Barbary

Chapter Six

Heather sat up so fast she banged her head against the ceiling. Barbary vaulted to her side.

“Heather? Barbary?” Yoshi said. “If Barbary’s going to get a nap before we go to dinner, she’ll have to do it now. The reception for Jeanne Velory is at nineteen hundred.”

“Ouch,” Heather said.

“What did you say?”

“She said okay,” Barbary said. She leaned toward Heather. “Are you okay?” she whispered.

“Is something wrong?” Yoshi sounded worried, as if he feared Barbary and Heather had really begun to fight. After what had happened earlier, Barbary could not blame him.

The door slid open. Barbary threw herself around to sit against Heather’s bookshelf, hiding Mickey.

Yoshi stuck his head into the room. Heather managed to smile, but she had a glazed expression.

“Heather, it wouldn’t hurt for you to take a nap, too.”

Mickey butted his head against Barbary’s back, trying to nudge past her. He pushed his paw between her and the wall, extending his claws to scratch at her side. Barbary was very ticklish. She tried not to squirm.

“Right,” Heather said groggily to Yoshi.

“We’ve just been talking,” Barbary said.

“Maybe one of you should sleep in the other room.”

“We’ll turn out the light and be quiet, honest.” Mick’s claws dug into the sensitive place under her arm. She caught her breath.

“All right,” Yoshi said, though he still looked concerned. “But don’t talk the whole time. Agreed?”

“Sure.” Barbary’s voice sounded funny to her, because she was trying to talk without inhaling or exhaling. As soon as she took a breath, she would begin to giggle.

Yoshi slid the door closed behind him. Heather immediately clapped her hands to her head, and Barbary flung herself forward with a muffled shriek of laughter.

“I’m glad you think it’s so funny,” Heather whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Barbary said. “I wasn’t laughing at you. Mick was tickling me. I almost couldn’t stand it.”

“Okay. But keep quiet or Yoshi’ll hear us.”

Mickey sauntered out of his hiding place, looked at them both in disdain, and jumped off the bunk.

“Are you okay?” Barbary asked.

“I think so, yeah. I might have a bump. Boy, was that dumb. Running yourself into a ceiling is real kid stuff.”

Barbary climbed down from the bunk, picked Mickey up, and cradled him in her arms. “That was close, Mick,” she said.

Heather jumped down beside her. “We better at least pretend to sleep,” she said.

“Yeah, okay.”

Heather gestured toward the top bunk. “You better take that one. It’ll be safer.”

“Are you sure that’s okay with you?”

“Uh-huh,” Heather said. “But be careful not to sit up too fast.”

“Right.” Barbary nodded.

The floor twisted beneath her. She staggered, flung one hand out to catch herself, and clutched Mick to her with the other arm. He hissed in protest and tried to jump free.

“Barbary! What’s wrong?”

Barbary kept hold of the edge of the bunk, but let Mick loose.

“You mean… you didn’t feel anything?”

“No,” Heather said. “Feel what?”

“The floor…” She stopped. Maybe she had something wrong with her, and if anyone found out

Heather laughed. “I know!”

Barbary scowled. “What?”

“You nodded — didn’t you?”

“I guess so. What’s so bad about that?”

“Nothing — except that up here you have to get out of the habit of nodding or shaking your head.”

“Why?”

“Because the spin of the station affects your inner ear. That makes you feel like the floor is twisting or tilting, depending on which you’re doing and what way you’re facing. Go ahead — try it.”

“Well ... okay.” She shook her head. The floor tilted up and back. Barbary stopped.

“Now turn this way” — Heather moved her a quarter turn — “and shake your head again.”

This time it felt as if the floor were tilting from side to side.

“And if you turn around this way —”

“I don’t like this very much.” Barbary grabbed hold of the bunk support.

“But — oh. Oh, gee, Barbary, I didn’t realize — here, sit down.”

Barbary sat still, letting her equilibrium return. She tried to listen to Heather’s explanation, but it was too much for her to take in all at once.

“You get so you don’t notice it after a while,” Heather said. “But by then most people have already trained themselves out of nodding or shaking their heads.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Barbary said.

“Don’t worry — you’ll be an old hand in no time.”

Mick jumped to the top bunk and curled up on Barbary’s pillow.

“I think he’s trying to tell us something,” Heather said.

“Yeah,” Barbary said. This time she did not nod.

When they had both lain down, and Mickey was purring beside Barbary, kneading her arm with his paws, Heather said, “Are you all settled?”

“Yeah.”

