To Visit The Queen

FIVE

The whole group met again late that night in the Mint. Urruah was the last to arrive: he had been doing work on the timeslide until the last minute, having taken a while to look at Arhu’s “record’ in the Whispering of his flight with Odin. All the others, one by one, took time to do the same, and also to look at Rhiow’s discussion with Hhumh’hri: and then, predictably, the argument began.

Fhrio, in particular, was skeptical about the ravens’ suggestion regarding the version of Queen Victoria in their home timeline. “It’s just more work for nothing,” he said. “If she’s the only thing keeping this timeline in place—and the two are congruent, mostly, in terms of timeflow—then why hasn’t she been assassinated already?”

Urruah’s tail was lashing already. “Because someone’s prevented it already,” he said, politely enough. “Probably us, or someone working with us. Either the timelines have been taken out of congruence somehow—difficult—or the attempt on the Queen’s life has already failed. Again, probably because of us. We’re going to have to consider timesliding someone back far enough to guard her—and then block any further slides to positions before our guard is in place, so that we can deal with the assassination attempt proper.”

Fhrio spat. “It’s a waste of time. One, I doubt the Powers will let us. There’s too much temporal gating going on at the moment anyway. Too many ways to screw up past timelines. And secondly, it makes a lot more sense to concentrate on the Victoria who’s in the ‘nuclear’ timeline. It’s that universe that’s the real threat, anyway.”

“I don’t know,” Auhlae said. “I think Hardy might have had a point. If we—”

“Are you crazy?” Fhrio said. “We’ve got enough trouble already. Let’s concentrate on one thing at a time.”

“We may not be able to,” Auhlae said. “We still have to find all the ‘pastlings’ and get them back into their right times: otherwise the instability of the gates is going to continue and increase all through this. We can’t just drop one problem because the other seems more important all of a sudden.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Fhrio said. “I think we have to. Even the Victoria problem will go away if we keep the first contamination, the technological one, from happening. If we could just catch that first guy with the book as he’s going through the gate …”

“If you catch him,” Huff said, “you’ll probably catch what caused the slide in the first place. The Lone Power … in whatever form It’s wearing this time out. Or you’ll catch whatever poor stooge It’s using … and even the stooges are likely to be trouble enough.”

“Not as much trouble as the Earth dying of nuclear winter in 1888 or whenever!”

“If we could even just get the book, and keep it from crossing over …” Huff said.

Urruah lashed his tail in agreement. “I’d say there’s no question that that’s the point of contamination,” he said. “I’ve checked in the Whispering. It’s a very detailed volume, full of basic information on every possible kind of science. And possibly worst of all, it’s full of materials science, and technical information on how to make almost everything it discusses. Manufacturing processes, temperatures, specific chemical reactions, locations of ores and chemical elements—you name it.”

“That time was full of great scientific minds,” Rhiow said. “They were not stupid people. Once they believed what was in that book—which they quickly would have done, once they’d tested a few of the equations in it to see what happened—they would have run wild with it. As we see they’ve done.”

“Again, they seem to have done it somewhat selectively,” Urruah said. “But the worst thing they could have started messing with, atomics, they must have started with right away, in the late ’teens of the century, to have got as far along as they are now. It must have seemed like magic to them, that. Until they started building the necessary centrifuges and separators for the heavy-metal ores … and found that the metals did what was advertised.” He sighed.

“The details are going to prove fascinating enough, I’m sure,” Huff said. “But now we have to find out exactly when that incursion with the young man and the book happened, and stop it.”

“How?” Arhu said.

“Backtiming, stupid,” said Siffha’h.

Arhu glared at her. “Look, before you start calling names,” he said, “think about it. Do you really think the Lone Power’s going to just let us undo what It went to so much trouble to set up? Just like that? If you do, you’re even stupider than you think I am.”

“That would be fairly difficult,” Siffha’h retorted, “since—”

“Stop it, Siffha’h,” Auhlae said sternly. “There’s enough entropy loose around here at the moment without increasing it.”

“Those accesses are going to be blocked,” Arhu said. “Trust me.”

“Is that a seeing?” Urruah said.

“No, it’s common sense,” Arhu snapped, “which seems to be in short supply around here at the moment.” He threw Siffha’h another annoyed look.

“Anyway,” Urruah said loudly, “at the moment, there is a problem with the idea of stopping the book transfer. It is that we don’t yet have a definite timing or a proper set of coordinates for that transit, even with what Odin was able to show Arhu. Until we can get a timing, we can’t stop the book getting back into the Victorian era: and it will take some time and work yet for us to generate a timing that we can use … even an educated guess at one. So for the time being we should concentrate on what we presently do have a chance to stop, which is the assassination.”

“How close have you been able to get to that timing?” Huff said.

Urruah glanced over at Auhlae. “Eighteen sixteen,” Auhlae said. “That’s when the Whisperer says the volcano happened. It produced something called ‘The Year Without a Summer’.” The usual kind of thing: the volcano spat out a lot of high-altitude ash that produced unusually rapid cooling of the atmosphere. There were places in northern Europe where it snowed in June and July, that year. Harvests failed everywhere.”

“If there was a perfect time to drop a book full of information on high technology into the pre-Victorian culture,” Huff said, “I’d say that would have been it. The scientifically-oriented ehhif would have tried everything in it that they then had the materials technology for, with an eye to solving their problem … and then, when it eventually passed, they would swiftly have started constructing everything else they could, from the ‘instructions’.” He sighed. “I could wish they hadn’t been half so clever …”

Rhiow was in agreement with him about that. “Arhu, as regards the timing of the book’s arrival … could you do anything more with the ravens, do you think?”

Arhu lashed his tail “no”. “Rhiow, one of the things I gathered from Odin was that they can’t spend that much time during a given period in any one timeline or alternate universe. They’re messengers, all right, but they have to do their work at high speed specifically because they do so much out-of-timeline work. Other universes spit them out like a mouse’s gallbladder if they try to stay away from “home” too long.”

