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.
Chapter Nine
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.
I never should have let Mick get out of sight, she thought.
“We could go get him some shrimp,” Heather said. “He liked that pretty well, didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Barbary said. “But it doesn’t smell very strong. I think I better use the stuff I brought with me. It smells awful. But Mick likes it.”
“Okay.”
They entered the apartment. Thea had awakened from her nap. She sat on the floor working on her contraption and Yoshi sat on the couch reading a book. Yoshi glanced up, but Thea continued to tinker with a delicate bit of machinery.
“Hi, kids,” Yoshi said.
“Hi,” Heather said. “I’m still showing Barbary around we just came back to get something we forgot.”
She headed for her room.
“What have you seen so far?”
Barbary started to tell Yoshi about the raft trip, but changed her mind. What if Heather had persuaded the other adults to let her take the raft out by herself, but had never told her father? The raft might be nearly as much a secret as the shield level. She needed to talk to Heather about exactly what was safe to tell adults around here, and what wasn’t.