“Lights out,” Heather said.

The lights dimmed and went out.

A very long, very narrow triangle of light fell across the floor. It came from the other room, through a crack where the door did not quite meet the wall.

Barbary had thought she was too nervous to sleep, but in the darkness and in the half-gravity ease of her bed, exhaustion began to take her over.

“Barbary?” Heather whispered.

Pulling herself partway out of a doze, Barbary answered. “Yeah?”

“Don’t misunderstand — it’s neat that you brought Mickey. But… how come you risked it?”

“I wanted to chase him away, but I couldn’t. Then after we made friends, they wanted me to take him to the animal shelter so they could kill him.”

“Oh,” Heather said. “Oh. I’m glad you brought him.”

I wonder how long I’m going to get away with it, though, Barbary thought.

“Heather?”

“Uh-huh?”

“How come you live here? In low gravity?”

Heather was silent, and Barbary thought she must have asked her something very rude. But you asked me a personal question, Barbary thought. Don’t I get a turn?

“Well,” Heather said, “I have to. There’s something wrong with my heart. I’m only allowed to go into one g a couple of hours a day.”

“Oh,” Barbary said. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be. I don’t care. I like it here. I don’t know why people want to stay at one g anyway.”

She probably knew better than Barbary, who only knew what the instruction book said. If people did not stay used to regular gravity, then after a long time in space it would be too hard for them to go back to earth.

As she drifted off to sleep, Barbary thought, But I don’t want to go back to earth. I want to live in space, where there isn’t any gravity.

o0o

Barbary flung her arm across her eyes to block out the sunlight —

There was no sunlight. She woke abruptly.

“Come on, kids,” Yoshi said. “Dinnertime.”

“Okay,” Heather said. “Just a minute.”

Barbary reached for Mickey. He was gone. She froze.

Yoshi had only made the lights go on; he had not come into the room or even opened the door very far. He closed it again.

“Heather!” Barbary whispered. “Mick’s gone!” She flung off her blanket and searched her bunk and the bookcase, but the cat had disappeared.

“I’ll get up in a minute.”

The covers rustled as Heather turned over.

“Mick’s gone!” She jumped off her bunk, but he was not curled up on a desk or a chair or in a corner or anywhere.

Heather sat up. “Did you look under the bed?”

Barbary knelt and lifted the edge of the comforter, then scowled at Heather in disgust.

“There isn’t any ‘under,’ under the bed!” It was all drawers. “Will you wake up?”

“Uh-huh. Sure.”

She flopped back down and pulled the comforter over her head. Barbary realized that Heather could carry on a conversation while she was still almost asleep.

“Heather!”

Heather yelped and flung aside the quilt.

“Jeez,” Barbary said, “you don’t need to be that way about it.”

“I just found Mickey.”

Mick curled sleeping in the middle of her bunk. He raised his head, yawned widely, his whiskers bristling, his tongue curling, put his head down again, and went back to sleep.

“Mick!” Barbary said. “You scared me to death.” Mickey made no reply. “I thought he got out.”

“Oh, he couldn’t,” Heather said. “Come on, let’s get ready for dinner. I’m starved.”

“Do we have to go?”

Heather glanced from Barbary to Mickey, and back again. “I know how you feel. I really do. But it’ll look kind of strange if we don’t go eat.”

“I guess,” Barbary said.

“And nobody will be here to find him.”

Barbary chewed her thumbnail.

“Okay?” Heather said.

“Yeah,” Barbary said, unconvinced.

o0o

The cafeteria on the half-g level contained only ten tables. Barbary wondered if the one-g level of the station had a larger cafeteria, where more people and more commotion would make pilfering food much easier. Barbary supposed, though, that Heather must have to eat here most of the time.

“What do you want to eat?” Heather said, standing on tiptoe to see the top shelf.

“I don’t know — what is there?”

“Chhay keeps threatening to import a herd of steers,” Yoshi said, “but he hasn’t got clearance for it…”

“Or a place to put it,” Heather said.

“Anyway, there isn’t any red meat,” Yoshi said.

Barbary had never tasted beef.

“I didn’t think of that,” Heather said in a stricken voice. “Barbary, will it be okay? I mean…” She stopped.

Barbary realized that Heather meant, was there anything Mickey would eat. Mickey had never tasted beef either. Heather was going to have to learn to keep her mouth shut, or they were all going to be in a lot of trouble.

“Yeah, sure, it’s okay.”

Yoshi looked at them both oddly. “Heather, I’m sure Barbary doesn’t expect everything to be just the same up here as back on earth.”

