Rhiow threw a meaningful look at the bowl full of reeking tuna, but it was lost on Iaehh: he was halfway out the door already. It clicked shut, and one after another came more clicks as he locked the other locks.
“Plumptious” again. Is he trying to say I’m putting on weight? Hmm.
Rhiow sighed, finished her wash, and went out her own door, into the warm, ozony air, heading for the rooftops. *
Half an hour later she caught up with Urruah at the Bear Gate to Central Park. There were actually two sets of statues there—one of three bears, one of three deer—but from the predator’s point of view, it was naturally the bears that mattered.
“ ’Luck,” Rhiow said, as they breathed one another’s breath. “Oh, Urruah, not more MhHonalh’s!”
He wrinkled his face a little, an annoyed expression.“I thought I got all the tartar sauce off that fish thing first.”
“All this fried food … it’s going to catch up with you one day.”
“Youshould talk. What kind of oil are they packing that tuna cat food in? Smells like it comes out of somebody’s crankcase.”
Rhiow thought privately that, for all she knew, he was right… They walked into the park, heading southward along the broad paved expanse of its roadway loop, staying well to one side to miss theehhif onRollerblades and theehhifwith strollers.“You sleep well last night?”
“Considering where we’re going today?” Urruah said. “What doyouthink? … I kept hearing Saash dreaming all night. Her nerves are in shreds.”
Rhiow sighed.“I missed that. Guess my little chat with the Whisperer tired me out.”
“Well, I had one, too.” Urruah sighed. “I’m well enough stocked with spells: right up against the limit, I’d say. My head feels twice its normal size.”
Rhiow waved her tail in agreement.“We’ll have to spend a little time coordinating before we head down … make sure none of us are carrying duplicates.”
They made good time down through the park, heading to a level about even with the streets in the upper Sixties. There, a huge stage had been erected at the southern end of the big green space that city People called somewhat ironicallyEiuev,the Veldt, and whichehhifcalled the Sheep Meadow. It wasn’t sheep milling around in it now, though, but what looked like about five hundredehhif dealing with the technical and logistical end of preparing for a meeting of many thousands: cables and conduits being laid and shielded, scaffolding secured, sound systems tested. The squawks and hisses and feedback-howls of mispositioned speakers and other equipment had been echoing for blocks from the park since fairly early in the morning, making it sound as if a herd of large, clumsy, and very broken-voiced beasts were staggering around the place and banging into things.“They’re doing sound checks now, though,” Urruah said.
“Sound,” Rhiow said, wincing slightly at yet another yowl, “wouldn’t seem to be a problem.”
“No, that was accidental. It’ll be voices they’re checking, soon. Come on.”
They slipped close, behind one of the larger trees that stood at the bottom border of the meadow, and which was behind the security cordons still being erected, a maze of orange nylon webbing stretched from tree to tree. There were plenty of small openings in it so that Rhiow and Urruah had no trouble stepping through and making their way close to the stage, under one of the big scaffolding towers.
A great crowd ofehhif,in Tshirts and shirtsleeves, were already sitting around tuning their instruments, making a scraping and hooting cacophony that made Rhiow shake her head once or twice.“It’s the Metropolitan Opera’s orchestra, without the first chairs,” Urruah said.
Rhiow blinked, since all the chairs seemed to be there.“Smart of them to start early,” she said. “They’ll miss the heat.”
Urruah sighed.“I wish I could,” he said. In hot weather, the thickness of his coat often bothered him.
“So do a little wizardry,” Rhiow said. “Cool some of this wind down: keep a pocket of it for yourself.”
“Naah,” Urruah said. “Why waste the energy?… Look, it’s starting—”
Rhiow craned her neck as the musicians quieted down a little. Theehhif whoappeared was not the one in the poster, though, but a short, round, curly-haired tom, who came to stand in front of the orchestra with a small stick or wand in his hand. Rhiow peered at that.“He’s not one ofus,is he?”
Urruah stared at him.“The conductor? Not that I know.” He cocked his head to one side, briefly listening to the Whisperer, and then said, “No, she says not. —Here he comes!”
On the stage above the musicians, a big burly figure appeared, also in a shortsleeved shirt and dark pants. Rhiow supposed that asehhifwent, he was handsome enough; he had a surprising amount of facial fur. He stepped up to the front of the stage, exchanged a few words with the small roundehhif:there was some subdued shuffling and tapping of bows on strings among the musicians.
The small roundehhifmade a suggestion, and the largerehhif nodded,stepped back to find his right position on the stage. For a few moments there was more howling and crackling of the sound system; then quiet The conductor-ehhif raisedhis wand.
Music started. It sounded strange to Rhiow, but then mostehhif music did.Urruah, though, had all his attention fixed on the bigehhif,who suddenly began to sing.
The volume was surprising, even without mechanical assistance: Urruah had been right about that, at least. Rhiow listened to about a minute’s worth of it, then said to Urruah, low, “So tell me: what’s he yowling about?”
“The song’s called‘Nessun dorma.’It means that no one’s going to sleep.”
“Withthatnoise,” Rhiow said, “I could understand why not…”
“Oh, come on, Rhi,” said Urruah, “give it a chance. Listen to it.”
Rhiow sighed, and did. The harmonies were strange to feline ears and didn’t seem to want to resolve correctly; she suspected no amount of listening was likely to change that perception soon, for her anyway. But at least her knowledge of the Speech made meaning available to her, if nothing else, as the man stood and sang with passion approaching a tom’s of his hope and desire, alone here under the starlight…When the stars’ light faded and the dawn rose up, he sang, then he would conquer… though at the moment, who or what would be conquered wasn’t quite clear: the song itself hadn’t yet provided much context. Perhaps some other tom? There did seem to be a she-ehhifinvolved, to whom this tom sang—though there was no sign of her at the moment, she being out of sight in the story, or the reality, or both. That at least was tomlike enough: an empty place, the lonely silent night to fill with song, whether or not there was any chance of fulfillment.Or perhaps,Rhiow thought as he sang,it’s the she herself, the one he woos, that he’s intending to conquer.If there was more intended to the conquest than just sex, though, the thought made Rhiow smile a little. Toms who tried domination or other such maneuvers with their mates too soon after the act itself got nothing but ragged ears and aching heads for their trouble.
It was a little odd, actually, to hear such power and passion come from someone standing still on a bare stage, holding, not a she, but only a piece of cloth in one hand, which he kept using to wipe his face. He paused a moment, and behind him the recorded voices of some otherehhifsang sweetly but mournfully that he and they might all very well be dead in the morning if hedidn’tconquer… Yet the tom-ehhifsang on with assurance and power, answering them fearlessly; his last note, amplified rather beyond need, made Rhiow put her ears down flat for the loudness of it rather than the tone, which was blindingly true, and went on for longer than seemed possible with even such a big chest’s breath. Rhiow was almost unwillingly held still by the long, cried note at the end of the conquer-word,vinceeeeeeeerrro!as if by teeth in her scruff; alien as the sound was, any cat-tom who had a voice of such power would rightly have had his choice of shes.