Free To Visit the Queen by Diane Duane Page A

to the gravel in the access tunnel. Rhiow trotted down the cast-cement tunnel, all streaked with old iron stains, to where it joined the main train tunnel underneath Park. There in front of her was the little concrete bunker of Tower U, its lights dark at the moment. To her left were the four tracks, which almost immediately flowered into ten— seven active tracks, three sidings— by the time they reached Fifty-fifth.
    Rhiow looked both ways, listened, then bounded over to the left-paw side of the tracks and began following them southward, along the line of the eastward sidings. Ahead, the fluorescents were still on nighttime configuration, one-quarter of them on and three-quarters off, striping the platforms in horizontal bands of light against the rusty dimness. She trotted toward them, seeing something small move down by the bottom of Track 24: and she caught a glimpse of something that didn't belong down here, a glitter of white or hazy blue light concentrated in one spot.
    Bong, said the ghost-voice of the clock in the main concourse, as Rhiow cut across a few intervening tracks and jumped up onto the platform for 24. There was Urruah, sitting and looking at the dimly seen warp and weft of the worldgate, the oval of its access matrix a little larger than usual.
    " 'Luck, 'Ruah," Rhiow said, and stood by him a moment with her tail laid over his back in greeting. "Where's the wonder child?"
    "Upstairs begging for pastrami from the deli guy."
    Rhiow sighed. "There's one habit of his I wish you wouldn't encourage."
    "Oh, indeed? I seem to remember where he got it. Some one took him upstairs and— "
    "Oh, all right." Rhiow grinned. "We all slip sometimes. Did you open this?"
    "No, he did, while he was waiting for us."
    "For us? You weren't here?"
    "He was early. Got impatient, apparently."
    Rhiow put one ear back. "Not sure I like him doing this by himself, as yet..."
    "How were you planning to stop him? Come on, Rhi, look at it. The synchronization's exact. He would have stayed here to keep an eye on it," Urruah added, forestalling her as she opened her mouth, "but I told him to go on upstairs and get himself a snack. The guy likes him: he won't get in trouble."
    Rhiow put her ear forward again, though she had a definite feeling of being "ganged up on by the toms." It may be something I'm going to have to get used to. "All right," she said, studying the gate. It was open on London, set for nonpatency and a nonvisible matrix on the far side: this side would have been invisible to her too, except that she could see where Arhu had carefully laid in the "graphic" Speech-form of her name, and Urruah's and his own, in the portion of the spell matrix that controlled selective visibility and patency configurations. Beyond the matrix, light glittered off the river that ran by the big old stone building on which the view was centered: a huge square building of massive stone walls, with what appeared to be more buildings inside it, like a little walled city.
    "The Tower of London," Urruah said.
    "Doesn't look like a tower..."
    "There's one inside it," Urruah said, "the original. The gating complex proper is a little to the north: this is a quieter place for a meeting, the Whisperer suggested. Local time's four hours or so after sunrise."
    "Ten thirty," Rhiow said. "Is this a good time for the gating team there?"
    "Don't know how good it is," Urruah said, "but it's what She specified. She may have spoken to them already. Ah hah— here he comes."
    The small black-and-white form came trotting insouciantly down the platform, not even sidled. "Arhu," Rhiow said as he came up to them, "come on. You know how they are about cats in here— "
    "Not about cats they can't find," Arhu said, licking his chops, and sidled. Rhiow sighed, leaned over, and breathed breaths with him: and she blinked. "Sweet Iau in a basket, what's that?"
    "Chili pickle."
    Rhiow turned to Urruah. "You have created a monster," she said.
    Urruah laughed out loud.