Stealing a Zero-g Cow

by Brooks Peck

It was Aunt Chris's idea to actually steal Perkins Drum's new cow. Up 'til then the discussion had just been on where we could get a cow of our own and if we could afford it. All of adults in the drum had gotten together for a pow after lunch. I had K.P. and listened through the big window as I did the dishes with my little cousin Toby. Bingo, who was captain that month, sat on the small plastic stage in front of the dining hall where the kids did plays sometimes. He said we should wait one more orbit through the Belt and if we made some good strikes we could get one sure when Aunt Chris just yelled from the back of the dining hall, "We don't need to buy a damn cow! If it's so important to get one why don't you just take Perkins's? They owe us anyway."

No one said a word for about a minute. Aunt Chris settled back in her chair and kept on with the suit valve she was cleaning as if she hadn't even spoken. It was she and Uncle Larn who bought Wilkins Drum sixty-eight years ago. She was almost one hundred now but wouldn't let them leave her at the Home on Vesta.

"This ain't the wild old days before Belt Authority, Aunt Chris," said Bingo. "We can't just go take anything we want."

"Ha!" Aunt Chris grunted. "Perkins do."

Bingo frowned. "Well there's no way we could do it anyway. It's not like going and grabbing a telescope or a dish or something. A cow's a living animal."

"They do owe us big," rumbled my second cousin Chuck, our navigator. "They took our rock."

"We don't know it was them for sure --" Bingo said. The whole family glared at him and he shut up. We knew for sure.

My family, Wilkins, is a prospector family. Wilkins Drum orbits within the Asteroid Belt making one revolution every year and a half. I know the Belt moves too, but for our purposes it stays still. We move around hunting for metallics and trading them in at various stationary settlements. At that time we had forty adults and twenty sixteen-and-unders.

Three orbits ago when I was ten we found a hot rock -- radioactive. Bingo said it was probably worth four times as much as the whole rest of the load. Everyone was excited. After a lot of debate the family decided to use the extra money to buy a new food processor. Our old GE was sturdy, but it only turned out three basic flavors and five textures. For the rest of the time until Vesta (the biggest city in the Belt) came around we took it easy, taking only the choicest rocks and letting a lot past. We were rich.

When we caught up to Vesta, the Perkins Drum was also passing through the vicinity heading inward. They're a big operation, almost a town really, and they usually never paid any attention to small-timers like us. Almost as soon as we were in range, though, they radioed us and personally invited us to a Softerball tournament they were sponsoring on Vesta. Chuck says we should have realized they knew we didn't have enough room to play something like that, but at the time everyone was too excited. Also, it was a challenge and the whole Belt would hear if we backed down.

We managed to upload a copy of the rules from Vesta and everyone got busy practicing, or, if not on the team, helping to make uniforms and equipment. Aunt Chris, our head coach, named the team the Wilkins Warhawks and designed an emblem for the uniforms: a silver drum with a stylish white "W" across it and large red wings on the sides. The family was so busy that the adults decided to cash in our load _after_ the games.

On the day of the first round my dad, who was captain then, splurged and rented a shuttle to take the entire family down to Vesta. We must have turned some heads as the entire gang trooped through the corridors all in red, silver, and white. It was even more exciting, especially for us kids, than discovering the hot rock. We took up an entire section of seats in Vesta's auditorium/stadium, and we were _loud._ The Wilkins family was ready for victory.

We didn't even win one game. We got close except in the heat of things I guess Uncle Ramzy forgot you couldn't hit members of the opposite side with the bat. The Warhawks were penalized twenty yards and two minutes for Uncle Ramzy. The other team (the Vesta South Hemisphere Hydroponics Hellraisers) burned time until there were three seconds left and made a field home run to capture the lead. Demoralized, we slipped out of the hall leaving a gap of empty seats like a bald spot. When we jetted up to the drum our silence was broken by a gasp from the front of the shuttle. The huge round cargo door in the center aft of the drum was sitting wide open. The only thing missing was the hot rock.

