Barbary

Clutching her jacket, she kicked toward the wall and grabbed the netting that would form her bed. One-handed, she inched across the tiny room till she reached its small folding table. Nearby hung a couple of loops. She stuck her feet in them. Feeling more solid, she pulled the table out flat. It had straps and a net and a couple of snaps. She laid her jacket inside-out on the table, jury-rigged a harness over it, and unfastened the top of the secret pocket.

She reached inside. Her heart beat fast. She thought she had felt motion, but now she was not sure. Her fingers brushed a silky softness, textured in tabby stripes.

She drew Mickey from the secret pocket. She felt his warmth through his smooth fur. She lifted him and held him to her, pressing her ear against his side, but she could hear only her own pounding heart.

Mickey batted his soft paw against her cheek as he reached out sleepily for a curl of her hair. She lowered him long enough to see him blink his yellow eyes and bristle his long white whiskers in a slow cat yawn.

She buried her face against the tabby cat’s side and burst into tears of relief.

o0o

Heading toward the research station, Outrigger accelerated. The slow increase in velocity left the passengers with a vague feeling of where “down” was, but so little weight that they might as well have been in zero g. Barbary hovered in her cabin, holding Mickey in her arms. Except for the table, the furniture in the cabin consisted of D-rings, straps, and nets fastened to the wall. Nobody sat in chairs in zero g, because chairs were uncomfortable. Without gravity or a harness to draw one’s body against the shape of the chair, a person had to consciously hold their body in the right position. It was tiring and eventually painful, especially to the stomach muscles. Barbary found it easy — and much more comfortable than the softest chair — to float, completely relaxed. She drifted in the direction of “down.” She could either hover along the floor, barely touching it, like a fish resting on the bottom of the ocean, or she could push off into the air. If she wanted to nap and not move around too much, she could tether herself to the wall.

She stroked Mickey’s side. He lay quiet. He would be awake soon, but he would be groggy for at least a couple of hours. She knew that by now, for she had watched him awaken from the sleeping drug twice before, the two times she had carried him back from the spaceport after she had been bumped off her reserved seat.

She had only expected to have to make him go to sleep once or twice. She was worried about the effects of all the sedatives on the small cat.

If they’d let us on board the first time, Barbary thought, this would all be over. We’d already be on the research station. I wouldn’t have had to drug him so often. And I wouldn’t have had to run away that last time to get another pill.

She shifted her position angrily and abruptly. The reaction sent her tumbling across the room. She rebounded from the wall. She held Mick close with one arm and flailed around with the other, but nothing was in reach. She was annoyed, but she made herself relax and wait till she had drifted to the floor. She stood. Even that took caution. A step was as good as a leap. She pushed off with one toe and floated.

“We’re in space, Mick,” she said. She stroked him. “It’s pretty weird at first, but you get used to it. It’s kind of fun. Are you all right?” She wondered how he would react to zero g. She hoped it would not scare him.

She stroked him again. It was a good feeling. His cinnamon-colored stripes had a different texture from his black fur. He had white paw tips and a white chest. He was only half-grown — he had been a kitten when she found him. If Barbary had been forced to wait for next month’s transport, Mickey would have grown too big to hide in the secret pocket. She had no idea what she would have done then.

She smoothed his whiskers and scratched him under the chin, his favorite spot. He licked her hand, two quick warm scratchy touches, and she laughed with relief. He was going to be all right.

o0o

Mickey adapted much faster than Barbary to the almost nonexistent gravity. Acceleration, she reminded herself, not really gravity. But, after all, Albert Einstein himself showed that the two were indistinguishable.

Perhaps Mick did so well because, being a cat, he knew he was a superior sort of creature. The first time he tried to run, he left the floor at the first stride like a cartoon cat, running along in place with his feet touching nothing. The second time, he jumped and sailed. He found it unsurprising that he could suddenly, without warning, fly.

Barbary had one piece of sleeping pill left for him. She would have to use it in three days to make him lie quiet when she took him from Outrigger to the research station. She had some food for him. She even had some cat litter, but it would spill all over if he dug in it in such low gravity.