Barbary

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “I read a lot of novels about space travel,” Barbary said. “In them everybody gets around by sticking themselves to the walls with Velcro.”

  “That doesn’t work very well,” Jeanne said. “Hook pollution.” In response to Barbary’s questioning glance, she said, “The little plastic hooks on the Velcro break off and float around and get into things. You can slide along the tracks if you get some skates, or a skating-chair,” Jeanne said over her shoulder. “But this way’s a lot faster.” Jumping, ricocheting, handswimming, she drew Barbary into a maze of corridors and tunnels. In a few minutes Barbary felt completely disoriented. The painted lines joined their course or peeled off from it, disappearing down other corridors. Soon all the colors had changed but one.

  “Are you following the blue?”

  Jeanne pulled herself along hand over hand. She slowed, glancing at the wall below — beside? — them. “Right,” she said. “It is blue to deck one. After a while you learn your way around, and you forget which colors lead where.”

  She accelerated again. She moved in a way almost like crawling, except that she did not use her legs. She kept her body parallel to the surface containing whichever holds she happened to be using at the time. Jeanne grabbed a rung, pulled to propel herself forward, and used her other hand to catch another rung several body-lengths along the corridor.

  “Deck one,” Barbary said. “What’s that?”

  “The observation bubble,” Jeanne said. “It’s quite a sight.”

  Barbary had dreamed about her first view of space. She had had the dream much longer than she had known she would ever get to see it for real. She barely even remembered a time before she would occasionally wake contented from that fantasy. But one thing was more important to her.

  “If we hurry,” Jeanne said, “we can watch the shuttle undocking. Then I’ll have to get to work. But the sight’s worth some extra time.”

  “Jeanne,” Barbary said hesitantly.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’d like to see that, but I want to… I need… I’m awfully tired. If I could just go to my room and be alone for awhile…”

  “There’s a bathroom near the observation deck, if that’s what you need,” Jeanne said with an understanding grin. “Do you know how to use a zero-gravity toilet?”

  “They give you an instruction booklet when you buy your ticket,” Barbary said, a bit embarrassed. “It isn’t that. I want to see what you want to show me. But I have to be by myself for a while.” She could not explain any further.

  “Okay,” Jeanne said, sounding puzzled.

  o0o

  Jeanne hovered in the doorway of Barbary’s room. “You’re sure you’re all right.”

  “Yes,” Barbary said. “Thanks.”

  Jeanne waited another moment, as if to let Barbary change her mind, as if to give her one more chance to trust her. Barbary remained silent. She could feel the secret pocket. She had to be alone immediately.

  “I may not see you during the trip,” Jeanne said. “I’m afraid I’m going to be pretty busy from here on out. But good luck.”

  “Thanks,” Barbary said.

  Jeanne pulled the door shut.

  Afraid she had failed a test, the first one, a very important one, Barbary wondered if Jeanne thought her a coward, or, perhaps worse, uninterested in her new home.

  She had the feeling that she had thrown away Jeanne’s proffered friendship, and that Jeanne seldom had time to give anyone a second chance.

  She put the fears out of her mind. She had an important task.

  She took off her jacket, and found herself spinning free.

  Gently, she reminded herself. Move gently.

  Clutching her jacket, she kicked toward the wall and grabbed the netting that would form her bed. One-handed, she inched across the tiny room till she reached its small folding table. Nearby hung a couple of loops. She stuck her feet in them. Feeling more solid, she pulled the table out flat. It had straps and a net and a couple of snaps. She laid her jacket inside-out on the table, jury-rigged a harness over it, and unfastened the top of the secret pocket.

  She reached inside. Her heart beat fast. She thought she had felt motion, but now she was not sure. Her fingers brushed a silky softness, textured in tabby stripes.

  She drew Mickey from the secret pocket. She felt his warmth through his smooth fur. She lifted him and held him to her, pressing her ear against his side, but she could hear only her own pounding heart.

