by Selina Rosen
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 i
t 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.
"You know," she said thoughtfully, "I have always felt lost in the world of Salvagers. Like an outsider. Like I just really didn't fit in."
Van Gar sighed and ran a hand down his face. He could see a scam coming on.
Chapter 4
"She has been talking to the Chitzky for thirty minutes, Sire. Can't you see that she has only agreed to go home with you so that she can get her hands on your wealth?" Facto pleaded.
"Can't you see that I don't care why she is going with me, only that she is with me?"
Zarco stared at the woman standing with her back to him across the vastness of the spaceport.
"Once we are together, all will be put right. This time apart shall be erased like it never was."
"But, Sire, surely."
"No more! I told you before. Your words border on treason, and they are falling on deaf ears."
"But, my King!"
"Not one more harsh word about the Queen," Zarco ordered.
He took a deep breath.
"Please, my old friend. I need your help more now than ever I did before. All that has kept me going these long harsh years has been the hope of being reunited with Taralin. Now we have found her, and she is whole, but she no more remembers me than a drunk man remembers his balance. I am all too aware that she may never be the woman that she was. That she may never again love me as she once did. But please don't tell me that I am a fool to try. Because if she is gone to me forever, then I'd just as soon they remove my memory so that I don't have to remember what I have lost. I'd rather be dead than never feel her love again."
"An entire fleet of ships. No! Why stop there? Two fleets and our own spaceport!" Drew wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth. "All I have to do is play my cards right, and I can be Queen of the Salvagers. We'll pick these Royal bastards till their bones are clean."
"Drew. That woman is your sister. That man is your husband. They are your past." Van Gar reprimanded her gently.
"Ah, bullshit," Drew said. "I ain't buying that brain-removed shit for one minute. I know who I am."
"You know they're telling you the truth."
"They think they're telling me the truth. I know they believe I am their Queen."
"You do, too. I saw the look on your face the moment you realized that they were telling you the truth."
"You read too much into an attack of gas. I didn't come from shit like that. I couldn't. They're just flash and air. I'm real."
She paused, re-gathering her thoughts.
"Now, here's my plan. I'll go with the Royal fucks. You take the Garbage Scow and follow. Don't stay too far back, just out of detection range. Land at the space port at Delta Ray station and wait for me. I figure it will take me about a week to make them decide that they want me as no part of their Royal Court, then they'll give me any amount of money I ask for just to be rid of me."
"Why can't you just admit that you are curious about your past and your people?" Van Gar asked.
"I don't need your asteroid belt analysis, Van. Wait at Delta Ray, and I'll come for you when I've cleaned them out."
"As you wish, your Royal Majesty," Van Gar said, bowing low.
"Knock it off, fuck head."
She turned and started to walk away.
"Aren't you even going to say good-bye?" Van Gar asked in a hurt tone.
She turned to face him, and smiled.
"Ain't goin' nowhere, fur ball." She winked at him. "See you in a week."
She turned and walked towards Zarco and the others.
Van Gar watched her go. Oh Drew, if you stay too long with this King, I'll lose you forever. He turned away quickly and started for the Garbage Scow. She didn't even realize that this was the first time they had been apart (really apart) in over four years. She didn't even bother to kiss his cheek or hug him. She'd gotten him a navigator and she thought he should be happy with that. Like just anyone could take her place for him. Hell, he couldn't remember the last time he had flown a ship with anyone but Drewcila Qwah. In fact, for the last few years he really hadn't had any continual contact with anyone else.
He looked back just in time to see Drewcila board the Royal ship. While its lines were sleeker, it wasn't half the size of the Garbage Scow, and didn't have near the character. Van Gar dragged himself onto the ship, thinking that he couldn't possibly feel any lower—and then he met the new navigator.
"Hi! My name is Tim," he announced in a voice that would grate on gravel.
Tim was a short, slightly over-weight male in his late twenties. To put the icing on the cake, he was human.
Van Gar made an unpleasant noise in the human's direction, and then he started to make a routine check of the ship.
Tim followed him around like a stray puppy, and occasionally Van Gar told him something he thought Tim should know.
Everything was checking normal, when the computer indicated a blockage in the number two exhaust port. Van Gar started stomping down the hall leading out of the ship.
"Damned Humans, spreading their filthy vermin through space."
Tim followed closely behind him, apparently oblivious to what Van Gar had just said.
"Everywhere they go, disease, war and pestilence follow in their wake. They brought us flies, and roaches, and ants . . ."
". . . and Velcro, and duct tape, and bubble gum," Tim said defending his race.
Van Gar picked up a section of pipe off the ground, walked over to the number two exhaust port and gave it a good hard whack. When the chiming stopped, a half dozen fur-covered creatures fell from the pipe.
"And rats, Tim. Humans and rats."
Van Gar laid into the dazed rats with his feet and the pipe till they were all dead.
"There's only one thing I hate worse than rats, Tim . . . Tim?"
He found the human laying on the ground, obviously out cold. "Humans, Tim. I hate humans."
Across the spaceport he heard the Royal ship powering up.
"Shit!"
He ran over and shook the human till he opened his eyes.
"Listen to me, monkey boy. Run up and get me the rat extractor, and hurry it up, or Drew will have both of our hides."
Tim jumped to his feet with help from Van Gar, and with a little shove in the right direction he started for the ship.
"Fucking humans!"
He slammed the pipe again and went after the rats with deadly perfect aim.
"Fucking rats!"
He watched as the Royal ship lifted off across the spaceport, sheltering his face with his arm to shield it from the sand and dirt the lift-off kicked up. Damn. She was gone. Maybe he'd see her again, but then again, maybe he never would.
"Good-bye, Drew," he whispered into the dust, choking back his tears. His only friend was gone and he was left in a world of humans and rats.
It was a nice ship, but Drew had seen better. Drewcila indulged them by letting Stasha take her on a tour of the ship and oo-ing and ahh-ing at all the right spots. When they finally got to the bridge, Drew parked herself in the captain's seat and started playing with the terminal. The captain nervously hovered around her.
"Uh, my Queen, this is a very sophisticated piece of machinery . . ."
"Honey, I have forgotten more about flying than you
ever knew. Why don't you do some bowing and scraping and shit, and leave me alone?"
The captain looked at Stasha in disbelief. Could this be their gentle queen?
"She's been through a great deal," Stasha said.
"Actually, I didn't think it was all that great. Half my brain sucked out. Left to fend for myself in a cruel and unsympathetic world. Where the fuck are they?"
