“Oh, not today” Rhiow muttered. “Come on, Saash, we’ve got to do something, that gate won’t wait—!”
“Tell him,” Saash said, dry-voiced, as the unfortunate houff and its rider came plunging toward them. Urruah’s eyes were wide, his mouth was wide as he yowled, and he had both front pawfuls of claws anchored in the houff’s collar, or maybe in its upper neck behind its ears; his back claws kicked and scrabbled as if he thought he’d caught a rabbit, and was trying to remove its insides in the traditional manner. The dog continued to howl, jump, and turn in circles, and still couldn’t rid himself of his tormentor: the howls were more of pain than fear, now. Urruah grinned like an idiot, yowling some wordless nonsense for sheer effect.
Rhiow saw one of the security guards pull out his gun. He wouldn’t be so stupid—I she thought. But some ehhif were profoundly stupid by feline standards, and one might take what he thought was a safe shot at the cat tormenting his guard dog, even if he stood an even chance of hitting the dog instead.
She glanced at the scaffolding above the group of ehhif. “Saash,” Rhiow said. “That bucket.”
Saash followed her glance. “I see it. In front of the Dumpster?”
“That’s the spot.” Rhiow turned her attention to Urruah and the houff.
An almighty crash came from just in front of the second Dumpster. The bucket full of wet cement-sand had come down directly in front of the security guard with the gun. He jumped back, yelling with surprise and fear at being splattered, as the other ehhif did; then spun, looking upward for the source of the trouble. There was no one there, of course. Several of the men, including the second security guard, disappeared into the construction site; the man with the gun stood staring upward.
Rhiow, meantime, waited until the houff was within clear hearing range—she didn’t want to have to shout. As it lurched closer to the car where she and Saash sat, Rhiow chose her moment… then said the six syllables of the ahou’ffriw. It was not a word she spoke often, though part of the general knowledge of a feline in her line of work. Sidled as she was, Rhiow could see the word take flight like one of the hunting birds that worked the high city, arrowing at the houff. The word of command struck straight through the creature, as it had been designed to do when the houff themselves were designed; struck all its muscles stiff, froze the thoughts in its brain and the intended movements in its nerves. The houff crashed to the concrete and lay there on its side, its tongue hanging out, its eyes glazed. Urruah went down with it, and after a moment extricated himself and got up, looking confused.
“I don’t know about you,” Rhiow said softly—and Urruah’s head jerked up at the sound—“but we’re on callout this morning. You had some different business, maybe? The Powers That Be suggested you take the morning off to beat up defenseless houff?”
Urruah squinted to see her better. “Oh, ’luck, Rhiow.”
“ ’Luck is what none of us are going to have if you don’t pull yourself together,” Rhiow said. “Come on. We’ve got ten blocks to make before twenty-three after.”
“Long-jump it,” Urruah said, stepping down off the houff.
“No,” Rhiow said. “No point in throwing away power like that, when we may have something major to do in a few minutes. Get sidled and come on.” She jumped down from the car: Saash followed.
They crossed the street and went on down Lexington again: Urruah first, sidled now, and taking it easy for the moment; then Saash. Rhiow paused just for a moment to look over her shoulder at the houff. He was staggering to his feet again, looking groggy but relieved.
Good, Rhiow thought. She went after the others and caught up with Saash first. “That was slick,” she said, “with the bucket.”
“It was in a bad position to start with. Pull a string or so, change the bucket’s moment of inertia—” Saash shrugged one ear back and forward, casual, but she smiled.
Rhiow did, too, then trotted forward to catch up with Urruah. “Now,” she said, more affably, “you tell me what all that was about.”
He strolled along for a moment without answering. Rhiow was tempted to clout him, but it would be a waste of energy, and it really was difficult being annoyed for long at so good-looking a young tom, at least when he was behaving himself. Urruah was only two and a half, having passed his Ordeal and started active practice a year ago. He was good at what he did, and was pleased with himself, on both professional and physical counts: a big, burly, sturdy tabby, silver and black, with silver-gray eyes, a voice all purr, some very ornamental scars, and a set of the biggest, sharpest, whitest teeth that Rhiow could remember seeing on one of the People in several lives. She occasionally wondered, when Urruah pulled dumb stunts like this, whether those teeth went straight up into his skull and filled most of it, leaving less room for sense.
“That houff,” Urruah said, as they crossed Fifty-second, “took my mouse.”
“Wait a minute,” Saash said. “You’re trying to tell us that you actually caught a mouse, when there was all that perfectly good MhHonalh’s food in the Dumpster?”
Urruah gave Saash a scathing look. Saash simply blinked at him, refusing to accept delivery on the scorn, and kept on walking. “It was a terrific mouse,” Urruah said. “It was one of those bold ones: it kept jumping and trying to bite me in the face. I was going to let it go after a while: you have to respect that kind of defiance! And then that miserable ehhif shows up at shift-change and lets his houff off the chain where they keep the thing all night, and it comes running out of there, jumps into the street practically on top of me, and eats my mouse! Must have a lot of wolf in it or something. But what would you have done?”
“Not ride it down the street and nearly get myself shot,” Rhiow said dryly. “Or the poor houff. A good slapping around would have been plenty. And do you really expect a houff to mind People’s manners? It didn’t know any better. But that ehhif’s reckless with the houff. And it must have been awfully hungry. I wonder what can be done about your poor mouse-eater…”
“Not our problem,” Urruah said as they crossed Fifty-first.
“Everything in this city is our problem,” Rhiow said, “as you know very well. I’d say you owe that houff a favor, now; you overreacted. Better arrange a meeting with one of our people on the houff side and see what can be done about him. I’ll expect a report tomorrow.”
Urruah growled under his breath, but Rhiow put her ears back at him. “Business, Urruah,” she said. “There’s work waiting for us. Put yourself aside and get ready to do what you were made to.”
He sighed, and after a half a block his whiskers went forward again. “Tell me it’s the northside gate again.”
Rhiow grimaced. “Of course it is.”
“Somebody did an out-of-hours access,” Saash said, “and left it misaligned.”
“The substrates still hinged?”
“Hard to tell from just the notification, but I hope so. If we go in prepared to do a subjunctive restring—”