Barbary

As Barbary tried to think of an answer, Mick hooked his claws around her wrist.

“You’re Ambassador Begay, aren’t you?” Heather said.

“Yes, I am.”

Jeanne introduced Heather and Barbary to the ambassador, and for a horrible moment Barbary thought she would have to shake hands, when it was her right hand inside her jacket holding Mickey still.

But Heather broke in. “Later on I’m going to show Barbary the computer.” Her voice sounded a little too high and a little too loud. “It has some great games. Have you tried ‘Snarks and Boojums’? It’s really fun.”

You’re really overdoing it, Heather, Barbary thought, willing the elevator to stop and open, willing Jeanne to get bored with talking to two kids, willing the electricity to go out, anything. All the attention was on her and Heather — mostly on Heather; she had to admit that her sister did a good job of keeping attention off Barbary and Mick — and the whole business was like a scene out of a sappy kids’ movie. The Space Colony Children or something. Ugh, Barbary thought, aren’t we cute. Mick, if you don’t stop biting me I’m going to let you get out, and see what happens then.

“I haven’t had time to do that yet, either,” Jeanne said.

“You ought to,” Heather said. “It’s got a lot of physics in it. The computer’s terrific. You can even make up stories on it.”

“What tales does your computer tell you?” Ambassador Begay asked.

“You tell it your name and it sort of puts you into the story. It never tells the same one twice.”

“I see. The stories I know do not change at all. But perhaps you’ll let me tell you one anyway, if we can find the time.”

“I’d like that,” Heather said.

Barbary struggled to remain expressionless as Mick dug his claws into her hand.

“Barbary, is your hand all right?” Jeanne said.

The elevator slowed and stopped and the door slid open. But nobody moved.

“Yes,” Barbary said. “Why shouldn’t it be? I mean… um… I’m just pretending to be Napoleon. It’s part of the story.”

She looked at Heather and Heather looked at her and neither one of them could help it. They both burst out laughing. Jeanne watched them quizzically, then stepped outside. Ambassador Begay followed.

“Getting off?”

“Uh-uh,” Heather said, gasping for breath. “We’re just riding the elevator. We wanted to come to the bottom and go right back up.” She caught Barbary’s gaze, and they both laughed even harder.

“Okay,” Jeanne said. “Have fun.”

As she and the ambassador walked away, Heather lunged forward and jammed her thumb against the “close door” button. As soon as they were safe, she slid to the floor, giggling.

“Nobody ever comes on this elevator, huh?” Barbary said.

“Napoleon!” Heather said. “Napoleon? That was great!”

“Mickey, ouch, stop it, all right, get down if you have to, and if they throw you out the airlock it isn’t my fault!” She loosed her hold on the cat and he sprang to the floor. Barbary slid down beside Heather. “Napoleon. Good grief. What a dumb thing to say. Now Jeanne must really think I’m an idiot.”

The elevator halted. Barbary grabbed Mick before the doors opened. She carried him out into just about the weirdest place she had ever seen.

The elevator sat on top of a wide platform. Steps led down on all sides, making it into a ziggurat shape, a stepped pyramid. About twenty steps below, the stairs disappeared into great piles of dirt and rocks, which rose to meet the curved horizon. Support beams projected through the dirt.

Mick scrabbled at Barbary’s hands, caught his back claws against her palms, and leaped from her grasp. She yelped in surprise and pain. He ran across the platform, down the stairs, and over a hillock into the shadows.

“Mick!”

Barbary chased him, but Mick’s rabbity rump vanished into the darkness before she reached the bottom of the stairs. She stopped and put her scratched hand to her mouth. The scratches stung.

“Mick!”

Barbary’s eyes became accustomed to the eerie light cast by the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling. A few marks around the platform might have been small footprints, but they looked as if a wind had disturbed and blurred them. Mickey’s tracks led across them and vanished.

“Mick!”

“It’s okay,” Heather said. “There’s no place he can go, and nobody ever, ever comes down here. Not even me, mostly.”

“That’s what you said about the elevator.”

“I said ‘hardly ever’ about the elevator. It leads to other places. But this is the lowest level of the station. It’s the insulation against cosmic rays and solar flares. There isn’t any reason for anybody to come down here. All it is is pulverized moon rock.”

“Moon rock?” At the bottom of the stairs, Barbary poked at the moon rocks with the toe of her shoe. “It looks like just dirt.”