“No, I don’t,” Barbary said. “I mean, it doesn’t make any difference anyway. I never had any animal meat back there.”

“Oh, good,” Heather said, relieved. Barbary wondered if she had any idea how close she had come to letting too much information slip. Barbary knew Yoshi was suspicious, even if he did not yet know what to be suspicious of.

“How about some shrimp? They’re surplus, from the ocean research project, so they’re fresh.”

Shrimp were even more of a luxury than beef, back on earth, but Barbary had heard that cats liked them. She accepted the shrimp salad, even though the little pink curled-up things looked kind of disgusting. They would at least be easy to palm and hide in her napkin. Heather poured glasses of milk for herself and Barbary. The liquid flowed slowly and strangely in the low gravity. Barbary tried to think of a way to smuggle a glass of milk out of the cafeteria.

Maybe I can find a container with a lid, she thought, and sneak back later.

Heather chose a curry so hot that Barbary’s nose prickled from the spices. Mick would never eat that, even if it weren’t too squishy to take away, which it was.

Heather didn’t bring a cat to a space station, Barbary told herself. It isn’t her responsibility to feed him. It’s yours.

They sat with several other people. Yoshi and Heather introduced Barbary to them and to friends at the surrounding tables. Roxane was a mechanic who worked outside the station, building new parts for it. Chhay was an agricultural expert. Ramchandra worked on computer components that could only be grown in weightlessness. He had helped to build the first picocomputer. He said organic computers were the coming thing, and that he would have to study biology if he wanted to keep up with his own field. Barbary did not know if he was joking or not. She managed to keep track of the people at their table, but could not remember everyone else’s name. They all greeted her warmly and welcomed her to the station.

For the first time in as long as she could remember, Barbary began to believe she really belonged somewhere.

“When are you getting your dogies?” Heather said to Chhay. It sounded weird to Barbary, to hear in a space station a word from some old cowboy movie.

Chhay laughed, as if the herd of steers was an old joke between him and Heather. “Somehow I just can’t seem to get that request approved,” he said. “They’re afraid the steers will get loose and overrun the station.”

“Considering the birth rate of your average herd of steers,” Roxane said, “no wonder pets aren’t allowed.”

Everybody laughed except Barbary, who had no idea what was so funny. Heather, who was taking a drink of milk, giggled right into her glass. Barbary used the distraction to palm a shrimp with the Murada technique. Her sleight of hand was only passable, but since no one was watching for her to fool them, and since they were all still laughing at the joke, she got away with it. Barbary had read about people no better at stage magic than she was, who had pretended to have special powers, real magic, and everyone believed them.

At the mention of pets, Heather stopped laughing and wiped off the splash of milk. She glanced at Barbary with a far-too-sober expression, calling attention to her just as she slipped the shrimp into her napkin.

Barbary frowned at Heather and pretended to be studying her salad. How were she and Mick ever going to get away with this? Heather had no experience at all at hiding things or lying, that was certain.

Ramchandra glanced at their table’s single vacant chair.

“Where’s Thea?” he asked.

Barbary palmed another shrimp.

Yoshi shrugged. “Don’t know,” he said. He sounded disappointed. “In the observatory, probably. Working on the probe. Alien-watching. How’s your salad, Barbary?”

She crumpled up her napkin in her lap. “Um, I haven’t tasted it yet.” She stuck her fork into it and pushed it around so no one would be able to tell how much was left. She hesitated, then gulped a shrimp.

“Hey,” she said, surprised. “It’s good.”

“Eating one’s first shrimp is an act of great courage,” Roxane said, and everyone laughed. Barbary was ready to get angry, till she realized they were not laughing at her.

As soon as she had finished eating, Heather jumped to her feet and grabbed her tray. “Come on — I’ll show you what to do with your stuff.”

Barbary had to crush her napkin and shove it into her pocket before she could follow Heather. She caught up to her new sister on the other side of the cafeteria. A recess in the wall held racks for dirty dishes.

“You put the scraps over here. We make them into compost. Then —”

“Give me a little warning, will you?” Barbary muttered. “I had a lap full of shrimp.”

“Oh, Barbary, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize — I didn’t see what you were doing.”

“You weren’t supposed to.”

Heather picked up her plate and poked at the leftover curry sauce. “Should I get some chicken for him?”

“No, never mind, don’t take anything.”

“But —”

“You guys want anything? Tea?”