Dad had to take out a loan to pay off the shuttle and cover supplies. We were lucky and managed to pay it off in just one orbit, but nothing could change the fact that Wilkins Drum had been faced, and the whole Belt knew it. Since then it was nearly impossible getting people to deal straight with us. The word was out: we were suckers.

Old Aunt Nate spoke up. "What good's a cow to us anyway? You all want to be like them Perkins and clutter up the drum with a lot of useless junk?" The beads in her hair clicked as she shook her head. "I hear they've got a swimming pool -- are you going to want to rip out the control room and get one of those next?"

"Cows give milk, Momma," said Chuck, "and butter and cheese and eggs. It would really liven up the meals around here." I could see everyone was thinking about the food processor we almost had.

I sent Toby off to play, put away the last of the dishes, and stood there listening. Officially I had a year until I was allowed to the adult pow but the next-oldest kid was three years younger than me, so I was often included. Then I noticed Mom giving me a look through her purple shades. I grinned, wiped the counter off a few times, and ducked out of the kitchen. A meter down the hall I decided I had to hear the rest of that pow. This was big, the family hadn't done anything like this since we intercepted a Solar Mining, Inc. scout's transmission with the location of a huge chunk of ice which we found before their tugs could get there. Drum life could get real monotonous without something to break it up. I dropped to my stomach and wormed back into the kitchen below where I could be seen over the counter.

"You're talking illegal entry into a sealed environment, which gets you at least five years working the Ceres tunnels, plus stealing the cow, and I don't know how long they'd give us for that!" That was Bingo.

"If you don't get caught you don't go to prison," answered Aunt Chris. "Being scared is the reason this drum has been on the bottom of the heap for the past five years. Time to show the Belt what Wilkins are made of."

"But even if we could get to it, how could we move it?"

"Use a lifeboat. They aren't _that_ big!"

"This is insane." Bingo sounded really mad. "We don't even know where it is."

"We could find out," said my cousin Beni. "Perkins is having an open drum all next week for people to come and see the cow." Beni was two years older than me and it was him who had been monitoring the radio and first heard all the ruckus about he cow.

"Case the joint!" cried Aunt Chris.

I looked up. Mom was standing in the kitchen peering over her shades down at where I was sitting against a cabinet. "Are you supposed to be here, Darcy?" she asked. I pretended to turn down the player in my ear.

"What?"

"You heard me," she said. Everyone says I look just like my mom. She has dark brown skin and black eyes which are almost always hidden behind her shades. She only takes them off when he's really serious or angry. Right now they were halfway down her nose. "Get, girl," she said. I got.

Perkins Drum was three times as long and at least twice as wide as Wilkins Drum. Bingo and Chuck fixed our course so that we could pass in bike range for a week. My turn to go over and see it all didn't come until the third day and by that time I was itching to death to get a look. "They have a gymnasium," my cousins said, "and a park!" I didn't even know what that first one was, and the second one I didn't believe.

I went over with Dad, Toby, Bingo, and three others. We went outside, swung onto our bikes (two people each), and jetted over to Perkins's which was almost exactly next to us at that point. The bikes are propelled by compressed carbon dioxide gas. Dad's the best biker in the family and probably the whole Belt and we got to Perkins's five minutes ahead of the others. As we flew over to the drum it just kept getting bigger and bigger. I would keep thinking we were up to it, but then it would _still_ get bigger.

The "floors" of a drum are like tubes fitted one inside the other. The drum is set spinning so that everything inside pushes toward the outside because of centrifugal force. That gives you floor to stand on although your feet point out of the drum and your head points to the center. Since the floor closest to the outside of the drum spins the fastest that's where you weigh the most, and that's where people in a drum live. That floor also has the biggest area. Each floor above the outside one (called the first) is progressively smaller and gives you less weight. The center shaft is where you store supplies and, if you're a mining drum, rocks. There's a huge door in the aft center for loading. Right next to that there's usually the main airlock which opens onto a hallway in the top floor that runs the length of the drum. At the other end is the door to the control room, which is center

fore.

