The Big Meow

“Rest,” she said. “You’re sure you’re all right, otherwise?”

The small thin smile manifested itself again, though edged with weariness, as he loosened his tie. You mean, has it been an unusually strange day, even for me? Yes. Am I hanging onto my sanity regardless? As far as I can tell, yes. Thanks. And he surprised her by getting down on one knee and scratching her behind the ears. Are you all right? I get a feeling some of this hasn’t exactly been a normal day’s work for you, either. Whatever your normal day’s work looks like.

She put her whiskers forward. “No,” she said, “no, it hasn’t. And it won’t be later, either, I’m sure. But I’ll manage. Sleep well, cousin.”

You too.

He headed off into one of the back rooms, with Sheba padding after him: Rhiow heard a door shut.

She yawned prodigiously, blinked, and then took a turn around the open downstairs rooms to see where everyone was. Arhu and Siffha’h had already curled up on the sofa in their normal thoughtlessly affectionate heap, and were snoring more or less in unison, with one of Siffha’h’s self-maintaining force fields cordoning off their area. Urruah had found himself a place up in the Silent Man’s bookcase and tucked himself up into a compact round furball, and was dozing. Hwaith had stretched himself out in front of the open back door and was lying on his back with his eyes closed and his paws folded across his chest.

Rhiow looked out at the afternoon lawn: all was peace, not even a bird singing. She turned and made her way back into the front room, letting her nose lead her to a windowsill spot where no other Person’s scent lingered. There Rhiow turned around a couple of times, lay down, and half-closed her eyes on the cool spare sleekness of the living space. It’s not a design feature, though, she thought. These rooms are so clean because no one’s here often enough to cause a clutter. Poor Silent Man. Iau, help us help him!

And keep the known universes from being destroyed, the Whisperer said.

Yes, Rhiow said, put her head down on her paws, and closed her eyes completely. Absolutely. That too…

Much, much later – or so it felt – Rhiow woke up, blinking, and turned her head to glance out the window. She was mildly disturbed to see by the light outside that the sun had just barely set. She felt around in the back of her mind for the part of the Whispering that kept a time-reckoning for her, comparing her personal time against the ehhif versions of it. Yes, it was still the same day: she hadn’t accidentally slept the Sun around.

Rhiow yawned. A known side effect of residence at the “wrong” end of a timeslide was a certain disorientation in the feel of your personal timeflow: your soul knew that it was in more places at once than it ought to be. It’ll pass…or we’ll finish work here and get back home, and it won’t be an issue any more. But I keep finding myself wondering how Iaehh’s doing Just the price you pay when you’re in a relationship with an ehhif…

Rhiow got up, stretched, and made her way through the living area to the doors onto the back patio. Except for her team, who were all asleep as she’d left them, no other People were in sight.

She walked through the door, which had been left open a crack. What a place, she thought, where the crime rate is so low that you can leave things open like this… The shadows were gone now, the colors of the backyard flowers and the lawn softening down into less-definite shades, drained of their vividity by the growing dusk.

Rhiow wandered off into the least-kempt part of the shrubbery at the corner of the yard furthest from the house, and once decently out of sight could tell immediately that she’d picked the right spot to take care of business: others had done so before. She went unfocused, and when the necessities were handled, slipped out of the shrubbery again to see a dark shape peering into the house through the open doors.

“Hwaith?”

The shadow turned, saw her, purred — though the purr had a rueful sound to it. “You couldn’t sleep either?”

Rhiow waved her tail “no”, a regretful gesture, as she made her way over to the house-wall and the cat food dishes. “My brain’s just too full of new information,” she said. “It only let me sleep long enough to recharge my muscles.” She sighed, stretched, and sat down, looking over the dishes. “Your day’s been even longer than ours, though. Did you get enough rest?”

“Enough for the time being. It was a good thing I was up, though: Aufwi wanted to talk to one of us.”

“What’s the matter? Is he all right?”

“He’s fine,” Hwaith said. “There wasn’t any point in disturbing you; you’d just gotten to sleep. But he wanted to let everybody know that the gate was trying to put down yet another root.”

Rhoiw swore softly. “And did it?”

“No, he managed to stop it. But he also marked the location it was trying to sink that root into. I was about to go up and have a look at the spot.”

“We’ve got an hour or so before Helen will be here,” Rhiow said. “Let me have a bite and I’ll go with you.”