Barbary (19 page)

She laughed with relief. The motion of the rafts was
beginning to make her dizzy, though, and the rafts would continue to tumble
till someone used the steering rockets to counteract the spiraling twist.
Heather would know how to do it.

“Hey, Heather.”

Usually when Heather wanted to sleep some more, she muttered
and pulled her blanket over her head. This time, she lay still.

“Heather?”

Heather’s hands felt cold as ice and her skin was very pale.
Frightened, Barbary leaned down and put her ear to her sister’s chest. Her
heartbeat sounded weak and irregular. Barbary wished she knew what it was
supposed to sound like, or what it usually sounded like.

Afraid to try to wake her again, Barbary covered her with
her jacket and pillowed Heather’s head in her lap.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I got Mick, I can get us back.” She
studied the controls. She would have to figure out how to make the ship stop
tumbling, then turn it around. She wished she did not feel so dizzy —

Then she thought, You dummy! If you turn on the radio and
the computer, back at Atlantis they’ll send out the signal to bring us back.
It’s what they’ve wanted all along!

She threw the two switches, and got ready to be bawled out.

The radio remained silent.

As the raft rotated, an enormous shape slid past the roof.

The rotation of the raft slowed, though Barbary felt no
vibration from the steering rockets.

The huge shape slid into view again, the rotation stopped,
and Barbary found herself gazing through the roof at the looming alien ship.

Barbary put her arms across Heather as if she could protect
her.

Slowly, the raft moved toward the irregular, multicolored
hull.

The alien ship drew the raft closer, growing larger and
larger till its expanse of incomprehensible shapes stretched as far as Barbary
could see.

Trembling, she hugged Heather. She wrapped her jacket
around her sister’s shoulders, trying to keep her warm. The raft slid
between two irregular projections from the alien ship’s hull: a spire taller
than any building on earth, covered with delicate strands and symbols, and a
wavy, faceted shape resembling the crystals that form around a string suspended
in a supersaturated solution of sugar and water.

Roof first, Barbary’s raft floated toward a wide black slash
in the ship’s hull. If she did not keep telling herself she was going “up,” she
felt as if she were falling, upside down and in slow motion.

Intense darkness closed in around her.

The raft’s control panel spread a ghostly light on Heather’s
pale face and Barbary’s hands. She heard the echo of Mick’s plaintive miaow, and
the feathery whisper of Heather’s breath.

A faint chime rang, growing louder and closer. Barbary
blinked, trying to figure out if she only imagined light outside the raft, or
if she were seeing a glow as gentle as dawn. The ringing reached a pleasant level
and remained there, while the light brightened till Barbary could see. She had
weight as well, but she had not noticed when the gravity appeared. She felt as
if she weighed as much as she did on earth, and this increased her concern for
Heather.

Her raft hung in a round room whose surface glistened like
mother-of-pearl. The columns supporting the ceiling looked like frozen
waterfalls or translucent pillars of melted glass. She searched for the opening
that had let her in, but it had closed or sealed itself up. From the wind-chime
sound transmitted to her through the raft’s body, she decided she must be
surrounded by an atmosphere, but she did not know if it was oxygen or — as
Heather had speculated — methane or cyanide. She had no way to tell whether it was
safe to breathe, or poisonous.

Mick miaowed again, louder.

“It’s okay, Mick,” she said. She swallowed hard, trying to
steady her voice. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Do you hear us?”

The radio spoke with the beautiful voice of the alien’s
first message to Atlantis.

“Yes,” she whispered, her throat dry. “Can you hear me?”

“We sense you. Will you meet us?”

“I want to. I really do,” Barbary said. “But I have to get
Heather into zero g and back to the space station. She’s sick and I can’t wake
her up. The gravity’s too strong for her here. Besides, all the important
people are waiting to meet you, and they’ll be really angry if I see you
first.”

“But,” the voice said, “you have already seen us.”

Barbary stared around the chamber, looking for creatures,
great ugly things like the aliens in old movies, or small furry things like the
aliens in books. They must be hiding behind the tall glass pillars.

