The Big Meow

Hysterical, that’s going to be me in a minute, Rhiow thought, as Urruah went on to describe the strange pulling device which had been built for this ehhif to use – something to sink his teeth into and pull this semih’ the necessary distance. Yet all against her will she’d begun to see how similar his idea was to some of the handling constructions that a gate tech might build to deal with the most recalcitrant gating structures, old ones that were getting likely to shred themselves to bits if you moved them. All right, this was a brute-force kind of solution, completely unlike the more elegant and finicky kind of strategy that her old colleague Saash would have come up with. But Saash was somewhere else at the moment, helping Iau steer the stars in their courses, no doubt; and who knew whether, if you handed her a whole star or a whole gating complex to manhandle around, even she mightn’t have said “the hell with the claws” and used her teeth instead? Maybe it’s time I got past my preconceptions about Urruah’s potential as a gate tech, Rhiow thought. All right, it’s just such a tom-sounding way to deal with something, but if it works…

And now here she was watching this terrible rolled-up ball of fire come trundling down Eighth Avenue, while a huge and magnificent dinosaur struggled futilely with it. Rhiow sat there commanding her fur to lie down, and prayed, prayed to Iau the Queen of Everything that Urruah had not misjudged how much energy was required in his own version of the pulling device to keep that terrible thing under control. For that was part of a typical tom’s solution, too: bluff. But you did not bluff a worldgate…or at least you didn’t try bluffing it more than once. And as for a gate that you’d purposely cut loose of its moorings –

The huge glowing ball rolled on. That was not a special effect or an illusion. Urruah’s “puller” was not fastened to the gate sheaf itself, but to the massive shielding construct that had been erected around it and which Siff’hah was powering. And atop the worldgate-bundle proper, the team’s other tom – not to be in any way outdone by his more senior colleague – was riding the top of that ball of force, walking backwards on it as it rolled forwards. That was one piece of popular culture Rhiow had come in contact with one night at her own ehhif’s place: the image of some poor tiger in a forced performance of some kind, walking backwards on a big ball, while a strangely dressed ehhif flicked a whip at it, and music played and crowds cheered. And there was Arhu up there, as nearly invisible against the blaze of energies under him as Urruah was below, at least two paws in contact with that shield all the time, ready to sink his own teeth into it if he needed to. Siff’hah, though, seemed to need very little in the way of help. Power simply streamed off her into the wizardry. That was her business, and she was good at it: sometimes a little too good for Rhiow’s nerves. But as so young a wizard, she was always going to have more power available to her than the more senior practitioners.

Here we go, said Arhu, as Ith, wrestling with the ball, came up even with the corner of Thirty-first. Down that street, half a block behind the Post Office, was the place where the tracks running under the building and into Penn were exposed to the open air, a great wide pit half a block wide. Sif?

Ready, Siff’hah said.

Ready, said Ith.

Lightning crackled fiercely away from the moving ball of gate-strings, lashing out at the dinosaur who struggled with it. He squealed in rage and staggered back, the earth shaking under him. Then once more he rushed at the globe of strung fire, and once more was repulsed. The dinosaur shrieked renewed fury, attacked one last time: but this time the lightning that burst from the globe of fire was so violent that the king-dinosaur staggered back again, turned, and began an enraged flight down Thirty-first Street, off to Rhiow’s left. The other dinosaurs, which had been milling around their leader, now broke away and began to flee down the side streets, vanishing from the shot and from sight.

Rhiow watched the lightning with admiration. This was probably the only real “special effect” in the whole production: it was the result of purposeful overfeeding of the worldgates’ shield layer on Siff’hah’s part, and was done merely for show, to support the backstory in the script which the New York Film Board had approved. Jath was acting as supervisor for this effect, making sure that it didn’t get out of hand. But that was mostly what Jath was good for: at keeping things from happening. It was not anything Rhiow would ever have admitted to him, of course, but it was true. The real master of this whole business was down there at the far end of the street, behind the dinosaurs, with his teeth sunk in the “puller,” still advancing toward her, backwards, steady and slow. Urruah, Rhiow said, what’s the word?

Ready for the turn, Urruah said silently.

Is the socket ready! Rhiow said.