Perkins's main airlock was the size of our dining room. Its walls were covered with suits, bikes, mining equipment and tools. It was all very clean and bright. I didn't see one dent or scratch anywhere. Their suits really caught my eye -- sky-blue with chrome fittings by Ememyu, the best you could buy. When the lock pressurized we all began helping each other out of our stuff. It's hard to unsuit yourself in zero-G. A wide, round door at the other end of the lock swung open and three men floated inside. They were all really pale, not like the deep tans and browns of my family. The first one had on black slippers, white pants, and a big, blue cloth that wrapped loosely around his arms and chest. It billowed about him in the air and looked like pouring liquid. The other two wore regular blue overalls with lots of pockets.

"Hello, and welcome to Perkins Associates," the first guy said, making a big smile. His teeth were tinted to look like a rainbow spectrum. "My name is Pete Perkins, Vice President of Interior Affairs. I take it you've come for a tour of our facility?" Bingo nodded, never taking his eyes off the bright man. "Well good!" the man boomed, like he thought we couldn't ear. He smiled again. "Has everyone had their standard inoculations as required by Belt Authority?" Bingo's eyes went wide.

"Of course. It's standard --"

"Wonderful." The man looked us up and down. "Does anyone need a shower?" Bingo took a deep breath and Dad grabbed him on the elbow.

"No, thank you," Dad said, "we have plenty of water on our drum." Bingo was glaring at the man so hard I laughed. He looked like how he did the time he caught some of the kids playing with a huge glob of soap suds up in one of the low gravity storerooms.

The man showed us where to stow our gear and then led us out the door and through a round tunnel. Something had been bothering me since taking off my suit and I didn't figure it out until just then. I could hardly smell anything. Wilkins drum is full of warm, thick scents of cooking, machinery, and people. But this place was like how I imagined Earth -- so big and open that all smells get spread out too thin to notice. I did catch one whiff of the Vice President. It was spicy and sweet and not at all human. Maybe all Perkins smell different.

Finally our whole group came to a shaft and one by one, the three Perkins in the lead, we started down the "down" ladder feet-first. The ladder went on and on and on. It was a weird feeling to get heavy so slowly. Finally we reached the bottom. The centrifugal was a little stronger than I was used to. The Perkins probably sped their drum up when they were near Vesta to show everyone how tough they were.

We were standing on the edge of a gigantic room, bigger than any I'd ever been in. There was something strange all over the floor and after a second I realized it was grass. I recognized it from my lessons. I could see Pete Perkins smiling as we all gawked. All of those plants in one place was just too bizarre. In the air near the ceiling big globes of light the color of the sun drifted, but never bumped. Along all four walls glowed high-resolution video portraits of hundreds of old people. They had moving backgrounds of places all over the System and Earth.

"This is Perkins Park," said the Vice President, "a well-known attraction in the Belt. Perhaps you've heard of it. The field is ten thousand square feet and weighs twenty-five tons. It was constructed about fifteen years ago by Dara Perkins, whose portrait is here to the right." Dara was pale like all Perkins with squinty eyes. He was pictured with the Park behind him. "Over here," continued the Vice President, "is his mother Anne Perkins who once found a fossilized trilobite in a Carbonaceous asteroid. . . ."

I could barely pay attention as we went through more portraits because we were walking _on_ the grass. I kept trying to step light on all that wealth. I thought about getting a leaf to show my cousins but figured they would see me bend over for sure. We went all the way around the room hearing about every dead Perkins that ever lived. I mostly watched the lights and the other groups of outsiders who were being led around just like us.

Finally we got back where we started and went through a set of red painted steel doors into a dim hallway. Pete was going on about how Perkins drum broke the volume record for a single-unit operation six years in a row. I was trailing behind looking over my shoulder at the grass when suddenly I felt something touch my arm. I jumped and then clamped my mouth shut before I yelled and interrupted the tour.

