“How do you mean?” Auhlae said.
“The war,” said Mr… Illingworth, and now his voice started to sound mournful. “What use in being the mightiest nation on the globe when we must be bombed for the privilege? There was a time when no one dared lift a hand to us. But now our enemies have gathered together and grown bold, and London itself is prey …”
At that Auhlae looked sharply at Fhrio. Fhrio’s eyes were wide.Bombed?he said silently, to her and the others.London hasn’t been bombed for fifty years.
“When did this start?” Auhlae said, and for all her attempts to keep her voice soothing, her alarm came through.
“A year or so ago,” said Mr… Illingworth wearily. “There were troubles before then … but nothing like the crisis we face now.” And much to Rhiow’s surprise, theehhifput his face down in his hands.“Not since the Queen died …”
The Queen?Urruah said then, pausing in his work with the gate. What’s he talking about?
“ ‘The Queen’? Which queen?” Auhlae said.
Theehhiflookedup again, and looked around him with a much less fuzzy air: Rhiow felt his blood pressure start spiking again.“How can you not know about the great tragedy,” Mr… Illingworth said, “for which a whole nation mourns, and at which the whole world looked on amazed? Only spies would pretend not to know how the Queen-Empress was assassinated, treacherously killed by—” He started to struggle to his feet.
Rhiow clamped the spell down on him, shorting out the neurotransmitter chemistry servicing his voluntary musculature, but being careful to avoid his lungs. Still theehhifgasped, though he couldn’t struggle, and his fear began to grow. “Let me go!’ he said loudly, and then started to shout, “Spies! Traitors! Let me go!Police!”
The sound of that cry could be kept from being heard, of course, but Rhiow had other concerns.Auhlae,she said silently,there’s no point in this. It takes doing for anehhifto frighten itself to death, but this one’s pretty emotionally labile: he might be able to do it. And he’s been under a lot of stress—
You’re right,Auhlae said.Better put him to sleep.
Rhiow reached into the spell and spoke to theehhif’s brain chemistry. A moment later his eyes closed, and his head sagged slightly, though he did not move otherwise: she kept the hold on his muscles, just for safety’s sake.
“ ‘Bombed’?” Urruah said then.
“One moment,” Rhiow said. “Urruah, how’s the gate?”
“Locked open but nonpatent, like Auhlae said.”
“Have you got a time fix on the opening?”
“Not yet. The congruency with our present timeframe isnotone-to-one, Rhi. The spatiotemporal coordinate readings I’m getting at the moment are not meshing in direct line with our own.” Rhiow twitched at the sound of that, for she thought she knew what he meant … and she didn’t like it. “Additionally, I think something’s been fretting at the gate from the other side while it’s been doing these ‘rogue’ openings … unraveling it. The unraveling’s been starting to manifest itself on this side now …” He put his whiskers back. “And I’m almost afraid to fix it. That might warn whoever’s doing the unraveling, send them under cover …”
I’d wait and talk to Huff about it,Rhiow said silently to him.This is getting to be a jurisdictional matter, and I don’t want to …She glanced in Fhrio’s direction.
Understood,Urruah said.But if something sudden happens, we’re going to have to intervene in the situation’s best interest, no matter what local opinion might be…
Rhiow waved her tail in agreement, though the prospect made her nervous: Urruah went back to“reading” the gate, letting the information in the string configuration sing down through his claws and into his nerves and brain. “Auhlae,” Rhiow said aloud, “you managed enough rapport with him to get a name: could you get in there and find out more?”
Auhlae shook herself.“Names are easy,” she said, somewhat distressed. “They’re so near the surface, in any sentient being. But abstract information is a lot harder to get at, out of species. You know howehhifminds look and feel inside: the imagery’s all wrong, the language is bizarre and the mindset is stranger still … I’m no expert inehhif psychologies: I’ll get lost in there as readily as anyone else. And anyway, I can’t do anything useful while our Mr… Illingworth’s unconscious. If hewasconscious, I could go in, all right, but I couldn’t be sure I was getting the information absolutely correct. And if we’re hearing from thisehhifwhat Ithinkwe’re hearing—”
“If you think you’re hearing evidence of an alternate timeline,” Urruah said, “then I think you’re right. Leaving aside all the other things he mentioned, most of which I don’t understand, I do know that London hasn’t been bombed recently … and it certainly was never bombed whenehhifwore clothes like that.”
Rhiow suddenly became aware of Arhu looking over her shoulder, most intently, at Illingworth.“He’s the unravelling,” Arhu said softly. “Or a symptom of it: concrete rather than abstract. It’s not a process that’s finished yet. But if something’s not done soon …”
“Hold that thought,” Rhiow said. “Don’t lose it, whatever you do.”
“Oh, certainly,” Fhrio said suddenly, sounding very annoyed. “Encourage him. He’s been enough trouble already.”
“Look,” Arhu said, turning, “I tried to tell you—”
“No,youlook.” Fhrio leaned close to Arhu and stared at him straight on: leaned over him stiff-necked and tall, the classic posture of the threatening tom. “You may think that you’ve done us a favor by causing this incursion, but who knows if it’s anything to do with the problems we’ve been having? AllIsee is that you’ve made a sweet mess of things. Don’t youevertouch my gate again unless I specifically tell you to. You hear me? You come in here thinking you’re sovhai’dsmart, and you tamper with things that you don’t—”
Arhu was staring right back at Fhrio, and his ears were back: he hadn’t given an inch, and his lips were beginning to wrinkle away from his teeth. Urruah was looking on dispassionately.Oh, dear Dam around us,Rhiow thought,pleasedon’tlet Arhu—
“Now what in the worlds,” said another voice down the tunnel. Heads turned. A moment later Huff jumped up onto the platform, and looked at the bizarre tableau before him: the half-sitting, frozenehhif,Urruah once again up to his armpits in the hyperstrings of the gate, Siffha’h sitting on the power junction and washing nonchalantly, Auhlae and Rhiow looking on in bemusement and distress: and Fhrio and Arhu.
Fhrio turned and glared at Huff, his ears still back.“Well, about time you got back here! While you’ve been off having one of your little catnaps, your precious importedvhai’d ‘senior gating team’ has—”
“Fhrio,”said Huff. Fhrio subsided, and sat down, though his ears stayed flat.
Huff sat down too.“For one thing, I was not having a catnap, much as I would have liked to be. I was off having a talk about this gate with Hni’hho.” Rhiow immediately recognized this as the name of the present Senior Wizard for Western Europe, anehhifliving just across the water in one of the low countries near the sea.“And for another, I think you may owe Rhiow and her team an apology. They were brought here to produce the results. They are apparently producing them—” and he flicked a glance over at the wretched unconsciousehhif—“whether you like them or not. We were specifically instructed to expect a‘somewhat unorthodox technique’. Or weren’t you listening to Her?”