The Book of Night With Moon Read Online Free PDF

basic stuff. Even ehhif know enough to check the di-timings before they transit, and they can't even see the strings."
    "Well, whoever came through didn't bother," Saash said. "Until we close it down again, the gate won't be able to slide back where it belongs for the day shift. And to get it shut, we'll have to reweave the whole vhai 'd portal substrate until the egress stringing matches the access web again."
    Rhiow sighed. "After we spent all of yesterday doing just that. Urruah's going to love this."
    "Whenever he wakes up," Saash said dryly, sitting down to scratch again; but whatever else she might have said was lost as her ehhif came bustling up from down the ramp.
    "Oh, poor kitty, you still scratchin', I gotta do you again!" Abad cried as he came toward them, feeling around for something in the deep pockets of his stained blue coverall. Abad was a living example of the old saying that an ehhif either looks like its cat to begin with or gets that way after a while— a tall, thin tom, fine-boned, brown-complected, with what looked like an eternal expression of concern. As Abad finally came up with the canister of flea powder, Saash took one wide-eyed look, said " Oh no!" and took off around the corner of the garage door and down the sidewalk toward Lexington. By the time he got into the open doorway and started looking for her, Saash had already done a quick sidle. Rhiow got up and strolled out onto the sidewalk after them. Abad stood there looking first one way, then the other, seeing nothing. But Rhiow, as she came up beside him, saw Saash slow down by the corner of the apartment building and look over her shoulder at Abad, then sit down again and start washing behind one ear.
    "Aah, she hidin' now," Abad said sadly, and bent down to scratch Rhiow, whom he at least could still see. "Hey, nice to see you, Miss Black Cat, but my little friend, she gone now, I don' know where. You come back later and she be back then, she play with you then, eh?"
    "Sure," Rhiow said, and purred at the ehhif for kindness' sake; "sure, I'll come back later." She stood up on her hind legs and rubbed hard against Abad's leg as he stroked her. Then she went after Saash, who glanced up at her a little guiltily as she stood again.
    "You do that to him often?" Rhiow said. "I'd be ashamed."
    "We all sidle when we have to," Saash said. "And if your fur tasted like mine does right now, so would you. Come on, you may as well… we're close, and enough people are out now that they'll slow us down if we're seen."
    Rhiow sighed. "I suppose. It's getting late, isn't it?"
    Saash squinted in the general direction of the sun. "I make it ten of six, ehhif -time."
    Rhiow frowned. "That first train from North White Plains is due at twenty-three after, and we can't let it run through a patent gate. Which Dumpster did he say it was?"
    "Fifty-third and Lex," Saash said. "By that new office building that's going up. There's a MhHonalh's right next to it, and the workmen keep throwing their uneaten food in there."
    At the thought, Rhiow grimaced slightly, and looked over her shoulder to see what Abad was doing. He was still gazing straight toward them, looking for Saash: seeing nothing but Rhiow, he sighed, put the flea powder away, and went back into the garage.
    Rhiow stood up and sidled, feeling the familiar slight fizz at ear-tips, whisker-tips, and claws as she stepped sideways into the subset of concrete reality where visible light would no longer bounce off her. Then she and Saash headed south on Lex toward Fifty-third, taking due care and not hurrying. The main problem with being invisible was that other pedestrians, ehhif and houiff particularly, had a tendency to run into or over you; and since they and other concrete things were still fully in the world of visible light, in daytime they hurt to look at. In the "sidled" state, though, you were already well into the realm of strings and other nonconcrete structures, and so your view was littered with