rough?" Taralin asked.
Drew shrugged and smiled.
"Who knows? Guess we'll find out next time we take off."
"I hate fucking rats," Van Gar said.
His voice startled Taralin, and she swung around to face him. She took one look at the alien that had walked onto the bridge, let out a screech and jumped back. Almost at the same time she became aware that he was wearing the same uniform that Drewcila Qwah was. She felt like an idiot.
"I'm sorry," Taralin and Van Gar said in unison.
Van Gar laughed and walked over to her, holding out his hand.
"A pleasure to meet you. My name is Van Gar and I have the misfortune of being Drewcila's first mate."
"Some men will believe any story ya tell em," Drew mumbled.
"Ah," Taralin reluctantly took his hand. "I am Taralin Zarco. It's . . . ah.. nice to meet you. I'm afraid you startled me a little."
"I would imagine that my appearance would be a little startling to anyone who hadn't had the opportunity to meet a Chitzky before."
"Brown noser," Drew said, punching buttons for no better reason than she was bored. "Don' buy his line ah shit. He's as big an asshole as I am."
"Believe me," Van Gar hissed, "no one can compete with you when it comes to being an asshole."
Van Gar glared at Drew, and she grinned back and stuck out her tongue. Van ignored her.
"So, I would imagine that you're excited about seeing your husband again."
"I don't know if you'd call it excited . . ."
"Lousy lay, huh?" Drew guessed.
"And so she proves my point," Van Gar said shaking his head.
Drew shrugged, got up and walked to the cooler. She dug through the ice, pulled out a can, threw it to Van, and he caught it instinctively."You, Queenie?" Drew asked.
Taralin shook her head no.
Drew grabbed one for herself, then launched herself into her seat, opening her beer at the same time without spilling a drop. Drew looked at Van to see if he had witnessed the elegant execution of this act. He held his thumb up and grinned.
"So, is he?" Drew asked after a long pull on the can.
"Drew! You're such a shit head!" Van Gar cursed.
"Is who what?" Taralin asked a bit confused.
"The King. Is the king a lousy lay? You know, is he bad at the bad thing? Does his willy not tickle your twat?"
Taralin looked at Van, who seemed to be much easier to talk to than his employer.
"She wants to know if the King is good in bed," Van interpreted.
Taralin blushed scarlet. Then stammered out. "Ah . . . that's just the problem. I don't remember."
"Well, I'd say that speaks volumes!" Drew laughed.
"You're . . . Fuck you, Drew!" Van Gar stomped of the bridge.
"Wonder who tied his shorts in a knot?" Drew asked with a shrug.
"You don't understand," Taralin said. "I don't remember Zarco at all. I didn't even know who I really was 'til two days ago. They told me that the Lockhedes removed part of my brain. That I can't ever remember. Those memories are gone totally. I don't remember being Queen. I don't remember my parents, or my sister. And I don't remember him. Not at all. I don't even remember what I was like before they did this to me. I've been waiting tables on Jors for the last five years. That's all I remember. Now I'm supposed to go be Queen, and I have no idea how to be a wife much less a queen! I'm afraid Zarco is going to be terribly disappointed."
"Ah, Fuck 'em!"
"Excuse me?"
"I mean . . . Look, if you meant so much to him he should ah come after you before this. If someone took Van Gar, I'd go after him. And I wouldn't stop till I found him—and killed them in a really horrible sort of blood-gushing way. I mean, he can be a moody pain in the ass sometimes, but he's my moody pain in the ass! And it wouldn't take me no five years to get him back!"
"But they explained that to me. He didn't have a choice. The country was at war, and . . ."
"Ah, that's a fucking cop-out if ever I've heard one. He probably found someone else to fuck, and then he just wasn' in any hurry. I know men, honey. Take my word for it. They're all the same. I don't care if they're royal or not. No man goes for five years without getting his willy wet."
Taralin was blushing again. "I don't think he's that kind of man. They say he loves me. That he has mourned for me . . ."