The Book of Night With Moon (5 page)

Rhiow and Saash trotted hurriedly down Lexington, being narrowly missed by
ehhif
pedestrians, other
ehhif
making early deliveries from trucks and vans,
houiff
out being walked, and (when crossing streets) by cabs and cars driving at idiotic speed even at this time of morning. There was simply no hour, even on a Sunday, when these streets were completely empty; solitude was something for which you had to go elsewhere. One had to weave and dodge, or hug the walls, trying not to fall through gratings or be walked into by
ehhif
coming unexpectedly around corners.

They made fairly good time, only once having to pause when an under-sidewalk freight elevator started clanging away while Saash was walking directly over its metal doors. She jumped nearly out of her skin at the sudden sound and the lurch of the opening doors, and skittered curbward— straight into a
houff
on the leash. There was no danger: the
houff
was one of those tiny ones, a bundle of silky golden fur and yap and not much else. Saash, however, still panicked by the dreadful clanging of the elevator alarm and the racket of the rising machinery, hauled off and smacked the
houff
hard in the face, as much from embarrassment as from fright at jostling into it, and galloped off down the street, bristling all over. The
houff,
having been hit claws-out and hard by something invisible, plunged off down the sidewalk in a panic, half-choking on its collar and shrieking about murder and ghosts, while its bewildered
ehhif
was towed along behind.

Rhiow was half-choked herself, holding in her merriment. She went after Saash as fast as she could, and didn't catch up with her until she ran out of steam just before the corner of Fifty-fourth. There Saash sat down close to the corner of the building and began furiously washing her fluffed-up back fur. Rhiow knew better than to say anything, for this was not Saash's eternal itch: this was
he'ihh,
composure-grooming, and except under extraordinary circumstances, one didn't comment on it. Rhiow sat down back to back, keeping watch in the other direction, and waited.

To Saash's credit, she cut the
he'ihh
short, then breathed out one annoyed breath and got up. "I really hate them," she said as they went together to the curb, "those little ones. Their voices—"

"I know," Rhiow said. They waited for the light to change, then trotted across, weaving to avoid a pair of
ehhif
mothers with strollers. "They grate on my nerves, too. But would you rather have had one of the big ones?"

"Don't tease," Saash muttered as they trotted on toward the next corner. "I feel foolish now for hitting the poor thing like that. It wasn't its fault. And I was sidled too. Those little ones aren't always very resilient thinkers; if I've unhinged it somehow…"

"I doubt that." But Rhiow smiled. "All the same, you should have seen the look on its face. It—"

She stopped, ears pricked. From nearby, sounds of barking and snarling and yowling were rising over the muted early-morning traffic noise, becoming louder and louder. The two of them paused and looked at each other, eyes widening— for one of the two lifted voices, they knew.

"Sweet Queen around us," Saash said,
"what's he doing?!"

They took off at a run, dodging among
ehhif
going in and out of the early-opening bakery at the end of the block, and tore around the corner. A dusty car with one tire flat and another booted was parked on their side of Fifty-third: Rhiow jumped up on its trunk and then leaped to its roof to get a better view. Saash came after, skidding a little on the roof and staring down the street. At the second impact, the car's alarm went off. Rhiow and Saash ignored it, knowing everyone else would, too.

Fifty-third was a mess of construction in this block: several beat-up yellow Dumpsters were lined head to tail on the north side, and scaffolding towered several stories above them, against the front of two brownstones being renovated. Near the middle Dumpster, which sat with its lid open, a group of men in T-shirts and hard hats, and two others in security guards' uniforms, stood staring in astonishment at something between them and the Dumpster. At the sound of the car alarm, the men gave one glance toward the end of the street, saw nothing, and turned their attention back to what they had been watching.

