“What’s that funny — Oh!” Heather stopped herself just as Barbary elbowed her in the ribs. “Ow!”
“What’s the matter?” Yoshi was not too distracted to hear the protest in Heather’s voice. “What’s wrong? Are you two fighting?”
“Fighting?” Heather said. “No — why would we fight?”
“I thought you said, ‘ow,’” Yoshi said to Heather, and to Barbary he said, frowning, “and I thought you hit her.”
“Hit her!” Barbary said. “Why would I hit her?” She was offended. She would never hit Heather. Elbowing somebody in the ribs was not hitting them, and besides Heather was a lot smaller than she was. She had barely nudged her, and that only to get her attention.
“She didn’t hit me!” Heather said, just as offended. “And I said ‘oh’ — I was thinking about something.”
“I see,” Yoshi said.
Barbary knew that Yoshi meant the opposite. Of course he could not see; how could he? She hoped he might put this whole day down to tiredness and excitement, and let her start fresh in the morning.
The elevator stopped. They all got out and turned the corner.
The door to Yoshi and Heather’s apartment stood ajar.
Somehow, Barbary managed to keep walking. Her knees felt like oatmeal. Mick must have howled. Someone had heard him and found him and taken him away.
“Hmm,” Yoshi said. “Thea must be here.” He strode on ahead.
Heather grabbed Barbary’s hand. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Thea wouldn’t have any reason to go in our room.”
They hurried after Yoshi.
He stood just inside the doorway, looking at a jumble of delicate bits of machinery and electronics spread across the living room floor. Heather stopped short. Barbary caught her breath.
Thea — Barbary assumed it was Thea — came out of Heather’s room, leaving the door open.
Thea grinned. “Hi. You must be Barbary. Welcome to Atlantis.” She waved something at Heather. “Heather, I borrowed your sticky tape. Hope that’s okay.”
“Uh…” Heather said. “Yeah, sure, anytime.” Both she and Barbary stared at the door.
Barbary expected Mick to come sauntering through the doorway any second. But nothing happened.
Where is he? Barbary thought.
“Where’ve you all been?” Thea said, kneeling in the midst of the contraption.
“At the reception.”
“The reception? Oh, lordy, the reception.” Thea sat on her heels. “I thought that was Friday.”
“It is. So is today.”
Thea ran her hands over her light brown hair. A few strands fell free and curled around her face. “I must be losing my mind. I thought today was Wednesday.
“Thea, I’m worried about you,” Yoshi said.
“Worried? Why?”
“You’re usually only one day off.”
Barbary would have been offended if someone said that to her. Thea took it in stride. Perhaps it was the truth.
“I wasn’t paying attention — I have to get this thing finished. I need some floor space to put it together. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
Yoshi looked as if he had to decide whether to lose his temper or laugh. He chose laughter.
“Of course it is,” he said. “And this way, I might even get to see you once in a while.”
“Well,” Heather said cheerily, “We’ll leave you two alone. Time for bed.” She grabbed Barbary by the hand, dragged her into the bedroom, and closed the door.
On the foot of the upper bunk, Mick sat with his paws curled under his chest. He blinked like an owl, and then he yawned.
Heather started to giggle.
“He must have been in the bookcase,” Barbary said. “And just now come out —”
“Maybe,” Heather said. “But I bet he was right where he is all along. Just watching the world go by.”
“But Thea —!”
“Watching Thea go by, too. You’ll really like her, when you get to know her. She’s great. When she’s thinking about something, a bomb could go off right beside her and she’d never even notice it.”
“Kind of dangerous,” Barbary said.
“If there were any bombs around. But good luck for us.”
Mick stood, stretched, and jumped to the floor. He sat at Barbary’s feet, twitching his whiskers as he sniffed the air. She brought out the shrimp.
“This is disgusting,” she said, peeling away bits of sodden paper napkin from the squashed and disintegrating shellfish. “I don’t know if he’ll even eat it.”
But he did.
o0o
Barbary let Mick under her covers. He curled up next to her, purring and occupying at least half the bed. Barbary tickled him under the chin.
“We made it through a whole day, Mick,” she whispered. “I don’t know how, but we did.”
He nuzzled her side and went to sleep. Barbary lay very still, marveling at the way half gravity felt, at her new family, at being here at all. A moment later, she fell asleep too.
o0o
When Barbary woke, Mick occupied three-quarters of the bunk instead of half. Barbary pushed herself into the corner formed by the mattress and the cool, solid wall. She tried to doze, but it was hopeless. She fished for her watch: five o’clock, station time. Most of the people on Atlantis kept to a regular 24-hour schedule, just because they were used to it and it was simpler to keep track of. Nobody would be up yet. Barbary’s stomach growled. Last night, she had been so anxious to get food for Mickey that she had neglected to eat much herself.
She slipped out of her bunk, leaving Mick curled sleeping in its center. Perhaps Yoshi and Heather kept some food in their tiny kitchen, at least some milk that she could divide with Mick.
Heather slept on as Barbary got dressed. She lay so quiet, so still — Barbary remembered her sister’s bad heart, and for a moment felt afraid. But when she listened, she could hear Heather’s soft, shallow breathing.
Mick stuck his nose out from beneath the covers and mrrowed.
“Good morning.” Barbary opened the door. Mick stood, ready to come exploring. “It’s probably all right,” Barbary whispered, “but just to be safe you better stay here.” She slipped out.
“Hi.”
Barbary spun around, frightened.
“Sorry,” Thea said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Uh, that’s okay.” Barbary slid the door shut. “I didn’t think anybody’d be up this early.”
This morning, Thea’s gadget looked more like a real machine than a collection of random parts.
“Most people aren’t,” she said.
“Have you been up all night?”
Thea looked at her watch. “Not quite — not yet, anyway.” She grinned. “I figure I’ve got two or three hours to go before I can claim to have missed a whole night’s sleep.” She stood up and stretched. “Do you always get up this early?”
“No. Hardly ever.”
“Is Heather awake?”
“Uh-uh — I mean,” she said quickly to cover the conversation she had been having with Mick, in case Thea had heard, “she sort of turned over, so I said she should go back to sleep. I guess she did.”
“She likes to sleep late, that’s for sure,” Thea said. “But once she gets going, there’s no stopping her. Want some coffee?”
“Sure.”
Thea poured two cups. Barbary sipped hers. Thea stared at her contraption.
“Is that a camera?” Barbary asked.
“A telescopic camera, yes.”
“To look at the aliens with?”
Thea arched one eyebrow and regarded Barbary with approval. “‘That’s right. The politicians have gummed up the works so nobody can go out and take a look at the thing in person — so I’m going to mount a camera on one of the rafts and send it on a grand tour.”
“Is that allowed?”