Barbary

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  Yoshi sailed from wall to brace to floor, around small groups of people, past doors and monkey-bars and tracks. He oriented himself as if the edge of the doughnut-shaped room were the floor, and the flat top and bottom its edges. Barbary would have put herself ninety degrees the other way, so the flat parts of the room were floor and ceiling, and the curving places were walls. That would have felt more natural. Farther out toward the rim of the station, the curving wall would be the floor, so Yoshi’s orientation made more sense. Heather, when she was not holding Barbary’s hand, paid no attention at all to walls or floor or ceiling. She swooped from one point to another, turned upside-down or sideways to the direction her father was facing. She acted as if she saw no difference at all.

  They slyed over the juncture between spinning and non-spinning parts of the station. The slow relative motion was hardly noticeable. They got into one of the elevators. It had a weird paint job: white footprints on the surface of one wall, which was green, and the outlines of people on the beige wall opposite the elevator door.

  “This will be the floor when we reach bottom,” Yoshi said, indicating the footprints. “But this wall will tilt on the way down.” He used a strap to hold himself against the wall with the outlines, and to keep his feet on the surface with the footprints. Heather did the same.

  “You want to be pretty firmly planted,” Yoshi said. “Between the momentum and the spin, it’s a fairly strange feeling.” He drew Barbary beside him.

  The elevator started to move. Barbary felt as if she were leaning against a steeply-tilted wall. Startled, she grabbed Yoshi and held on, afraid they were going to crash.

  “It’s okay,” Yoshi said. “You see what I mean.”

  “It’s supposed to work like this?”

  “This is the way the laws of physics make it work.”

  As they fell, the tilt changed, making Barbary feel as if she were standing more and more upright.

  Heather seemed not even to notice the odd sensation. “Turn around,” she said, “and look over this way.”

  “What?” Barbary suspected a trick, for Heather was directing her to face the side wall. “Why?”

  “Just do it, trust me, quick!” She pushed Barbary around, not very hard. Barbary could have resisted, but she decided to give Heather a chance. She faced the wall. It was glass — she had not realized that till now because the metal casing beyond was featureless and very smooth.

  Its edge passed up the window, like a shade rising, and suddenly Barbary was looking out at the station, from inside it, with the universe beyond.

  “Ohh…” she said. Heather squeezed her hand.

  The stars were as beautiful as they had been from the observation deck of the transport ship. But the overwhelming sight was the station, a huge wheel within a wheel spinning past the stars. As they dropped through one of the spokes, the wheels grew larger, much larger than she had expected, even knowing the dimensions, even seeing the station on the screen in the transport’s lounge.

  Shadows in space were very black and distinct. Some distance away, a silvery craft sprang suddenly into view. Invisible one moment, the next it was in plain sight. Nothing was out there for it to hide behind — then Barbary understood that it had been in the shadow of the station. She was used to thinking of shadows as falling on a surface, not as great lightless volumes of space stretching out into infinity. She shivered.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said to Heather.

  “I want to show you everything! We can drop off your bag and go see the labs and the garden and the observatory —”

  “You mean right now?” Barbary said, stricken.

  “Sure!”

  “Heather, honey, Barbary’s been traveling for a long time, she’s tired,” Yoshi said. “Let’s get her settled before you two start exploring.”

  “Okay, sure, that makes sense,” Heather said, sounding downcast. “But there’s an awful lot to see, and you need to be able to find your way around.”

  “Hold tight,” Yoshi said. “Feet on the floor?”

  The elevator braked. Barbary’s stomach lurched. She was afraid that after all, after going through everything, now at the end of the trip she would throw up. She fought down the queasiness.

  The tilt vanished: the floor steadied and leveled out. They had stopped at the inner wheel, which was about halfway to the outside rim of the station. Barbary thought she weighed maybe half here what she did on earth. It was hard to tell, though, after several days in nearly zero g. The elevator doors opened. Yoshi and Heather glided out.

  “Why did we stop on this level?” Barbary asked.

