Queen of Denial Read online

  Drew stopped and Van Gar followed suit. Together they turned to face the determined whore. They looked at each other, then back at the whore.

  "Nah," they said in unison, then turned and started walking again.

  "Ah, come on! It's been a lousy night. Give a girl a break," she whined as she continued to follow them.

  "We said we're not interested," Van said hotly.

  "You don't have to be so mean," the whore shouted back.

  Drew turned around. "Tell you what, honey. Go and boil your pussy for ten minutes, and then maybe we'll talk."

  Drew gave her a little shove. "Now beat it."

  "You'll be sorry!" The whore screamed over her shoulder as she took off running in the other direction.

  "Not as sorry as we could have been!" Van shouted after her.

  The Salvagers laughed and started on their way again. Their drinks were almost empty, and they were trying to pick a good dive in which to buy a refill, when two big human males crawled out of an alley in front of them.

  "Suppose this is the sorry that slut was talking about?" Van whispered to Drew.

  She smiled up at him. "Either that, or a welcoming committee for crabs."

  "Hey, fur ball, where ya get off puttin' down our whore?" The bigger one gritted out through yellow teeth.

  "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will only piss me off," Van Gar sneered back.

  "So, ya wanna get smart, do ya?" The smaller one cracked his knuckles.

  "Why? Are you guys teachers?" Drew asked facetiously.

  "Give us the money, and maybe we'll let ya live," the big one snarled.

  "Get the fuck outtah my face, and maybe I'll let you live," Van Gar answered with a smile.

  At six-six, and carrying two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle-bound flesh, wrapped in a protective coating of fur, there weren't many things in the universe that intimidated the Chitzky.

  "Now, now," Drew chided, clicking her tongue. "Can't we find a peaceful solution? After all, the universe would be a much nicer place if people would just talk things out instead of always resorting to violence . . ."

  "You've gottah be kidding, lady," the bigger one said.

  "You interrupted me when I was talking!" Drew screamed as she took a step closer to him. "I hate it when people do that!" She kicked him in the balls as hard as she could, and he collapsed, screaming in agony. Then she kicked him in the head for good measure.

  Without waiting for the other man's reaction, Van Gar landed a power punch to his face, and he hit the sidewalk next to his friend, out cold.

  Meanwhile, Drew was finishing her lesson, punctuating her speech with solid kicks to her victim's ribs.

  "What I was going to say before you so rudely interrupted me, was that people should learn to dwell in peace with one another. That we should nurture each other instead of always destroying each other."

  Her speech finished, she quit kicking him, and she and Van Gar started back down the street without a backwards glance.

  "Well, the whore was right," Drew said.

  "Huh?"

  "I am sorry. Sorry that I didn't hit that diseased bitch first."

  "Amen, Sister." Van Gar laughed.

  Drew took his hand. She liked the way it felt—all warm and hairy. He squeezed her hand till it was almost uncomfortable, and she warmed with the familiar feel of it.

  "Hey, Chitzky. Why don't you find your own kind!" Someone screamed from the safety of a crowded bar. Van started to drop Drew's hand, but she held his tighter.

  "Fuck em," she said.

  "Fucking jerk," Van mumbled. "Hell, it might have been Erik. He makes no bones about the way he feels about me."

  "Erik's human, Van. You know how they are. They hate everybody."

  "It's not just the humans, Drew. Not with the Chitskys. We no longer have a home world, and because of that all races look down on us."

  "Aw! Come on, Van. We're supposed ta be havin' a good time. You're not going ta start that poor-down-trodden-Chitzky crap again, are you? So you don't have a planet. Whoopy shit. Some people will find any reason to whine. Now snap out of it. We're celebrating, remember? Fuck Erik. The only reason Erik doesn't like you is because you have hair everywhere, and he doesn't even have it on his head."

  Van Gar laughed and followed her into the first of a series of ten bars.

  Chapter 2

  Drew held her head between her hands and tried to make the screens in front of her come into focus. Through the fog of pain, she was about to decide that there really was such a thing as having too good a time.

  Van set a steaming cup of liquid in front of her.

  "I told you not to drink that Get Outtah the Truck Bitch. You get sick every time you drink them.

  "I am aware of that, Van Gar." Drew spoke carefully, so she wouldn't wake up the sharp pains in her head again. "After all, you only said 'I told you so' seven hundred times last night while I was throwing up my liver and spleen."

  "Well, that's seven hundred and one, then." He worked at keeping the smile off his face. "I've just about got the mess cleaned up now."

  "I don't know what I'd do without you."

  "Drown in vomit?" Van suggested.

  "What a pleasant thought," Drew said with a snarl.

  She let her head flop on the console in front of her, and then fought the wave of nausea that washed over her.

  "Oh! Please! There couldn't possibly be anything left in my stomach. Oh, never again, Van. Tell me. Did I make an ass of myself?"

  "No more than usual."

  "Did I dance naked anywhere?"

  "Just topless. No one seemed to notice."

  "That's always comforting. Did we have sex?"

  "No," Van said with a laugh. "Not unless you consider holding your head outtah the toilet to be fore-play."

  "You will tell me if we ever have sex, won't you? I mean, I'd hate not knowing." She groaned loudly. "Oh, God, Van! I wish I would just die and get it over with."

  "No such luck, babe. Drink your medicine, you'll feel better. I'm going to go finish cleaning up the mess."

  "Oh, that's right. We couldn't have the ship messy when the royal bitch gets here. Go ahead—abandon me in my hour of need . . ."

  "Your hour of need was about three o'clock this morning. Why have you already decided to hate this woman?" Van Gar pushed the cup closer to Drew, and she picked up her head and made a face at the smell.

  "There's just something that galls me about the thought of royalty. The idea that someone is better than me simply by right of their birth. Like being born is something you have any say in. I mean, what happens? Does a sperm scream out, 'No! no. Don't put me in that wretched pussy, I want to go in that Royal cunt!' I don't fucking think so."

  Van Gar laughed. "You're a twisted bitch, Drew." Still laughing, he left to go finish cleaning up the ship.

  Drew waited till he was out of sight, then she stumbled over to the disposal chute and tossed the Chitsky's hang-over remedy away. Then she went back and sat down.

  "I feel better already," she mumbled, looking at the empty cup.

  She decided that no matter how hard it might be, she was not going to let Erik know she was hung-over.

  "So! You must be Drewcila Qwah," declared a booming male voice.

  "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! E
rik! 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."