Barbary

Vonda N. McIntyre Barbary

Chapter One

High in the corners of the spaceport waiting room, four small TV screens displayed a space shuttle, piggybacked on external fuel tanks, shedding clouds of vapor down its flanks.

Barbary watched the shuttle intently. Other times she might have wished to see it real, instead of filtered through lenses and electronics. Other times, but not now.

She brushed her fingertips across the front of her baggy jacket, checking for her ticket in one of its many outside pockets. She had buttoned the ticket safely in; she knew she had not lost it. During her first hours in the waiting room, two weeks ago, she had made touching the ticket a habit. The habit no longer reassured her, though, for she had been bumped off two flights and the ticket had been revalidated twice. Now, as launch approached, she felt the awful certainty that once more she would not get on board.

She fumbled in another pocket of the jacket, pulled out her old silver dollar, and passed it across the knuckles of her right hand. She flipped it over and over with her fingers, caught it with her thumb, brought it under her palm and back up onto her knuckles, then started over again. The trick was a good one to do when she felt nervous, because it took a lot of concentration.

The antique coin slipped from her fingers and bounced on the carpet. She scooped it up, clutched it, and shoved it deep into her pocket. The worn edges dug into her palm. She was not very good at sleight of hand. She had only begun to learn it, or any other sort of stage magic, three months before. Doing it well took years of practice.

She knew it took years; she knew she was not very good. She just hoped she was good enough.

She touched her ticket once more, feeling the hard edge of plastic beneath the rough material of the army surplus jacket. She forced herself to keep her hand away from the single pocket inside her jacket, the secret pocket, to think about anything except the weight pressing against her side. It was important to pretend the secret pocket carried nothing, important to believe the secret pocket did not even exist. If she believed nothing was there, no one else would suspect. But if anyone found out, she would never ride the shuttle even if a place opened up for her.

So far, fifty-four passengers had boarded. Barbary had been here since before they began loading and she had counted every one of them. She knew they were all important, and she recognized many of them from the news. No one would say whether they were going to the low-earth-orbit space station, or farther out to the O’Neill colonies, where human beings lived permanently, or even all the way to the research station, Einstein, where Barbary was supposed to be going. No one would even say why they were leaving Earth. No one had to say that whatever they were doing and wherever they were going, they were much more important than one twelve-year-old emigrant.

Still, only fifty-four had boarded, and the ship, in this configuration, could carry sixty. She might finally have a chance for a place. She wished she knew. Her social worker, Mr. Smith, had gone to check the reservations again.

Barbary slumped back in the uncomfortable waiting room seat. Her feet did not reach the floor, and the arms of the chair rose too high for her to sit cross-legged.

The door opened. Barbary glanced around, expecting Mr. Smith. Instead, a frail and elderly Native American entered, accompanied by one of the port attendants. By now Barbary knew most of the attendants by name. This one was Jack. He treated the new passenger with great deference. Though she spoke too softly for Barbary to make out her words, Barbary could feel her presence, her aura of calm and quiet power.

Barbary suddenly realized why she looked familiar. Like so many of the passengers who had already boarded, she, too, frequently appeared on the news. Ambassador Begay represented the United Tribes of North America at the United Nations. A year before, she had been elected United Nations secretary-general.

She preceded Jack into the loading tunnel and disappeared.

Though all the space colonies sent ambassadors to the United Nations, Barbary had never heard of a secretary general visiting a colony before, or even going into space. Barbary read news about the colonies and the research station whenever she could find it. She was sure she would have remembered if they had received a United Nations mission. Even if they had, this trip should have gotten some attention. Particularly during the last month, Barbary had had very little to do but watch TV, and read, and wait, either at the juvenile home or here at the spaceport. The secretary-general’s trip had gone unreported. With Ambassador Begay and all the other famous people on board the shuttle, reporters and cameras ought to be swarming all over the place. Instead, the port was practically deserted.