  “We live on this level,” Yoshi said.

  “Oh… The booklet said all the living quarters are out on the rim.” The rim rotated with an acceleration of one gravity.

  “Most of them are,” Yoshi said. “But we live here.”

  Heather, walking faster, left Yoshi and Barbary a little way behind. Barbary wondered what it was that she and her father were not telling.

  Chapter Five

  Barbary followed Heather. The corridor rose before and behind them, for it followed the arc of the station’s inner wheel. But though Barbary could see that the hall curved upward, she felt as if she were walking down a gentle incline. It was a very strange sensation.

  Heather turned right, into a crossways hall, and both the curve of the floor and the perception of going down disappeared.

  Barbary followed Heather around a second right turn. Now they were walking the opposite direction from the way they had started. Again the hall looked like it rose, but this time Barbary felt as if she were walking up a shallow incline.

  She had no chance to ask what was going on. A few paces beyond the corner, Heather opened a door and went inside. Yoshi followed.

  Barbary entered a small, sparsely furnished living room.

  Of course it had no windows. People who lived in space needed more protection from solar radiation and cosmic rays than glass or plastic could give. The station had lots of observation ports, but Barbary would have to learn to be careful how long she gazed through them, and she would have to keep track of the readings on her radiation tag.

  Pictures and posters covered the wall. Barbary had always plastered the walls of her room — whenever she had stayed in one place long enough — with star posters, astronomical artwork, and magazine pictures from the Ares mission. Here lakes, forests, meadows, and a long mural of mountains covered the walls. In one corner, though, a sequence of small photos traced the development of a comet. Barbary wanted to look at those more closely.

  The kitchen area contained little more than one would need for making coffee or heating soup. No room there for leftovers to steal for Mick. On the other hand, if people ate cafeteria-style, she might have an even easier time getting his food.

  She could worry about that later. Right now she needed to make sure he was all right.

  “Can I see my room?” she asked.

  Heather glided past a basket-weave couch. “I’ll show it to you!”

  Barbary followed, dragging her duffel bag. It was not very heavy in this gravity, but she was awfully tired.

  Heather opened a door. Barbary followed her inside.

  Heather jumped more than her own height into the air, spinning, and landed neatly on a bunk. “Isn’t it great?” she said. “We redid it when we knew you were coming. I’ve been sleeping on the top bunk, but if you like it better we can switch.”

  Barbary sat down abruptly on a spindly-legged chair. Two matching desks stood nearby. The top of one was bare; the other held tapes and a plush animal.

  “I thought...” she said, “I thought I was going to get my own room.

  Heather sat still, trying to conceal her disappointment.

  “But it’ll be fun to share the room,” Heather said. “Like your mom and my mom and Yoshi and the others rented a house together in college.”

  “Is that what you expect me to do? Copy my mother?” Barbary said angrily.


  “No, that isn’t what I meant at all,” Heather said, embarrassed. “But it really would be fun. We haven’t finished fixing it up yet. I was waiting to see how you wanted it to look.”

  Barbary hooked her heels on the edge of the chair, hugged her knees to her chest, and gazed at her shoes. The weight of the secret pocket pressed against her side.

  “I bet you’ll like it if you give it a chance,” Heather said.

  “I need a lot of privacy. I have stuff of my own that I need to do by myself.”

  After a moment, Heather jumped from the upper bunk. Her feet made a surprisingly loud and solid thud when she landed.

  “You can have all the privacy you want, then!” She stamped out and slammed the door behind her,”

  Barbary stared at the closed door.

  She’ll never be my friend, either, she thought.

  But her worry over Mickey crowded out her unhappiness at having had to drive Heather away. She slipped out of her jacket. Mick had not moved. Barbary opened the secret pocket, reached inside, and touched the cat’s soft fur. She hesitated, letting her hand rest on his side, feeling for his heartbeat, for a breath, even for a twitch. She pulled him out of the pocket. He lay limp in her hands.

