Barbary

“I’ll see that Barbary gets where she’s going,” Jeanne said. She indicated Barbary with a flick of her eyes, not a nod of her head.

“Thanks,” the crew member said in a low voice. “Almost everybody else this trip is a first-timer. Keeping them sorted out is going to be… oh… lots of fun.”

Barbary found herself hovering out of reach of anything, drifting toward the transport. Jeanne barely touched her. She stopped moving.

“For now, I’ll just tow you, okay?” She slid Barbary’s duffel bag from beneath the seat. Barbary snatched it. Jeanne kept her from tumbling away, but glanced at her with a quizzical expression.

Embarrassed to have been so rude, Barbary dropped her gaze. But she had things with her that she did not want anyone to suspect.

“Grab my belt,” Jeanne said.

Barbary slipped her arm through the strap of the duffel bag so she could hang on to Jeanne. She felt awkward and uneasy. But Jeanne pushed off with both feet and sailed straight out of the shuttle.

The shuttle bay doors opened into a large chamber. Supporting struts, handholds, bright-painted lines, and narrow plastic tracks patterned the walls. Everything was a “wall,” for nothing was “up” or “down,” “floor” or “ceiling.”

“I read a lot of novels about space travel,” Barbary said. “In them everybody gets around by sticking themselves to the walls with Velcro.”

“That doesn’t work very well,” Jeanne said. “Hook pollution.” In response to Barbary’s questioning glance, she said, “The little plastic hooks on the Velcro break off and float around and get into things. You can slide along the tracks if you get some skates, or a skating-chair,” Jeanne said over her shoulder. “But this way’s a lot faster.” Jumping, ricocheting, handswimming, she drew Barbary into a maze of corridors and tunnels. In a few minutes Barbary felt completely disoriented. The painted lines joined their course or peeled off from it, disappearing down other corridors. Soon all the colors had changed but one.

“Are you following the blue?”

Jeanne pulled herself along hand over hand. She slowed, glancing at the wall below — beside? — them. “Right,” she said. “It is blue to deck one. After a while you learn your way around, and you forget which colors lead where.”

She accelerated again. She moved in a way almost like crawling, except that she did not use her legs. She kept her body parallel to the surface containing whichever holds she happened to be using at the time. Jeanne grabbed a rung, pulled to propel herself forward, and used her other hand to catch another rung several body-lengths along the corridor.

“Deck one,” Barbary said. “What’s that?”

“The observation bubble,” Jeanne said. “It’s quite a sight.”

Barbary had dreamed about her first view of space. She had had the dream much longer than she had known she would ever get to see it for real. She barely even remembered a time before she would occasionally wake contented from that fantasy. But one thing was more important to her.

“If we hurry,” Jeanne said, “we can watch the shuttle undocking. Then I’ll have to get to work. But the sight’s worth some extra time.”

“Jeanne,” Barbary said hesitantly.

“Yeah?”

“I’d like to see that, but I want to… I need… I’m awfully tired. If I could just go to my room and be alone for awhile…”

“There’s a bathroom near the observation deck, if that’s what you need,” Jeanne said with an understanding grin. “Do you know how to use a zero-gravity toilet?”

“They give you an instruction booklet when you buy your ticket,” Barbary said, a bit embarrassed. “It isn’t that. I want to see what you want to show me. But I have to be by myself for a while.” She could not explain any further.

“Okay,” Jeanne said, sounding puzzled.

o0o

Jeanne hovered in the doorway of Barbary’s room. “You’re sure you’re all right.”

“Yes,” Barbary said. “Thanks.”

Jeanne waited another moment, as if to let Barbary change her mind, as if to give her one more chance to trust her. Barbary remained silent. She could feel the secret pocket. She had to be alone immediately.

“I may not see you during the trip,” Jeanne said. “I’m afraid I’m going to be pretty busy from here on out. But good luck.”

“Thanks,” Barbary said.

Jeanne pulled the door shut.

Afraid she had failed a test, the first one, a very important one, Barbary wondered if Jeanne thought her a coward, or, perhaps worse, uninterested in her new home.

She had the feeling that she had thrown away Jeanne’s proffered friendship, and that Jeanne seldom had time to give anyone a second chance.

She put the fears out of her mind. She had an important task.

She took off her jacket, and found herself spinning free.

Gently, she reminded herself. Move gently.