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the same
time. She still felt awkward, but she was getting where she was going.
    An open door led into the deserted cafeteria. Barbary dug
around in her pockets for coins to work the automated servers, then realized
none was necessary. Meals came with one’s passage, she supposed. And it must
not be too often that a stowaway ate food never paid for.
    She chose a couple of chicken sandwiches, plus two
balloon-like containers of milk. She wished she had a bag, or that she had worn
her jacket, so she could hide things in its pockets. Next time she would
remember. She stuck the sandwiches under her shirt and held the bulbs of milk
in one hand, leaving her other hand free.
    Halfway to her room, when she began to think she would have
the luck not to meet anyone, she heard voices. She spun, intending to hide in a
branch corridor. But she had pushed off with too much force. She left the floor
as if she had jumped, hit the ceiling, and rebounded, spinning helplessly
toward the deck.
    Jeanne Velory and a member of the ship’s crew glided around
the bend in the hall. Concentrating on a thick sheaf of print-outs, they did
not notice her tumbling toward them.
    “Look out!” Barbary cried. They spun out of her vision.
Jeanne caught her, bringing Barbary to a halt while Jeanne herself barely
moved. She pulled Barbary to a handhold. Barbary grabbed it, her face burning
with embarrassment. She still clutched the bulbs of milk.
    “A new recruit, huh?” the crew member said, a hint of
amusement in her tone. Anger would have been easier for Barbary to take.
    “We all choose our own mealtimes here,” Jeanne said to
Barbary, her voice neutral. “The cafeteria’s always open, so you don’t have to
take food to your room between times. It isn’t a good idea — the recycling
system isn’t set up for that. I’m sorry no one explained it to you.”
    “Oh,” Barbary said.
    “Are you hurt?”
    “No.”
    “Can you find your way back?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Okay. Come on, Valya.”
    Barbary watched them go, then angrily scrubbed her sleeve
across her eyes.
    If she doesn’t want to be friends, Barbary thought, just
because I can’t do exactly what she wants me to, exactly when she wants me to
do it, then, tough. That’s an adult for you.
    Slowly, this time, Barbary headed for her room.

Chapter Four
    Her pulse raced. Barbary stopped. Afraid she would find an
irritated crew member holding Mickey by the scruff of his neck, she peeked
around the corner.
    Her door remained shut, the hallway silent. Barbary crept to
her room, opened the door, and slipped inside.
    “Mick?” Mickey was nowhere to be seen. “Hey, Mick?” she said
again, worried.
    Mickey bounded from behind her rumpled jacket and landed
against her. He curled in the crook of her arm, purring.
    “Hi,” she said, relieved. “I’m glad you kept out of trouble.”
She grinned ruefully. “You’re doing better than me.”
    She opened one of the bulbs, extended its straw, and
squeezed out a glob of milk. Mickey sniffed it. It bounced back and forth, in
and out. The sphere flattened, then stretched into a long sausage shape. Never
having seen milk behave so strangely, Mick bristled his whiskers and drew away.
“Don’t get picky,” Barbary said. “It wasn’t exactly easy getting this for you.”
    She coaxed him till he lapped at the quivering white blob.
Mickey drank milk even more messily in space than he did back on earth.
Droplets flew from the tip of the bulb, beading into spheres before bursting
onto Barbary’s shirt or drifting like soap bubbles to the floor. She offered
him some chicken, but after sniffing it, he ignored it. She tried to get him to
eat a bit of the dry food from her duffel bag, but he showed no more interest
in that. He snuggled against her shoulder, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
    Barbary put Mickey on her jacket and cleaned up the spilled
milk. She ate a chicken sandwich and drank the other bulb of milk. Then,
yawning, she had to figure out how