Barbary

Barbary knew she had to go to the debarkation lounge and strap in with the other passengers. But as long as she could, she delayed leaving her room. Feeling nervous, she checked for the hundredth time to be sure she had left nothing behind. She had hardly anything to forget. Her bag had been packed for hours.

“All passengers proceed to debarkation lounge immediately. Fifteen minutes to docking burn.”

The intercom had begun broadcasting the message an hour before. The “immediately” was new. Pretty soon somebody would probably come to fetch stragglers. But Barbary procrastinated, so she could put off drugging Mick till the last minute. She did not know how long it would be before she could find a private place where it would be safe for him to wake.

Barbary unbuttoned her pants pocket and took out a small white envelope. It contained a broken chunk of pill, the last bit of sedative. She wondered, as she always did, if it was the right size. She had had to break up a tranquilizer meant for a person, and estimate how much to give Mickey. That was one of the reasons she was afraid the drug might kill him. Mick watched her, unblinking, as she pushed toward him with the pill hidden in her hand.

“You know I’ve got it, don’t you?” she said. “I know you don’t like it, but you have to take it. Unless you want to lie still in my pocket for the next couple of hours. Fat chance.”

She reached for him. He stretched his body till his hind feet touched a wall, leaped, and sailed past her.

“Mickey!” she said, louder than she meant to. “Come on, don’t play, we can’t afford it.” He touched the far wall with his front paws and bounded, turning a back flip. He maneuvered with certainty and grace even in weightlessness, while Barbary still felt awkward.

“If you had a tail, I could understand,’ she said. “You’d use it to balance with.”

Mick sailed from wall to wall to wall like a bird, or at least a flying squirrel. He spread himself out like a squirrel when he leaped, and the stub where his tail would have been twitched back and forth.

Barbary stopped trying to catch him. She waited till he got tired of springing faster and faster back and forth. He caught his claws in a net to stop himself. Maybe he had made himself dizzy, because when he retracted his claws, he floated away from the wall without kicking off.

He watched her upside down.

He was vulnerable while he was floating. Barbary caught him in midair.

“Ha,” she said. “Outsmarted yourself, didn’t you?”

Barbary held Mick against her body so she could feed him the pill. She had to steady him with her left arm, open his mouth with her left hand, and stick the pill down his throat with her right hand. He growled as she forced his jaws apart. Since she had no free hand with which to steady herself, she tumbled in a slow circle.

“Shh,” she said to Mick. “It isn’t that bad.”

He bit her and she yelped, but she kept hold of him and pushed the pill to the back of his tongue as he tried to twist away from her. She held his mouth shut and stroked his throat to help him swallow.

“There, see? Now you’ll go to sleep and when you wake up — ouch!” He dug in his claws and jumped. She let him elude her. He hovered in the farthest corner, growling, his fur fluffed up. Barbary waited. After five minutes his growling faltered as he began to feel drowsy. His eyelids drooped, and he meowed. Barbary floated to him and took him in her arms.

“I’m sorry, Mick, I know you hate it. I don’t know what’s going to happen, either. I hope everything will be all right when you wake up. For a change.” She cuddled him till he went limp with sleep.

Barbary slid him into the secret pocket, put on the baggy jacket, grabbed her duffel bag, and hurried out just as the intercom clicked on again. “All passengers to the disembarkation deck. Urgent. All passengers —”

o0o

Barbary trembled with nervousness. She had arrived at the lounge in plenty of time to strap in before the burn. Nevertheless, one of the crew members had hustled her to a seat and bawled her out. Now it seemed as though she had been sitting there for hours, because of course the docking burn was not fifteen minutes away, but nearer forty-five. Barbary tried to concentrate on the sight of Einstein, a vast wheel within a wheel spinning in the center of a TV screen as Outrigger approached its hub. But her attention kept returning to Mickey’s warm weight in the secret pocket.

Jeanne Velory was the last person to get to the lounge. Barbary hoped she would see her and smile at her, or even just nod, but she did not. She strapped herself in, leaned back, and closed her eyes. For a moment, strain showed in her face. It had never before occurred to Barbary that Jeanne might be nervous about her new job, her new home, and the alien ship on top of everything else. How could she not be nervous?

Barbary still envied her, but she felt a little sorry for her, too, and she wished she had been able to be more honest with her.