The gravity faded till it was barely enough to give
Barbary’s surroundings a “down” and an “up.”

“Is this gravity more comfortable for you?”

“Yes,” Barbary said. “Thanks.”

“We believed we calibrated your gravity correctly.”

“You did,” Barbary said. “At least it felt okay to me. But
Heather… Heather has to live in lower gravity. Won’t you let us go? She’s sick!
Anyway, I can’t see you —” She stopped, amazed.

Though she had not seen them move, the crystal columns had
come closer. They clustered around her. Their rigid forms remained upright, yet
they gave the impression of bending down like a group of worried aunts or friendly
trees. A long row of crystalline fibers grew along the side of each column. The
fibers quivered rapidly, vibrating against and stroking the main body of each
being, producing the wind-chime voices.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh. I do see you. You’re beautiful!”

“We will loose your craft if you wish,” the voice on the
radio said. “But our ship will reach your habitat before your vessel could fly
to it, and here the gravity can be controlled.”

“Can you hurry? I’m really worried about Heather.”

“We will hurry.”

Barbary listened to Heather’s rapid, irregular heartbeat.

“Can’t you help her?” she said to the aliens. She remembered
all the movies she had seen where people got hurt and aliens healed them.
“Can’t you make her well? Aliens are supposed to be able to make people well!”

“But we have only just met you,” one of the aliens said,
perplexed and regretful. “We know little of your physiology. Perhaps in a few
decades, if you wish us to study you…”

Barbary thought she should have learned by now not to expect
anything to work the way it did in books or movies. She leaned over Heather
again, willing her to awaken.

Heather’s eyelids fluttered.

“Barbary…?”

Heather opened her eyes. She sounded weak, confused, and
tired.

“It’s okay, Heather. Anyway, I think it is — what about
you?”

“I feel kind of awful. What happened?”

“We’re on the alien ship.”

A spark of excitement brought some of the color back to her
sister’s cheeks. She struggled to a sitting position.

“Are there aliens?” Heather whispered. She was shivering.
Barbary chafed her cold hands and helped her put on the jacket.

“There are other beings,” the gentle voice said. “We hope
not to be alien, one to the other, for very long. Will you meet us?”

“Can we breathe your air?” Heather hugged the jacket around
her.

“It is not our air. We do not use air. It is your air. You
should find it life-sustaining, uninfectious, and sufficiently warm to maintain
you.”

Barbary gingerly cracked the seal of the roof-hatch. Warm,
fresh air filled the raft. Heather took a deep breath. Her shivering eased.

“If you join us,” a voice said, no longer from the radio but
from one of the crystalline beings, “then we may rotate your vehicles and
release the small person in the lower craft. It does not respond to our
communications in an intelligible fashion, and it appears to be quite
perturbed.”

Barbary could not help it: she laughed. Heather managed to
smile. Barbary picked her up — her weight was insignificant in this gravity —
and carried her from the raft. The aliens made a spot among them for her; they
slid across the mother-of-pearl floor as if, like starfish, they had thousands
of tiny sucker-feet at their bases. The floor gave off a comforting warmth.
Barbary laid Heather on the yielding surface.

“I’m okay, I really am,” Heather said. She tried to sit up,
but she was still weak. Barbary helped her, letting Heather lean back against
her. Heather gazed at the aliens. “Holy cow.”

Mick’s furry form hurtled across the space between the rafts
and Barbary. He landed against her with all four feet extended and stopped
himself by hooking his claws into her shirt. Somehow he managed to do it
without touching her skin with his claws. He burrowed his head against her, and
she wrapped her arms around him and laid her cheek against his soft fur.

“Boy, Mick,” she whispered, “did you cause a lot of
trouble.”

She looked at the beings, who had rotated the rafts and
opened the hatch of Mick’s with no help from her. They could have opened up her
craft and plucked her and Heather out like peas from a pod, if they had wanted
to.

“Aren’t you mad?” she asked.

