“Yeah, sure, it’s okay.”
Yoshi looked at them both oddly. “Heather, I’m sure Barbary doesn’t expect everything to be just the same up here as back on earth.”
“No, I don’t,” Barbary said. “I mean, it doesn’t make any difference anyway. I never had any animal meat back there.”
“Oh, good,” Heather said, relieved. Barbary wondered if she had any idea how close she had come to letting too much information slip. Barbary knew Yoshi was suspicious, even if he did not yet know what to be suspicious of.
“How about some shrimp? They’re surplus, from the ocean research project, so they’re fresh.”
Shrimp were even more of a luxury than beef, back on earth, but Barbary had heard that cats liked them. She accepted the shrimp salad, even though the little pink curled-up things looked kind of disgusting. They would at least be easy to palm and hide in her napkin. Heather poured glasses of milk for herself and Barbary. The liquid flowed slowly and strangely in the low gravity. Barbary tried to think of a way to smuggle a glass of milk out of the cafeteria.
Maybe I can find a container with a lid, she thought, and sneak back later.
Heather chose a curry so hot that Barbary’s nose prickled from the spices. Mick would never eat that, even if it weren’t too squishy to take away, which it was.
Heather didn’t bring a cat to a space station, Barbary told herself. It isn’t her responsibility to feed him. It’s yours.
They sat with several other people. Yoshi and Heather introduced Barbary to them and to friends at the surrounding tables. Roxane was a mechanic who worked outside the station, building new parts for it. Chhay was an agricultural expert. Ramchandra worked on computer components that could only be grown in weightlessness. He had helped to build the first picocomputer. He said organic computers were the coming thing, and that he would have to study biology if he wanted to keep up with his own field. Barbary did not know if he was joking or not. She managed to keep track of the people at their table, but could not remember everyone else’s name. They all greeted her warmly and welcomed her to the station.
For the first time in as long as she could remember, Barbary began to believe she really belonged somewhere.
“When are you getting your dogies?” Heather said to Chhay. It sounded weird to Barbary, to hear in a space station a word from some old cowboy movie.
Chhay laughed, as if the herd of steers was an old joke between him and Heather. “Somehow I just can’t seem to get that request approved,” he said. “They’re afraid the steers will get loose and overrun the station.”
“Considering the birth rate of your average herd of steers,” Roxane said, “no wonder pets aren’t allowed.”
Everybody laughed except Barbary, who had no idea what was so funny. Heather, who was taking a drink of milk, giggled right into her glass. Barbary used the distraction to palm a shrimp with the Murada technique. Her sleight of hand was only passable, but since no one was watching for her to fool them, and since they were all still laughing at the joke, she got away with it. Barbary had read about people no better at stage magic than she was, who had pretended to have special powers, real magic, and everyone believed them.
At the mention of pets, Heather stopped laughing and wiped off the splash of milk. She glanced at Barbary with a far-too-sober expression, calling attention to her just as she slipped the shrimp into her napkin.
Barbary frowned at Heather and pretended to be studying her salad. How were she and Mick ever going to get away with this? Heather had no experience at all at hiding things or lying, that was certain.
Ramchandra glanced at their table’s single vacant chair.
“Where’s Thea?” he asked.
Barbary palmed another shrimp.
Yoshi shrugged. “Don’t know,” he said. He sounded disappointed. “In the observatory, probably. Working on the probe. Alien-watching. How’s your salad, Barbary?”
She crumpled up her napkin in her lap. “Um, I haven’t tasted it yet.” She stuck her fork into it and pushed it around so no one would be able to tell how much was left. She hesitated, then gulped a shrimp.
“Hey,” she said, surprised. “It’s good.”
“Eating one’s first shrimp is an act of great courage,” Roxane said, and everyone laughed. Barbary was ready to get angry, till she realized they were not laughing at her.
As soon as she had finished eating, Heather jumped to her feet and grabbed her tray. “Come on — I’ll show you what to do with your stuff.”
Barbary had to crush her napkin and shove it into her pocket before she could follow Heather. She caught up to her new sister on the other side of the cafeteria. A recess in the wall held racks for dirty dishes.
“You put the scraps over here. We make them into compost. Then —”
“Give me a little warning, will you?” Barbary muttered. “I had a lap full of shrimp.”
“Oh, Barbary, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize — I didn’t see what you were doing.”
“You weren’t supposed to.”
Heather picked up her plate and poked at the leftover curry sauce. “Should I get some chicken for him?”
“No, never mind, don’t take anything.”
“But —”
“You guys want anything? Tea?”
Barbary shut up as Chhay passed behind her. Heather opened her mouth to speak and Barbary glared at her to make her be quiet, but her sister surprised her. Heather scraped her leftovers down a narrow slide, then put her plate on a rack in a glass-fronted machine.
“After you clear off your dishes, you just stick them in here and when everybody’s done we close the door and turn it on and sonic vibrations clean everything off. Tea would be great, Chhay.”
Barbary turned around, trying to maintain her composure.
“Is there any coffee?”
“Sure.” He poured a cup of coffee and put it on his tray, then looked over the selection of teas.
“Heather, how about mint?”
“I think I’ll have coffee, too,” Heather said.
“Okay.”
They returned to the table. Barbary wondered how long they had to stay at the table before they could excuse themselves.
Chhay put a tray full of steaming cups on the table. The steam acted strange in the low gravity. Barbary would have expected it to rise more quickly, but it collected in round clouds over the tray. Barbary discovered she could pull her cup right out from under its steam. But she was too concerned about Mick to wonder much or ask questions about anything else.
Barbary fidgeted. She kept expecting to be able to smell the soggy shrimp in her pocket.
Heather poured cream into her coffee till it was barely even tan, then added sugar. Barbary liked coffee black, but if it tasted as bad as Heather thought, she would probably put stuff in it, too. She took a cautious sip.
Like all the other food aboard the station, the coffee tasted better than any Barbary had ever had before.
“Is Thea coming to the reception?” Roxane asked Yoshi.
“How should I know?” Yoshi said.
“Sorry,” Roxane said. “Didn’t mean to enter forbidden territory.”
“I’ve barely seen her in a week.” Yoshi turned his cup between his fingers. “Twenty hours a day at the telescope doesn’t give her much time for the mundane things of life. Like talking to her lover or meeting a new member of his family.”
He stared into his cup. His friends fell silent, then changed the subject. Heather’s cheerfulness faded. Feeling uncomfortable, Barbary pretended not to notice. She had meant to ask Heather who Thea was, but she had forgotten. She was glad when, a few minutes later, Chhay stood up.
“We better hurry, or we’ll be late.”
All the others got up and put their dishes into the dishwasher.
“Okay,” Chhay said. “Whose turn is it to wash them?”