She nodded. “What about vision?”

“Theirs is a little more predictable than mine,” Arhu said, “but it’s so different …” He shrugged his tail. “I’ll go and ask them tomorrow, but I wouldn’t bet on them being able to help us that much more.”

Rhiow waved her tail in agreement, though reluctantly. She was still bemused by the ravens’ version of vision, and wondered exactly how they were getting it. Wizards and wizardry talent among birdkind tended to vest in the predators, for some reason: possibly because they were the top of their local food chains … or possibly it was something to do with their level of intelligence. This was not something about which Rhiow had ever queried the Whisperer. She had been bemused enough, when she first became a wizard, to find that there were wizards among the houiff too, and that some of them could be as sagacious as any feline. Afterwards she stopped wondering why wizardry turned up in one species or another, and simply said Dai stihó to another wizard when she met one, whether it had wings, or fins, or two legs or four. Now, though, she started to wonder why she had never heard of raven-wizards. Or is it that I just never went looking that hard for the information? There’s so much to know, and so little time…

Never mind. “All right,” she said to Huff. “At least we now have a much better idea of the exact time of the assassination. We have to narrow it down further still, though.”

Huff nodded. “Urruah,” he said, “that’s one of the other time-coordinates you’re going to be trying to access when you use the timeslide next?”

“Absolutely. But there are a few other things we need to look into as well,” Urruah said. “Like the small matter of the logs on the nonfunctioning gate.”

Fhrio looked at Urruah sharply. “What’s the matter with them?”

“They’re not the way they were when we disconnected the gate from the catenary,” Urruah said. The coordinates for the Illingworth access have been changed, and I don’t know how, or why. Any ideas?”

Fhrio stared at Urruah as if he was out of his mind. “They can’t change. You’re crazy.”

Urruah glanced over at Huff: Huff looked back at him, bemused. “All right then,” Urruah said, “I’m crazy.” Rhiow looked with great care at his tail. It was quite still. She licked her nose, twice, very fast. “But I think you should lock that gate in a stasis, Huff, and make sure no one gets at it again. If it can manage to alter itself again while it’s got a stasis on it, then obviously no cause based here is at fault.”

Huff stared at the floor for a moment, then looked up and said, “I’ll take care of it. Rhiow—”

She looked over at him. “Our next move?” Huff said.

She was not used to being so obviously deferred to: it made her a little uncomfortable. After a moment’s pause, she said, “Overall, I think at the moment that I have to agree with Fhrio. While I agree it’s important to make sure that our home-timeline’s Victoria is safe, the other one is in greater danger at the moment … or so it seems to me … and her assassination is what seems likeliest to trigger the derangement of our own timeline. I think we must therefore try to get into the ‘altered eighteen seventy-four’ timeline as quickly as we can: tomorrow, I think, since a lot of us are short on sleep at the moment. We’ll try to find out exactly when the assassination was, and find out what we need to do to stop it. After that we can worry about the book, and last of all, about the stranded pastlings in our own time. Huff?”

He put his ears forward in agreement. “That makes sense to me. Let’s do so.”

“I am going to fuel Urruah’s timeslide tomorrow,” Siffha’h said, as if expecting an argument.

“Fine,” said Huff. “Urruah had some questions about the catenary’s behavior as a power source: this will resolve them. Auhlae and I will be doing general gate duty tomorrow, but we’ll be on call if something else comes up. When should we all meet?”

“About this time?” Urruah said.

“Good enough.”

The group broke up. Fhrio threw a very annoyed look at Urruah as he went out, and Urruah sat down and started washing, while the others, glancing at him, left.

Rhiow touched cheeks with Auhlae and Huff as they went out, then sat down by Urruah while he scrubbed his face. “Well, you seem to have managed to attract a lot of someone’s annoyance today,” she said softly, when the others, except for Arhu, were gone. “What was all that about?”

“Well, I spent a late night working with Auhlae a couple of nights ago,” Urruah said, “and he seems to have taken issue with that.”

“Fhrio? What business is that of his?”

“I’m not sure.”

Rhiow sighed. “It doesn’t take much to get him going in any case,” she said. “Probably it means nothing. Are you all right, though?”

“Oh, I’m fine. It’s just that—” He shrugged his tail, started washing his ears. Rhi, usually there’s a certain level of good humor about these joint jobs. It seems to be missing in this one.

It’s the level of stress, I’d imagine, Rhiow said. This is not your usual “joint job”.

“No,” he said, “I suppose not.” He stopped washing, and sighed, putting his ears forward as Huff came back in. “Huff,” he said, “do you want any help with that stasis?”

“No,” Huff said, “I’ll manage it.” He sat down and looked around him a little disconsolately.

“All right then,” Urruah said. “Rhi, I’ll see you in the morning. Go well, Huff—” He headed out toward the cat-door in the back of the pub.

Rhiow looked at Huff for a moment, then got up and went to sit by him. “Are you all right?” she said.

“Oh—yes, I suppose so,” he said, sounding a little distracted. “It’s just that … I don’t know … I’m not used to coping with these stress levels, and everyone around me seems to be losing their temper half the time. My team’s unhappy and I don’t know why, and there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it …”

Rhiow put one ear back: it was a feeling she’d had occasionally. “Oh, Huff, it’ll sort itself out … you’ll see. It is the stress, truly: this problem isn’t the kind of thing any of us would normally have to handle in the course of work. And to be suddenly thrown together with strangers, no matter how well-intentioned they are, and then try to deal with something like this … it isn’t going to be easy for anyone.” She put her whiskers forward a little. “You’re such an easy-going type anyway,” Rhiow said, “that it must be difficult for you to deal with the frictions: they must seem kind of foolish to you.”

He gave her a rueful look. “Sometimes,” he said, “yes. Yes, you’re right …” He sighed. “Stranger or not,” he said, “it’s nice to have someone around who understands. But then you’re not exactly a stranger any more.”

