She had the feeling that she had thrown away Jeanne’s proffered friendship, and that Jeanne seldom had time to give anyone a second chance.
She put the fears out of her mind. She had an important task.
She took off her jacket, and found herself spinning free.
Gently, she reminded herself. Move gently.
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.
Back on earth, when they lived in an apartment, Mick had learned to use the same toilet people used. A lot of cats learned how to do that. The toilet in the tiny bathroom was a weird vacuum arrangement, but Barbary thought Mick would understand that it was the same thing, and that he would use it if the vacuum did not frighten him too much. Luckily, not very many things frightened Mick.
Otherwise I might have to get diapers for him, she thought, and could not help giggling. But the problem was too serious to keep her laughing for long.
If he kept quiet and no one barged into Barbary’s room, she might get away with smuggling him onto the science station. But if the room started smelling bad, someone would notice. Then they would be sunk.
Mickey bounced from the floor to the table, landing softly and holding himself there by hooking his claws into the net. He gave one paw a couple of licks, blinked, and drew his legs against his body. That left him drifting just above the table, as if he had suddenly learned how to levitate. He closed his eyes. Usually he curled up to sleep, with one paw over his nose. If he had had a tail he would have wrapped it around his front paws, but he was a Manx cat so he had no tail.
Barbary wondered if curling up in zero g was as hard for a cat as sitting in a chair was for a human being.
She stroked Mick, and he started to purr.
“That’s right,” she said. “You take it easy. You have a nap and be very quiet and I’ll go try to find us something to eat.”
She waited until the purring stopped. Normally he slept lightly. Barbary hoped he would only wake for a moment when she left and then go back to sleep, not get curious and try to follow her.
Cracking open the door, Barbary peered into the empty, color-striped corridor. She slipped out. The door had neither a lock nor a Do Not Disturb sign. There was no help for that. She would arouse suspicions if she spent the whole trip in her room. The authorities might decide she was space-sick and therefore unable to live on the research station. Then they would send her back to earth. If she acted normal and stayed out of the way, probably no one would even notice her.
She had to find a dining hall. The cat food hidden in her baggage would only last a little while. She wanted to save it for emergencies.
And, if she was honest with herself, she was dying to see the rest of the ship, particularly Jeanne’s observation deck.
o0o
In the corridors of the ship, most of the colored stripes lay on the surface that was “down,” and the ringlike handholds hung from the surface that had become the ceiling. The gravity was so feeble that Barbary knew she could jump, catch the rings, and swing herself along as if she were on monkey-bars. She decided that first she had better get more experience moving around.