Barbary (12 page)

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.”

“It is,” Heather said. “It is a good radiation shield,
though, and once they finished the mass-driver on the moon, it was cheap. The
mass-driver throws moon rocks out here into orbit, you catch them and extract
whatever you want that’s useful, then you put the leftovers here. This place is
sort of a dump, to tell you the truth. But it makes the station safe to live
in.”

The crushed moon rock felt like ordinary, fine, dry dirt.
Barbary’s shoe left an impression just behind Mick’s first pawprint.

“I never stepped on dirt from the moon before,” Barbary
said.

Heather grinned. “Maybe someday we’ll get a chance to step
on moon dust when it’s still on the moon. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

Heather set off after Mickey. She walked more slowly than
usual. Barbary remembered that her sister spent little time in full gravity.
Barbary, too, felt the change in gravity even after such a short time of living
on the middle level. She felt heavier than back on earth. She halted, but the
heavy feeling remained. It was more than the effect of walking plus-spin. Then
she realized that the lowest level really did have a greater acceleration than
the one-gravity level just above. It might not be enough greater for her to
feel it, but she
thought
she did.

The moon dirt filled the level with a long series of low
hills. As far as Barbary could see, till the rising horizon disappeared beneath
the roof, the ground rose and fell regularly.

“Why did they fill it with hills?” Barbary asked. The
spooky, silent dimness made her whisper.

“They didn’t,” Heather said in a normal tone that sounded so
loud Barbary almost jumped. “When I found it, a few years ago, the surface was
flat. Kind of irregular, but mostly flat. Then — it changed. I don’t know what
formed the hills and valleys. Resonance with the spin, I guess,
but I haven’t figured out how to calculate it yet.”

“What does everybody else think?”

Heather reached the top of one of the hills and paused,
trying to pretend her breathing came easily. Her forehead gleamed with sweat.
Barbary wondered if she should try to persuade Heather to go back upstairs
before they found Mick. But she decided she had better not, at least not yet.

“I don’t think anybody else knows about the hills,” Heather
said. “They’re all so busy… I’ve only come down here five or six times. And… I
never told anybody, because I figured they’d say I have to stay out. So I can’t
very well ask.”

“I guess not,” Barbary said.

Here and there a fluorescent light had burned out, further
dimming the low illumination. Barbary had to squint to see much at all. She
walked down a hill, following Mickey’s tracks.

“How did you find out about this place?” she asked.

“I’ve explored everywhere,” Heather said. “I realized when I
was pretty little that you couldn’t get to a lot of places without doing
something special, so I started looking for the special ways.”

“Like the extra panel in the elevator.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are all the other places as spooky as this one?”

Heather laughed. The cheerful sound lightened the dim
atmosphere.

“No. This is the spookiest. Most places aren’t exactly
hidden, they’re just out of the way. Like the ventilators and the recyclers.”

Mick’s tracks led into the valley between two hillocks and
up the side of a third rise. Barbary glanced back. Her footprints made clear
indentations in the dirt, but the elevator island had nearly vanished between
the low ceiling and the tops of the hills.

“How fast does the dirt change?” she asked. “I mean will our
footprints disappear?”

“No,” Heather said. “In a couple months they’ll fade away.
But we can’t get lost even if they did vanish. There’s more than one elevator,
so even if you got turned around, you’d find your way out eventually.”

“Mick!” Barbary called, in a soft voice. “Kitty, kitty!”

“Won’t he come back to you?”

Abashed, Barbary stopped calling him. “He always has
before,” she said. “Except, he does it when he wants to, not always when you
want him to.” She had no good reason for feeling so uncertain about him.

“He’ll be okay,” Heather said. “He’s only been gone a few
minutes.”

“I hope he doesn’t think he can stay out all night, like he did
back on earth,” Barbary said. “If he does, we might be here for a while.”

Heather started to say something, but stopped. Before
Barbary could ask what was the matter, Heather changed the topic.

“Come on,” she said. “We can follow Mick’s tracks so we’ll
be close to him when he does decide to come back.”

“They ought to plant grass or something,” Barbary said. The
bare hillocks extended as far as she could see. “Then you’d have a park. It
might be kind of pretty.”

“That’s a good idea,” Heather said. “It really is! It would
be sort of like being in one of the colonies. They’d have to change the
lights…” She glanced around, as if imagining grass, flowers, trees.

She reached the top of a rise and stopped, breathing harder.
Barbary felt as if she’d taken a slow walk around the block.

“You better go upstairs,” Barbary said. “You’ve been down
here kind of a long time, I’ll stay and find Mick —”

“I’m okay, Barbary,” Heather said. “I’m supposed to spend
some time at one g, and usually I don’t get around to it, so it’s good that I’m
here.”

“But if Mick decides to hide out for a couple of hours—”

“We might have to go home for a while and come back and get
him later.”

Barbary said nothing. She did not want to leave Mick here.
Probably it was much safer than being out on the street at night back on earth.
But still she did not want to leave him here.

Barbary and Heather tramped on across the small hills and
valleys, following Mick’s faint pawprints. He had scampered back and forth,
sprinting one way, then the other, stopping, hurtling off in another direction.
Barbary wished she had seen him, because he was fun to watch when he played
like that.

They followed his tracks for a long way. The elevator had
long ago vanished above the horizon, so everything looked exactly the same in
every direction.

“I know we can’t get lost,” she said. “But it sure is
strange down here.”

“Yeah,” Heather said. Her voice was very soft. Barbary could
not tell in this light if her sister looked pale, but she was definitely
sweating.

