And they were off, several sentences deep into gate-management jargon before the three of them crossed Fiftieth. Rhiow sighed. Saash and Urruah might have frictions, but the technical details of their work fascinated them both, and while they had a problem to solve they usually managed to avoid taking their claws to one another. It was before work, and after, that difficulties set in; fortunately, the team’s relationship was strictly a professional one, and no rule said they had to be friends. For her own part, Rhiow mostly concentrated on balancing Saash and Urruah off against one another so that the team got its work done without claws-out transactions or murder.
Just south of the southwest corner of Fiftieth and Lex was then: way down into Grand Central. Outside the delicatessen on the corner, a street grating that covered the west-side ventilation shaft was damaged, leaving room enough to squeeze through without mussing one’s fur. They slipped down through it, Urruah first, then Saash and Rhiow, and followed the downward incline of the concrete shaft for a few yards until they were out of sight of the street. All of them paused to let their eyes settle, now blessedly relieved of the bright sunlight. The dimness around them began to be more clearly stitched and striated with the thin radiance of strings, properly separate now, and their colors distinct rather than blindingly run together.
“Smells awful down here today,” Saash said, wrinkling her nose.
“Just your delicate sensibilities,” Urruah said, grinning. “Or the flea powder.”
Saash lifted a paw to cuff him, but Rhiow shouldered between them. “Not now. Your eyes better? Then, let’s go on.”
The concrete-walled shaft was four feet wide and no more than two feet high, low enough to make you keep your tail down as you went. It stretched for about thirty feet ahead before turning off westward at a right angle, where it stopped. Under the end of the shaft was a concrete ledge, much eroded from waste water dripping down it, and below that, a drop of some ten feet to the “back yard,” the northeastern bank of sidings where locomotives and loose cars were kept when the East Yard was congested with trains being moved.
One after another they jumped down, avoiding the eternal puddle of water that lay stagnant under the shaft-opening in all but the driest weather. In the darkness the clutter and tangle of strings was more visible than ever, and many of them were pulled curving over to a spot between Tracks 25 and 26, blossoming outward from it in all directions like a diagram of a black hole’s event horizon. That particular nodal symmetry meant an open worldgate, and was the signature of Rhiow’s business and her team’s. With worldgates in place and working properly, wizards out on errands didn’t have to spend their own precious energy on rapid transit to get where the Powers That Be assigned them. Without working gates, solutions to crises were slowed down, lives were hurt or untimely ended, and the heat-death of the Universe progressed unchecked or sometimes sped up.That was what all those in the team’s line of work were sworn to stop; and moments like this, as Rhiow stood and eyed the incredible mess and tangle of malfunctioning strings, made her wonder why they all kept trying when things kept going this spectacularly wrong.
The strings curving in to the nodal junction shivered with light and with the faintest possible sound, as if all being plucked at once. And the curvature wasn’t symmetricaclass="underline" there should have been a matching “outward” curvature to complement the “inward” one. Taken together, the signs meant an unstable gate, which might shift phase, mode, or location without warning. “Time?” Rhiow said.
’Twenty after,” Saash said.
They sprinted through the darkness, across the tracks. Though even a cat’s eyes take time to adjust to sudden darkness, they had the advantage of knowing their ground; they were down here three times a week, sometimes more, slipping so skillfully among the tracks and buildings that they were seldom seen. Urruah went charging ahead, delighted as always by a challenge and a chance to show off; Rhiow was astonished to see him suddenly stumble as he came down from a jump over track. Something squealed as he fell on it.
“Irh’s balls,” he yowled, “it’s rats! Rats!”
More squeals went up. Rhiow spat with disgust, for the rats were all over the place, like a loathsome carpet: she’d been so intent on the gate that they hadn’t even registered until she ran right into them. Some rats now panicked and ran off shrieking down the tunnels, but for every three that ran, one stayed to try to slash your leg or ear.
Rhiow prided herself on having a fast and heavy paw when she needed it, and she needed it now. She disliked using the killing bite until she was sure the thing being bitten couldn’t bite her back in the lip or the eye: the only way to be sure was to crush skulls and break backs first, so she got busy doing that, hitting wildly around her. Up ahead of her, Urruah was yowling delight and rage, and rats flew from every stroke. But Saash, Rhiow thought in sudden concern. She’s no fighter. What if—
She looked over to the left. Saash was crouched down, her eyes gone so wide that they were just black pools with a glint of rim; a rat nearly her own size was crouched in front of her, preparing to jump. Saash opened her mouth and hissed at it.
The rat blew up.
And here I was worrying, Rhiow thought, both revolted and impressed. “Saash,” she shouted over the squeals and the cracking of bones, heading after Urruah, “can you extend the range on that spell? We don’t have time for this!”
Saash shook herself to get the worst of the former rat off her, hissed, and spat. “Yes,” she said. “Believe me, I’d have had it ready for numbers if I’d known! Give me a moment—”
She crouched again, looking intent, and Rhiow concentrated on defending her. The rats were coming faster now, as if they knew something bad was about to happen. Rhiow felt the bite in her tail, another in her leg, and struck out all around her in a momentary fury that she knew she couldn’t maintain for long. “Urruah,” she yelled, “for the Dam’s sake get your mangy butt back here and lend us a paw!”
The answer was a yowl that was actually cheerful in a horrible way. A moment later Rhiow could see him working back toward them by virtue of an empty space around him that moved as he moved. Rats would rush into it, but they wouldn’t rush out: they went down, skulls smashed or backs broken. Once Rhiow saw Urruah reach down with that idiot grin, grab a rat perfectly in the killing-bite spot at the base of the skull, and whip around him with the thing’s whole body, bludgeoning away the other rodents coming at him. It was disgusting, and splendid.
Urruah jumped right over Rhiow, turned in midair, and came down tail-to-tail with her. Together they struck at the writhing squealing forms all around, while between them Saash scowled at the dirty gravelly ground, with her eyes half-shut. “Nervous breakdown?” Urruah yelled between blows.
Rhiow was too busy to hit him. Saash ignored him completely. A moment later, she lifted her head, slit-eyed, and hissed.
Rhiow went flat-eared and slack-jawed at the piercing sound, more like a train’s air-brakes than anything from a tiny cat’s throat. Urruah fell over sideways as the force of it struck him. From all around them came many versions of a loathsome popping sound, like a car running over a sealed plastic bag full of liver. Everyone got sprayed with foul-smelling muck.
Silence fell. Saash got up and ran toward the track onto which the gate had slid down. Rhiow went after, followed by Urruah when he struggled to his feet. The fur rose on Rhiow’s back as they went, not just from the itch of closeness to the patent gate. From back in the upper-level tunnel came a rumbling, and the tracks ticked in sympathy: the single white eye of the 6:23’s headlight was sliding toward them.