"What's the matter?" There was a tall boy standing in front me. He was Perkins-pale with long curly brown hair and a bony nose. I guessed he was about seventeen.

"Nothing!" I said, clutching my arm like it was burned. He dressed the strangest of all of them. He wore a jumpsuit that was cut off at the knees and elbows and seemed to be made of pieces of metal shaped like tiny cake pans all sewn together. Clear plastic tubes wound around the little pans with marbles inside that rolled up and down his body. "What's the matter with you?" I asked back.

"What do you mean?"

"Why are you wearing that?"

"Oh." He gave a short, sharp laugh. My Dad and the others were turning the corner.

"I have to go," I said.

"No, wait. Would you like to really see the drum? Those tours are no good. I could show it to you though."

"I can't go away from them! I'll get in trouble." The boy shook his head.

"That's okay, you'll be with me. And they time it, so I know your bunch will be back here in thirty-seven minutes exactly. You can catch up to them then. Come on, it will be fun."

"Just why do you want me alone?" I asked, standing as tall as I could. The boy grinned.

"Oh, now, I just want someone new to talk to. This place can get pretty boring."

By this time my group was long gone, which was probably idea. I had no other choice. "All right," I said. "My name's Darcy Wilkins."

"Drin Perkins." He made a rattling bow. "Let's go."

"I want to see the cow," I said. I had almost forgotten.

"The cow? Everybody wants to see that. You can see one on video." I stood there. "Oh, all right," he said. "Don't get mad."

Then we went zooming up and down and all over the Perkins Drum. Drin could really move in the low centrifugal areas, and I think he was trying to see if I could keep up. He was faster in straight stretches but I beat him in tight curves.

I saw a lot of new things that half-hour and a lot of things I didn't understand. Near the living section they had a _swimming pool_ -- that's a big pit filled with water that people can go into, like an ocean but inside. To be honest it scared me so much I wouldn't even go into the room. What if the drum stopped spinning and all that water got loose? You would suffocate in a second. We also peeked into the control room, which was huge and full of sparkling controls.

Then Drin took me to a long, wide hallway in the middle of the living section. The rooms on either side had been remodeled with large windows looking out and lots of lights and signs. They were _stores._ Drin called the place a _Mal_ and said people made and sold things for money there, just like on Vesta. I couldn't believe it -- they were family after all. It didn't seem very nice. Still, I had to see.

The first place had a woman who repaired suits and mining equipment, which we all just help each other with for free in Wilkins Drum. Then there was a guy who made clothes, all kinds of clothes in all sorts of shapes and colors. I had to look at it all and would have stayed forever if Drin hadn't dragged me out finally. It was the same with all the little stores: food stores, drink stores, shoe stores, a library, a carpenter store, jewelry stores. I had never seen so many different things all one place. It was like I thought Earth would be -- lots of variety.

I was trying on some holo-wigs when Drin grabbed my arm. "The time!" he said and dragged me down the hall. We charged through the crazy corridors of that drum until I thought we were lost when suddenly we burst into the Park. My group and the three Perkins were waiting and Dad game me a very funny look when I came up. I barely had time to say thanks to Drin and we whisked back to the big airlock. Halfway between Perkins Drum and ours I realized I never got to see the cow. I had totally forgotten about it. Dang that Drin, it was his fault.

I wasn't really mad at him though. It was awfully nice of him to take all that time to show me around when he didn't even know me. He was real friendly, much more so than any other Perkins I saw. I wondered why he decided he wanted to meet me instead of someone else. It must have been because we were near the same age.

When we got home the drum seemed a little small but a lot more normal. All the adults went to the dining room to pow about the cow, and they were so busy asking Bingo and Dad questions that no one noticed me get a tea and sit down. I was too tired to go anywhere else.

"Those Perkins have everything," Bingo said. "That cow's just to flaunt it in our faces." He seemed really mad. Let's just take it then, all the adults said.

Dad spoke. "Can't be done. I mean it's just in the middle of everything -- there are people all around all the time. Hell, we couldn't even get through an airlock."

