It was Aufwi’s turn to laugh, then. “Sure,” he said, and reared up on his haunches, reaching up to the downhanging gateweave –
Something kicked the world, hard.
At least that was Rhiow’s first sense of what was happening. It was like being in a building that had been hit by a truck. But they were not in a building, and there were no trucks, and the shock nevertheless went right up through her legs and jolted her so that she nearly fell over where she stood. Half in panic, she staggered and tried to get back her balance, staring around at the others. Arhu and Siff’hah were crowded together, half supporting each other, their ears back and all their fur standing on end: Urruah’s tail was fluffed out to easily five times its normal size: Jath’s eyes were so wide that Rhiow thought they were going to pop out of his head. “What in the Queen’s Name was that?” Rhiow said, shaking all over as she managed to stand upright again.
“Only a little one,” Aufwi said. Not only had he not fallen over, he was still up on his haunches with his claws in the gate’s strings: as she watched, he pulled out the “master function” hyperstring and twisted it until the weave of the gate faded to nearly nothing in the bright air, signaling its deactivated mode. “No problem.”
Rhiow’s eyes went wide. “That was an earthquake? A little earthquake? Powers that Be preserve us from a big one!”
“That’s what we’re working on,” Aufwi said. The sheerly unruffled quality of his demeanor astonished her. He gets nervous about being yowled at a little, but the world moves under him and he shrugs his tail? Rhiow thought. “Seriously, Rhiow, that one wasn’t bad. I’d make it no more than, oh, a four point five.” His face was as casual as that of a Person asked to rate a given brand of People food. “These little short-sharp-shock ones are no big deaclass="underline" one bang and it’s all over. You want a quake, you want one of the ones where the ground sort of rolls underneath you, the ones with the big transverse waves–”
“I do not want them,” Rhiow said, “any of them, thank you very much!” She looked all around her. “I thought I heard some things falling–”
“Oh, sometimes a piece of stucco’ll fall off down here,” Aufwi said. “But not much more. The ehhif who built these houses, they were smart – they knew what they were dealing with. Nothing more than a storey or two high, small windows, long low buildings that hug the ground so there’s not so far to fall–”
“They’ll have felt this where the buildings are a lot taller,” Urruah said, glancing westward to where the towers and spires of “downtown” Los Angeles rose.
Aufwi put his head to one side, listening to the Whisperer.“No serious damage,” he said after a moment. “Some cracks in walls, some minor injuries from things falling on People or ehhif. And things look all right around here.” He looked up at the bright sky, waved his tail. “’Just another day in Paradise…’”
Rhiow had her doubts that this was anything like Timeheart, either the ehhif version or her own, if such occurrences were commonplace. And without warning, the hair stood up all over her again. Oh, stop that, what’s the matter with me today –
Something kicked the world again: and this time, the kick felt much harder. Rhiow’s heart felt like it was seizing inside her. Knowing what was happening wasn’t making the experience any easier to deal with: it was making it worse. Rhiow wanted to yowl in terror, and barely managed to restrain herself as she staggered for balance. Iau Queen of Everything, help me hang on —
“Aftershock – !” Aufwi said, as Rhiow and the others tried to keep from falling over. “Don’t worry, only four point one or so that time – “
In front of them, the near-invisible gate shivered all over like the back of a Person who’d been bitten by a flea. The gate’s weft writhed, puckered, writhed again –
Someone came through and fell to the ground.
They all stared.
It was a Person. He was black all over, nearly as black as Rhiow, but exposure to much sun or the natural cast of his coat was letting all the usually-concealed tabby markings show through the darkness of the fur. He was dusty and rather thin, a long-faced, long-legged tom with tilted brass-yellow eyes.“Oh, thank Iau,” he said, gasping as if with exertion as he picked himself up, “I got it right. I didn’t want to keep you waiting. I didn’t, did I? There’s no time to lose – “
He had the air of a Person hanging on with every claw to keep himself from going frantic. His tongue went in and out over his nose three or four times in a row as he tried to get his composure, staring around him.“But it’s really going to be all right now,” the tom said then, looking from one to another of them, and last of all his eyes came to rest on Rhiow. “I made it. I’m here. I’m on errantry, and in need and haste I greet you – “
It was a form of the Avedictory that Rhiow had only rarely heard used— the one meant to convey utmost urgency. “Cousin,” she said, “tell us your name, and tell us how we can help you.”
“Hwaith,” he said. “I’m Hwaith. Our gate is malfunctioning, the LA gate – “
“But it’s fine,” Aufwi said, glancing up at it.
“The kind of fine that means People can come through it after you’ve shut it down?” Urruah said. “I’d say that is the wrong kind of fine.”
But Hwaith was already lashing his tail“no”. “Not that one,” he said, and licked his nose again, nervous. “My Los Angeles gate.”
Rhiow’s eyes went wide. “Hwaith, you’ve timeslid, haven’t you? When are you from?”
“2432022.873981,” Hwaith said.
At the sound of the middle three digits before the decimal point, Rhiow blinked, then said silently to the Whisperer, Would you check me on this?
A twenty-digit conversion of the Julian date was slipped into her mind, including cognates in ehhif and cetacean eras. Rhiow blinked again. Are you sure? she said silently.
Inside her head, the Mistress of the Whispering made a small demure coughing sound like someone giving polite warning that she was getting ready to dispose of a hairball, or a ridiculous question. Sorry, Rhiow said, for one did not casually query the soundness of the advice of Hrau’f the Silent when on errantry. Sorry, reflex…
“That would be nineteen forty-six, as the ehhif make it,” Rhiow said. “Cousin, you know the rules about front-timing – “
“And you know it’s impossible in the first place if someone from the front-time hasn’t given you the necessary coordinates and conditionals,” he said. “You did that. Will do it.”
“Not without a fair amount of explaining,” Urruah said.
“And the Powers have sanctioned it,” Hwaith said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Please, cousins, you’re needed to put right what’s gone wrong! You’re the answer.”
This response left Rhiow, as usual, very unnerved as to the possible nature of the question. But at least this was a nervousness she knew what to do about– unlike having the Earth move under her. “What’s needed, Hwaith?” she said. “What’s the problem?”
He looked at her for a moment as if wondering where to begin.“Something’s trying to subvert our gate,” he said. “Something that wants to use it for its own purposes.”
Jath looked annoyed.“The Lone Power,” he said.
“Again,” Arhu and Siff’hah said in cranky and slightly bored-sounding unison.
“No!” Hwaith said.
They all stared at him.“No,” Hwaith said again. “Something else. Something worse.”
“Worse than the Lone One?” Rhiow said, astounded.
Hwaith let out a long breath and sat down, his tail thumping on the ground.“Much worse,” he said. “Something from outside.”
Rhiow sat down too, the world rocking under her in a way that had nothing to do with the San Andreas Fault, but was nonetheless not much of an improvement.“Tell us,” she said…