Barbary

He must have climbed into Thea’s contraption, into the central pipe that formed the basic frame. And he either liked it there too much to leave, or he was too scared or too interested to jump out while Thea carried the contraption to the raft.

“I see you’re willing to risk the possibility that the aliens will consider your ‘experiment’ hostile,” the vice president said. “I’m sure your colleagues will be happy to know you’re so cavalier about their lives.”

“I told

you I’m bringing it back!”

Barbary let out her breath. Maybe it would be all right. The raft would turn before the aliens decided to shoot it, and Mick would be in the station again long before the raft ran out of air.

“We’ll have to broadcast an explanation and an apology,” the vice president said. “And you’d better prepare yourself for a disciplinary hearing.”

“You can’t discipline me!” Thea said. “I’m a citizen.”

“We’ll see.” He paused. “How long before the craft returns to the station?”

“It’s only been out forty-five minutes,” Thea said. “It’ll take about an hour to decelerate, turn, and come back. Since I don’t have to conserve its fuel anymore.”

“Thea,” Yukiko said, “it isn’t responding.”

“What?”

Barbary clenched her fists around the handhold.

It has

to come back! she thought. It has

to!

“It has to be responding,” Thea said, with equal desperation.

“It isn’t. It’s still accelerating.”

After a long silence, during which Barbary was afraid to sneak a look inside the launch chamber, Thea said, “You’re right.”

In the intense quiet, Barbary could hear her own heart pounding. She bit her lip.

“I’m going to the control chamber,” the vice president said. “The military attaché will have to know what’s happened. He’ll be able to deal with the logistics of destroying the probe.”

Barbary froze. The vice president’s chair buzzed toward her. If she jumped out in front of him and asked him not to shoot Mickey —

He would probably laugh at her.

If his bodyguards did not shoot her for jumping out at him.

She hid in a nearby corridor till he, his bodyguards, and Thea and Yukiko entered the elevator, still arguing.

After they were out of sight, Barbary entered the launch chamber. Heather’s raft sat on its tracks, waiting to go out again. Barbary floated to it, opened its door, and slid into the seat.

She stared at the controls. She thought she remembered what Heather had done, but she was not certain. She was not even sure she could figure out in which direction to go to find the alien ship, and Mick’s raft. Away from the sun, she guessed. But there was an awful lot of nothing out there, and rafts were awfully small.

Heather said the computer could drive the raft

She turned it on.

“Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you.”

“Do you know where the raft with the transmitter is?”

“Yes.”

“I want to go there.”

“Please wait.”

The kaleidoscope patterns appeared. Barbary gritted her teeth. Computers were supposed to know everything instantly.

But if it knew the location of Mick’s raft, why was it making her wait? The only reason she could think of was that it was reporting her.

She slapped the switch that turned off the computer. She did not know if that would keep it from reporting her — if that was what it was doing — but it was the only thing she could think of. She would have to find Mick herself. She pulled down the door and sealed it and tried to remember what control Heather had used first.

“Open up!”

Barbary started at the muffled voice and the rap on the transparent roof.

Heather stared in at her. She looked furious.

Barbary opened the hatch.

“Move over!”

“Heather, they’re going to shoot Thea’s contraption, and Mick’s inside it. I have to stop them.”

“Move over!”

Barbary obeyed.

Heather swung in, slammed the hatch shut, and fastened her seat belt.

“Your computer told me part of it, and I figured out the rest.” She took over the controls.

“Thea tried to make her camera come back, but it wouldn’t.”

“Mick probably knocked loose some of the connections.”

Their raft slid into the airlock. The hatch closed.

“I just hope I got here soon enough to get us out,” Heather said. “I bet they’ll freeze all the hatches in about two seconds, if they haven’t already.”

The outer door slid open.

Heather made a sound of triumph and slammed on the power. The acceleration pushed them both back into their seats.

With the raft accelerating and the station growing smaller behind them, Heather glared at Barbary.

“Now,” she said. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“There wasn’t time,” Barbary said.

“Oh.” Heather’s scowl softened. “That’s a good point.”

Barbary squinted into starry space. “How do you know where to go?”

“It’s not that hard. From where the station is now, and the direction and speed the ship’s approaching, it has to be lined up with Betelgeuse, if Atlantis is directly behind us.”

Barbary tried to imagine the geometry of the arrangement Heather described, with all the elements moving independently of one another, and came to the conclusion that it was hard, even if Heather was so used to it that she didn’t know it.