"Wimps!" said Aunt Chris, pounding the table. "You kids are all cowards."

"No, we would all like to go for it. But imagine someone trying to steal something from our kitchen. Someone from the outside. Of course we would notice them. It's the same way over there." Everyone was quiet when they understood. They stared either at the floor or into the kitchen at the food processor.

Beni came into the room and looked straight at me. "Radio message for you, Darcy!" he said.

"What?" I was echoed by my mother.

Beni read from an electric pad. "Drin Perkins requests the presence of Darcy Wilkins at twenty hours the fourteenth of this month to be his companion at the Perkins Drum Softerball Victory Gala." Beni looked up. "They won again and now they're inviting all sorts of people from Vesta and all around here. Everybody's talking about it."

All the adults were looking at me. I couldn't speak, my mind was spinning, torn. Did this mean Drin liked me? I had no idea. Maybe he did. There were certainly a lot of other people he could go with. This was a shocking development. But then there was also the fact that the party was to celebrate what the Perkins used to screw us out of our rock four-and-a-half years ago. If I went they would be laughing at me and my family all over again. No, I wasn't going to let them have that pleasure. Drin could just come over here if he wanted to see me.

Aunt Chris had stood up and tottered over next to me. "How about that," she said, stroking my hair. "The Perkins are having party." She looked at the rest of the adults and repeated, "The Perkins are having a party. Everyone will be busy and Darcy will be on the _inside._"

Mom lent me her shades, but I still felt alone. Everyone in the family down to cousin Toby had suggestions about what I should wear. I changed clothes every twenty minutes for three days solid until finally we decided on my Aunt Lea's genuine Earth jeans, which I had to roll up, Chuck's prize white glo-shirt, which was really too big, and a silver, white, and red vest that Aunt Chris made just for the occasion. Everyone also wanted to lend me jewelry, and so as not to hurt anyone's feelings, I wore it all. I was covered in pins, ear clips, bracelets, and rings. The light from the shirt sparkled off it all every time I moved. I thought Drin would like it -- it was his style.

But I was scared. Not of Drin or even the Perkins' party, much. I was scared because after Dad dropped me off I would be totally alone on that big drum with no family around at all. All my life I had been within shouting distance of another Wilkins. Last time at Perkins' I had been too overwhelmed to feel lonely and anyway, I knew Dad and the others were somewhere nearby. Now I had time to think about it.

Dad didn't even come into the airlock when we arrived at 20:20. "I'm not invited," he said. "But I'll see you later." He winked. Then I had to go inside. It was too late to back out and the whole family was depending on me. Dad biked away and it was just me next to this big, swirling metal drum falling through space.

Drin came into the airlock as soon as there was air. Tonight he wore just a regular, black work jumpsuit. His hair and eyes were black now, too. I was speechless with surprise. I had expected the unimaginable. "Hi," he said, "glad you made it."

"Hi." I hung up my suit. It wasn't my regular one but a shabby, patched-up spare that was older than me. Drin didn't seem to notice.

"You look nice," he said.

"Oh, you too." I felt like a computer game next to him.

"Shall we?" He offered his arm. I was so nervous I laughed suddenly. Drin looked startled. _Man, I'm going to blow it,_ I thought, but it was too late to do anything now. We headed down the hall side by side. Drin smiled at me and I blushed, of course. I get so mad when that happens and then it gets even worse. Why couldn't I be cool like him?

The Gala was in the Park. There were hundreds of people crammed into the room dressed all kinds of ways. I saw glo-clothes, vid-clothes, and a few with no clothes at all. A tall man had on a shoulder pack with two robot arms attached. He gestured widely with his and the extras as he spoke. Around the edge of the Park were tables heaped with food and gallons of hot and cold drinks. I thought some of the portraits were looking down a little hungrily. _I_ wasn't hungry, and hadn't been for twenty-four hours. In the middle of the Park there was a round platform with a ten-piece band honking out Titan-style dance tunes. Groups of two and three swung and hopped to the beat.

