Barbary

The noise of everybody trying to speak made Barbary feel as if she were standing beside a buzz saw. Heather said something, an excited expression on her face, but Barbary could not hear her.

Barbary thought, But it could be an automatic response the alien ship gives every time it comes across some half-civilized bunch of people, like us, who’ve barely even made it into space.

And then she wondered, How could anything so beautiful be a voice from a machine?

Finally she thought, They’re aliens, they can travel to the stars. They can do anything.

The noise level dropped as people began to recover from the first shock of the communication. Barbary began to be able to pick out individual conversations and questions. Everyone was excited, but some were excited with joy, and others with fear. People discussed what the aliens might teach to human beings, or what harm they might cause. She heard several people quote a famous writer, whose theory was that any civilization so advanced it can travel to other stars ought to be too civilized to wage war; and she heard others reply “Hogwash!”

Heather touched Barbary’s arm. Barbary turned toward her sister.

Heather was very pale. Barbary grabbed her arm, afraid she might faint and be trampled. Barbary held her up, not absolutely sure that was what Heather wanted, but willing to risk her sister’s anger if she was mistaken. Barbary thought Heather was leaning on her, but she was so light that it was hard to tell. Barbary bent down, straining to hear.

“Can we get out of here, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Barbary said. “But I’ll try.”

Supporting Heather, Barbary sidled through the crowd. People tried to make way for her, when they noticed her, but most of them remained deep in conversation. Suddenly the whole room quieted. Barbary spied a space and hurried through it before it disappeared. She only had to go about five more meters to reach the door. She wished the meeting were being held in zero g so she could sly around and between all the people in her way. She kept glancing at her sister. Heather gripped Barbary’s arm tight.

The meeting hall fell silent.

“Colleagues,” said the secretary-general of the United Nations, her voice a papery whisper. Her presence was so powerful that Barbary could feel it without even being able to see her, and everyone remained so quiet that they seemed to stop breathing.

Barbary plunged through the doorway, pulling Heather along behind her. Sweat ran down her face. She gasped a breath of the cooler air. Ambassador Begay was still speaking, but out here Barbary could only make out her voice, not her words.

“Are you okay?” she asked Heather.

Heather leaned against the wall.

“I think so,” she said. “Thanks for getting me out of there.

“You’re welcome. I’m kind of glad to be outside, too. Want to go home?”

“I think I better.”

They trudged up the corridor, boarded the elevator, and rode to the half-g level.

“Did you see Yoshi anyplace?”

“Uh-uh,” Barbary said.

“I guess he must still be in the library. When he’s writing he sometimes doesn’t even hear PA announcements.” Back in their home territory, Heather regained her strength. She grinned. “That means we’ll probably get to tell him about the aliens.”

They reached the apartment and went inside.

“I really am going to take a nap this time,” Heather said. “Wake me up when Yoshi gets back so we can both tell him, okay?”

“Sure.”

Heather disappeared into her bedroom.

This was the first time Barbary had been by herself with nothing specific to do since she reached Atlantis. The living room seemed large and empty — strange, since it had felt so small the first time she saw it. Then she realized why: Thea had taken her contraption away.

Barbary remembered the aliens’ message: “Please do not approach us,” it had said. Poor Thea — she must be disappointed, after all her work, not to be able to launch her probe.

“Mickey,” Barbary called. She did not see him anywhere in the living room. He must be asleep on the bunk. She crept into the bedroom, hoping not to wake Heather. She chinned herself on the edge of her bed, then climbed the rest of the way to look inside the bookshelves.

No Mick.

Beginning to worry, Barbary leaned over the edge of her bunk. Heather must have fallen asleep as soon as she lay down, because she had not even taken off her shoes or slid under the blanket. But Mick was nowhere to be seen.

Barbary hurried into the living room.

“Mick!”

She hesitated in front of the door to Yoshi’s room and knocked. Receiving only silence, she opened it. The sparse furnishing offered no hiding place for a cat.

Thea! Barbary thought. When she moved her contraption, she must have left the door open long enough for Mick to get out. Maybe she thought it was okay for him to go, but more likely she didn’t even notice him.