Urruah blinked.“Let’s send Arhu to steal a newspaper.”
“There’s no need to steal anything,” Arhu muttered. “Theseehhifdrop their newspapers all over the place, besides pasting them up on boards near the newsagents.”
They walked out into George Street, sidled, and glanced around them with a little more sense of leisure than they had felt the last time, for this was after all their home universe: there was no reason to rush away from it. Rhiow looked across the street and saw that the Tower Underground station did not exist as yet. She listened, and the Whisperer told her that the worldgate complex was, at this point in its development, housed a little behind them, somewhere under the Fenchurch Street railway station.
“Maybe we should try to look up the local gating team,” Siffha’h said, glancing around her.
“Much as I wouldn’t mind being social with them,” Rhiow said, “I think we have other things to concentrate on at the moment. Is that one of your ‘newsagents’ down there, Arhu?”
“Yeah. Come on—”
He led them eastward as far as the oval of Trinity Square.“The mud’s sure the same,” Urruah said, with resignation.
“Yes, but at least there aren’t any crazed car drivers here,” Rhiow said. “Not that it’s that much of a consolation. They’ll come soon enough.”
In Trinity Square they paused by a little shop that had a board outside with many newspapers pinned up to it and ready to be torn off, like pages of a calendar.“Try that with the New YorkTimes,”Urruah murmured.
Rhiow put her whiskers forward at the thought. The group hung back, out of the way of theehhifmaking their way up and down the sidewalk, while Arhu went up to have a look at the newspaper.
He came trotting back with a satisfied expression.“April eighteenth, eighteen seventy-four.”
“All right,” Rhiow said. “A little early, but at least it’s the right year. Let’s go up to the British Museum and see ‘Black Jack’.”
It was a long walk, nearly a mile and a half. All of them were footsore and extremely dirty by the time they got there, for no one felt it wise to expend the wizardry needed for skywalking when there might be much more important business to be handled without notice. So they went as City cats would, though sidled: down Great Tower Hill into Great Tower Street and over into Eastcheap: down Cannon Street into the street called St Paul’s Churchyard, under the shadow of the massive dome of St Paul’s: up Ludgate Hill to Fleet Street, and then up Chancery Lane, northward to High Holborn and finally Bloomsbury Row. By the time they got to Museum Street, they were all hungry, and Auhlae looked at the mud on her beautiful fur, andmade a despairing face.
“I can’t wash like this,” she said, “I justcan’t.There’s no time, and—” She sighed, and said a few words under her breath in the Speech. The mud dried and went straight to powdery dust. She shook herself hard, and for a moment was in the center of a small chocolate-colored cloud. Then the dust settled, leaving her more or less the color she should have been.
“Now there’s a thought,” Rhiow said. “Auhlae, you’re a genius.”
A few moments later there were several chocolate-colored clouds, and somewhat cleaner People emerging from them.“Now I feel better,” Auhlae said, smoothing down the fur behind her ears. “I wouldn’t like to meet a Person of note looking like I just crawled out of a sewer …”
They walked in through the iron gates of the Museum, toward the noble main facade with its columns and Greek-style portico, all carved with what one might have taken at first forehhifgods until a better look revealed them to be allegorical figures discreetly labeled DRAMA and POETRY and PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE. They walked up the stairs and waited for someehhifto open the doors for them, a matter of a few seconds only: then they went through into the main entrance hall, and glanced up at the huge statue of anehhifwhich leaned there, looking out thoughtfully at the world.
“Who’s that?” Arhu said. “Another fake god?”
“It’s a great taleteller, dear,” Auhlae said, “one who told his stories a couple of hundred sunrounds ago, from this time anyway. Hsshah’ spheare, his name was.”
“Whether he’s that great,” said someone off to one side in the great echoing hall, “when the best-known mention he makes of our People is to suggest turning one of them in a frying pan, is a question yet to be resolved. But never mind that at the moment.”
They all turned to see a big,bigblack-and-white cat come pacing along the marble floor toward them. With his white bib and white feet, he gave the general impression of wearingehhifformal wear.“Welcome,” he said. “I’m glad to see you!”
“We’re on errantry, as you’ve guessed, having seen us sidled,” Rhiow said, “and we greet you very welclass="underline" we’ve come some way to see you. Do I have the honor of addressing ‘Black Jack’?”
The big handsome Person put his whiskers forward.“That’s how theehhifknow me: I suppose the name has got about by now. But you might more properly call me Ouhish, though, if you will. And I’m very glad to see you so soon: I hadn’t thought you could possibly turn up with such speed.”
Rhiow looked at Urruah and the others, then back at Ouhish.“I’m sorry. You say you sent for some wizards?”
“Yes,” Ouhish said.
“Well,” Urruah said, “we’re confused, now. We thought we came on business of our own. But we’ll be glad to help you in any way we can.”
“You’re saying youweren’tsent?” Ouhish said.
Rhiow paused for a moment, then laughed.“Oh, no. Wizards are always sent … one way or another. It’s just that the Powers that Be don’t always tell us that They’re doing it. Tell us your trouble, and we’ll do our best to assist you.”
“Well,” Ouhish said, “let’s go somewhere quiet where we can make introductions and get things sorted out. Will you follow me?” And he led them in through the pillared vestibule, and into the depths of the Museum.
It was a splendid place by any calculation,ehhifor feline. Rhiow had to keep reminding herself that much of the wonderful statuary and carving here was regarded as stolen or looted, though an earlier period’sehhif hadthought of what they were doing as“collection”: and violent arguments were still going on, she knew, about the proper home for some of the more beautiful and ancient artwork like the Elgin Marbles. But in the meantime, the stuff was here, and Rhiow told herself that it seemed poor-spirited not to enjoy looking at it if she had the chance.
There was little enough statuary to start with, for Ouhish led them on through the Inner Vestibule and the Room of Inscriptions, its walls all covered with writings from theehhifpeoples of old Greece and Rome, and straight into the Reading Room. In Rhiow’s time the British Museum’s library functions had all been moved to another building, bigger and some said better suited for the huge size of the collection as the twenty-first century approached: but many lamented the loss of the noble old domed Reading Room, still preserved, but no longer used for the purpose for which it had been intended. They walked through, now, into this place where for onceehhifwalked as quietly as cats, and Ouhish led them off to one of the corners of the room, what was called the“New Library”, a beautiful wood-paneled area stacked high with laddered bookcases and card catalogues.
They sat down under a quiet table in one corner, touched noses and breathed breaths, and introduced themselves.“Now tell us what your trouble is, and we’ll try to help you,” Rhiow said: but Ouhish would have none of it, and insisted that they tell their story first.
Urruah lifted his eyebrows.“This is going to be complicated,” he said, but he began to lay out their business for Ouhish as clearly as he could. There was no prohibition against telling other People, in the line of errantry, that you were time-traveling: but naturally you would work hard to keep from telling them anything inappropriate, anything that would hurt them in their own lives, or tempt them to hurt others. Urruah spoke for about ten minutes, choosing his details with care, and at the end of it, Ouhish tucked himself down and looked at them all with astonishment.