“No, of course not. When we get all this solved, Huff, you should come visit us in New York. We’ll show you and your team around the gates at Grand Central … ‘do the town’ a little. Urruah knows some extremely good places to eat.”

“I know,” Huff said, sounding a little more amused. “I keep hearing about them.” His whiskers were right forward now.

“I bet,” Rhiow said, resigned. “Look … we’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow. I should get home. You try to get some rest, Huff, and we’ll see you later on.”

He waved his tail in agreement. “Go well,” he said. They touched cheeks: and Rhiow went out the back, through the cat door, and down the alley, heading for the Tower Hill Underground station … thinking, a little absently, how nice it was that it no longer felt strange to rub cheeks with Huff at all…

She got home very late, by New York time, and found Iaehh in bed and snoring. As quietly as she could, Rhiow curled up with him, too tired even to care whether he would roll over on top of her in the middle of the night, as he often did while feeling for someone else who should have been in the bed, but wasn’t. She sighed at the thought of what now seemed about a hundred years ago: a time when both her ehhif were here and happy, and her life managing a gating team had been relatively simple and uncomplicated … or had seemed so.

About a second later, she woke up. Oh, unfair, she thought. It was typical that, on a night when you most needed the sense of being asleep for a long time, you instead got that “cheated” feeling of having been asleep almost no time at all.

It was, however, nearly six in the evening. Iaehh wasn’t back from work yet, but he would be soon, and if she didn’t get out fairly quickly, he would turn up and delay her. Rhiow sighed and got right up, stretching hard fore and aft: ate (finding the bowls washed and filled again), then washed and used the box, and headed out for Grand Central. Half an hour later Rhiow was in London, on the platform in the Underground station, watching Urruah reconstructing his timeslide. Auhlae was there, and Siffha’h: Arhu was sitting off to one side, ostensibly watching Urruah fine-tuning his spell, but (to Rhiow’s eye) actually staying rather pointedly out of Siffha’h’s way.

“Perfect timing,” Urruah said, looking up. “I’m just about set here.”

“You have all those extra coordinate-sets that you wanted to test laid in as well?” Rhiow said, strolling over to the “hedge” of burning lines which was the spell diagram. It looked taller than it had been before.

“Yes indeed,” Urruah said. “We’ll take them in order after we check out the main one, the ‘scarred’ timeline. Everybody, come and check your names. We’re ready to rock and roll …”

Rhiow jumped into the circle to re-examine her name. Auhlae jumped in after her, remarking, “I would have thought you were more interested in the classical line of things, Urruah …”

His whiskers went forward. “Always. But I believe one’s interest in music should be balanced.”

“If it’s ehhif music you’re talking about,” Siffha’h said as she jumped into the circle as well, “you’re too balanced by half. All that screeching.”

Urruah chuckled. “Wait till you’re older and you have more leisure to develop your tastes.”

“ ‘Older’!’ Siffha’h said. “I’m sick of hearing about it. And I’m getting older right now waiting for you People to get your acts together!” She glared at Arhu.

Arhu, taking no apparent notice, made a small elegant jump which landed him precisely on the spot which Urruah had laid out for him inside the circle. He bent down, checked his name, and then turned his back to Siffha’h, yawning, and sat down with his tail wrapped around his toes.

“Huh,” said Siffha’h, glancing at Arhu and planting her forepaws in the power-feed area of the spell. She looked over at Urruah.

“Everybody sidled?” he said. “Good. First set of coordinates are ready,” he said. “The spell’s on standby. Feed it!”

“Consider it fed,” Siffha’h said.

The world vanished in a blast of light and power so vehement that Rhiow was glad she had been sitting down: otherwise she would have fallen over. This was not anything like Urruah’s style of power-feed, decorous and smooth like a limo starting and stopping. This was a crash of power and pressure, happening all at once from all around, like being at the center of a lightning strike. In the middle of it all she thought she heard something like a yowl of frustration, but she couldn’t be sure. When the light cleared away again, Rhiow half-expected to smell ozone: she had to sit there for a moment or so and shake her head, waiting for her eyes to work again. After a few moments they did, but she still saw a residual blur of green light at the edges of vision for a little while, the remnant of the image of the first flash of the spell-circle as it came up to power.

She looked around and saw that they were all once more sitting in a muddy street: and Rhiow sighed at the thought of what getting clean again was likely to taste like. The sky above them was that of early morning, clear and blue: a surprising contrast to the last time. “All right,” Urruah said, “there’s the tripwire. I’ve closed the gate.” Then Urruah looked up and around, and said suddenly, “And we’ve got a problem.”

“What?” said Rhiow.

He was looking up at the Moon, which stood high in the southern sky at third quarter. They all looked too.

The Moon was white, with only the faintest blue shadows.

“Oh, vhai,” Auhlae said, “this isn’t the contaminated timeline!” She turned to Urruah. “This is the predecessor to our London! Our world! For pity’s sake, Urruah, how did that happen?”

Urruah was dumbfounded. “Auhlae, you saw the settings, we worked on them together—you tell me!”

“I’ll tell you how it happened,” Siffha’h said, staggering to her feet. “We were being blocked. Couldn’t you feel it? Urruah?”

“I’m not sure—”

“Nice excuse,” Arhu muttered.

“Oh, go swallow your tail!’ Siffha’h spat. “Who asked you for anything like an opinion? As if you could produce one out your front end instead of your rear for a change. We were being blocked! Something knocked us sideways. Something vhai’d well doesn’t want us in the alternate timeline! Like the Lone One!”

She was bristling with fury, as much from winding up in the wrong place, Rhiow thought, as for having her competence called into question. But there was another possibility which had occurred to Rhiow: that the other timeline was becoming stronger, strong enough now to begin interfering with any temporal gating. But there’s no evidence of that … yet.

“It could happen,” Rhiow said. “For the meantime, we shouldn’t stand here arguing.” She glanced over at Urruah. “It’s not a wasted trip, Ruah. We still have some things to check on, and some sources who would be helpful to talk to here. Among other things, would you say this is at least the right year?”

