The Big Meow

Rhiow had finally managed to calm the wrangle down, for even Jath had had to admit that there was no point in trying to derail the project at this late date. The Powers that Be had approved it, the most senior wizards working in North America had already put their pawprints on Rhiow’s master timetable, and the concrete parts of the plan now had to be allowed to go forward before the ehhif builders and architects put any more of the new Penn Station in place. There was already too much infrastructure underground that could interfere with the hyperstring structure of the gate-sheaf when it was being moved; that had been the thinking behind Urruah’s solution from the start…

Jath, she said silently, how is it down there? Are you ready?

I don’t know, the answer came back, sounding dubious as always. It looks kind of frayed around the edges: I’m not sure the string structure is going to wind in tightly enough for what we’re planning. I’m thinking we shouldn’t let it up until we have a little more time to assess the power superstructure –

The superstructure is fine, came another voice, younger and sounding extremely impatient. Rhiow let out another breath, as the speaker had good reason. It’s just as fine as it was yesterday when you pronounced it fine, and the day before that. Just get on with it, Jath!

Siff’hah, Rhiow said. She tried not to sound too stern, because she agreed with what the youngster was saying: but at the same time, she needed her to be a little less forthright just now with a wizard who was very much her senior, and whose nerves were in worse shreds than anyone else’s. Hw’aa, she said to Jath’s most senior colleague, how’s it seem to you?

Stable enough, Hw’aa said. Even though he was older than Jath, Hw’aa had for some time now been the counterbalance in the Penn team to Jath’s conservatism; there were few new things that Hw’aa wasn’t willing to try. We’re ready to pull the gate’s roots up. Twenty seconds…

Good. Hunt’s luck to you, cousin –

Luck to you too, Rhiow.

She looked down the street to where the ehhif had mostly stopped running around, and where crowds of people were standing off to the sides of the street now, as if getting ready to see a shot start. Rhiow watched this almost absently, just being glad for the moment that Hw’aa was on site to keep Jath focused and reassured, and that she was herself dealing well enough with the tension not to get caught up in another team’s infighting. My own team’s infighting is bad enough… And there was always the temptation to simply win any given fight by throwing her weight around in her position as the most senior technician working this particular part of the world. But Rhiow knew better. I will meet idiots today, went one version of her after-waking meditation, and one of them will probably be me. Iau Hau’hai, Queen of Life and of Making Things Work, grant me of Your courtesy the courage to shred that idiot’s ears when I meet her, and then get on with work…for being right is nothing next to having things be right…

Fifteen seconds. Want oversight? said Urruah’s more voice in her ear.

“Just a quick look,” Rhiow said. “As long as you’re sure you can spare me the concentration – ”

No problem. Everyone knows what to do. I’m just making sure the timetable goes off by the numbers, now…

And overlaid on the slowly brightening morning around her, she got a glimpse of the darkness under the streets – the track-cavern at the “old Penn” end, the west portal of the old North River tracks, and the bright stringing of the structure of the “ganged” Penn Station worldgate – two gates combined for the moment into one – shining in the darkness where it hung over the steel of the rails. These would be the gate complex’s last few moments in its old position, parked at the end of northern platform of Penn’s Track Twenty. Now the worldgate blazed unnaturally bright in that dark air, an irregularly-shaped, rippling warp and weft of blue and green and golden threads of light, pulled for the moment into full real-world visibility, its diagnostic mode. On one side of it, Jath, and Hw’aa on the other, were reared up with claws and teeth sunk into the gateweave, pulling the gate into the right configuration for the dangerous work that was going to follow. At least there were no trains due down those tracks for another forty minutes: the ehhifs’ Sunday schedule had left the joint worldgating teams some time to troubleshoot anything that might go wrong with the separation of the gate from its power sources, rooted down into the ancient Manhattan of the Downside. But it wasn’t the separation itself that was most of the problem. It was keeping the gate live while it was cut away from its roots, and then moving it without damaging anything else, or itself –

Five. Four. Hw’aa, let it go. Jath, claws out – !