her weight from one side to the other.
Dee saw her. All the other eyes in the room, all those slanted liquidy black eyes, and the one pair of deep blue, were on Dee's stomach, on the needle. But Dee's thrashing head had turned toward Jenny, and just for a moment the two of them were looking at each other, communicating without words. Then Dee began to struggle again.
The harder Dee fought, the brighter the light over Dee. The brighter the light over Dee, the dimmer the light over Jenny.
Fall off this table and you'll have no way to control it, Jenny's mind told her. A broken arm or leg, at least, and maybe a broken nose. You'll smash into the floor facedown.
She kept on rocking. Maybe Dee thought she was just trying to get away, but what Jenny cared about was distracting them. Stopping that thing with its too-long fingers from putting the needle in Dee. If she hurt herself they'd have to come deal with her. They'd leave Dee alone.
She swung her torso harder and harder, like a beetle trying to upend itself. Dee was fighting madly, yelling out insults to keep the aliens' attention. The light above Jenny dimmed further, Jenny surged
violently-and felt her momentum take her over the edge. For a moment she teetered there, balanced on her side, then the deadweight of her arms and legs decided the issue, and she felt herself begin to fall.
There was a burst of startled movement from the aliens, and the light flamed into brightness above her. It didn't matter in the least. It wasn't her muscles that were in charge, it was the law of gravity. Something nobody could argue with.
Jenny thought.
Searing illumination was reflecting off the white floor, and Jenny shut her eyes as that floor seemed to come up to meet her. She flinched away from the moment of impact. When the impact didn't come, she opened her eyes.
She was floating, facedown, an inch or so from the floor. Suspended. Paralyzed. The aliens were scuttling around hysterically, as if they weren't programmed to deal with this. As if they were as surprised by her midair arrest as she was.
The painful reflection on the floor softened. Jenny was still floating. It was a very strange sensation.
The small aliens were still moving around in consternation-Jenny could see by their feet. A bunch of them crowded between the tables and lifted Jenny back to hers.
She was positioned too high-she felt her ponytail hanging over the edge of the table. And the light above her was dimmer. Maybe somebody who hadn't been staring up at it for half an hour wouldn't notice, but Jenny did.
The blue-eyed alien with the needle was beside her.
She expected it to touch her, but it didn't. It just looked down, and Jenny looked back.
Why didn't you let me fall? she thought.
Abruptly the tall alien turned away. It motioned to the others, then walked out the octagonal doorway of the round room. Several of the small ones followed it, pushing the cart. Several others came and poured green liquid into Jenny's mouth.
It tasted like sugar and iodine. Jenny spit it out. They restrained her head and poured her mouth full again. This time she shut her lips, holding the liquid inside her mouth, doing her best not to swallow any. She could have struck out at them-she could feel her fingers again-but she pretended she couldn't move.
And then, blessedly, they went away.
Jenny turned her head and spat her mouthful out. Her lips and tongue were numb. She saw Dee doing the same.
They looked at each other, then at the lights.
"Both dimmer," Jenny whispered. Dee nodded.
Then, eyes on the doorway, they squirmed and rocked themselves off the tables. It wasn't easy, but with the lights this dim, it was possible.
Jenny, with no training in how to fall, bruised her arm and knee. But Dee was already pulling her up, out of the influence of the white light. Outside its circle, Jenny could move freely.
"Look," she said, seizing Dee's arm.
It was a door, concave, set in the wall that had been behind Jenny's head. It looked like an airplane door, which Jenny recognized because she'd once spent five hours studying one when her family flew to Florida on vacation.
And which was absurd, Jenny thought fretfully. Why should aliens have airplane doors? Dee wasn't worrying about it-she was moving levers and things. The door swung away outward.
Jenny shrieked.
She'd never liked heights, and this was much higher than she'd ever been