So they were allies of the Gate Thief. Or shared his fear; Yllywee was an ancient name of Westil. Danny remembered the runic inscription in the Library of Congress. “We have faced Bel and he has ruled the hearts of many.” Manmages from another world—a world not Earth and not Westil. “Loki found the dark gate of Bel through which their god poured fear into the world.” Why would it matter whether Danny made a Great Gate if Bel already knew how to make gates of his own?

The Hittites knew something, and he had to find out what it was.

Danny moved the tail of the gate that suspended them to the barn. They plopped in a sodden mass amid the straw near a milking stall. At once Danny brought back the mouth of the gate, scooped them up, and hung them in the air ten feet above the barn floor.

“What’s going on, Danny?” demanded Marion. “How can you bring strangers to—”

“Hittites,” said Danny. “They shot me, and they know something about Bel.”

There had been enough discussion of the runic passage that everyone immediately understood the significance.

“I need you to question them while I’m gone,” said Danny to Marion.

“I’m not an interrogator,” said Marion.

“I didn’t say torture them,” said Danny. “Ask them questions.”

“You’re torturing them,” said Marion. “Look how afraid they are! They’re falling and falling!”

“People pay money to go up in airplanes and freefall like this before they open their parachutes,” said Danny. “It’s not torture, it’s just a way of keeping them where we want them.”

“Not here,” said Marion.

“Fine,” said Danny. “I’ll put them back out over the Atlantic till I find Hermia.”

“No!” shouted Leslie from the door. “Let them go at once!”

“They killed me!” shouted Danny. “They’re assassins.”

“And Hittites,” added Veevee. “So they’re evil and interesting.”

“This is not what a good man does,” said Leslie coldly.

Danny knew at once that she was right. His fear and anger had made him act by reflex. Yet he had also shown restraint, and he wanted credit for it.

“I could have killed them,” said Danny. “I didn’t kill them.”

“They’re sopping wet,” said Leslie.

“I didn’t know they couldn’t swim,” said Danny. “But I pulled them out of the water, didn’t I?”

“Get them out of my barn,” said Leslie. “Now.”

Back to the ocean, then. Again, Danny had to move the tail of the gate first, which put them back in the water, flailing and sputtering, and screaming whenever they could catch their breath. Then he got them back up in the air. By now they thought of that continuous freefall as a good thing, no doubt, compared to drowning.