The clavicle told her things she barely understood, and she had to ask it silently for a repeat. Not using words, it informed her again that this was an incomplete gate, requiring very little energy to maintain; a test gate, through which probes might be dropped and samples taken. It was not large enough for anything wider than a hand to pass through, and it was not at this moment open for passage anyway.

She relayed this to Demetrois. They walked around it, heads inclined, while the Kelt stood a few arms away, weapon ready. Can I open the gate myself? she asked.

The clavicle responded that there was a possibility the gate could be expanded from this side, but that such an action would undoubtedly alert anybody or anything monitoring the gate, whatever they might be.

Do you know who opened this gate?

No, the clavicle said. Gates at this stage of their creation are pretty much all alike.

She turned to Oresias and Atta and said, “It’s too small to pass through. If I try to open it wider, people on the other side will know we’re here.”

Oresias considered this for a moment, then he and Atta conferred in low voices. “We’ll think about this overnight,” Oresias said. “Come back to the beecraft. We’ll set up camp.”

The sun was already below the horizon and the sky over the grassland darkled quickly. Rhita squinted at the lens again, seeing a watery star distorted through it, and nodded at Demetrios. “Let’s go,” she said.

Camouflage nets were thrown over the beecraft, making them look like grassy hillocks—not a very good disguise, she thought, considering how flat everything was around them, but better than nothing. Oresias and Atta met with the kybernetes of the cargo plane while four large tents were erected. Rhita listened to their plans for the next day from her cot on a pad of grass flattened by a canvas sheet. Flies and moths buzzed around her light in the corner of the tent. She was exhausted; hardly able to keep her eyes open, and yet she could not seem to drift off. Demetrios brought a can of soup from the makeshift galley and she sipped it, asking herself silently, again and again, Why here? Why open a gate here? Who could have followed Patrikia to this Gaia, and who would want to?

There had been no messages on the teukhos for the past two days. This evening, however, she flipped the switch and saw her grandmother’s words again. She had been no witch, after all; she was still advising Rhita about politics in Alexandria, a world to all intents and purposes lost to her granddaughter now. Rhita read the long message and closed her eyes, somewhat relieved; for a time, she had thought perhaps Patrikia was staring over her shoulder, holding her accountable. Now it was apparent that the sophē had been mortal, after all.