Recycled (27 page)

"You know, ugly people have feelings, too. Don't you think that's a little shallow of you? I mean, after all I don't actually find you to be physically attractive, but I'd fuck you."

"You've got a point there, but . . . no." Arcadia smiled then."Of course that doesn't mean we have to tell them that we didn't."

Shreta looked as if she was about to say something of astute importance, and then she fell into the bar face first and slid to the floor.

Arcadia leaned over the bar to look at the prone body of her new friend."All you had to say was no!"

Drewcila walked in the door to her office and thought,
And it started out as such a lovely day, birds singing and the whole trip
.

Her office had been purposefully and maliciously destroyed, and it didn't really make her feel any better that the people who did it were more than probably dead.

She had work to do. The whole country was going to hell in a hand basket, and so you would think that a little thing like a destroyed office would be the least of her problems. Of course, what some dumb fucks would fail to realize was that she couldn't actually
do
any of the things she needed to do without a computer, a vid screen, and several thousand iggys worth of high tech communications equipment which was now just so much techno trash.

"Facto!"

"I'm right here. You don't have to scream," he said rubbing at his ear.

"What's the king's office look like?"

"Four walls, two windows, a floor, a ceiling . . ."

"Your attempt at humor is almost as dull as you are," Drewcila said with a sigh."Are his computer and communications equipment intact?"

"No. Well, I mean to say I don't know. See, your office was trashed by the nobles, but his was trashed by the locals, and . . ."

"They stole everything of value to resell it. It's a proud moment for me, and yet I'm still pissed."

"I hate to point out the obvious, Drewcila, but . . . It is just like you to put a force field on the bar, yet leave the royal offices completely unprotected," Facto said.

Drewcila mumbled a bunch of incoherent curses before explaining herself."I wasn't expecting all this crazy shit to happen. It's a castle, for godssakes, with a full staff of well trained, armed guards. You wouldn't expect to need force fields and such. On the other hand, I had to put a force field on the bar to keep Zarco from ruining my parties."

Facto cleared his throat."Speaking of Zarco, you're going to have to deal with his body, the services."

"I thought I made myself pretty clear. Cremate the body, flush it down the toilet. I don't fucking give a good rat's ass. Get rid of it, move on . . ." She had walked into the middle of her office. She turned slowly and sighed."You know what? I'm not his widow. My sister is his widow. She loved him, I didn't. She's played me before, let her do it again. Let her decide what to do with Zarco, and you help her. I'll take care of getting the equipment I need myself."

Facto looked shocked past the point of speech.

"Hey . . . Got to keep up appearances. The kingdom wants a grieving queen, we'll give them a grieving queen."

Facto nodded silently.

"Go find Stasha and tell her."

Facto turned to go, then turned back around, the glimmer of tears in his eyes."My queen . . . that's very kind of you."

Drew smiled wryly, "Just good politics."

He nodded and walked away.

She watched him leave, then walked farther into the office. She had to step over a broken bottle of Arcadian gin lying close to the wall under a hole the bottle had made when it hit."Now that was uncalled for. A victim of senseless violence, cut down in his prime . . ."

"Are you writing a speech for Zarco's funeral?" Margot asked from the door.

"No." Drew bent over and picked up a piece of the broken bottle, "A fitting send-off for a good vintage. Margot, I need a communicator. Anything stronger than my wrist com, and I need it yesterday."

"I'll see what we can find."

"Since the king's office is apparently empty, I'll be moving in there. Have the staff find me suitable furnishing, I'll work on getting all the technical equipment. And have Arcadia's and Dylan's rooms cleaned. I ran into Arcadia briefly in the hall a minute ago, obviously nursing the father, mother, and illegitimate brother of all hangovers, and all she could talk about was that they had pissed on her clothes."

"Drew . . . the staff. Well, they still aren't all back. Many of them fled before the fighting started. Others were hurt. I don't know how much they can realistically handle."

"Then we'll ask for workers from the city . . . no." she smiled wickedly."Have the guards pull the prisoners out of the dungeon, and have the prisoners muck out the mess. Two guards watching six prisoners. If they try anything, the guards' orders are to kill them immediately. And the guards are to make sure the nobles know this. The guards will work in their normal eight hour shifts, but the prisoners will work in twelve hour shifts until the castle has been completely repaired and cleaned. Oh . . . and I love this. Put a member of the household staff over each group as a foreman, and if any prisoner talks back to the foreman, it's an instant death sentence. The nobles did all this because they didn't want to live like the "common" man. Let's see how they like it when they really are living like the "common" man. Read it back."

Margot had written it all down on her power pad, and as she read it back to Drewcila, her smile seemed to grow.

"What's so damn funny?" Drewcila asked when Margot had finished reading.

"Nothing funny, really it's just . . . well, you're so smart, you always seem to know how to fix everything. How to turn a liability into an asset."

"Yes, yes so true, and I'm so fucking good looking and humble, too. Go now, and do my bidding."

She didn't feel so smart when she was sitting in her newly recycled, refurnished office, trying desperately to find the equipment she needed without having to wait for a week or gut her ship, when Dartan appeared at her door with his crew.

"Ah, fuck!" she said

"Is it a bad time, my Queen?"

"No. Get your luscious ass in here. Listen, I need a transmitter and transceiver with intergalactic capabilities. I need a computer with intergalactic links, and I need it yesterday. Can you get that for me?"