  Mickey batted his soft paw against her cheek as he reached out sleepily for a curl of her hair. She lowered him long enough to see him blink his yellow eyes and bristle his long white whiskers in a slow cat yawn.

  She buried her face against the tabby cat’s side and burst into tears of relief.

  o0o

  Heading toward the research station, Outrigger accelerated. The slow increase in velocity left the passengers with a vague feeling of where “down” was, but so little weight that they might as well have been in zero g. Barbary hovered in her cabin, holding Mickey in her arms. Except for the table, the furniture in the cabin consisted of D-rings, straps, and nets fastened to the wall. Nobody sat in chairs in zero g, because chairs were uncomfortable. Without gravity or a harness to draw one’s body against the shape of the chair, a person had to consciously hold their body in the right position. It was tiring and eventually painful, especially to the stomach muscles. Barbary found it easy — and much more comfortable than the softest chair — to float, completely relaxed. She drifted in the direction of “down.” She could either hover along the floor, barely touching it, like a fish resting on the bottom of the ocean, or she could push off into the air. If she wanted to nap and not move around too much, she could tether herself to the wall.

  She stroked Mickey’s side. He lay quiet. He would be awake soon, but he would be groggy for at least a couple of hours. She knew that by now, for she had watched him awaken from the sleeping drug twice before, the two times she had carried him back from the spaceport after she had been bumped off her reserved seat.

  She had only expected to have to make him go to sleep once or twice. She was worried about the effects of all the sedatives on the small cat.

  If they’d let us on board the first time, Barbary thought, this would all be over. We’d already be on the research station. I wouldn’t have had to drug him so often. And I wouldn’t have had to run away that last time to get another pill.

  She shifted her position angrily and abruptly. The reaction sent her tumbling across the room. She rebounded from the wall. She held Mick close with one arm and flailed around with the other, but nothing was in reach. She was annoyed, but she made herself relax and wait till she had drifted to the floor. She stood. Even that took caution. A step was as good as a leap. She pushed off with one toe and floated.

  “We’re in space, Mick,” she said. She stroked him. “It’s pretty weird at first, but you get used to it. It’s kind of fun. Are you all right?” She wondered how he would react to zero g. She hoped it would not scare him.

  She stroked him again. It was a good feeling. His cinnamon-colored stripes had a different texture from his black fur. He had white paw tips and a white chest. He was only half-grown — he had been a kitten when she found him. If Barbary had been forced to wait for next month’s transport, Mickey would have grown too big to hide in the secret pocket. She had no idea what she would have done then.

  She smoothed his whiskers and scratched him under the chin, his favorite spot. He licked her hand, two quick warm scratchy touches, and she laughed with relief. He was going to be all right.

  o0o

  Mickey adapted much faster than Barbary to the almost nonexistent gravity. Acceleration, she reminded herself, not really gravity. But, after all, Albert Einstein himself showed that the two were indistinguishable.

  Perhaps Mick did so well because, being a cat, he knew he was a superior sort of creature. The first time he tried to run, he left the floor at the first stride like a cartoon cat, run
ning along in place with his feet touching nothing. The second time, he jumped and sailed. He found it unsurprising that he could suddenly, without warning, fly.

  Barbary had one piece of sleeping pill left for him. She would have to use it in three days to make him lie quiet when she took him from Outrigger to the research station. She had some food for him. She even had some cat litter, but it would spill all over if he dug in it in such low gravity.

  Back on earth, when they lived in an apartment, Mick had learned to use the same toilet people used. A lot of cats learned how to do that. The toilet in the tiny bathroom was a weird vacuum arrangement, but Barbary thought Mick would understand that it was the same thing, and that he would use it if the vacuum did not frighten him too much. Luckily, not very many things frightened Mick.

  Otherwise I might have to get diapers for him, she thought, and could not help giggling. But the problem was too serious to keep her laughing for long.