Drin slowly led me around the room, occasionally saying hello to someone but mostly just walking along. It was strange. I noticed a lot of the Perkins looking at us. Why did Drin want everyone to see me? I felt my face get red again.

We stopped at a table where some friends of Drin's were nibbling on vegetables. There were five of them, all webbed together with jeweled strands. One of them wore a uniform of the Perkins Softerball team and was talking about the victory game. The way he put it they never would have won without him. The other kids were all wrapped up in the tale, but I was bored. It was a thrill just to look around at all the people though. I wished I could just see it all at once, take it all in an instant. I pressed a button on one of my bracelets and a puff of yellow fog shot out. The smoke braided into four digits as it dissipated. 21:30 already! I had half an hour.

I still wasn't sure if I could really do it. What would Drin think when he found out I used him? He was very nice and he really seemed to like me. The poor guy would be heartbroken. I felt sad for him all of a sudden. Too bad we could never really be friends.

Drin smiled at me. "So what do you think?"

I smiled back. "It's too cool. You're really lucky. It would be neat to live on this drum." I gritted my teeth but too late, I had said it. Drin just blinked and grinned.

"Come on," he said.

We walked over to a group of twelve or so older people dressed in extremely fine red and yellow tuxedos. They surrounded a woman whose hair was all pulled back and trapped in a polished silver model of an asteroid. I looked down and could not believe it -- she was wearing a skirt! Yes, an antique from the old days being worn out here in the Belt. I almost laughed.

Drin pushed through the crowd dragging me with him and the conversation instantly stopped. "Mother," he said, "I'd like you to meet a friend of mine." The woman, who had been staring at Drin, suddenly jerked her head towards me as if I had just appeared from nowhere. She had gray eyes and a bony nose like Drin's.

"Ahem," she said, "so you're Drin's little friend. Where are you from, Dear, Vesta?"

"She's Darcy Wilkins of Wilkins Drum," Drin said loudly as opened my mouth.

It got so quiet I thought there was a hull breach. The woman's eyes went hard as she glanced at Drin then back to me. "Oh," she said. "Well, I'm Johna Perkins." She shook my hand. "I own Perkins Drum." _And I don't talk to people like you,_ she was saying. I could see that real clear. Drin took my hand and we turned away. Immediately they began to whisper and someone laughed.

I could not remember the last time I was so humiliated. And he had done it on purpose. Yes, it was all clear what was going on. Drin's eyes and face danced with triumph. I wasn't the user, I was the used. I was just another tool in Drin's petty rebellion against his family. He probably did it out of boredom, I knew he didn't have to work. I felt sick.

"Where's the flusher?" I asked and he pointed down a hallway. I mumbled thanks and it took all my strength not to run. In the flusher I collapsed on the seat, breathing hard. I never felt so stupid in all my life. I never should have agreed to come to the party and I never should have trusted Drin, damn him. There was no way I was going back in there, not after that. Problem was, I still had fifteen minutes until I met my family. I'd have to just wait. Drin probably wouldn't miss me. He was finished with me now.

Out in the hall there was no one around, as Aunt Chris predicted. I found a shaft and climbed all the way to the hallway that ran parallel to the drum's center storage areas, then tugged my way along making good speed because I weighed practically nothing. The first half of the hallway was bare because it ran alongside where the rocks were stored. Large sets of double doors along the second half marked pressurized store rooms. Finally I reached the fore end of the drum. There was a single door at the end of the hall with a small window in it and a set of airlock controls on a panel. Inside was the actual airlock -- a bare room three by one and a half meters -- with a similar set of controls on the side wall. On the far wall was the door to the outside. The hallway turned "up" here across the center of the drum and at its end was the hatch leading to the drum's control room. I crept up and took a peek inside. No one was on duty, not even a radio monitor.

I dropped back to the lock and, fingers shaking, worked the controls emptying the little room of air and opening the outer door. Outside, the craggy surface of Vesta drifted into view, dotted with lights and surrounded by multicolored stars.