"My Queen, for you . . ."

"A simple yes or no, Dartan."

"Within the hour."

"You're a good man, I don't care what the others say."

"Can we talk to you?"

"Get me the stuff I need, and I'll do a fucking tap dance for you. Get it here in thirty minutes, and I'll do a strip tease."

He nodded and left at a run with his staff right behind him. She needed to know what the Lockhedes were planning. In order to figure that out, she needed to know how badly they'd been hurt in the battle at Hepron Station. It had looked like the whole of their fleet, but that was probably just wishful thinking.

She had to figure out how to win this war, and do it quickly before it completely bankrupted her. Or at the very least she needed to put out an all-out effort till this crap wore off her tongue and she could open her damn safe.

"So . . . do you have time to talk to me now?"

Drew sighed. She'd gotten up that morning, showered and dressed, and was almost out the bedroom door when Van Gar had announced that he had an idea she needed to hear. She'd known at the time that
I don't have time to listen to your stupid assed idea right now I'm busy
had probably been a little harsh, and that he'd force her to at least pretend to apologize later.

"I'm sorry I blew you off," Drew said half-heartedly.

Van Gar just nodded, indicating that he knew damn good and well she wasn't really sorry. Then he finished walking in and flopped in the chair across the desk from her."Half-assed, completely insincere apology accepted. Before you blow me off again, I have a proposition for you."

"Does it include lots of flavored body oil?" Drew asked with a wicked smile.

"Wrong lover. You know that stuff mats my fur up. This is a business matter."

"All right," Drew said her curiosity aroused, "I'll bite, what's your proposition?"

"I have roughly fifteen thousand displaced Chitzskies waiting for a new homeland which they are expecting me to buy them. Here's the thing. If I buy them something, I won't have as much money."

"Well, duh."

"Not only are these my people, but they are also probably the meanest mother fuckers in the galaxy, so I don't want to screw them over. Or at the very least, I don't want them to
know
that I have screwed them over . . ."

"I'm still busy, Van Gar, a point sometime, please."

"You're fighting a war. I have a small army of some of the most fearsome beings in the universe. They want land. You're queen of half a planet. You need fighters . . ."

"You fight for me, I give you land," Drewcila nodded appreciatively. It was a good plan. But she couldn't give them shit land, because if she did they'd be pissed off at her. And like Van Gar said, they were some scary mother fuckers. However, all the decent land in the country was owned by private parties or was a damn national monument. If she gave them a national treasure or started kicking the locals off their land to give it to aliens, there was bound to be shit. She told Van Gar as much.

'. . . the real problem is, Van Gar, that I have a serious battle constantly raging inside me that I have only recently become aware of. You see the forces of
I want everyone to like me
are constantly kicking the living crap out of
I really don't give a damn what people think of me
. I'm in constant conflict."

A noise in the hall drew her attention. She looked out the open doorway and saw the "noble" work detail being prodded along by a pair of exuberant guards who were obviously enjoying their new assignment immensely. It brought a smile to her face, and slapped an idea into her head so fast it made her lightheaded.

"The nobles had vast holdings, huge houses, surely your Chitzsky brothers and sisters couldn't balk about that."

"What about the nobles' families?"

"What about them? They are traitors by proxy. We sling them into the street and let them fend with the common man . . . offer them the choice of serving in the army or civil service, and redeeming themselves through service to country."

"How do you explain that you're giving the nobles' estates to a bunch of Chitzskies?"

"They pay us for the land. We use the money to help with our war effort. When they fight with pride for our country, they will prove to the common man that they deserve to be citizens."

"Wait a minute, Drewcila. The idea was for me not to have to pay for land . . ."

"You said you'd give me forty percent if I helped you . . ."

'. . . to keep my money."

"You pay the kingdom the forty percent you were going to give me."

"You'd give up your part of the take to help my people and your country?" he said in disbelief.

"Dumb ass! Who is the Queen of this kingdom?"

"You are."

"So if you pay the kingdom, who ultimately gets the money?"

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh." She laughed and reached into her desk drawer to get a cigar. She flipped it up, caught it between her teeth and lit it with her side arm. She threw one to Van Gar, who caught it easily. He put it in his mouth and was about to light it when it sparked to flame.

"Damn it, Drewcila!" Van Gar yelped."You might at least warn me."

Drewcila smiled back, shrugged and put her blaster back in its holster."You just can't be nice to some people. You know, Van . . ." she took a long drag of her cigar and blew out a stream of smoke rings before she started talking again."I think being around all that religious bullshit has dulled your senses."

Van smiled back at her in spite of himself."You know you went to sleep in the middle of my story last night. I was really quite magnificent."

"Sorry, that was so insensitive of me, but I was a little tired, oh, you know, what with saving the planet, and screwing you senseless, and all." Drew smiled at him."Magnificent, huh?"

Van Gar started telling the story again. He was about to get to the part where he was oh so incredibly magnificent, when the reporter dude showed up with all the communications equipment Drewcila had ordered. She completely blew Van Gar off as she started shouting out orders concerning where she wanted this and where she wanted that and what she was going to do with it if they made the screeching noise sliding it across the floor even one more time.

Feeling rejected, Van Gar left in a huff—which was wasted because Drew didn't even notice he was gone. He wandered off in the direction of the bar, thinking a good stiff drink might help clear his mind.