All the same… if there was anything she’d learned in the years since she had ascended to the rank of senior technician for the North American worldgates, it was that it was rarely wise to assume that things were going to go correctly. Gates were one of the most finicky and complex kind of spell structures that a wizard dealt with on a regular basis. Anything that could be imagined going wrong with them usually did, on a regular if not daily basis. This meant that Rhiow and her teams were some of the busiest wizards in the Metropolitan area. But it was interesting work, mentally stimulating — especially since a worldgate rarely failed in the same way twice — and due to its very nature, a wizard involved in it routinely met some of the most interesting people on the planet, or off it.
“Now where did I put those keys,” Iaehh was muttering under his breath as he rummaged around among the paperwork piled up all over the kitchen table. It was routinely a clutter up there, these days; Iaehh rarely sat down to eat there, as if afraid to be reminded of who in the old days had always sat opposite him at the table, poking him with her chopsticks over the take away cartons.
“They’re up on the counter,” Rhiow said, straightening up from polishing the cat food dish clean. “You remember. You were going to try to make a new place for them, where you would always remember where you left them. Except you can never remember. Oh, come on, Iaehh, strain your brain a little!”
“I’ve really got to get this table cleaned up,” Iaehh said. He kept on turning over papers, stacking them up, shoving them around.
Rhiow sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor and started to wash her face.“Yes, you should,” she said softly,” but you say that every day. And it never gets done. Iaehh, do hurry up, I have things to do, and I’d rather not leave while you’re here watching…”
But he kept right on hunting for the keys in the same place, again and again, even while Rhiow finished washing both paws, and under her chin, and started in again on the left ear, even though it didn’t need it. Finally she lost her patience. She glanced over her shoulder, up on the counter, where the coffee machine sat. There were the keys, right on top of it. And of course, Rhiow thought, he could have left them a little too close to the edge of the coffee machine. He could have… and that’s all he needs to think.
Would you do me a favor? she said to the apartment keys in the wizardly Speech, and to gravity in that very small area. It was only a minuscule change of position that was needed, and as a result Rhiow had to pause for a moment to consult in her mind with the Whisperer to get the exact coordinates.
They came through. In her mind, using the Speech, Rhiow described a little circle around the coffeemaker to limit the locus of gravitational change, and indicated the spot where she wanted the keys to go. Right there, if you would—
Everything in a gravitational field likes to fall, and even more so if you ask it nicely. The keys dropped down onto the counter with an obligingly noisy clash of metal. Iaehh jumped, looked over his shoulder, and then laughed at himself.“I keep forgetting,” he said. “I have a brain like a sieve, these days…”
That was a thought that had occurred to Rhiow, as well. Probably stress, she thought. Iaehh had unexpectedly been promoted at his job, and was now managing a whole department. This had made it easier to keep the apartment he had shared with Hhuha, but he was now twice as busy as he had been before his loss. One more thing to worry about… Rhiow thought.
Rhi?
Rhiow changed position slightly and pushed out a hind leg to wash it. Iaehh had pocketed his keys, and was unlocking the apartment door. You’re up earlier than I expected, she said to Urruah.
I couldn’t stay asleep, Urruah said. Wanted to go over to Penn and check things out.
See, isn’t that what I said? What a professional you are. Especially since I’m the one who should be doing that.
“Okay,” Iaehh said, coming back over the Rhiow and bending down to stroke her head. “You have a nice day, plumptious puss. I’ll be back around dinnertime.”
“Yes, but your dinnertime or mine?” Rhiow said, resigned but affectionate, as Iaehh went out the door, shut it behind him, and started locking all the locks. Sorry, ‘Ruah. He’s running behind today, and so am I.
There’s no big rush, Urruah said. I haven’t been there either, yet. But I didn’t want to call you to make you feel guilty. Jath was asking for you.
Oh, sweet Iau, said Rhiow, standing up in a hurry, what can it be now? Tell me nothing’s gone wrong with the gate –
If it has, he didn’t mention it, Urruah said. It was something about L.A.
L.A? Rhiow said. The Los Angeles gate? Now what on earth— Immediately her mind began to fill with all kinds of terrible visions of something they had done wrong with the Penn gate that had affected the Downside connections of the L.A. microcomplex.
It’s nothing to do with our intervention last night, Urruah said, or at least not as far as I can tell. Anyway, Aufwi is on his way over. He and Jath are going to come up here; Jath wanted to sit tight and watch Aufwi’s transfer, to make sure the Penn gate is behaving itself.
All right, Rhiow said.‘Up here’ where? Are you at home? She had to pause for a moment to think where that was this week: Urruah intended to change dumpsters without warning, but normally he could be found somewhere in the west Seventies, near the better uptown food markets.
No, he said. The Met.
Fine, Rhiow said. Give me half an hour to make a swing through Grand Central— I’ll check our own gates to make sure there are no untoward side effects, and be right along. How did Jath seem you this morning?
Pleased, Urruah said. You’d swear this whole thing had been his idea.
Rhiow stood up and shook herself, putting her whiskers right forward in an expression of rueful amusement. That was how things usually went with Jath. He would protest and obstruct and dig in his claws, and in every way make getting a job done as hard as it could be— and then one sleep and one meal later, it was his own personal success, and could never happened without him. Well, the latter may be true, Rhiow thought. But, Powers that Be, I pray You, don’t make me have to admit to it out loud. I suppose I could bear it, but he’d swiftly become unbearable, and both our teams would suffer.
On the other side of the apartment door, the last locks snicked closed, and Rhiow could hear Iaehh’s footsteps heading off down the hall. ‘Ruah, Rhiow said as she went over to the door, give Jath my best, and let him know that I’ll be along shortly.
By the door, Rhiow sat up on her haunches, putting her front paws against the painted metal. There had been a rash of burglaries in this building a couple of years ago, and she had seen how, no matter how many locks and bolts other ehhif in the building put on their doors, the burglars were in no wise deterred. She had therefore become a bit proactive. The wizardry she had laced into the structure of the front of her ehhif’s den was a variant of that old favorite, the Mason’s Word; it took the very minimal stone content of the plaster on the outside of the wall, and the metallic content of the door, and convinced them both that, as they once had been in the ancient day, they now weighed about a ton and were still part of the insides of a mountain. The burglars whom the police had caught trying to break into the apartment most recently — a few months ago — had been found practically weeping with frustration, their sledgehammers shattered, and the wall and door looking innocently unconcerned by the wholeoperation. There had been no breakins since; the word seemed to have been going around among the local criminal fraternity that the building was haunted. But there was no telling how long this salutary state of affairs would last.