I waited. Twenty-two came and past and no one arrived. What if they didn't come? I couldn't go back to Drin, no way. I decided I would steal a suit and bike and try to make it home on my own. I wanted to get out of there. Just as I was planning my route back to the main airlock where all the equipment was, someone climbed though the door. They were followed by four more, the last one towing a bike. They all crammed inside and I triggered the outer door shut and let air back into the room.

As soon as I opened the inside door Bingo threw me my regular suit. With him were my mom and dad, Chuck, and Aunt Edna, our doctor. I struggled into the suit and all five helped me seal it up.

"Let's go!" Bingo, Edna, Chuck, and I kicked off the wall and shot down the hallway followed by Mom and Dad hunkered down on the bike. We flashed over glowing shafts, but there was never anyone in them. At one point Bingo threw up his hand and we all grabbed wall, scraping to a noisy stop. "Thought I heard someone," he said over the suit radio. I couldn't see how he could hear anything over the bike's jets. There was no one though, so we jumped and continued on our way.

A minute later we stopped at one of the sets of double doors in the middle of the corridor. DANGER -- WARNING -- HAZARDOUS LIFE FORM, it read. ENTER ONLY IF ACCOMPANIED BY AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. Bingo waited a minute for us to catch our breath. "Ready, Edna?" he asked. She nodded, pulling a huge hypodermic out of a belt pouch. Bingo pushed open the doors.

For a second nothing happened and I struggled to see around everybody. Suddenly there was a loud bellowing like an explosion and something huge swooped out of the door, smashing Bingo and Edna against the wall. Chuck yelled and got slapped aside by a big brown and white hairy flipper. The corridor was alive with a great, thrashing beast madly trying to propel itself down the corridor. It had a huge head but with a small mouth (for its size) and a fat round body. It also had four flippers for moving in low gravity. Between the back two hung something that looked like an big inflated glove. I figured all this out later though. At that point I was too worried for my life to be looking very carefully.

Mom and Dad rushed forward with Chuck close behind. They tackled the monster but it was way too strong for them. I heard Edna yell, "Damn it!" The cow pushed away from her and I saw her pull the hypodermic out from Bingo's thigh. She kicked off the wall and landed on the cow's back. Then she plunged the now half-full hypo into the cow's neck. It flapped off in the opposite direction of the airlock with my parents and Chuck hanging onto its sides. Aunt Edna got scraped off after about fifteen meters, smashing a light fixture with her helmet.

I slid over to Bingo, who was floating by the wall, stiff as a girder. Aunt Edna glided up a second later and took off his helmet. She checked his eyes and the bio readouts on his collar "He'll be okay," she said, refastening his helmet. "You bring him, I'll see if I can help the others." She dashed away. Far down the hall I could hear the sounds of smashing plastic and screams both human and cow. I figured we were caught for sure. The whole plan was wrecked. Five years on Ceres. Five years away from my family.

I grabbed Bingo's suit by a ring on the back and managed to maneuver him over my shoulder. I began a slow, coasting crawl after the others. In a few minutes I found them all tugging on the back flippers of the cow which had wedged itself half-way into a shaft. It wasn't nearly as active now but just kicked lazily and moo'ed softly every once and a while.

"Shoot," Chuck said over the radio, "they've heard us by now. Let's just leave it and get out of here!" The others ignored him and a second later heaved the cow out of the shaft. It turned its giant head, groaned, and vomited into the air with a belch.

"Oh, God," said my mother, who had gotten the most of it.

"Come on, let's go!" cried Edna.

Bingo stirred. "Wha?" he shouted. "I can't move!"

"Shut up!" Everything was quiet. No pounding feet up the ladders, no alarms, nothing. Dad wrapped a rope around the cow's two hind flippers. The four of them pulled it back the way we came while I followed with Bingo in tow. We stopped at the cow's doors and Chuck began tying the rope to the back of the bike which had been left there. Quickly I released Bingo and pulled three spray cans out of my leg pouches. By the time the others were ready I was putting the final touches on a huge silver, white, and red Wilkins Warhawk emblem that covered the two doors.