Barbary shut up as Chhay passed behind her. Heather opened her mouth to speak and Barbary glared at her to make her be quiet, but her sister surprised her. Heather scraped her leftovers down a narrow slide, then put her plate on a rack in a glass-fronted machine.

“After you clear off your dishes, you just stick them in here and when everybody’s done we close the door and turn it on and sonic vibrations clean everything off. Tea would be great, Chhay.”

Barbary turned around, trying to maintain her composure.

“Is there any coffee?”

“Sure.” He poured a cup of coffee and put it on his tray, then looked over the selection of teas.

“Heather, how about mint?”

“I think I’ll have coffee, too,” Heather said.

“Okay.”

They returned to the table. Barbary wondered how long they had to stay at the table before they could excuse themselves.

Chhay put a tray full of steaming cups on the table. The steam acted strange in the low gravity. Barbary would have expected it to rise more quickly, but it collected in round clouds over the tray. Barbary discovered she could pull her cup right out from under its steam. But she was too concerned about Mick to wonder much or ask questions about anything else.

Barbary fidgeted. She kept expecting to be able to smell the soggy shrimp in her pocket.

Heather poured cream into her coffee till it was barely even tan, then added sugar. Barbary liked coffee black, but if it tasted as bad as Heather thought, she would probably put stuff in it, too. She took a cautious sip.

Like all the other food aboard the station, the coffee tasted better than any Barbary had ever had before.

“Is Thea coming to the reception?” Roxane asked Yoshi.

“How should I know?” Yoshi said.

“Sorry,” Roxane said. “Didn’t mean to enter forbidden territory.”

“I’ve barely seen her in a week.” Yoshi turned his cup between his fingers. “Twenty hours a day at the telescope doesn’t give her much time for the mundane things of life. Like talking to her lover or meeting a new member of his family.”

He stared into his cup. His friends fell silent, then changed the subject. Heather’s cheerfulness faded. Feeling uncomfortable, Barbary pretended not to notice. She had meant to ask Heather who Thea was, but she had forgotten. She was glad when, a few minutes later, Chhay stood up.

“We better hurry, or we’ll be late.”

All the others got up and put their dishes into the dishwasher.

“Okay,” Chhay said. “Whose turn is it to wash them?”

“Not me,” said Roxane. “I did it last time.”

“This is stupid,” Yoshi said. He slammed the dishwasher door, slapped the “on” button, and strode from the cafeteria. The dishwasher hummed and emitted a high-pitched whine that rose beyond the limits of human hearing.

Heather followed her father.

“Guess it was his turn,” Roxane said dryly. Barbary hurried after her sister.

“What was that all about?”

“It used to be a joke,” Heather said. “Because it’s so easy. Who washes the dishes just means who pushes the button. I guess… Yoshi doesn’t feel much like joking today.”

“He sounded sort of upset, earlier.”

“Yeah. Because of Thea. They spend a lot of time together. Or anyway they did, till the spaceship appeared. Now, well, she’s real busy. I mean, you can tell — she hasn’t even had time to come meet you yet.”

Barbary wished Heather would not put her in the middle of a disagreement between Yoshi and his lover. In her experience that was a dangerous place to be. She headed down the hallway toward the apartment.

“Wait, Barbary,” Heather said. “This way.”

“Is that a short-cut back to your place?”

“Uh-uh. This is the way to the reception hall.”

Barbary stopped. “We’re not going home?”

“Not till later.”

The other adults passed. As they turned a corner, Chhay called back, “Come on, kids.”

“Heather — ” She waited till she was sure she could talk without being overheard. “What about Mick? I have to feed him. My pocket is all full of wet shrimp, and you said we could go back after dinner!”

“Oh, gee, I’m sorry — I meant after the reception. Besides, when you said not to take anything I thought you meant he wasn’t very hungry.”

“Oh. No. I just meant —” She almost said that if anybody had noticed Heather’s pulling soggy bits of chicken out of her curry, it would have given them both away. But she did not want to hurt Heather’s feelings. “I just meant you haven’t had a chance to practice sleight of hand.”

“Well, look, we can’t go back now.”

“He’s going to be awful hungry.”

“But it’ll look too suspicious if we miss this party.”

Yoshi returned.

“Are you two all right?”

“Sure,” said Heather. “We’re coming.” She glanced at Barbary as if to say, See what I mean?

Barbary knew that if she kept behaving strangely, she would be sent back to earth. The friendship Yoshi had felt for her mother, twenty years before, would protect her only so far. She sighed and followed Heather. She tried to forget her pocketful of wet shrimp.

If I don’t look at them, she said to herself, nobody else will, either.