  If he kept quiet and no one barged into Barbary’s room, she might get away with smuggling him onto the science station. But if the room started smelling bad, someone would notice. Then they would be sunk.

  Mickey bounced from the floor to the table, landing softly and holding himself there by hooking his claws into the net. He gave one paw a couple of licks, blinked, and drew his legs against his body. That left him drifting just above the table, as if he had suddenly learned how to levitate. He closed his eyes. Usually he curled up to sleep, with one paw over his nose. If he had had a tail he would have wrapped it around his front paws, but he was a Manx cat so he had no tail.

  Barbary wondered if curling up in zero g was as hard for a cat as sitting in a chair was for a human being.

  She stroked Mick, and he started to purr.

  “That’s right,” she said. “You take it easy. You have a nap and be very quiet and I’ll go try to find us something to eat.”

  She waited until the purring stopped. Normally he slept lightly. Barbary hoped he would only wake for a moment when she left and then go back to sleep, not get curious and try to follow her.

  Cracking open the door, Barbary peered into the empty, color-striped corridor. She slipped out. The door had neither a lock nor a Do Not Disturb sign. There was no help for that. She would arouse suspicions if she spent the whole trip in her room. The authorities might decide she was space-sick and therefore unable to live on the research station. Then they would send her back to earth. If she acted normal and stayed out of the way, probably no one would even notice her.

  She had to find a dining hall. The cat food hidden in her baggage would only last a little while. She wanted to save it for emergencies.

  And, if she was honest with herself, she was dying to see the rest of the ship, particularly Jeanne’s observation deck.

  o0o

  In the corridors of the ship, most of the colored stripes lay on the surface that was “down,” and the ringlike handholds hung from the surface that had become the ceiling. The gravity was so feeble that Barbary knew she could jump, catch the rings, and swing herself along as if she were on monkey-bars. She decided that first she had better get more experience moving around.

  She had to pay close attention to where she was going so she would not get lost. She followed the blue line, but every time she passed a corridor another blue line came out and joined the one she was following. The lines flowed together like small streams meeting larger rivers. She used the angle of their joining to decide which way to go, but she had no way to be sure that was what she was supposed to do.

  People had to be able to reach the observation deck from all parts of the ship, so no unique line led there from her cabin. Some color would lead back to her section, but she had not yet been able to figure out which one it was. Again she wished she had a map.

  The corridors became more complicated, and though several other blue direction-markers had joined hers, the corridor narrowed rather than widened. The floor became a maze of multicolored lines. In the artificial light of the passageway, the darker colors looked alike.

  The blue line followed a ladder upward through a hatchway. Barbary climbed the rungs. At the last one, the line ended.

  She looked up, and gasped.

  No photograph, no space films, had anything to do with what surrounded her now. She climbed through the hatch to a wide, semicircular platform and stood staring out into the night. The sun was behind them, so the viewing platform was in shadow lit only by stars. But the stars were fantastic. Barbary thought she must be able to see a hundred times as many as on earth, even in the country where sky-glow and smog did not hide them. They spanned the universe, all colors, shining with a steady, cold, remote light. She wanted to write down what they looked like, but every phrase she could think of sounded silly and inadequate.

  More than the liftoff, more than weightlessness, the stars let her believe she was really here.

  o0o

  Barbary stayed on the viewing platform much longer than she meant to, much longer than she should have. Only the anxiety about Mickey drove her from it. She climbed down the ladder in a sort of daze. From now on, if she were not sent home, if everything worked out, she would never be very far from these calm, clear stars.

  The pale gray walls of the ship, solid and dull, brought her back to what she needed to do. She retraced the blue line to the spot where another major line, one in green, split off from the skein. She followed it. She had not seen or heard another person since leaving her room.

  The VIPs probably have a fancier part of the ship, she thought, to keep herself from feeling how spooky it was to be alone.

  The green line led not to a cafeteria but to something even better, a foyer displaying a map of the ship.

