“We introverta,” said Hal, “are quietly proud to count the nematoda among us.”

“Science puns,” said Laurette with a shudder.

“May I interrupt this punfest plus envython to point out something to Danny that he may not have noticed and that nobody else can see?” asked Pat.

“That sounds rude,” said Laurette. “Like rich people comparing their bank balances in front of homeless people.”

“Which they do all the time,” said Pat. “Danny, the free prets are clustering around all of them, but Wheeler’s are the ones I was noticing. One or two would kind of divebomb his ka, and then he’d pop up with some bit of grossness or envy or, you know, a Wheelerism.”

Danny hadn’t noticed, but as she spoke, he could see—or sense—the hovering clouds of undifferentiated prets, and saw many of them zip inward toward Wheeler’s ka.

Wheeler whirled around and flared at Pat. “Oh, do I have some mark of Cain on me? Something that makes me an animal that doesn’t understand English, that can’t feel the contempt you have for me, Pat? You with your windmagery and your gate travel, you with the love of your life who happens to be a god panting along beside you, do you find a lonely guy like me disgusting? Ugly? Horrible?”

“You’re inverting cause and effect,” said Laurette.

Danny held up a hand, watching how more of the prets moved in close to Wheeler’s ka, which seemed to welcome them. They weren’t even orbiting, they were practically attached to him.

It occurred to Danny that gates—or any kind of outself, really—consisted of prets that were bonded to somebody’s ka. He knew that they came with human kas when they left Duat and were born on Earth. But these unattached prets—they weren’t part of anything. Not part of atoms or molecules, not part of any person or animal.

“Sutahites,” whispered Pat.

Exactly, thought Danny. The prets that followed Set to Mittlegard when he was thrown out of Duat, permanently bodiless. Set had the ability to take possession of a human, to control his actions one way or another. But the other Sutahites were far weaker. More limited. They could only … suggest. Remind.

But if they were like gates that had no gatemage, could he gather them in the way that he had taken all of the Gate Thief’s own gates and captive gates back last fall?

No. That gathering motion didn’t work, because they weren’t used to being part of anything. They didn’t respond to any kind of law.

But that didn’t mean Danny had to give up.