Urruah blinked. “Let’s send Arhu to steal a newspaper.”

“There’s no need to steal anything,” Arhu muttered. “These ehhif drop their newspapers all over the place, besides pasting them up on boards near the newsagents.”

They walked out into George Street, sidled, and glanced around them with a little more sense of leisure than they had felt the last time, for this was after all their home universe: there was no reason to rush away from it. Rhiow looked across the street and saw that the Tower Underground station did not exist as yet. She listened, and the Whisperer told her that the worldgate complex was, at this point in its development, housed a little behind them, somewhere under the Fenchurch Street railway station.

“Maybe we should try to look up the local gating team,” Siffha’h said, glancing around her.

“Much as I wouldn’t mind being social with them,” Rhiow said, “I think we have other things to concentrate on at the moment. Is that one of your ‘newsagents’ down there, Arhu?”

“Yeah. Come on—”

He led them eastward as far as the oval of Trinity Square. “The mud’s sure the same,” Urruah said, with resignation.

“Yes, but at least there aren’t any crazed car drivers here,” Rhiow said. “Not that it’s that much of a consolation. They’ll come soon enough.”

In Trinity Square they paused by a little shop that had a board outside with many newspapers pinned up to it and ready to be torn off, like pages of a calendar. “Try that with the New York Times,” Urruah murmured.

Rhiow put her whiskers forward at the thought. The group hung back, out of the way of the ehhif making their way up and down the sidewalk, while Arhu went up to have a look at the newspaper.

He came trotting back with a satisfied expression. “April eighteenth, eighteen seventy-four.”

“All right,” Rhiow said. “A little early, but at least it’s the right year. Let’s go up to the British Museum and see ‘Black Jack’.”

It was a long walk, nearly a mile and a half. All of them were footsore and extremely dirty by the time they got there, for no one felt it wise to expend the wizardry needed for skywalking when there might be much more important business to be handled without notice. So they went as City cats would, though sidled: down Great Tower Hill into Great Tower Street and over into Eastcheap: down Cannon Street into the street called St Paul’s Churchyard, under the shadow of the massive dome of St Paul’s: up Ludgate Hill to Fleet Street, and then up Chancery Lane, northward to High Holborn and finally Bloomsbury Row. By the time they got to Museum Street, they were all hungry, and Auhlae looked at the mud on her beautiful fur, and made a despairing face.

“I can’t wash like this,” she said, “I just can’t. There’s no time, and—” She sighed, and said a few words under her breath in the Speech. The mud dried and went straight to powdery dust. She shook herself hard, and for a moment was in the center of a small chocolate-colored cloud. Then the dust settled, leaving her more or less the color she should have been.

“Now there’s a thought,” Rhiow said. “Auhlae, you’re a genius.”

A few moments later there were several chocolate-colored clouds, and somewhat cleaner People emerging from them. “Now I feel better,” Auhlae said, smoothing down the fur behind her ears. “I wouldn’t like to meet a Person of note looking like I just crawled out of a sewer …”

They walked in through the iron gates of the Museum, toward the noble main facade with its columns and Greek-style portico, all carved with what one might have taken at first for ehhif gods until a better look revealed them to be allegorical figures discreetly labeled DRAMA and POETRY and PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE. They walked up the stairs and waited for some ehhif to open the doors for them, a matter of a few seconds only: then they went through into the main entrance hall, and glanced up at the huge statue of an ehhif which leaned there, looking out thoughtfully at the world.

“Who’s that?” Arhu said. “Another fake god?”

“It’s a great taleteller, dear,” Auhlae said, “one who told his stories a couple of hundred sunrounds ago, from this time anyway. Hsshah’ spheare, his name was.”

“Whether he’s that great,” said someone off to one side in the great echoing hall, “when the best-known mention he makes of our People is to suggest turning one of them in a frying pan, is a question yet to be resolved. But never mind that at the moment.”

They all turned to see a big, big black-and-white cat come pacing along the marble floor toward them. With his white bib and white feet, he gave the general impression of wearing ehhif formal wear. “Welcome,” he said. “I’m glad to see you!”

“We’re on errantry, as you’ve guessed, having seen us sidled,” Rhiow said, “and we greet you very well: we’ve come some way to see you. Do I have the honor of addressing ‘Black Jack’?”

The big handsome Person put his whiskers forward. “That’s how the ehhif know me: I suppose the name has got about by now. But you might more properly call me Ouhish, though, if you will. And I’m very glad to see you so soon: I hadn’t thought you could possibly turn up with such speed.”

Rhiow looked at Urruah and the others, then back at Ouhish. “I’m sorry. You say you sent for some wizards?”

“Yes,” Ouhish said.

“Well,” Urruah said, “we’re confused, now. We thought we came on business of our own. But we’ll be glad to help you in any way we can.”

“You’re saying you weren’t sent?” Ouhish said.

Rhiow paused for a moment, then laughed. “Oh, no. Wizards are always sent … one way or another. It’s just that the Powers that Be don’t always tell us that They’re doing it. Tell us your trouble, and we’ll do our best to assist you.”

“Well,” Ouhish said, “let’s go somewhere quiet where we can make introductions and get things sorted out. Will you follow me?” And he led them in through the pillared vestibule, and into the depths of the Museum.

It was a splendid place by any calculation, ehhif or feline. Rhiow had to keep reminding herself that much of the wonderful statuary and carving here was regarded as stolen or looted, though an earlier period’s ehhif had thought of what they were doing as “collection”: and violent arguments were still going on, she knew, about the proper home for some of the more beautiful and ancient artwork like the Elgin Marbles. But in the meantime, the stuff was here, and Rhiow told herself that it seemed poor-spirited not to enjoy looking at it if she had the chance.