  “Mick, it’s okay, wake up, please?” She pressed her ear to his side. At first she heard nothing. She sat up and stroked his smooth tabby side, feeling the texture of his stripes, willing him to move. She bent down again and held her breath to listen.

  His paw twitched, and he growled in his sleep.

  She sat up, laughing with relief. “You dumb cat,” she said. “I’m sitting here afraid you’re dead, and you’re just dreaming.”

  Someone knocked on the door. With a quick, seared glance around, Barbary scooped up her jacket and Mickey, dragged open the deep bottom drawer of the desk with the empty top, the one she supposed must be hers, and slid Mick into it.

  “Barbary?” Yoshi said. “Can I come in?”

  Barbary pushed the drawer shut. It squeaked. She flinched, hoping the noise was inaudible outside. She opened the door and tried to join Yoshi in the living room. But her foster father guided her back into the room. He sat on the bunk and patted the blanket beside him. “Please sit down, Barbary.”

  Staring at the floor, Barbary obeyed. So her almost sister had told on her the first chance she got.

  “Heather looked upset when she came out,” Yoshi said. “Did you two have a fight?”

  Maybe this bawling out won’t be as bad as I thought, Barbary said to herself. Maybe I can get it over with before Mick decides he has to get out of that drawer.

  “Not a fight, exactly.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “It wasn’t her fault. I just thought I’d have a room all my own. I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.”

  “I think you must have, though. Rather badly, the way she looked.” He folded one leg under him. He was barefoot. “There are quite a few people on the station. We don’t have a lot of living area. As much space as we can, we use for research. And right now, with the extra people, it’s very crowded. After they go home, I think we can find a room for you. That’s the best I can offer just now. Can you be patient for a while?”

  Barbary guessed that the only alternative to patience was going back to earth.

  “Yeah,” she said. She heard a faint scratching from the desk. “Sure.” She would have said almost anything to get Yoshi to leave. “I’m really sorry. I’ll tell Heather.”

  “Good.” Yoshi got to his feet. “We’re very glad to have you with us. But the environment’s different. It’s difficult. It takes extra effort to get along, sometimes.”

  “I understand,” Barbary said. “I’ll do better from now on.”

  “Okay.” Yoshi went to the door, opened it, and glanced back with a grin. “I’ll let Heather know you want to talk to her.” He closed the door.

  “Oh, shit,” Barbary whispered.

  She stopped herself from shouting, but not because she cared right now whether anyone thought she was civilized. She was afraid Yoshi would hear her and wonder what she was still so upset about.

  But she did not know what to do. Even if she wanted to drug Mickey again — which she did not — she had no more pills. Besides, she could not keep him drugged all the time. She had concentrated so hard on how to smuggle him off earth that she had never thought about what she would do if she succeeded. Now she had to face that problem.

  She heard a louder, more insistent scratching from her desk.

  The bedroom door opened and Heather came in.

  “Hi,” she said, watchful restraint in her voice. “Yoshi says you want to talk to me.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. The room’s really nice. It’ll be fun to share it. I wouldn’t have said what I did, only I’m awfully tired. I need to take a nap before I fall over —”

  “Mrrow,” the desk said, through Barbary’s rush of words.

  “What was that?” Heather said.

  “Nothing. What do you mean? I didn’t hear anything.”

  Mick yowled and scratched frantically. If he did not get his way soon, he would howl so loudly that no one in the apartment could possibly miss it.

  Heather looked curiously at the desk. “What have you got in there?” she said.

  Mickey growled. Barbary yanked the drawer open to keep him from screeching. He poked his head out, blinked, and sprang out of his hiding place.

  “What’s that?” Heather said. “Is that a rabbit? How did you get him up here? What’s his name?”

  Mickey took a couple of cautious steps, gathered his powerful hind legs under him, and leaped to the top bunk. He walked across it, his paws making small padding noises on the puffy comforter.

  “A rabbit! Don’t you know anything? He’s a cat!” Barbary swung around suddenly and grabbed Heather’s shoulders, pushing her hard against the wall. Heather caught her breath in astonishment.

