Barbary

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  An access panel lay askew, hanging by one fastener from the wall of the elevator housing. The hole it was supposed to close was only partly covered. The panel left open a triangular space more than big enough for a small cat to crawl into.

  Barbary grabbed the panel and jerked it aside, bending it at the corner. Metal screeched on metal. She reached into the hole, but Heather grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t! I don’t know what you’d touch, but probably electric wire and maybe the elevator cables, too. You might get electrocuted, or lose a finger, or something.”

  Barbary heard the faint vibration as the elevator slid toward them.

  “But Mick’s in there!” she cried. “I’ve got to get him out!”

  “Wouldn’t he meow or something? I don’t hear anything.”

  “Where else could he be? What if he’s hurt? If I could get electrocuted or squashed, so could he!”

  “Try calling him.”

  Barbary bent close to the opening. “Hey, Mick! Kitty, kitty, kitty!”

  She heard only the approach of the elevator.

  “Can’t we stop it?”

  “No.”

  “But what if Mick’s underneath it?”

  The elevator’s vibration slowed and stopped. Barbary cringed, expecting to hear a yowl of pain, imagining Mick crouched terrified under the falling cage. But she heard nothing but the soft slide of doors opening. She started to shiver.

  “We’ve got to do something!”

  Heather climbed to her feet, staring at the hole.

  “Does he have a good sense of smell?”

  “Not very. But some. Oh! If we get some food and put it here, he might smell it.”

  “Right.” Heather hurried around the corner and caught the doors just before they closed. “Come on.”

  “I don’t want to leave him here.”

  “It’s the only choice,” Heather said.

  Barbary felt like crying. “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “Then,” Heather said, “we’ll have to get some help. We’ll have to admit we came down here. And…”

  “I’ll have to admit Mick’s in the station,” Barbary said.

  Chapter Nine

  On the way up, the elevator remained as deserted as Heather had said it ought to be on the way down. When Heather and Barbary got out at the half-g level, Heather just stood there for a couple of minutes. Barbary waited, anxious about Mick, but equally worried about Heather.

  “I’m okay, honest,” Heather said. “Let’s go.” She headed toward the apartment, trying to cheer Barbary up until Barbary wanted to scream.

  I never should have let Mick get out of sight, she thought.

  “We could go get him some shrimp,” Heather said. “He liked that pretty well, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” Barbary said. “But it doesn’t smell very strong. I think I better use the stuff I brought with me. It smells awful. But Mick likes it.”

  “Okay.”

  They entered the apartment. Thea had awakened from her nap. She sat on the floor working on her contraption and Yoshi sat on the couch reading a book. Yoshi glanced up, but Thea continued to tinker with a delicate bit of machinery.

  “Hi, kids,” Yoshi said.

  “Hi,” Heather said. “I’m still showing Barbary around we just came back to get something we forgot.”

  She headed for her room.

  “What have you seen so far?”

  Barbary started to tell Yoshi about the raft trip, but changed her mind. What if Heather had persuaded the other adults to let her take the raft out by herself, but had never told her father? The raft might be nearly as much a secret as the shield level. She needed to talk to Heather about exactly what was safe to tell adults around here, and what wasn’t.

  “Oh, we’ve been all over. We talked to Jeanne Velory, and Ambassador Begay,” she said, hoping to distract him from details.

  “Did you see the gardens?”

  “The gardens?” Barbary tried to remember what Heather had told her about the gardens.

  “Your shoes are dirty,” he said. “It’s elementary, my dear Watson.”

  Barbary felt confused. Yoshi laughed.

  “You read too many Sherlock Holmes books,” Heather said.

  “I know, but I couldn’t resist. It seemed a safe bet, though — the gardens are the only place on the ship where you can get dirt on your shoes.”

  Thea glanced up as if she were about to say something, then drew her eyebrows together and bent over her gizmo again.

  “I took Barbary on a raft trip — we did an errand for Yukiko,” Heather said. “We’re going right back out again.”

  “Not till after you’ve rested for a while.”

  “But, Yoshi —!”

  “No arguments,” he said. “I know you’re excited about showing Barbary around. But there’s plenty of time. You don’t need to neglect your health. You can’t neglect your lessons much longer, either.”

  Heather glared at him, then turned and stomped off into her bedroom. She and Yoshi must have had this argument before; Heather must know she could not win it.

  “It’s hard,” Yoshi said, “to strike a balance between restricting her and letting her run herself ragged.”

  “I understand,” Barbary said. “I don’t want her to do anything that will make her sick. Honest.”

  “I’m glad. She can do anything she wants — I don’t ever want her to start being afraid she can’t. She just can’t do it all at once. None of us can, but sometimes it’s hard to convince Heather of that.”

  “I’ll just go and tell her not to be mad or anything, then come right out and — and go for a walk, okay?”

  “That’s fine.”

  Barbary followed Heather into their room. Heather sat cross-legged on her bunk with her chin on her fists. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she had stopped crying.

  “Just once you’d think —!”

  “It’s okay, Heather,” Barbary said. “Honest. I can find my way back down. If you argue, he might get suspicious.” She dug around in the bottom of her duffel bag where she had hidden the plastic pouches of radiation-preserved cat food. She stuffed a couple into her pocket.