There was little enough statuary to start with, for Ouhish led them on through the Inner Vestibule and the Room of Inscriptions, its walls all covered with writings from the ehhif peoples of old Greece and Rome, and straight into the Reading Room. In Rhiow’s time the British Museum’s library functions had all been moved to another building, bigger and some said better suited for the huge size of the collection as the twenty-first century approached: but many lamented the loss of the noble old domed Reading Room, still preserved, but no longer used for the purpose for which it had been intended. They walked through, now, into this place where for once ehhif walked as quietly as cats, and Ouhish led them off to one of the corners of the room, what was called the “New Library”, a beautiful wood-paneled area stacked high with laddered bookcases and card catalogues.

They sat down under a quiet table in one corner, touched noses and breathed breaths, and introduced themselves. “Now tell us what your trouble is, and we’ll try to help you,” Rhiow said: but Ouhish would have none of it, and insisted that they tell their story first.

Urruah lifted his eyebrows. “This is going to be complicated,” he said, but he began to lay out their business for Ouhish as clearly as he could. There was no prohibition against telling other People, in the line of errantry, that you were time-traveling: but naturally you would work hard to keep from telling them anything inappropriate, anything that would hurt them in their own lives, or tempt them to hurt others. Urruah spoke for about ten minutes, choosing his details with care, and at the end of it, Ouhish tucked himself down and looked at them all with astonishment.

“More than a hundred years in the future,” he said. “The questions I could ask you …”

“It might take us a while to work out which ones we could safely answer,” Rhiow said. “But maybe you’d let us ask first, since then we’ll have more leisure to deal with your problem. Have there been any attempts on the life of the Queen of late?”

Ouhish looked surprised. “You mean the ehhif-Queen? Nothing recent. Someone tried a couple of years ago.”

“Did they try shooting her?” Arhu said.

“That’s right. She was out driving—a madman came out and took a shot at her with a pistol. He missed, thank Iau. It’s happened before, too, a few times: usually where there are crowds.”

“Do the ehhif here not like her, then?” Siffha’h said, sounding intrigued.

“Oh, she’s been greatly loved, in the past. But things change.” Ouhish looked a little uncomfortable. “You know that her mate died some while back? They were very much attached. She was miserable, poor thing, and she withdrew almost entirely from public life after her mate’s death. That’s not something a Queen of ehhif can do, you understand. She has duties she must perform. And the ehhif she rules saw that she wasn’t doing those duties, or only doing them marginally: and those ehhif who’ve been saying for a long time that there should be no Queens any more, but just the pride-toms to lead everything, and decide everything—their way of thinking has been gaining ground.” Ouhish looked embarrassed. “I wouldn’t like to give offense, cousin,” he said to Rhiow, “but I think I know your accent—and it’s a government like your ehhif’s at home that some of these people want, and the Queen got rid of as well. A lot of the ehhif seem to think that it will happen in the next ten years or so: or at least by the turn of the century. It’s no matter to them that the Queen has been showing signs of breaking out of her withdrawal, at last. It may be too late for her now.”

Rhiow’s tail twitched slowly while she thought that Ouhish’s turn of phrase was unfortunate.

“Well,” Rhiow said. “That’s all rather sad. There are other dangers lying in wait for her as well: perhaps another assassination attempt … we don’t know for sure. One of the things we came for was to try to find out a date on which the attempt might happen, so that we might prevent it.”

Ouhish looked shocked. “Do you have any clues at all?”

“We saw them burying her on the fourteenth of July,” said Arhu, “in a universe close to this one. We don’t know how long might have elapsed between her funeral and whatever happened to her …”

“I would doubt it would have been as far back as the first of the month, if they were burying her on the fourteenth,” Ouhish said. “But it could be almost any time between, say, the fifth and the eleventh. For surely they would let her lie in state for a little time—” His tail was lashing. “Cousins, this is terrible news!”

“If you can spread it where it will do some good,” Rhiow said, “you may be able to help prevent the attempt from succeeding. We may be able to help as well, but we also have other business to attend to, which, believe it or not, may be even more important. One thing I have to ask you: have there been any strange occurrences in London lately?”

“Strange occurrences?”

He looked confused, but Rhiow was unwilling to help him, and possibly lead him in a direction that wouldn’t be fruitful. Ouhish thought for a moment, then said, “You know … there have been a lot of madmen about.”

“Madmen?” Siffha’h said.

“Ehhif roaming the streets and raving,” Ouhish said. “I remember one of our ehhif here in the museum mentioning a story in one of the newspapers. One of the story-writers attributed it to the full of the Moon just being past …”

“I wonder if some of those might be ehhif who stumbled through our gate and into this time,” Urruah said softly. “That’s something that’s going to have to be looked into.”

“One more problem,” Arhu muttered.

“Yes,” Rhiow said.

Ouhish’s tail was lashing. “It’s all hard to believe,” he said. “But you are wizards … But still, what could be more important than the Queen dying?”

“What might follow it,” Arhu said, “in another universe. A war, fought with weapons you can’t imagine … one which would cause a terrible winter to fall over the whole world. A winter that might never end …”

Ouhish’s head snapped up: he stared at Arhu. “You were sent,” he said. “You are the wizards I sent for!”

“We are?” Arhu said. “Why?”

“Come on,” Ouhish said, and jumped up. “Come on, quickly. It’s not me you need to be talking to: it’s Hwallis.”

“Hwallis?” Rhiow said, now completely bemused.

“That’s right. He’s an ehhif. Come on, I’ll take you upstairs and introduce you. He won’t have gone off for his midday feed yet. Not that it’s ever easy to get him to go. He hates leaving this place—”

Ouhish practically ran out of the New Library: they all had to trot to keep up with him. Hurriedly Ouhish led them back out the way they had come into the Vestibule, then off to the right and up the main staircase to the second floor. They came out into a splendid great space roofed over with glass and with a high gallery or balcony around it, all filled with ancient bas-reliefs of winged ehhif with high crowns, beautifully carved lions, and big-shouldered bulls.

“Down this way,” Ouhish said, and led them down a long wide hallway to the right, skylit by more glass roofing above. Both sides of this hall were lined with statues and sarcophagi of the first ehhif who had really conversed easily with People, the Egyptians: artwork and carving and papyrus were everywhere, in astonishing profusion, so that even Urruah, who wasn’t much of a fan of the plastic arts, stopped to stare at some of the jewelry, gems and gold glinting, in that subdued light, like a Person’s eyes in the dark.