  Barbary searched out the colors that led to the places she needed. The 24-hour ship’s clock above the map also helped her get her bearings. The clock read 0300: three o’clock in the morning. She was not certain what time zone of earth Outrigger and Einstein used to set their clocks, but she supposed most everybody must be trying to adjust to the transport’s schedule. That would explain why the ship seemed deserted. Everyone else was sleeping. She was just as glad. This way there was less chance of Mickey’s being discovered while she was gone.

  Anxious again, Barbary started along the line that led to the cafeteria. She wondered why they had chosen purple.

  Forgetting to slide along as if she were skating, she took one running step. The next thing she knew she bounced off the ceiling. Unhurt but dizzy, she ricocheted and tumbled from ceiling to floor to ceiling before she managed to grab a handhold. She let herself drift to the floor. She tried to copy the smooth skating motion she had seen on tapes of people in space. The trick was to propel herself forward without shoving herself up at the same time. She still felt awkward, but she was getting where she was going.

  An open door led into the deserted cafeteria. Barbary dug around in her pockets for coins to work the automated servers, then realized none was necessary. Meals came with one’s passage, she supposed. And it must not be too often that a stowaway ate food never paid for.

  She chose a couple of chicken sandwiches, plus two balloon-like containers of milk. She wished she had a bag, or that she had worn her jacket, so she could hide things in its pockets. Next time she would remember. She stuck the sandwiches under her shirt and held the bulbs of milk in one hand, leaving her other hand free.

  Halfway to her room, when she began to think she would have the luck not to meet anyone, she heard voices. She spun, intending to hide in a branch corridor. But she had pushed off with too much force. She left the floor as if she had jumped, hit the ceiling, and rebounded, spinning helplessly toward the deck.

  Jeanne Velory and a member of the ship’s crew glided around the bend in the hall. Concentrating on a thick sheaf of print-outs, they did not notice her tumbling toward them.

  “Look out!” Barbary cried. They spun out of her vision. Jeanne caught her, bringing Barbary to a halt while Jeanne herself barely moved. She pulle
d Barbary to a handhold. Barbary grabbed it, her face burning with embarrassment. She still clutched the bulbs of milk.

  “A new recruit, huh?” the crew member said, a hint of amusement in her tone. Anger would have been easier for Barbary to take.

  “We all choose our own mealtimes here,” Jeanne said to Barbary, her voice neutral. “The cafeteria’s always open, so you don’t have to take food to your room between times. It isn’t a good idea — the recycling system isn’t set up for that. I’m sorry no one explained it to you.”

  “Oh,” Barbary said.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Can you find your way back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. Come on, Valya.”

  Barbary watched them go, then angrily scrubbed her sleeve across her eyes.

  If she doesn’t want to be friends, Barbary thought, just because I can’t do exactly what she wants me to, exactly when she wants me to do it, then, tough. That’s an adult for you.

  Slowly, this time, Barbary headed for her room.

  Chapter Four

  Her pulse raced. Barbary stopped. Afraid she would find an irritated crew member holding Mickey by the scruff of his neck, she peeked around the corner.

  Her door remained shut, the hallway silent. Barbary crept to her room, opened the door, and slipped inside.

  “Mick?” Mickey was nowhere to be seen. “Hey, Mick?” she said again, worried.

  Mickey bounded from behind her rumpled jacket and landed against her. He curled in the crook of her arm, purring.

  “Hi,” she said, relieved. “I’m glad you kept out of trouble.” She grinned ruefully. “You’re doing better than me.”

  She opened one of the bulbs, extended its straw, and squeezed out a glob of milk. Mickey sniffed it. It bounced back and forth, in and out. The sphere flattened, then stretched into a long sausage shape. Never having seen milk behave so strangely, Mick bristled his whiskers and drew away. “Don’t get picky,” Barbary said. “It wasn’t exactly easy getting this for you.”