“Our psychology differs from what we understand of yours,
but we believe you would consider us sane.”

“I didn’t mean mad-crazy. I meant mad-angry. We didn’t mean
to bother you, but we had to rescue Mick.”

“We comprehend this. We are not mad-angry,” the nearest
being said. “How could we rouse ourselves to anger over actions taken in
distress?”

“Then how come you asked us not to approach you when you
first called us?”

“When a species advances beyond a certain point, it must be
introduced to civilization. Otherwise it would discover galactic society, and
the rules of galactic society, in a random way. This might cause it shock. Yet
even when a people has reached a technological position of adequacy, it may not
be ready in the psychological sense to meet other beings. We have found,
through experience, that meeting new citizens is easier for them if they are in
a large group of their own people. Then their fear of other beings, their
xenophobia — which is inevitable in some degree — is acute. In this case,
however, we recognized an emergency.”

“Hasn’t anyone ever approached you before?”

“Yes,” the being said. “Several times. But always with the
aim of conquest or attack.”

“What did you do to them?”

“We showed them the futility of violence. Oftentimes
disarming the aggressor is sufficient, though sometimes their aggression must
be turned back upon them.”

Barbary decided to leave questions on that subject till
later. She wondered if she was ready to find out all the things the beings
could do if they had to.

But Heather felt braver, despite her pallor.

“What rules did you mean?”

“The rules that, beyond your own planet, you may create, but
you may not destroy. You may observe, but you may not interfere.”

Those rules sounded reasonable to Barbary. They sounded like
what any sensible person would try to do.

“A lot of people won’t like those rules,” Heather said, her
expression troubled. “They’ll want to break them.”

“They will be persuaded to comply. There is no choice.”

Heather leaned against Barbary, thoughtful and solemn.
Barbary tried to think of something to say.

Mick changed the subject for her. He had stopped burrowing
into her armpit. He curled against her, purring and watching. Now he squirmed
out of her arms and leaped into the air, coming down and bouncing ten meters
away. He stalked up to one of the beings and sniffed its base — its feet? —
then rubbed against its side. His fur stroking the crystal surface made an
electric, musical note. The beings swiveled toward him, fascinated.

“What a delightful feeling!” said the one that Mick had
touched, “What a fine song the small person has invented.”

“He’s pretty inventive all right,” Barbary said.

“I do not wish to ask a rude question,” one of the beings
said, “But why is the small person permitted to operate the vehicle? The
controls have not been adapted to him.”

“Um, that’s a long story,” Barbary said.

“We love long stories. They help pass the time of travel
between the stars.”

Heather drew herself back from her troubled reverie. “How
long have you been traveling?” she asked.

“About a billion of your years.”

“Your people have had space travel for a billion years?”

“Oh, no, we have had space travel for a time an order of
magnitude longer: for ten billion of your years. I thought you meant to ask how
long we here had been exploring the stars.

“Ten billion years of star travel,” Heather said. “You must
be the oldest intelligent species in the universe.”

“We have not found any older, but we search, and hope.”

Heather stared at the beings in awe. “No wonder you like
long stories.” She tried to smile. “Barbary, you can show them magic tricks.”

“Magic? You have begun to use technology… yet you believe in
magic?”

“Not real magic, that’s just what it’s called.” Barbary
tried to think of a quick way to explain, but gave up. “Um, it’s another long
story.”

“How excellent,” the being said. “We will look forward to
hearing it.”

“I’m Barbary,” Barbary said, remembering her manners, “and
this is Heather, my sister. And the — the small person is Mickey.”

“We do not have names, as you know them,” one of the beings
said. “Each of us forms impressions of all others, and refers to the individual
by the position in the image.”

“That sounds complicated,” Barbary said

“Not as complicated as recalling so many individual
designations,” the crystal being said. “Without a pattern, how do you tell each
other apart?”

Barbary, who had been trying to fix in her mind the
variations between the beings so she could remember each one’s name — if they
had had names to tell her — looked over at Heather. They both burst out
laughing.