Despite her curiosity to find out what Ouhish was carrying on about, Rhiow herself had to stop and admire what was simply a most splendid statuary group of Queen Iau and her daughters, only slightly marred by the tendency of ehhif of the period to put human bodies under the feline faces, as a symbol for human-like intelligence but feline nature. Aaurh the Mighty stood there, the Destroyer by Flame, the Queen’s champion, wearing the horned sun, the terrible fire with which she warred on the Queen’s enemies: and Hrau’f the Silent beside her, the Whisperer, with a roll of papyrus to show that she kept the records of the universe, and passed them on to those who needed them. By them was her brother, the Queen’s lover, the Old Tom, Urrau-who-Scars, Urrau Lightning-Claw: and a little separate from the others, her body turned from them but her face toward them, ambivalent as always, sa’Rrahh, mistress of the Unmastered Fire, lioness-headed lady of the stillbirth and the birth that kills the queen in labor, but also mistress of the Tenth Life: the Lone Power in Its feline recension, deadly, but never to be scorned, for some day she would be forgiven and rejoin the Pride. Paramount among them all stood Queen Iau, a Person’s head set rather incongruously on the human shoulders, but wearing a look of indomitable wisdom, power and compassion: and Rhiow put her whiskers forward. “Ehhif the artist might have been,” she said, “but whoever made this, he or she knew Them. Blessings on him or her, wherever that one might be in the worlds …”

Ouhish had stopped to let them catch up: he put his whiskers forward at Rhiow. “Interesting,” he said, “but Hwallis says something very like that. Come on: I want you to meet.”

He hurried down the hallway nearly to its end: then turned left suddenly and showed them a wood-panelled side door, which was open a crack. Ouhish put his paw into it and pulled it open. “In here,” he said.

He led them into what turned out to be a warren of little offices and storage spaces behind the exhibition halls. It was a strangely homely place after the grandeur and silence of the outer halls. Other statues were here, pushed carefully up against the walls, some being repaired for cracks or broken noses: near one doorway a bucket and some mops and brooms stood handy: another small room had a sink and some cleaning rags and solvents, and buckets of different kinds of grout for polishing stone. Other rooms were stacked and piled high with books: one was filled with crates that held piles of papyrus rolls and books.

And in one room which they came to, there was an ehhif bent over a long table. The table was covered with something that might have been dust, and he was working, slowly and carefully, to unwrap something that lay in the midst of the dust. As they came in behind him, he sneezed.

“Hwallis,” said Ouhish in Ailurin, very loudly so that the ehhif would be able to hear him, “there are guests here.”

The ehhif turned. He was young: maybe no more than eighteen, Rhiow thought—a tall, dark-haired, long-faced young man, dressed in a shirt with its sleeves rolled up, and long dark pants with suspenders. He looked at the doorway, and at Ouhish: and he said, in Ailurin, “Where?”

The People glanced at each other, surprised. “It’s all right,” Ouhish said, “you can unsidle.”

They did. The young ehhif looked at them with some surprise, and said to Ouhish, with very passable intonation, “Are these the People you asked to come?”

Rhiow was very impressed. She said, in the Speech rather than in Ailurin, “Young sir, since you plainly know that our kind exists, then I tell you that we’re wizards on errantry, and we greet you. I’m Rhiow: here are my colleagues Urruah, Auhlae, Arhu, and Siffha’h. Ouhish says he sent for us, and though we came on other business originally, he thinks you have need of our services. So tell us what your problem is, and we’ll help if we can. But speak your own language, if you like: we’ll understand you well enough, and we can help Ouhish to do so too if there’s need. We have complicated matters to discuss, I think, and there’s no need for any of us to guess at what we mean. Even if you do have a good accent.”

The young ehhif opened and closed his mouth, and then said, “Good heavens. Well, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Edward Wallis Budge.”

The others waved their tails at him in greeting. Urruah sat down, looking around him. “What exactly do you do here?” he said.

Wallis smiled slightly. “I have the honor to hold the position of Honorary Assistant to the Keeper of the Mummied Cats.”

Urruah put his whiskers forward. “Boy,” he said, “they don’t make job titles like that any more.” He peered up at the table. “I suppose that if the museum needs a keeper for mummied cats, there must be a lot of them.”

“Hundreds of thousands,” Wallis said.

“Sweet Iau in a basket,” Auhlae murmured, “what would anyone want hundreds of thousands of mummied cats for?”

“Please make yourself comfortable, and I’ll explain,” said Wallis, and he pulled out a creaky-looking ladderback chair and sat down in it. The People sat or sprawled as they pleased, and Wallis indicated the shelves and racks all around the room, all full of boxes with numbers and letters scrawled on the ends of them. “I expect you know something about the civilization of ancient Egypt,” he said.

Rhiow put her whiskers forward. “They knew something about our civilization,” she said, “which is why so many of their carvings feature our ‘gods’.”

“The neter-teh,” Wallis said, and nodded, “the Powers that Be. Yes. Well, you’ll understand that the Egyptians were very partial to cats, considering them at least partially divine, since they looked like the gods which the cats had described to my people, the ehhif.”

And suddenly he burst out laughing.

“I’m sorry,” Rhiow said, “have we missed a joke?”

“No, no …” The young ehhif wiped his eyes, still trying to get control of his laughter. “It’s just this situation. You here, and me explaining this, and … oh my.” He wiped his eyes again. “I’m sorry. Anyway, the Egyptian ehhif back then loved their cats very much, even before someone got the idea that the cats’ semi-divine status might mean they would make good intercessors for humans. To the gods, the Great Gods, I mean: to the One, and the Powers. So when their cats would die, the Egyptians would have their bodies mummified, with amulets and words of power wrapped in among the bandages, the intention being to give the cats power in the Next World.” He turned to the table, and lifted from it one of the strips of bandage that he had been removing from the cat-mummy he had been working on. Faintly, on the linen, in a brownish ink, were written the pictogram-letters of the “hieratic” writing of old Egypt. “Then they would send the mummies to the great cat-burial ground at the city of the Queen-Cat, Bubastis.”