The barks and growls scaled up into a yipping howl of sheer terror, and the men scattered, some toward the scaffolding, some toward the street. From among them burst a huge German shepherd, tawny and black. Its ears were plastered against its skull, its tail was clamped between its hind legs, and it leapt four-footed into the air and came down howling, and spun in circles, and shook itself all over. But it could do nothing to dislodge the gray-striped shape that clung to its neck, yowling at the top of his voice… not in fear or pain, either. Urruah was having a good time.

"Oh, not
today,
" Rhiow muttered. "Come on, Saash, we've got to do something, that gate won't wait—!"

"Tell
him,
" Saash said, dry-voiced, as the unfortunate
houff
and its rider came plunging toward them. Urruah's eyes were wide, his mouth was wide as he yowled, and he had both front pawfuls of claws anchored in the
houff
's collar, or maybe in its upper neck behind its ears; his back claws kicked and scrabbled as if he thought he'd caught a rabbit, and was trying to remove its insides in the traditional manner. The dog continued to howl, jump, and turn in circles, and still couldn't rid himself of his tormentor: the howls were more of pain than fear, now. Urruah grinned like an idiot, yowling some wordless nonsense for sheer effect.

Rhiow saw one of the security guards pull out his gun.
He wouldn't be so stupid—!
she thought. But some
ehhif were
profoundly stupid by feline standards, and one might take what he thought was a safe shot at the cat tormenting his guard dog, even if he stood an even chance of hitting the dog instead.

She glanced at the scaffolding above the group of
ehhif.
"Saash," Rhiow said. "That bucket."

Saash followed her glance. "I see it. In front of the Dumpster?"

"That's the spot." Rhiow turned her attention to Urruah and the
houff.

An almighty crash came from just in front of the second Dumpster. The bucket full of wet cement-sand had come down directly in front of the security guard with the gun. He jumped back, yelling with surprise and fear at being splattered, as the other
ehhif
did; then spun, looking upward for the source of the trouble. There was no one there, of course. Several of the men, including the second security guard, disappeared into the construction site; the man with the gun stood staring upward.

Rhiow, meantime, waited until the
houff
was within clear hearing range— she didn't want to have to shout. As it lurched closer to the car where she and Saash sat, Rhiow chose her moment… then said the six syllables of the
ahou'ffriw.
It was not a word she spoke often, though part of the general knowledge of a feline in her line of work. Sidled as she was, Rhiow could see the word take flight like one of the hunting birds that worked the high city, arrowing at the
houff.
The word of command struck straight through the creature, as it had been designed to do when the
houff
themselves were designed; struck all its muscles stiff, froze the thoughts in its brain and the intended movements in its nerves. The
houff
crashed to the concrete and lay there on its side, its tongue hanging out, its eyes glazed. Urruah went down with it, and after a moment extricated himself and got up, looking confused.

"I don't know about you," Rhiow said softly— and Urruah's head jerked up at the sound— "but
we're
on callout this morning. You had some different business, maybe? The Powers That Be suggested you take the morning off to beat up defenseless
houff?
"

Urruah squinted to see her better. "Oh, 'luck, Rhiow."

" 'Luck is what none of us are going to have if you don't pull yourself together," Rhiow said. "Come on. We've got ten blocks to make before twenty-three after."

"Long-jump it," Urruah said, stepping down off the
houff.

"
No,
" Rhiow said. "No point in throwing away power like that, when we may have something major to do in a few minutes. Get sidled and come on." She jumped down from the car: Saash followed.

They crossed the street and went on down Lexington again: Urruah first, sidled now, and taking it easy for the moment; then Saash. Rhiow paused just for a moment to look over her shoulder at the
houff.
He was staggering to his feet again, looking groggy but relieved.

Good,
Rhiow thought. She went after the others and caught up with Saash first. "That was slick," she said, "with the bucket."

"It was in a bad position to start with. Pull a string or so, change the bucket's moment of inertia—" Saash shrugged one ear back and forward, casual, but she smiled.

Rhiow did, too, then trotted forward to catch up with Urruah. "Now," she said, more affably, "you tell me what all that was about."

