“Yeah,” I said. “He didn’t know. He didn’t know they were there till—till night before last.” Jill shot me a look but didn’t interrupt. I went on: “He’s been teaching dead batteries that the square root of ninety-six is double fudge cake with buttercream frosting—”
Jill snorted.
“—and people like Taks that—that science can make the square root of ninety-six be double fudge cake with buttercream frosting—”
“For the record,” said Takahiro, “my project is about how we define the integrity of one world as differentiated from another.”
“Holy electricity,” said Jill. “You don’t want much, do you?”
“—and back wherever Val is from he was . . . I guess he was a pretty big machine.”
“Not machine,” said Jill. “Magician.”
“Whatever,” I said. “But the gruuaa are working really hard and Taks is still not happy, you know? Neither am I. And I didn’t like that scanner thing at all, and the way it almost . . . And Mongo really liked Taks . . . um . . .”
“As a wolf,” said Takahiro. “Yeah. I noticed that. Kay’s cat avoids me like—well, avoids me for weeks after, but she would, wouldn’t she? She’s a cat.”
“As a wolf?” squeaked Jill. I could see her clutching the steering wheel but the car didn’t zigzag this time.
“Yeah,” said Takahiro. “Yesterday. Val saved my life. And after . . . these are his gruuaa.” He did that vague touching thing you do when you’re groping in the dark for something that is probably fragile, if you can find it. “He sent them home with me.”
“And when we took him home, the soldiers at the corner stopped us, but Mongo sat in Taks’ lap and I think that helped too,” I said. “Val has tutorials till about six tonight. So we go to the shelter first. Where I’m hoping whatever—er—the armydar either puts out or picks up may be a little more confused. If it works we might even adopt someone.”
“Do you have a wolfhound?” said Takahiro.
“Yes, actually,” I said. “Her name’s Bella. She’s one of the Family. They have to turn the armydar off eventually, don’t they?”
“Mom says it can be weeks if it’s a big cobey,” said Jill unhappily. “First there was Copperhill and now—well, whatever they think happened, they’re slapping us down hard with this new amped-up armydar.”
“What’s it supposed to do?” I said. I think I may have howled.
“It’s supposed to stop it—them—from spreading. Cobeys. They run in series,” said Jill. “I guess they think yesterday was trying to be a second cobey.”
“Does everyone but me know that cobeys run in series?” I said. Takahiro’s hands had found something and were cradling it. It was liking this: it twinkled. But I was pretty sure he’d heard “weeks.” Maybe he already knew.
“Everybody who doesn’t zone out and end up in Enhanced Algebra with the biggest textbook on the planet, yes,” said Jill.
Jill turned in through the shelter gate. Rob Roy and Gertrude were barking, but Rob Roy and Gertrude were always barking. Clare came out of the office but her face cleared when she recognized us. “I could really use some help,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’re all here to work? The army have been here half the day—it’s an animal shelter, are they expecting me to be hiding a cobey generator in an empty kennel?—and nothing’s done.”
“Sure,” said Jill. “I can spare a couple of hours.”
“Cats don’t like me much,” said Takahiro. “I’m okay with dogs.”
“Can you face cleaning kennels?” said Clare, looking up at him and smiling.
He smiled back. Good. Maybe the shelter had been one of my better ideas. “Can’t be worse than Mrs. Andover,” he said.
Clare laughed. “Joan Andover? She was a dead battery when she was your age and still Joan Ricco. I’d rather clean kennels too.”
It was better at the shelter. Clare was completely obsessed, and spent all her spare time getting grants from various animal charities and papering downtown with posters for volunteer dog walkers and special critter-education events—that’s human education about critters, you know, not the other way around—and open days, and as a result the animals at the Orchard Shelter were a lot happier and better socialized than in most shelters. (Or a lot of people’s homes, but we won’t go there.) The turnover for all the standard adoptable critters was high but Clare managed to sort of solder the ones that were too old or too ugly or too large or too cranky or too something into a kind of on-site family—the Family—which sometimes made them so charming to susceptible visitors a few of them got adopted after all. (Some of these also got brought back. Clare never refused a returnee.) But the soldering thing—I think it made a kind of critter-energy net. You felt it—okay, I felt it—as you turned up the driveway and through the gate that had Orchard Shelter on the left-hand post. I was hoping that even the armydar would have trouble punching through it.
Takahiro and I were sent out to the kennels. I showed him how it worked and let him get on with it. I hoped the dogs wouldn’t mind Taks’ gruuaa escort, if Mongo’s reaction to them was any guide. I kept the slightly dubious-tempered ones for myself. It seemed to go okay. I could hear him making the occasional comment about the weather and tonight’s homework. I grinned. Critter therapy is the big bang. I was even relaxing a little myself.
It was just after five-thirty when the gruuaa suddenly went crazy. The room filled up with small bursting stars, so many and so bright they made me dizzy, or maybe it was the odd scattered wind, or winds, which were sort of semi-something, like the gruuaa themselves were semi-something, which was so disorienting. It was like wherever they were really from was suddenly much closer than usual.
I’d been at the grooming table brushing Florrie, who was probably a Shetland sheepdog and was definitely more hair than dog. I dropped the dog brush and it went thud on the floor and skittered a little way, like any ordinary thing, wooden back and plastic bristles and a strap for your hand . . . like any ordinary thing . . . like . . .
The brush stopped when it ran into my algebra book. Which I’d left in Clare’s office with my knapsack.
The tiny exploding stars thinned out and disappeared, but I felt almost as sick as if I’d stepped on a silverbug. I couldn’t see or feel any of the gruuaa, not even Hix. Florrie twisted around so she could lick my hands in a “pardon me but don’t just stand there” way. I let go of her and bent slowly down to pick up the grooming brush. I had to hold onto the table. I had to bend over a second time to pick up my algebra book.
I put the book carefully on the counter. It didn’t seem right leaving it on the floor, even if the floor had been its choice. Maybe it couldn’t leap, but only slither or waddle. I moved around the table so I could keep an eye on it while I went on brushing Florrie but I was worried about Hix. No, here she was, shinnying up me like a kid up a tree. If she weighed more I’d’ve said she flopped across my shoulders, but it was hard to say “flop” about something that landed as hard as dandelion fluff. “You okay, sweetie?” I said, and Florrie wagged her tail—keep brushing—but I was talking to Hix. “What was that about? Where are the rest of you? Is Taks all right?” Nobody was barking, so I wanted to assume nothing too awful had happened, although I didn’t know what domestic dogs might do if suddenly confronted with a wolf: flatten themselves into doormats and hope for the best, maybe.