“Some of this we knew,” Auhlae said, “though I was always a little vague about the whys and wherefores.”

“The idea was that the cats would tell the Gods how well their ehhif had treated them,” Wallis said, leaning back and folding his arms, “and the Gods would be nice to the ehhif in return. Well, this went nicely for some centuries. The mummies got more elaborate—see, this is a fairly late one: the mummy cases had become quite ornate.” He turned to the table again and lifted down the case which had enclosed the mummy on which he had been working. It was in the small shape of a Person, but with its forefeet crossed together over its chest, the way a human mummy would have had its arms crossed: its hind legs were stretched out straight, and the whole business stood upright on a little pedestal, which was gilded, so that the Person’s image stood upright as well, the way an ehhif would have. The image of the cat’s face was inlaid with lapis lazuli whiskers, and around the cat’s neck was a tracery of gold, a collar, jeweled with shining bits of colored glass.

“It’s beautiful workmanship, isn’t it?” Wallis said. “They took a lot of trouble over some of these. Equally, the spells and amulets buried with the People became very involved indeed: and the cemeteries at Bubastis got fuller and fuller. There were at least three hundred thousand cat-mummies at the cemetery at Beni-Hassan alone: probably there were many more … But then the Egyptian ehhif’s religion changed, or was supplanted by others, and the cat-mummies and the cemeteries were forgotten.”

Wallis leaned back further in the chair, uncrossed his legs, crossed them again. “Well. Their language became lost over time, and it has taken us a long time to start getting it back again. My old teacher was one of those who became involved with trying to recover it, and I went with him to Egypt, a couple of years ago, to start trying to translate some of the texts in the Pyramids. Some of those texts were very peculiar, and my teacher could make very little of them: but I came at the translation from a slightly different angle … and realized what some of those wall carvings meant.”

“Spells,” Urruah said. “They were wizardry.”

“Yes,” Wallis said. “Some of them. It was knowledge I kept to myself. I am no wizard, not as I understand the term is usually meant. But I know a little of the language—Hauhai, the ‘Great Speech’?—some words of it were carved inside the Pyramids. And from other such carvings, and a great many of the papyruses we recovered, I know a fair amount of Ailurin, which was well known by the priestly class in the Old Kingdoms period. This has helped me with some of the mummies, since I’ve been able to tell genuine spells of protection from simple prayers, or lists of things to have the cat ask the Gods for when it gets to Heaven.”

He smiled slightly: but after a breath or so, the smile turned grim. “The matter which has been troubling me,” he said, “is that over the past couple of years, someone seems to have been going to great trouble to destroy as many cat-mummies as possible—especially at the old burial grounds at Bubastis, near the modern city of Alexandria in the northern river delta. No one has made any attempt on our collection here—we have several thousand cat-mummies—but the cemeteries at Bubastis are being systematically destroyed.”

“By whom?” Rhiow said. “And why?”

“By British nitrate wholesalers,” said Wallis, “for fertilizer.”

“What?” Auhlae said.

Wallis looked uncomfortable. “You’ll understand that, even as dry as Egypt is,” he said, “sooner or later, if you simply bury things in the sand, they’ll decay: and if you mummify them and bury them in the sand, they decay in a very controlled manner, so that finally very little is left but material which is very high in nitrites. Some bright lad got the idea of bringing huge cargo ships down there, digging up the mummies, or what was left of them, and shipping them home to England to be sold as fertilizer for ehhif gardens and farmland.”

“Dear Iau,” Auhlae said, “how …” She broke off, apparently unable to think of a word strong enough to describe her feelings.

“Now as I understand feline thought from the writings of the old priests,” Wallis said, “once you leave the body, there’s no great concern for it: you’ve another life waiting, and you go to it and get on with it. So in that regard, whether one ends as fertilizer or food for some scavenger is probably moot. But what troubles me is how many of those mummies were buried with a specific kind of protection. Most of my fellow translators have rendered it as a charm against extreme heat and cold. But I’m not sure they’re right in this. I read it as a spell, a piece of wizardry intended to protect against the Great Fire and the Great Cold that the spell insists will follow it. Some kind of destruction, ‘like the sun falling’, that’s the usual phrase—and then ‘a winter without end’.”

“Iau,” Rhiow said softly.

“And now,” Wallis said, “suddenly all these mummies, many of them with one version or another of this spell in place, are being taken away and destroyed. Ground up and thrown on people’s gardens,” Wallis said, with a grimace of distaste. “Whatever else we know about the Egyptians of that period, we know they were not foolish people. Their priests in particular. I am sure some of them were wizards—possibly wizards of great accomplishment. I don’t believe that anyone would be so careful, over a space nearly fifteen hundred years, to make sure that all these cat-mummies had one version or another of this particular spell written in their bandages. And there are some disturbing hints in the carvings in the great tombs that suggest removing these massed spells would be dangerous. There are mentions of some great destruction that would come. First fire, a terrible fire that will devastate the world. And then ice, ice forever …”

Urruah looked at Rhiow: the others all exchanges glances. “There were visionaries among those ehhif,” Arhu said, “and they worked with the wizards of other species who lived then. Almost certainly with our people too. What did they see?” He looked at Rhiow. “What we came to try to prevent?”

“It’s not beyond probability,” Rhiow said softly. “They might not have understood the science behind the idea of a nuclear winter … but they might have foreseen it, all right, and devised a defense. It wouldn’t surprise me that it would involve our people, either: ehhif always connected us with warmth and the sun … with reason. We told them often enough about Aaurh the Mighty, and how she warred the world free of the cold at the beginning of things … something for which sa’Rrahh always hated her.” She looked up at the young ehhif. “Hwallis,” Rhiow said, “how much of this spell against the Great Fire do you know?”