He strolled along for a moment without answering. Rhiow was tempted to clout him, but it would be a waste of energy, and it really was difficult being annoyed for long at so good-looking a young tom, at least when he was behaving himself. Urruah was only two and a half, having passed his Ordeal and started active practice a year ago. He was good at what he did, and was pleased with himself, on both professional and physical counts: a big, burly, sturdy tabby, silver and black, with silver-gray eyes, a voice all purr, some very ornamental scars, and a set of the biggest, sharpest, whitest teeth that Rhiow could remember seeing on one of the People in several lives. She occasionally wondered, when Urruah pulled dumb stunts like this, whether those teeth went straight up into his skull and filled most of it, leaving less room for sense.

"That
houff,
" Urruah said, as they crossed Fifty-second, "took my mouse."

"Wait a minute," Saash said. "You're trying to tell us that you actually
caught a mouse,
when there was all that perfectly good MhHonalh's food in the Dumpster?"

Urruah gave Saash a scathing look. Saash simply blinked at him, refusing to accept delivery on the scorn, and kept on walking. "It was a terrific mouse," Urruah said. "It was one of those bold ones: it kept jumping and trying to bite me in the face. I was going to let it go after a while: you have to respect that kind of defiance! And then that miserable
ehhif
shows up at shift-change and lets his
houff
off the chain where they keep the thing all night, and it comes running out of there, jumps into the street practically on top of me, and
eats my mouse!
Must have a lot of wolf in it or something. But what would
you
have done?"

"Not ride it down the street and nearly get myself shot," Rhiow said dryly. "Or the poor
houff.
A good slapping around would have been plenty. And do you really expect a
houff
to mind People's manners? It didn't know any better. But that
ehhif's
reckless with the
houff.
And it must have been awfully hungry. I wonder what can be done about your poor mouse-eater…."

"Not our problem," Urruah said as they crossed Fifty-first.

"
Everything
in this city is our problem," Rhiow said, "as you know very well. I'd say you owe that
houff
a favor, now; you overreacted. Better arrange a meeting with one of our people on the
houff
side and see what can be done about him. I'll expect a report tomorrow."

Urruah growled under his breath, but Rhiow put her ears back at him. "Business, Urruah," she said. "There's work waiting for us. Put yourself aside and get ready to do what you were made to."

He sighed, and after a half a block his whiskers went forward again. "Tell me it's the northside gate again."

Rhiow grimaced. "Of course it is."

"Somebody did an out-of-hours access," Saash said, "and left it misaligned."

"The substrates still hinged?"

"Hard to tell from just the notification, but I hope so. If we go in prepared to do a subjunctive restring—"

And they were off, several sentences deep into gate-management jargon before the three of them crossed Fiftieth. Rhiow sighed. Saash and Urruah might have frictions, but the technical details of their work fascinated them both, and while they had a problem to solve they usually managed to avoid taking their claws to one another. It was before work, and after, that difficulties set in; fortunately, the team's relationship was strictly a professional one, and no rule said they had to be friends. For her own part, Rhiow mostly concentrated on balancing Saash and Urruah off against one another so that the team got its work done without claws-out transactions or murder.

Just south of the southwest corner of Fiftieth and Lex was their way down into Grand Central. Outside the delicatessen on the corner, a street grating that covered the west-side ventilation shaft was damaged, leaving room enough to squeeze through without mussing one's fur. They slipped down through it, Urruah first, then Saash and Rhiow, and followed the downward incline of the concrete shaft for a few yards until they were out of sight of the street. All of them paused to let their eyes settle, now blessedly relieved of the bright sunlight. The dimness around them began to be more clearly stitched and striated with the thin radiance of strings, properly separate now, and their colors distinct rather than blindingly run together.

"Smells awful down here today," Saash said, wrinkling her nose.

"Just your delicate sensibilities," Urruah said, grinning. "Or the flea powder."

Saash lifted a paw to cuff him, but Rhiow shouldered between them. "Not now. Your eyes better? Then let's go on."