“Maybe you’d better rest,” Barbary said.

“No, I’m okay, honest.”

Suddenly her knees collapsed and she sat down hard in the
dirt.

“Heather!”

“Well, I will be,” Heather said, sounding disgusted. “In a
minute.”

“Come on, I’m going to get you back to the elevator.”

Heather fended off her help. “I just want to sit here for a
while.”

“You’ve got to get out of this gravity — I bet I can carry
you piggyback.”

“What’s piggyback?” Heather asked skeptically.

“You sort of sit on my back and I put my hands under your
knees.”

It was easier to show her than tell her, so she did. Heather
felt light and frail when Barbary picked her up. “Now just wrap your arms
around my neck. Only try not to strangle me.”

Heather hugged herself against Barbary’s back. As she
reached around to hold on, her hand brushed Barbary’s bare throat.

“Jeez, your hands are cold!” Barbary said. “Do you want to
wear my jacket?”

“Uh-uh,” Heather said. “My hands are always cold. Honest.
I’ll be okay.”

But her voice was so feathery and weak that Barbary felt
afraid. She turned back to retrace her footsteps, for she was no longer certain
in which direction the elevator lay.

“Wait, Barbary, there’s a different elevator the same way we
were going. It’s nearer than the other one. And maybe we’ll find Mick.”

“Okay.”

Barbary trotted over the hillocks, following Heather’s
directions, now and then crossing Mick’s track. Soon the base of a second
elevator platform sank from the horizon as they neared it. Mick’s pawprints led
right to it, but she could not see Mick.

Barbary climbed the steps and let Heather down.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Heather said. “That was kind of fun.”

Barbary grinned. Heather did look better now. She hoped it
was not just because the light was brighter.

“You get the elevator,” Barbary said. “I’ll see if maybe
Mick is on the other side.”

She ran down the stairs two at a time. Mick’s trail circled
the platform, led onto the first step. She found a faint dusty pawprint. She
climbed the stairs, calling him. But he was not at the top of the platform
behind the elevator, or on either side.

“Heather,” she called, “did Mick come around that way?”

“No, I haven’t seen him. But the elevator’s here. I can’t
keep it very long, somebody might get suspicious.”

“I can’t
find
him,” Barbary said.

“I’ll let it go for now.”

“Go on up. I’ll come in a while.” Before Heather could
reply, Barbary returned to the lowest step and followed it all around the
square base. But the only pawprints were those she had already found. No prints
led away from the platform. She turned, hoping to see Mick behind her, sneaking
up like a character in some slapstick comedy. Barbary did not feel much like
laughing. Besides, he was not there.

The only place Mick could have hidden was on the elevator.
Somehow it must have arrived before Barbary and Heather, then it opened, then
he got in, and now he was loose in the ship for anybody to discover. Barbary
ran up the steps, panting. She reached the closed elevator door. Heather was
nowhere to be seen. She must have gone home. Barbary pushed the elevator panel,
pressing her hand against its lighted surface as if her intensity could make it
return faster.

Maybe somehow she had missed seeing him. She ran to the
corner of the elevator housing and looked beyond its edge. She saw nothing. She
ran past the elevator doors and glanced down that side of the platform. Heather
stared at the wall.

“Heather, what’s wrong? You were supposed to go back up!”

“You better come here,” Heather said.

Barbary joined her.

An access panel lay askew, hanging by one fastener from the
wall of the elevator housing. The hole it was supposed to close was only partly
covered. The panel left open a triangular space more than big enough for a
small cat to crawl into.

Barbary grabbed the panel and jerked it aside, bending it at
the corner. Metal screeched on metal. She reached into the hole, but Heather
grabbed her arm.

“Don’t! I don’t know what you’d touch, but probably electric
wire and maybe the elevator cables, too. You might get electrocuted, or lose a
finger, or something.”

Barbary heard the faint vibration as the elevator slid
toward them.

“But Mick’s in there!” she cried. “I’ve got to get him out!”

“Wouldn’t he meow or something? I don’t hear anything.”

“Where else could he be? What if he’s hurt? If I could get
electrocuted or squashed, so could he!”

“Try calling him.”

Barbary bent close to the opening. “Hey, Mick! Kitty, kitty,
kitty!”

She heard only the approach of the elevator.

“Can’t we stop it?”

“No.”

“But what if Mick’s underneath it?”

The elevator’s vibration slowed and stopped. Barbary
cringed, expecting to hear a yowl of pain, imagining Mick crouched terrified
under the falling cage. But she heard nothing but the soft slide of doors
opening. She started to shiver.

“We’ve got to do something!”

Heather climbed to her feet, staring at the hole.

“Does he have a good sense of smell?”

“Not very. But some. Oh! If we get some food and put it
here, he might smell it.”

“Right.” Heather hurried around the corner and caught the
doors just before they closed. “Come on.”

“I don’t want to leave him here.”

“It’s the only choice,” Heather said.

Barbary felt like crying. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“Then,” Heather said, “we’ll have to get some help. We’ll
have to admit we came down here. And…”

“I’ll have to admit Mick’s in the station,” Barbary said.

On the way up, the elevator remained as deserted as Heather
had said it ought to be on the way down. When Heather and Barbary got out at the
half-g level, Heather just stood there for a couple of minutes. Barbary waited,
anxious about Mick, but equally worried about Heather.

“I’m okay, honest,” Heather said. “Let’s go.” She headed
toward the apartment, trying to cheer Barbary up until Barbary wanted to
scream.