Barbary

Dr. Velory reached over and strapped Barbary in. Barbary had to squirm to keep the secret pocket free of the harness. She could see the bulge, but she hoped all the outside pockets would conceal it from everyone else.

“That’s a terrific jacket,” Dr. Velory said to Barbary.

Barbary felt the blood rising to her cheeks, in embarrassment and fear of being found out. “Thanks,” she said.

“You won’t really need it on the station, but I can see why you like it.”

Barbary was too flustered to say anything.

“What’s your name?”

“Barbary.”

“I’m Jeanne.”

“I know,” Barbary said hesitantly. “Thanks. For getting me on board.”

“It was self-preservation. Reston and Kartoff are always competing, and I’m right next to the ecological niche they both would have wanted.”

The ship vibrated all around them.

“Are we starting?”

“Not quite yet. A few more minutes. It’s easiest if you can relax — I know that sounds hard.”

“How many times have you gone into space?”

“Oh, goodness, I don’t know. I’ve lost track. A couple of dozen, I suppose.”

But on one of her trips into space she commanded the Ares mission, the mission that sent people to Mars. The year Ares launched itself from low earth orbit, Barbary was only six, so she barely remembered it. But she remembered very clearly when it came back three years later. The Ares astronauts returned with samples of Martian life, the organisms that all the robot missions had missed.

“Are you emigrating to one of the O’Neill colonies?”

“No,” Barbary said. She had never before felt in awe of anyone she had actually met. But the scientist sitting beside her had been, with her shipmates, farther from earth than anyone else in the world. She had walked on another planet, not just the moon, but Mars.

“No,” Barbary said again, embarrassed that her voice sounded shaky. “I’m going to the same place you are, to Einstein, to the research station.” But I’m just going there to live, she thought. Not to be in charge of everything.

“Oh,” Jeanne said. “You’ll be a member of our interesting little tour group, then.”

“They’re all going to Einstein? For a tour? If that’s the only reason, why weren’t there any cameras or reporters when they left?”

Jeanne gazed at her for several moments without answering. She was silent for so long that Barbary wondered if she had said something wrong.

“You might as well know now,” Jeanne said. “Everybody off earth already does. We’re a greeting party, I think. I hope. Maybe an archeological expedition. Something entered the solar system about a year ago. At first we thought it was just a comet. But it isn’t. It’s an alien ship.”

“An alien ship!” Barbary thought of three questions all at the same time. “No — where — how come nobody’s told us about them?”

Jeanne smiled. “We don’t know where they’re from, and I agree that it’s dumb for it to be kept a secret. The council thinks everybody will be frightened, and maybe that’s true. But they’re going to have to know sooner or later. I go along with the people who think sooner would be better, so we’d all have time to get used to the idea.”

“What do they look like?”

Jeanne shrugged. “We don’t know. They haven’t responded to any of our radio transmissions. They aren’t transmitting in any mode we know how to detect. Maybe they aren’t ready to talk to us or show themselves to us yet. Maybe they’re waiting to see how we react to their ship. Or maybe there isn’t anybody on board. A lot of people think the ship’s a derelict. I don’t believe it, myself. But it could have been floating around in the universe for millions of years, with nobody left inside. That’s part of the trouble with announcing that it’s there — I’ve just told you about all there is to tell about it. People will want to know more. I sure do.”

“Are you going out to it?”

“If I can persuade the council to send a ship,” Jeanne said, “you can bet I’ll be on it.”

The faint vibrations of the shuttle increased.

“Remember what I told you about liftoff,” Jeanne said. “Relax. Take slow deep breaths, then exhale slowly.”

Barbary inched her hand sideways till it lay over the secret pocket. Then she realized how much her hand would weigh when the acceleration reached its height, so she jerked her fingers away again.

The sound increased suddenly.

The shuttle lifted off.

Acceleration pressed Barbary into her seat.

Barbary had dreamed of riding the shuttle since she first realized that people were inside that little ship attached to its ungainly fuel tanks, blasting away so beautifully and with such speed and power. She had read every description of space travel that she could find; she had imagined how this would be. But she had not imagined enough.