“Most of it,” he said, “but not all. The whole thing, the ‘master’ version of the spell, was only rarely written out because it was so long and complicated. Most often it was sketched on the bandages in an abbreviated form. Even in the earliest days of the mass mummy burials, few mummies contained it, or the carved version of it on an amulet, again because of the complexity. I had hoped to lead another expedition this year to go back to Bubastis and hunt specifically for the full form of the spell, which the carvings in the Pyramids suggested could reconfirm its protection of the world if it was pronounced by a ‘person of Power’ in the right time and place. But now the cemeteries are almost empty: their contents are in the holds of cargo ships, ground to powder. Even if I went now, I wouldn’t likely find what I’m looking for. What I fear is that protection against this Great Fire, this Great Ice, whatever they may be, is being lost … and that the way is being opened for something terrible to happen. So I asked Ouhish to see if he could get in touch with some wizards, people who might know what to do.” He shrugged. “And here you are …”

“It sounds like the Lone One has been purposely dismantling this protection,” Urruah said. “Using pawns, as usual, to do Its work. Ehhif, and their innocent greed …” He glanced up at Wallis. “Sorry. Nothing personal.”

“No offense taken,” Wallis said.

“So what do we do?” Siffha’h said.

“I would imagine try to find the whole spell,” Rhiow said, “and reinstate the protection. It could very well help with other matters.” She glanced at the others. “It might even make those other occurrences impossible …”

“Might,” said Auhlae.

“I take your point,” Rhiow said. “Hwallis—would it help if we were able to look for your full version of the spell, the master spell of which these others are fragments, in other museums?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Our collection of cat-mummies here is the biggest in the world.”

“Not in a hundred years, it won’t be,” Urruah said.

Wallis looked perplexed. “I beg your pardon?”

“He means,” Arhu said, “that we’re from the future. And the collection of that British Museum is a lot bigger than this one.”

“My God,” the ehhif said. He fell silent for a moment, then said, “I can give you a description of what to look for, both in the written and the carved forms. Will that help?”

“Very much indeed,” Rhiow said. “Ruah?”

“Show me what you have in mind,” Urruah said. “No, I don’t need a drawing: do it in your head. While we’re both working in the Speech, I can see what you’re thinking, a little. Don’t rush, just make pictures …”

They spent a few minutes about it, until Urruah was satisfied. “That’ll do,” he said. “I should have no trouble passing it on.”

“And I think I know someone who might be able to help us,” Rhiow said. “Come on—let’s get on with our other business for the day. When we get back home, we can start making some inquiries.”

They all got up. Wallis rose as well. “This has been most extraordinary,” he said. “When can I expect to see you again?”

“I really don’t know,” Rhiow said. “We’re in the middle of a fairly complex business at the moment … but I think you may have helped us with it, for which we thank you very much. Ouhish, we don’t have a lot of time to linger: will you tell Hwallis about what we were discussing with you earlier?”

“Gladly. I hope we see you again soon,” Ouhish said, “for this problem has us both frightened …”

“We’ll be in touch as soon as we can,” Auhlae said. And she waved her tail, amused. “It’s been charming to speak with an ehhif who knows our language.”

Wallis bowed. “Dai stihó,” he said.

“Thank you,” Rhiow said. “I hope we may go well on this business of yours … and others.”

Ouhish saw them out, down to the great flight of stairs reaching down to the Great Russell Street entrance. The walk back to the street where the timeslide spell was sited went a little more swiftly than the walk to the Museum had, partly because of familiarity and partly because all of them were getting bolder in dealing with the traffic: though it hardly moved much faster than the fifteen miles an hour at which London motor traffic moved in their native time, the vehicles were a good deal less lethal. They found the street conveniently empty, and Urruah found his “tripwire” under the mud and activated the spell-circle. It rose up in an instantaneous, blazing hedge of fire around him, and hard behind him came Siffha’h, straight onto her power point, and the others all close behind.

“All right,” Urruah said. “Next coordinates. The Illingworth incursion. The slide’s in standby—”

“Ready. Now,” Siffha’h said, reared up a little, and came down with her front paws directly on the power point.

The blast of fire rose up around them, pressing in.

“Hello,” said a high clear voice, “what’s this?”

All the People’s heads jerked up. He could plainly see them, and had waded halfway into the circle already, waist-high in the “hedge’ of fire—a young ehhif, in shorts and a white shirt and a short dark coat, and he was looking at them, and the circle, in astonishment. What’s he doing in here, how can he be in here, get him out!! was Rhiow’s first thought. But there was no time. The spell was already blazing with Siffha’h’s blast of power, and they were all vanishing together, the People, the spell-circle, the ehhif boy—

There was no way to stop it, any more than an ehhif would have been able to get out of a moving vehicle at high speed. The pressure built. There was a cry from the boy, lost in a roar of sound which Rhiow couldn’t understand. Then everything began to shake—and that she understood too well. Unauthorized ingress into a timeslide or worldgating, she thought, the whole spell comes apart and flings everyone in it into not-time or not-space. Iau, not like this, why must it end like this—!

The pressure increased unbearably: Rhiow lost all sense of herself. So much for this life, was her last thought.

But it was not. What seemed a long time later, Rhiow found herself lying on the concrete floor of the unused platform beneath Tower Hill Underground station: and near her was the boundary of the timeslide spell, all the virtue drained out of it. The others lay about in the positions they had held in the spell—and sitting down by them, his knees drawn up against his chest, trembling, was the young ehhif, looking at his surroundings, and the People, in terror.

Rhiow got up, slowly, feeling as if one of the big draft horses of the 1874 streets had been jumping all over her. Next to her, Urruah was pushing himself up onto his feet, where he just managed to stand, wobbling, and look at the ehhif boy.

The boy wet his lips and croaked, “Kitty kitty?”

Urruah looked at Arhu, who was awake as well, and getting up. “Another problem,” Urruah said.

Rhiow was forced to agree…