His eyes went wide.“Uh, sure,” he said.
He went away with great speed, Rhiow didn’t know where: nor did she care at the moment. “All right, Fhrio,” Rhiow said. “I’m tired of hearing it in the background, or unsaid. Get on with it and say what you have to say.”
He stared at her, his ears back.“I don’t like him around here,” Fhrio said after a moment. “Or the other one. There are too many toms around here as it is. Huff and I have about worked things out. We’re all right together, if not precisely in-pride. Butthosetwo! Him, with his big balls hanging out, leering at Auhlae. And him, with his little balls hanging out, just a furry little bundle of drool and hope and hormones, leering at Siffha’h. They both give me the pip … and the sooner they’re out of here the better I’ll like it.”
“Well,” Rhiow said, and nearly bit her tongue, she could think of so many things to say, and so few of them appropriate. “Thank you for letting me know. In Urruah’s case, he’s always been one for appreciating the queens, though in Auhlae’s case, he knows she’s mated and happily so, and you’re completely mistaken about his intentions toward her. If you don’t believe another wizard telling you so, then you’ll have to go have it out with him … afterIfinish with you. For the second time, that is, after I extract from your hide the price of calling the competence of one of my teammates into question, and for suggesting that I might agree with you in your assessment. And as for Arhu, whatever business he has with Siffha’h is theirs to determine, not yours or mine: she’s her own queen now, no matter what your opinions on the matter may be. What you think of that stance is your business … but if you meddle with a young wizard under my protection, I will shred your hide myself, and see if you have the nerve to do anything about it. So beware how you conduct yourself.”
Fhrio stared at her as if she had suddenly appeared out of the air from another planet.“Meanwhile,” Rhiow said, “I intend to do my job to the best of my ability, no matter how pointlessly annoying I find you. You seem to be doing your job … marginally. But if you can’t manage your reactions to my team a little more completely, I’ll require Huff to remove you from this intervention … which is within my rights as leader of a senior gating team sent on consultation. Then we’ll bring in as a replacement someone less talented, perhaps, but a little more committed to not damaging the other wizards whom the Powers have sent to save this situation … and, entirely incidentally,you.Now take yourself away until Huff comes back, and be glad I’ve left your ears where Iau put them, instead of so far down your throat they’ll make bumps in your tail.”
He stared at her without a word, and after a long moment he turned away.
Rhiow sat down and licked her nose four times in a row, feeling hot under her fur: furious with herself, furious with Fhrio, and just generally very upset. She was bristling, and her claws itched, and she was mortified.I hate being this way,she thought. Ihatehavingto be this way. I hate having to pull rank. Oh, Iau, did I do wrong?
The Queen was silent on this subject, as on so many others. Rhiow breathed out and tried to get control of herself again. She was so busy concentrating on this that she didn’t notice when Siffha’h came in and jumped into the circle beside her.
“I said, are you all right?” Siffha’h said.
“Oh. I will be shortly,” Rhiow said. “Thanks for checking.” Siffha’h had straightened up and was now staring across the platform. Rhiow glanced that way to see what was there. It was Arhu. He was staring back. For a long few moments it held: then, to Rhiow’s surprise, it was Arhu who lowered his eyes first and looked away.
Rhiow jumped out of the circle and meandered over to where Arhu was, and sat down by him, and started composure-washing with a vengeance. Under cover of this, she said very quietly to Arhu, a little exasperated,“Whatisit with you two?”
“She hates me,” Arhu said.
Urruah reappeared, sat down beside them, and started to wash as well.“But she has no reason to,” Rhiow said.
“Sheseems to think she does.”
Rhiow blinked at that.“How do you know?”
“I see it.”
Urruah glanced up briefly at that.“This is new,” he said.
“I’m seeing a lot of things since I went flying with Odin,” Arhu said. “It’s as if seeing a new way to See has made some kind of difference. It’s happening more often, for one thing.”
“So what did you See about her?”
“It’s nothing specific. In fact, once I tried to See, on purpose, and—” He shrugged his tail. “Just nothing. Like she was blocking me somehow.”
“How would she do that?” Urruah said, mystified. “I wouldn’t have thought there was any way to block vision.”
“I wonder if she’d discuss it,” Rhiow said.
“Oh, try that by all means,” Urruah said. “But bring a new pair of ears.”
Rhiow sighed. It would have to wait. Auhlae jumped back up onto the platform, followed by Huff.“Are we ready?” Huff said.
“Absolutely,” said Rhiow, and got up to meet him by the timeslide. “I take it our first priority is the pastlings—sweeping them up, if we can, and confining them all safe in one place.”
“That’s Fhrio’s plan,” said Huff. “Where is he?”
“Here, Huff,” said Fhrio, and came up from the end of the platform to join them.
“Arhu? Urruah? Let’s go,” said Huff.
They paced over and leapt into the timeslide-circle, taking their positions. Siffha’h put herself down on the power point and glanced up at Fhrio.
He hooked a claw into the spell-tracery which would handle the“sweep” routine. “Half a breath,” he said. And then: “It’s ready. Standing by—”
“Now,” said Siffha’h, and reared up, and put her forepaws down hard.
Rhiow blinked … or thought she had. Then she realized it was the spell doing it for her. There was no physical sensation to this transit any more than there usually was from crossing through a gate: but the view flickered and flickered again, showing brief vistas of fluorescent-lit rooms, shockedehhiffaces, and assorted machinery scattered about. Every now and then, the spell would pause a little longer as it tried to determine whether some particularly ancientehhif fit the criteria for which it had been instructed to search; then it would move on, almost hurriedly, as if to make up for lost time.Blink, blink, blink,the vistas of people in white came and went—
—And suddenly, there was someone with them in the circle. He was a sorry-lookingehhifindeed, with longish black hair and a hospital gown, and he was looking at them all with dopy astonishment while he rubbed the wrists which were suddenly no longer restrained. He opened his mouth, possibly to shout for help at the sight of seven cats in a circle of light, but Fhrio slipped one paw under one of the control lines of the spell, and theehhiffroze just that way, staring, with his mouth open.
“It’s going to start getting crowded in here,” Rhiow said, unable to resist being at least a little amused.Blink, blink, blink, blink,went the spell, and she had to start keeping her eyes closed; the effect was rather disturbing, for it was starting to go faster and faster.How many hospitals does this city have, anyway?Rhiow thought.
It had quite a few, and they got to visit about eight more of them before yet anotherehhif,a tall handsome woman in a borrowed nightshirt, found herself standing in the circle. Rhiow could tell that the nightgown was borrowed, since no one from the last century was really that likely to own a nightshirt featuring a picture of a famous gorilla climbing up the Empire State Building. The woman took one look at the cats in the circle, and opened her mouth to scream.
She too froze, and outside the timeslide, theblink blink blinkstarted again. The center of the circle began filling withehhif,all still as statuary by some eccentric artist, some dressed, some not very, all looking like people who have been through a great deal in a short time.