Wizard's Holiday, New Millennium Edition by Diane Duane Page B

us for the next thirty-six hours. When Rhi’s finished we’re going to have to do some matching maintenance on the local gate substrates.”
    Kit had his manual open and was making a note. “Thirty-six hours… Got it.”
    “That should be plenty of time. I’ll message him when the maintenance is done, and one of us will drop by in a day or three to discuss some other matters.”
    Urruah got up and stretched. “Meanwhile, your transit gate will be off platform eighteen. We just moved it over there from thirty; the Metro-North staff are doing track welding today. The locus’ll be patent for the Crossings in about six minutes, after the two-twenty to Croton-Harmon gets out of your way. If you hurry, you can catch it.”
    “Thanks,” Nita said. “Dai, big guy.”
    “Dai,” Urruah said to her and Kit, and waved his tail at Ponch as he turned.
    “Auhw heei u’uuw lau’hwu rrrhh’uiu,” Ponch said to Urruah.
    Urruah paused in midturn, and Nita’s eyes widened slightly as she caught sight of the look on Urruah’s face. It was always dangerous to judge animals’ expressions by comparing them with human ones, but wizards’ knowledge of the subverbal modes of the Speech lent them some slight latitude in reading nonhuman expressions—at least those of creatures from their own worlds that were not too far removed from them in basic psychology. Whatever Ponch had said, it had been in Ailurin, the cats’ language, and it hadn’t been something Urruah had been expecting. It had also gone by too quickly for Nita to “listen” in the Speech and hear what it had meant.
    “Uh, yes, certainly,” Urruah said, recovering himself. He waved his tail at them all once more, then strolled off across the Main Concourse, weaving from side to side to avoid the commuters, who couldn’t see him.
    They turned away, and Kit looked at Ponch with some surprise. “What was that about?” Kit said. “I didn’t know you spoke cat.”
    Correspondence course, said Ponch, and kept on walking.
    Nita threw Kit a glance. Have I told you recently, she said silently, that your dog is getting strange?
    You and the rest of the world…
    The three of them made their way to the gate for platform eighteen and, once through it, slipped to the right of it, away from the main part of the platform, where they wouldn’t be seen disappearing. Hurry up, Ponch said as Kit’s invisibility spell came down over him, too. It itches!
    “So stop complaining and come on,” Kit said. They walked down the length of the platform, staying to the left side, where there was no train. People went tearing past them on the right as down at the end of the platform the 2:20’s conductor yelled ‘“Boarrrrrrrrrrrd!” Those last few people made it onto the train, its doors closed, and with a great revving roar of engines, deafening in that confined space, it slowly began to pull out.
    Kit and Nita and Ponch stayed off to the side while a few more people came running down the platform, saw that the train was already on its way out, and slowed to a stop, then turned and went back down toward the Main Concourse to find out when the next train was. “We’re clear,” Nita said softly. “Come on.”
    The three of them made their way down to the end of the platform, where steps led down to the track level. The steps were of no interest to them, though. They looked to their left, where no train stood… but where the air just past the platform’s edge, to a wizard’s eye, rippled gently, as if with uprising heat.
    “It’s patent,” Kit said. “Let’s go. Ponch, jump it, the edge is sharp… ”
    I know that!
    Kit grinned, took a deep breath, glanced at Nita. She nodded. They stepped forward together, into the empty air, into the dark, as Ponch jumped past them…
    … and the three of them stepped out again a long second later, ditching their invisibility spells in the process, into the white brilliance of the Nontypical Transit area at the Crossings Hypergate