The Big Meow

Hwaith looked away. There was something so self-effacing and somehow weary about the way he did it that Rhiow had a sudden impulse to go over to him and lick his head a little by way of apology. A second later, she blinked at the concept: sudden impulses of that sort weren’t normally in her repertoire. Especially with someone you’re just getting to know. I’m tired. We’re all tired. And it’s only going to get worse. But he didn’t have to come in after me…

“…You didn’t have to,” Rhiow said.

“Oh, I know. You would have handled them — ”

“Hwaith, I was going to say that it was a good thing you did come in after me,” Rhiow said. “Otherwise…”

He looked up at her again. Rhiow looked at him a little sideways. “I’d probably have gotten out,” she said, “but I wouldn’t be in the great shape I am now.” And she put her whiskers right forward.

The irony wasn’t lost on him. Hwaith’s jaw dropped in a slight smile.

“But thank you,” she said. “And for letting me dump on you, too.”

“Come on… you know you’re more than welcome.”

Rhiow sighed. “It’s just that the rest of my team… They’re in my head so much of the time, Hwaith: it can’t be helped, considering what we do, what we’ve done together. But I can’t let them bear that burden too. I have to handle at least my coping myself. Otherwise we’d never get our jobs done at all.”

Hwaith bumped her with his head: then stood up and turned away toward the buffet dishes, waving his tail. “Might be smart to have a few bites in peace before the crowd starts to arrive,” he said.

“What?”

He looked over his shoulder and flicked an ear at Rhiow again.

“Really,” she said. “Well, I suppose I could eat something…”

Rhiow followed him, thoughtful. And so it was that she’d eaten her fill, and was sitting in the middle of the empty living room washing again, before there was a bang that blew all the curtains in the room awry, and Urruah was standing there glancing around him. “Rhi! Hey, it’s a good thing you’re up. Listen, I –”

Bang! Aufwi was standing off to one side, looking around him. “Rhiow? Oh, you’re here too, Urruah? That’s handy, because –”

Bang! Siffha’h and Arhu were standing side by side and back to back in the middle of the room, Sif looking satisfied, Arhu looking unusually grim. “Rhi,” and “Rhiow,” they said more or less in unison. “Just wait till you hear what we found out, those ehhif are going to…”

They fell silent, seeing that Rhiow wasn’t looking at them, but at Hwaith, sitting next to her. He flicked one ear back and forth, gazed up at the ceiling: then looked back at Rhiow.

BANG! On the sofa by the window, Helen Walks Softly – with her hair down and wearing a very fetching long blue satin bathrobe — was sitting with her legs curled underneath her and a cup and saucer in her lap. She looked around at the assembled People and smiled the wan smile of an ehhif who hasn’t had a lot of sleep. “And here I thought I might be showing up too early,” she said.

“Not at all,” Rhiow said. She glanced at her team. “So why don’t you all have some breakfast and tell me what you’ve found, and we’ll start working out what to do next…”

The Big Meow: Chapter Nine

Naturally matters were never going to go as smoothly as that. Some members of the team insisted on debriefing while they were still eating, in defiance of the etiquette of most People: and Rhiow wasn’t surprised when Urruah turned out to be the worst offender in this regard. He’d hardly had as much as half of one of the bowls of food laid out by the patio before stopping to look over his shoulder at Helen Walks Slowly, who sat finishing her coffee while the others ate. “Look at you,” he said. “Where did you den last night?”

Siffha’h and Arhu paused in their eating just long enough to throw a look of disbelief and resignation at Urruah and each other. Helen just smiled. “Freddie put me up in a room at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”

“All by yourself?”

Helen laughed at his attempt at a casual tone. “What are we going to do with you?” she said. “Do you ever think about anything but sex?”

“Food, sometimes,” Urruah said.

Helen burst out laughing, put the cup down on a nearby coffee table and lounged back on the sofa. “You missed your calling, cousin. Or maybe your time. Here you’d fit in perfectly as a gossip columnist.” She stretched, then pulled her legs up under her again and started massaging her feet, making a face. “Heels! … but it looks like when I’m doing things for my cover story, I’m going to be wearing them most of the time.” She gave Urruah an amused look. “Freddie and I were up until late down by the pool at the hotel, sorting out what our contractual relationship was going to be and hammering out a plan of action for dealing with the studios. All in plain sight, but not where anyone could hear: the only other people down there were the late bar staff, and though they tried ever so hard, they couldn’t hear a word we were saying. Funny about that.” She waggled her eyebrows.