Barbary

She wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry. Then all her thoughts were overwhelmed by the liftoff, the acceleration, the incredible noise. Though the forces of acceleration pressing her down did not hurt, it seemed as though she could count each individual lock of hair clamped between the seat back and her scalp, as though she could feel each ridge of her fingerprints pressed against the armrests.

Suddenly the acceleration and the sound stopped and she felt completely weightless: she took a moment to realize that she really was in zero gravity, not simply relieved of the extra weight of acceleration. Before she could move, the second set of fuel tanks ignited.

The brief instant of weightlessness blended with the acceleration. One seemed hardly any different from the other, they were both so strange to her.

The vibration and noise of the engines cut off. In the intense quiet, Barbary could hardly tell if the sound in her ears was her heartbeat or the echo of the rocket. She lay very still.

She was in space.

“Feel all right?”

“Yes, I…” Barbary said, then stopped, uncertain. This time weightlessness was more than a lurch and an instant’s change. She had thought she knew what to expect: “A long ride down in a fast elevator,” someone had written. But it was more than that; and it continued. Barbary wondered if anyone could describe it. She would have plenty of time to try. From now on, where she intended to live, gravity would be the artificial condition and free fall the natural one.

“Are you sure?” Jeanne sounded worried.

“I had to decide,” Barbary said. “Yes. I like it. It’s great.”

Jeanne grinned. “Good.”

Once the ship reached orbit, the couches no longer lay horizontal. The floor no longer extended up and down like a wall, but it did not lie “beneath” Barbary, either. There was no “up” or “down,” no “beneath” or “above.” Barbary found that depending on how she looked at anything she could give it a different orientation, as if she were inside a tremendous optical illusion.

“It all takes a while to get used to,” Jeanne said. “Excuse me a minute — I want to introduce myself to someone.” She unfastened her harness and pushed herself into the aisle. Free and graceful, she drifted a few seats ahead and paused beside Ambassador Begay. She said something in a language Barbary had never heard. The elderly diplomat glanced up at Jeanne, startled, then smiled and replied in what must have been the same language. She extended her hand, and Jeanne shook it gently. They talked for a few more minutes, then Jeanne smiled and nodded and with one easy push floated back to Barbary.

“I always wanted to meet her,” Jeanne said. “I hope there’s time to talk to her some more, up on the station.”

Barbary realized, with surprise, that Jeanne felt as much admiration for the secretary-general as Barbary did for Jeanne.

“What language was that?” Barbary asked.

“Navaho. It was a requirement in grad school. It’s so different from English, particularly in the way it deals with time, that it helps you understand advanced physics. I’m afraid my accent is pretty terrible, though. Say, Barbary, would you like to get up?”

“Sure!” Barbary said, then almost took it back because of the secret pocket. But she could slip out of her jacket and leave it tucked under the harness. Ever since she could remember, she had dreamed of floating in zero gravity, of flying, of freedom.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Frank, the bodyguard, had only been pretending to ignore them.

“Yes,” Jeanne said, ignoring the sarcasm. “I do.”

Jeanne freed the catches of Barbary’s harness. Barbary drifted away from the comforting solidity of the seat. She glanced back to be sure she had pushed the sleeves of her jacket between the cushion and the arm rests. The action of turning produced a reaction that sent her tumbling, out of reach of anything. Laughing, Jeanne caught her.

“Slowly,” she said. “Everything slowly and gently. That’s the thing to remember, at least till you get used to it. Then you’re less likely to make a mistake, and even if you do, you have time to correct it before you fly across the room and run into a wall.”

“Let me try again.”

Jeanne drew her to a handhold, let go, and floated backward a few meters along the aisle.

“Push off toward me.”

Jeanne did not seem to mind being watched by the other passengers. Most of them looked on with interest, though Frank glowered.

Barbary kicked off toward Jeanne — wrong again: much too hard, much too fast. She flew across the compartment, soaring past the other passengers. Jeanne caught her again. Barbary felt embarrassed.

“It takes a while to get the hang of it,” Jeanne said. “Can you swim?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“You can get around that way, though not very fast.” She backstroked down the aisle, but with both arms moving together, instead of alternately.