“Wow, she really likes that stuff,” Iaehh said. “Better get some more.”
“I’ll stop by the store on the way home.”
“But, hon, you really should think about it. The hours there are wearing you out. You keep having to bring work home. They’re not giving you the support they promised. They can’t even keep the air conditioners working, as you say. You’re not happy there…”
Rhiow sighed, hating to look ungrateful, and went over to the ffrihh, stood up on her hind legs against it, and patted the handle, looking mournfully at Hhuha.
“What?” Hhuha said.
“You put the milk away without offering her any,” Iaehh said.
“Why can’t more toms have brains like yours?” Rhiow said, and went straight to him and rubbed his legs, too, while Hhuha opened the ffrihh and got the milk out again. “What a clever ehhif you are.”
“Won’t be any left for your coffee,” Hhuha said.
“Never mind, give it to her,” Iaehh said. “I’m running late as it is. I’ll have something at the office.”
“You wouldn’t be running late if you’d gotten up when the alarm clock rang.”
And they were off again about another favorite subject: the routine ignoring and silencing of the dreadful little bedside ra’hio that spouted news reports at them all hours of the day and night, but especially in the morning, when it began its recitation with a particularly foul and repetitive little buzzer. Rhiow was always glad when they turned it off… though this morning she had to admit she had been pleased enough, while it was still on, to hear it fail to mention anything terrible happening in Grand Central overnight. “Oh, thank you,” she said, and purred, as Hhuha bent down and poured the milk.
“Hey, don’t bump the hand that feeds you, my puss; the milk’s going to go all over the floor.”
“I’ll take care of that, don’t you worry,” Rhiow said, and drank.
Hhuha and Iaehh went back toward the bedroom, still arguing genially. It was barely argument, really: more like what People called fhia-sau, or “tussle,” where any blows struck were affectionate, the claws were carefully kept in, teeth did not break skin, and the disagreement, if it really was one, was replayed more as a pastime than anything else. They really are so like us, some ways, Rhiow thought, finishing the milk and sitting up to wash her face. I wonder if you could teach them Ailurin, given enough time? Repeating one word enough times, in the right context, until they got it…
“Bye, honey,” Hhuha said, and as she passed through the living room, “bye, puss, have a nice day…”
“From your mouth to the Queen’s ear,” Rhiow said as the front door closed behind her, and meaning it most fervently.
She was still washing when Iaehh came out of the bedroom in his “formal” sweats, with his office clothes and his briefcase over his shoulder in a backpack. “Byebye, plumptious one,” he said, heading for the door. “Don’t eat all that food at once, it’s got to last you…”
Rhiow threw a meaningful look at the bowl full of reeking tuna, but it was lost on Iaehh: he was halfway out the door already. It clicked shut, and one after another came more clicks as he locked the other locks.
“Plumptious” again. Is he trying to say I’m putting on weight? Hmm.
Rhiow sighed, finished her wash, and went out her own door, into the warm, ozony air, heading for the rooftops.
Half an hour later she caught up with Urruah at the Bear Gate to Central Park. There were actually two sets of statues there—one of three bears, one of three deer—but from the predator’s point of view, it was naturally the bears that mattered.
“ ’Luck,” Rhiow said, as they breathed one another’s breath. “Oh, Urruah, not more MhHonalh’s!”
He wrinkled his face a little, an annoyed expression. “I thought I got all the tartar sauce off that fish thing first.”
“All this fried food … it’s going to catch up with you one day.”
“You should talk. What kind of oil are they packing that tuna cat food in? Smells like it comes out of somebody’s crankcase.”
Rhiow thought privately that, for all she knew, he was right… They walked into the park, heading southward along the broad paved expanse of its roadway loop, staying well to one side to miss the ehhif on Rollerblades and the ehhif with strollers. “You sleep well last night?”
“Considering where we’re going today?” Urruah said. “What do you think? … I kept hearing Saash dreaming all night. Her nerves are in shreds.”
Rhiow sighed. “I missed that. Guess my little chat with the Whisperer tired me out.”
“Well, I had one, too.” Urruah sighed. “I’m well enough stocked with spells: right up against the limit, I’d say. My head feels twice its normal size.”
Rhiow waved her tail in agreement. “We’ll have to spend a little time coordinating before we head down … make sure none of us are carrying duplicates.”
They made good time down through the park, heading to a level about even with the streets in the upper Sixties. There, a huge stage had been erected at the southern end of the big green space that city People called somewhat ironically Eiuev, the Veldt, and which ehhif called the Sheep Meadow. It wasn’t sheep milling around in it now, though, but what looked like about five hundred ehhif dealing with the technical and logistical end of preparing for a meeting of many thousands: cables and conduits being laid and shielded, scaffolding secured, sound systems tested. The squawks and hisses and feedback-howls of mispositioned speakers and other equipment had been echoing for blocks from the park since fairly early in the morning, making it sound as if a herd of large, clumsy, and very broken-voiced beasts were staggering around the place and banging into things. “They’re doing sound checks now, though,” Urruah said.
“Sound,” Rhiow said, wincing slightly at yet another yowl, “wouldn’t seem to be a problem.”
“No, that was accidental. It’ll be voices they’re checking, soon. Come on.”
They slipped close, behind one of the larger trees that stood at the bottom border of the meadow, and which was behind the security cordons still being erected, a maze of orange nylon webbing stretched from tree to tree. There were plenty of small openings in it so that Rhiow and Urruah had no trouble stepping through and making their way close to the stage, under one of the big scaffolding towers.
A great crowd of ehhif, in T-shirts and shirtsleeves, were already sitting around tuning their instruments, making a scraping and hooting cacophony that made Rhiow shake her head once or twice. “It’s the Metropolitan Opera’s orchestra, without the first chairs,” Urruah said.
Rhiow blinked, since all the chairs seemed to be there. “Smart of them to start early,” she said. “They’ll miss the heat.”
Urruah sighed. “I wish I could,” he said. In hot weather, the thickness of his coat often bothered him.
“So do a little wizardry,” Rhiow said. “Cool some of this wind down: keep a pocket of it for yourself.”
“Naah,” Urruah said. “Why waste the energy?… Look, it’s starting—”
Rhiow craned her neck as the musicians quieted down a little. The ehhif who appeared was not the one in the poster, though, but a short, round, curly-haired tom, who came to stand in front of the orchestra with a small stick or wand in his hand. Rhiow peered at that. “He’s not one of us, is he?”