  “If you tell anybody…” Barbary said, “if you tell on us and they take Mick away, I’ll get you for it if it’s the last thing I do!”

  “Tell on you? Are you kidding? I’ve always wanted to see a cat. I never have before.” She shrugged Barbary’s hands from her shoulders. “Let me go. Boy, are you dumb. Do you really think you can hide him here without my help?”

  As Barbary watched in surprise, Heather pushed past her and bounced to the upper bunk, where Mickey was sniffing at corners. He sat down and looked at her, blinking his big yellow eyes.

  “He’s really neat. How did you get him to the station? No wonder you wanted me out of here. But you should have trusted me first thing. Will he let me touch him?”

  “I don’t know,” Barbary said. “I doubt it. He doesn’t like strangers much. He might scratch you.”

  Heather extended one hand toward him. Barbary stood on the lower bunk with her elbows on the upper one.

  “It’s okay, Mick, she won’t hurt you.”

  “Does he understand you?”

  “Sometimes he seems like he does,” Barbary said. “Other times he just ignores you. Cats are like that. He doesn’t do what you tell him unless he wants to.”

  Mickey sniffed at Heather’s outstretched fingers, bristled his whiskers, and then, to Barbary’s surprise, rubbed his head against Heather’s hand.

  “Oh,” Heather said. “I didn’t know he’d be so soft.”

  Barbary showed Heather how to pet Mickey, using long, smooth strokes going the same way his fur grew. He stretched his hind legs and the nub of his tail stood straight up.

  “He really doesn’t have a tail!” Heather said. “That’s why I thought he was a rabbit. Rabbits have long ears and a short tail and cats have short ears and a long tail. That’s what I read. Is he half and half?”

  “No, there isn’t any such thing as half and half. That would be a mess even if you could do it. Cats eat meat and rabbits eat carrots and stuff. He’s a Manx cat. They don’t have tails.”

  “Why not?”


  “They just don’t.”

  Heather stroked Mickey. Barbary felt a little jealous that he took to her so quickly. Back on earth, when Barbary found Mick behind the apartment building where she was living, she had coaxed him for two days to get him out of his hidey-hole. And at that, he came out only because he was so hungry he could not resist the smell of the fish she stole for him. Even then, even though he was almost too weak to stand up, he had growled at her every time she came near him. It took her three days to make friends with him.

  “How did you get him here? Is that why you didn’t want me to carry your bag?”

  “Sort of. It’s got a couple of boxes of cat food in it. But I couldn’t hide Mickey there. It had to go through security, and they would have seen him with the x-ray.” She got her jacket out of the drawer and showed Heather the secret pocket.

  “That’s neat,” Heather said. “I never would have thought of it.”

  “I didn’t,” Barbary admitted. “I read a bunch of books on magic.”

  “Magic? Like witches and stuff?”

  “Stage magic. Tricks. Sleight of hand. Hiding things you don’t want anybody to see. You have to get them to look other places.” She pulled out her silver dollar, showed it to Heather, passed her left hand across it and made it disappear, then pulled it out of Heather’s ear.

  “How’d you do that?”

  “I’ll show you sometime, if you want to learn how to do it. Otherwise I’m supposed to keep it a secret. Anyway, that’s sort of how I hid Mick.”

  She turned the jacket over so the outside pockets showed. “With this, everybody looks at all the pockets and thinks, ‘Isn’t that cute,’ or something, and they don’t notice that there’s another pocket on the inside, and a big lump where Mickey is.”

  “I sure didn’t,” Heather said.

  Mickey finished exploring the upper bunk, stuck his nose in the bookcase at the head of it, walked inside, and curled up. It was a tight fit, but he looked happy.

  “Maybe we can train him to stay there when somebody comes in,” Heather said. “Nobody would ever see him.”

  “It’s hard to train a cat,” Barbary said. “They do what they want. But maybe he’ll just decide he likes it there. Then we won’t have to train him.”