  “I guess,” Heather said.

  Barbary knew better than to say she was relieved not to have to argue Heather into staying home. Barbary could wait for Mick outside the elevator housing without dragging Heather back into full gravity.

  “I’ll be back in a while,” Barbary said. “With Mick.” She hoped.

  A knock startled them. Heather flopped down on her bunk and pretended to sleep.

  “I’m coming,” Barbary said.

  Yoshi opened the door. He was frowning. Barbary thought, I didn’t stay in here that long. Maybe he thinks we’re having another fight.

  “Barbary, I just got a call from Dr. Velory,” Yoshi said. “She wants to see you in the control center.”

  “Me?” Barbary said. “Why? What — what’s wrong?”

  “She didn’t say,” Yoshi said. “But she did not sound happy.”

  Heather abandoned all pretense at sleep. She and Barbary looked at each other. Barbary knew they were both thinking the same thing: Mick is really in trouble this time. And so are we.

  o0o

  As they left the apartment, Thea glanced up, said, “Have a nice time,” and went back to work, without even noticing that no one answered her.

  Barbary expected the third degree from Yoshi, but he led her to the control center on the one-g level of the station and never asked a single question or made a single accusation. Nor did he prevent Heather from coming along.

  Barbary’s heart pounded. She walked plus-spin along the empty hallway outside the control center, Heather on her left and Yoshi on her right. They meant her to know they supported her, but instead she felt as if they were the guards marching her to jail. It was just as well they were with her, though, because otherwise she might have turned and run. On the space station, there was no place to run to.
/>   They stopped in the doorway of the control chamber.

  Instruments and gauges and consoles and computer displays filled the large room. But all the people who should have been keeping track of the station clustered around a central console. Only Jeanne Velory remained apart. Leaning against another console, her arms folded, she glared at the controllers, who were all making the sorts of sappy noises that adults make when someone shows them a new baby.

  “You wanted to see us, Jeanne?” Yoshi said.

  She turned slowly toward them. She looked very angry.

  “I wanted to see Barbary,” she said in a level tone. “I think perhaps she has some explanation for this.”

  “For what?” Barbary said.

  “Will everybody get back to work!” Jeanne shouted.

  “Oh, Jeanne, come on,” one of the techs said.

  “Right now!”

  The techs reluctantly broke up their gathering.

  Mick lay sprawled on the warm console, licking one front paw and pretending he was not the center of attention. When the last technician had stroked him and returned to work, Mick gazed at Barbary and blinked his eyes.

  “For this,” Jeanne said.

  For an instant Barbary wondered if she could get away with pretending she had not brought him to the station. But if she lied now, even if she got away with it, she would have to keep pretending Mick was not hers. She might stay out of trouble, but he would be sent back to earth, or locked up, or killed, and she would have lost the right to stand up for him.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Come with me.”

  Barbary gathered Mickey in her arms and followed Jeanne.

  In her office, Jeanne motioned Barbary to a chair. Behind her desk, the director of the science station became even more imposing than usual.

  “This explains your behavior,” she said. “But it doesn’t explain why you brought a cat with you in the first place, or how you thought you could get away with it.”

  Barbary huddled in her jacket, holding Mick close.

  “What are you going to do to us?” she asked.

  “For the time being, the cat will have to stay in one of the labs. They can find a cage big enough for him…”

  “A cage! Mick’s never been in a cage! He’ll go nuts! He’ll yowl all the time and drive everybody crazy and they’ll get mad and hit him!”

  “And you’ll have to consider yourself on probation. When things calm down I may be able to arrange for your cat to go back to earth.”

  “He doesn’t have any place to go on earth,” Barbary wailed.

  “You’d better put your mind to finding him one,” Jeanne said. “That’s the best I can do for now.”

  “But you’re the boss here! You can do anything you want. Why can’t you just let him stay?”

  “Try to understand my position, Barbary. I’m the boss, yes. But everything is complicated right now. I’m still feeling my way, and I’m having to do it while I’m under a microscope. The station has enemies who take every chance they can get to attack it, to cut its funding before it has a chance to prove its worth. One of the things they call it is an expensive toy. So we have to be on particular guard against doing frivolous things —”

  “I don’t see where a cat is so frivolous,” Barbary said belligerently. “Cats can be really useful.”

  “ — or breaking the rules.”

  Barbary shut her eyes tight.

  “Please don’t cry.”

  “I’m not,” Barbary whispered.

  Jeanne gazed at Barbary. Finally she left her desk and sat in the chair beside Barbary, hitching it around so they faced each other.

  “I’m not omnipotent, and some things I just can’t explain to you. For the time being, your cat…”

  “His name’s Mickey!”

  “…will have to stay locked up.”

  “In my room? I won’t let him loose, honest.

  “But he got loose today, didn’t he?”

  Barbary stared at Mick, who purred in her arms. At least he was all right. The elevator had not crushed him and the cables had not electrocuted him. Somehow he had climbed out of the shield level and escaped from the elevator shaft. Perhaps the same tech who had left the panel open at the bottom of the shaft had forgotten to close one at the top, too.