Mom and Dad both got on the bike and began slowly tugging the feebly struggling cow. Chuck and Edna took Bingo, and I followed, watching the rear. Every second I expected someone to yell out, but nothing happened. It was 22:20 when we got back to the airlock. Drin would surely be looking for me now. Or maybe not. Maybe it made things easier for me to just disappear.

At the airlock I thought we were home free but no, we had to wait for Chuck to cycle through to get the lifeboat which Bingo had left clamped to the hull. It was too bulky to carry along and we were afraid someone would see it if we left it inside. It took him forever. There was nothing to do but wait and get caught red-handed. Finally he got back inside and began unfolding the big yellow pouch.

"This isn't going to fit," Chuck said suddenly.

"What?" asked Dad.

"The lifeboat's going to be too big to go through the door once I blow it up!" Everyone began talking at once, arguing about what to do.

"Shut up!" Edna yelled. "Now. Will the cow fit through the door?" It would. "All right. Get the lifeboat around the cow, seal it in and give it just a little air, then take it outside and inflate it all the way."

But it was a lot harder to actually do. The cow was pretty calm, but it took three people to move it around it had so much mass. Also it kept getting the bag all tangled in its flippers. Minutes passed and I got more and more nervous. Eventually we got it. It was now a big, wrinkled yellow blob that moo'ed.

Dad got into the airlock with the bike and the cow. Just as the airlock finished pumping out and Dad was opening the door to the outside, Bingo, who was propped against the wall, mumbled, "Someone's coming."

Down the hall I dimly saw brightly dressed shapes moving excitedly around the cow's room's doors. I heard shouts. Edna gestured frantically through the window at Dad. He threw out the bike and then began tugging on the cow like mad.

"Stop!" someone shouted. Five men and women were rushing towards us. A few seconds later the cow cleared and Dad slammed the outer door. Edna instantly punched the controls to start refilling the air so we could get inside the airlock.

"Hurry up hurry up," I said, but there was nothing we could do but stand and wait. The Perkins were almost upon us. The one in front had a huge metal bar which he swung back and forth.

"Go!" Edna shouted. The door hissed open and we piled in, dragging Bingo. Chuck pulled it shut just as our pursuers came crashing against the door. The man with the bar pounded it and shouted but we could barely hear him. It was Pete, the Vice President. The airlock slowly emptied of gas, becoming quieter and quieter. On the other side of the door one of the Perkins frantically worked the airlock controls.

"Shit! She's going to do an emergency override," Chuck cried over the radio. "We'll never make it!"

I saw Edna nod. She turned to a small transparent rubber panel on the wall and yanked it up with her gloved fist. Then she reached inside and grabbed a large, red handle. "No!" Mom shouted. Edna twisted the handle ninety degrees clockwise.

Even through the thinning air inside the lock I heard a whooping siren. Red lights flashed up and down the corridor. The Perkins all jumped and looked at us with wide eyes. There was a terrific BANG as the airlock's outer door's explosive blew it off its frame. Then it felt like a huge hand flung me out of the airlock, my left arm slamming against the frame. I screamed as the five of us sailed out into empty space away from the drum, away from anything to hold on to at all. I thought I had died. Everything spun and my arm ached.

What seemed like an hour later but was actually only half a minute Mom was shaking my shoulder. We joined hands and floated together. My Dad is still the best biker in the Belt -- he had us all tethered to the now fully-inflated lifeboat and was towing us back to Wilkins Drum before the Perkins could even suit up. And by then it was too late, we were long gone. In six hours we orbited out of bike range and beyond anyone's reach.

The score was tied, one-all.

-----

This ASCII representation is the copyrighted property of

the author. You may not redistribute it for any reason.

The original story is available on-line at

http://tale.com/titles-free.phtml?title_id=51

Formatting copy