Barbary

Barbary untangled herself and her duffel bag from the web strap. Heather pushed off. Barbary relaxed and let herself be towed. She kept a tight hold on her bag. If it got loose and banged against something, it might come untied. It would be ridiculous if she smuggled Mickey on board but got caught because the cat food spilled all over. Afraid of the drug’s effect on Mick, she both hoped and feared to feel him move. She would not look toward him. If she pretended nothing was unusual, nothing was wrong, she would not see a white-tipped tabby paw push through the front of her coat, opening the way for a pink nose and white whiskers…

Heather got all the way to the other side of the doughnut-shaped room without running into a single dignitary. Considering the crowd and the confusion, that was quite a feat.

“Here’s Yoshi!” Heather said. “Yoshi! I found her!”

Yoshi rotated as Heather swooped toward him. He caught them both and swung them around and to a stop. Heather laughed. Barbary swallowed hard and clutched the duffel bag.

“Where’s Thea?” Heather asked.

“I don’t know,” Yoshi said. “She said she’d come, but I guess she forgot.”

Yoshi, Heather’s father and Barbary’s mother’s best friend from college, was of medium height, compact and athletic. Barbary liked his smile. He had none of Heather’s frailty, but she had his good looks and dark hair and eyes.

Yoshi gave Barbary a hug. “Barbary, I’m very glad you’re here.” He held her away to look at her, and hugged her again. In the air above them, Heather did free somersaults, turning fast twice, her knees hugged to her chest, then stretching out her arms and legs to spin once slowly. She caught a strap and stopped.

Barbary suddenly felt quite shy. She did not know what to say to Yoshi, or how to thank him for all he had done, without sounding silly and sentimental.

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” she said. “I didn’t think they’d ever let me come.”

“It should never have taken so long,” Yoshi said. “And after all that, to have to fight with every diplomat on earth just for a shuttle ticket —” He shook his head, then smiled again. “You look a lot like your mother.”

Barbary shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Haven’t you even seen a picture of her?”

Barbary shook her head. “Not for a long time. I had some stuff, but it got lost. I don’t know. I don’t remember.” She did remember. She used to have some smoke-damaged photographs, and a ring. In one of the places she stayed, the ring disappeared. In another, they threw away her photos as a punishment. She pretended not to care, because she would not give anyone the satisfaction of hurting her. Who cared about a bunch of old pictures, you couldn’t see anything on them anyway. That’s what she said out loud.

It was true that the images were out of focus, obscured by time and misfortune, and only two-dimensional anyway. She had no clear memory of her mother’s face, either from life or from pictures. But she did care.

“I’ve got a couple of snapshots,” Yoshi said. “They’re from a long time ago, but still… I’ll get you some copies.”

Yoshi glanced at the diplomats and assistants and secretaries who surrounded them. Most of them looked awkward and uncomfortable in zero g. “This crowd will be about as useful as a flock of sheep.” To Barbary he said, “Did anyone tell you what’s happened?”

“Yes,” she said. “But it’s still a secret back on earth.”

“They’re afraid an announcement will make the grounders panic,” Heather said.

“I didn’t panic,” Barbary said.

“But you’re not a grounder anymore.”

“Grounder or not has nothing to do with it,” Yoshi said. “More than a handful of people should know what’s going on. When we meet that ship — it’s history. Even if it’s a derelict. That’s the majority view. Which I don’t subscribe to.” He reached for Barbary’s hand. “Aren’t you hot in that jacket?”

“No. Yes. A little. It’s easier to wear it than carry it.”

“Okay. Ready?”

Barbary nodded. Yoshi and Heather pushed off, towing Barbary behind them.

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.