Diana Dueyn - The Big Meow

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.

All set, said a new voice: Fh’iss. He was the third of Jath’s team, and had been set completely aside from the “moving” part of the project to concentrate on the business of stopping it from moving at the end of the run. An elaborately constructed socket lay waiting off to one side of the New Jersey Transit tracks, near a freight platform. It was a temporary home for the gate, only shallowly rooted into the subterranean master catenary: there would be time for short-distance repositioning later. Drop it on me, Fh’iss said.

All right, Rhiow said. Here comes the drama. Arhu? Siff’hah? You ready?

Ready to go, Arhu said; but how would it not be, when I’ve been handling things? From the sound of him, you’d think that nothing particularly interesting had been happening. Rhiow put her whiskers forward in amusement. For a kitten barely a year old, who’d been pulled out of a garbage bag floating down the East River, where he and his sibs had been thrown to drown, coolness had become his middle name.

Oh really, said his sister, endlessly unimpressed. But then, Rhiow thought, she had been in that bag too. She had come from a tremendous distance in miles, and had spent the beginning of a new life, in order to hunt her brother down and shred his ears – that being the best way she had of telling him she loved him. Where would you be without me to remind you of what needs doing? And look out, you’re steering it crooked.

I am not.

You are.

Am not – !

I’m going to turn now, Urruah said, so it would be really smart if you two went with me, and didn’t fall off and let this thing blow up and eat half the island! Ith –

Ready.

Slowly, the lightnings crackling around it again, the huge ball of worldgate-fire negotiated the turn into West Thirty-first. Ith, “enraged”, rushed at the worldgate-core one last time, apparently trying to grapple with it, but flailed away again by the crackling violence of the fire. Then the ball of fire seemed to speed up slightly, bumping into Ith, making him stagger, off balance, toward the edge of the great track-pit. Fh’iss?

Ready. Not on top of me, cousin!

Not? Ith said, sounding surprised. But I thought in the script it said – Theatrically he leaned backward over, clawed forelegs flailing, tail lashing for balance, finding it, losing it again. He toppled.

Ith, really, not!

Ith fell backwards, grasping at the ball of fire, sinking his claws into it in one last desperate “attempt” to keep himself from falling. The attempt failed. Giant rear legs kicking, he went over the edge in a tremendous fall. A disastrous roar went up, a bleat of terror and rage, as he clutched the worldgate-ball to him and plunged into the pit. Like a star falling, like the Sun setting, he and the worldgate vanished from view.

There was a huge moment of silence, followed by an almighty crash.

And then the light went out.

The echoes faded. Everybody, Rhiow included, looked intently at the “director”, who was staring at one of the video displays. Then he lifted his hand.

“Cut it!” he yelled. “That’s it, that’s a wrap! Thank you, everybody! Nice work, cousins!”

Applause broke out all around, from the film crew and even from the cops, who until now had probably thought they’d seen just about everything that could happen in the way of a shooting. The special effects would be the talk of the NYPD for days, Rhiow thought: two or three days, anyway. As people started picking things up and carrying them around, Rhiow went padding over to the “director”, who was drinking what was probably his tenth paper cup of a coffee locally famous for its strength and foulness.

“Har’lh,” Rhiow said to Carl Romeo, one of the ehhif Area Seniors, “that stuff will ruin your health.”

“Only if I overdo it,” Carl said. He glanced around him, where the large team of wizards were already beginning to pack up the shot. Equipment was seeming to go into those white high-side trucks, where the cops – having recovered their original bored and jaded attitudes – and the dozy Film Board lady, were completely failing to notice that the equipment, once out of sight behind some genuine boxes and coverings, simply vanished. In the Holland and Midtown tunnels, out of sight of the security cameras – those that had not been spoofed with pre-laid wizardries already – the trucks would soon do the same. “We’ll be out of here in about twenty minutes. Nice work, Rhi.”

She shook her head. “I never touched a string,” she said. “I just coordinate.”

“Not as easy as it sounds,” Carl said, finishing the coffee and then tossing the cup into a nearby recycling bin, which another wizard picked up and carried off a second later. “My people have a saying about herding cats…”

She put her whiskers forward, knowing a compliment when she heard one. From behind the two of them, a huge-toothed head, zebra-striped in vivid red and yellow, but now reduced to its more normal three-foot length, pushed in to peer at the video display. “Did I look good?” Ith said. “I think I looked good.”

Carl chuckled. “Tim,” he said, elbowing the young ehhif wizard standing beside him, “roll the ‘video’, will you, and satisfy our Elder Brother’s vast bloated ego….?”

Rhiow put one ear back, sarcastic, as from behind Har’lh, Urruah came walking up Eighth. “And as for you,” she said to Ith, as the imagery which had just transpired started to repeat itself on the screen while he peered at it, “shouldn’t you be sidled? If enough people here see you for very much longer, we’re going to have a lot more explaining to do.”

“This is New York,” said Ith, turning one of those wise little eyes on Rhiow: it glittered with humor. “If anyone does see a red and yellow Tyrannosaur walk down the street without a film crew, they will either ignore me – being New Yorkers – or assume I am some kind of advertisement.” He shrugged his long tail, looking back at the screen. “What should I advertise, do you think?”

Arhu walked up Ith’s back and sat on his shoulder, looking over it at the video. “Pastrami,” he said.

Rhiow gave Ith a clout in the leg with her claws in; though frankly he was unlikely to have felt every claw she had, through that thick hide. “See now, you’re teaching these kits bad habits,” she said.

“I’d say it’s going both ways,” Carl said, as Siff’hah walked up Ith’s tail to join her twin on Ith’s other shoulder. “Nice work, you two.” He unzipped his parka a little: the air was warming a little as the breeze started to run down Thirty-first from the East River side, the first touch of Sun on the river pushing the air their way. “And you, Urruah: you should be pleased. An elegant solution to a thorny problem. You go ahead, Rhi, ’Ruah: your folks did all the hard work here. Leave the cleanup to us.” He turned his back on her, clapping his hands. “Come on, people, let’s go, pack out the trash…”

Rhiow waved her tail in satisfaction, turning to Urruah. “Is it down and secure? Is it rooted?”

It’s down, Fh’iss said, from down in the track pit. Our overacting cousin delivered it right on target: it fell straight into the socket, and he fell clear. Not that I won’t shred his puny ears later. ‘Not!’

“It’s not rooted in tight yet, though,” Urruah said, sitting down with his tail now weaving slowly from side to side, the thing he always did when he was ticking off items on his internal to-do list. “I want to check out the catenary junctures. If there are any frayed hyperstrings in there left over from moving the sheaf, they’ll play merry hell with the restart synch when we initiate the sequence.”

“Oh, come on,” Arhu said, “you know it’s okay, let’s just blow this thing and go home!”