  “It wasn’t —” Barbary stopped. If she defended herself against the charge of being careless with Mick, she would have to admit to being in the shield level. She would have to admit that Heather showed her how to get there. So far, Jeanne had left Heather out of this, which was some luck.

  “It wasn’t what?” Jeanne said.

  “Nothing.”

  “You don’t strike me as being the sort of person who likes practical jokes,” Jeanne said.

  “Jokes?” Barbary said, confused. She did not like feeling confused, and confused seemed to be the way she felt here most of the time.

  “Jokes like smuggling a cat on board a space station.”

  “It wasn’t a joke!” Barbary cried. She hid her face against Mick’s side.

  “Okay, never mind, take it easy.” Jeanne patted Barbary’s shoulder awkwardly. “Mickey means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”

  “Uh-huh,” Barbary said without looking up.

  “I’ll try to think of a way for you to keep him. I can’t promise anything, so please don’t get your hopes up.” She hesitated. “This is hard for me, too,” she said. “I earned this job, Barbary. I worked hard for it, and I intend to keep it. But I wasn’t the only choice for it by a long shot. There are plenty of people who think someone else should have it, and plenty of people who don’t much care who has it, as long as it isn’t me, or anybody like me.”

  “But that’s stupid,” Barbary said. “Why?”

  “Things are better than they used to be. A lot better. But there are still people in power who don’t think women in general and women of color in particular have what it takes to run things. All I can do is keep proving myself — and keep pretending I don’t know about the people who want me to fail. Sometimes that means… I can’t do exactly what I want to do exactly when I want to do it. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “I guess,” Barbary said.

  “Okay. Come on. Let’s go find a place for Mickey, where he’ll be comfortable and safe.”

  Jeanne put her arm around Barbary’s shoulders as they started for the door.

  “Jeanne?” Barbary said.

  “Hmm?”

  “If you have to pretend those other people don’t exist… why did you tell me about them?”

  Jeanne hesitated. “You’ve wanted to do a lot of things that everybody around you said you couldn’t possibly do, but you did them anyway. Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s why.

  o0o

  In the control center, Yoshi waited, looking grim, and Heather seemed about to explode from nervousness.

  “So this is what all the mystery was about,” Yoshi said.

  “We’d better talk,” Jeanne said, and took him aside.

  Barbary joined Heather.

  “Was she really mad?” Heather whispered. “What’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Barbary said. “I didn’t tell her about — you know —”

  “Oh, I don’t care about that! What about Mick?”

  “He has to be locked up. For a while anyway. At first she said she’d have to send him back to earth. But, I don’t know, later on it seemed like maybe she might be able to figure out a way I can keep him.” She tried to overhear what Yoshi and Jeanne were saying, but they spoke too softly.

  “Nobody knows you knew about him,” Barbary said to Heather. “We better let them keep thinking that.”

  “They’d have to think I’m awful dumb —”

  “Can I pet him again?”

  Heather shut up as one of the technicians sat on his heels beside them.

  “He’s not used to different people,” Barbary said. “Be careful that
he doesn’t scratch you.”

  The tech held out his hand for Mick to sniff, then stroked his head and scratched behind his ears.

  “I used to have cats back on earth,” he said. “They’re about the only thing I miss out here.”

  Mick stretched and purred and nudged Barbary to let him down. She did. To her surprise, he basked in the attention. Back on earth he ran away from anyone but her.

  “I’m Charlie,” the tech said, extending his free hand for Barbary and Heather to shake. Within a few minutes, half the technicians had returned to fuss over Mick and play with him.

  “I wonder if there’s any catnip in the gardens,” someone said.

  “We could send for some seeds if there isn’t.”

  “He doesn’t like catnip much,” Barbary said. “I gave him some when he was little and he just ignored it.”

  “He’d probably like it now,” Charlie said. “Kittens hardly ever do, but he’s about the age where he’ll start to find it interesting.”

  “Come on, Barbary,” Jeanne said, from beyond the group of people. “Time to go.”

  “All right.” She picked Mickey up. He twisted, trying to free himself, almost as if he knew that he would not like the next place they went to.

  “Oh, ugh!”

  Everyone turned toward the exclamation.

  One of the controllers, behind her console, put her hands on her hips and glared at the floor. She reached down and came up again with something thick and stringy pinched between her thumb and forefinger. She lifted it above the edge of the console.

  The skinny tail widened out into the dangling brown body of a very large rat, its bony grayish-pink paws curled up against its fur.

  Oh, no, Barbary thought. Somehow Mick got into one of the labs, and he’s killed one of the animals. He probably wrecked somebody’s experiment.

  “That’s really disgusting, Mollie,” Heather said.

  “Is it dead?” Charlie asked.

  “It’s still warm,” Mollie said. “But it’s very dead.” She put it down.

  “Barbary — ” Jeanne said.

  “How was he supposed to know?” Barbary held Mick tighter. “Other places we lived, he was supposed to catch rats! He’s never been in a lab!”

  Everybody in the room looked at her, hardly able to believe that anyone would live in a place where rats ran around loose.