I’m not sure there’s going to be anything normal about his practice for a while, Rhiow said, dry, as they watched the structure of the gate reassert itself in the air, rippling and flowing, wrinkling as if someone was pulling it out of shape from the edges. Arhu had not actually started his task on the gate yet, but he was thinking about it, and the gates were susceptible to the thoughts of the technicians who worked with them.

“Uh,” Arhu said.

“Don’t just pull it in all directions like a dead rat, for Iau’s sake,” Rhiow said, trying not to sound as impatient as she felt. “Take time to get your visualization sorted out first.”

“Remember what I told you about visualizing the entire interweave of the gate’s string structure as organized into five-stranded structures and groups of five,” Urruah said. “Simplest that way: there are five major groupings of forces involved in worldgates, and besides, we have five claws on each paw, and these things are never accidental—”

“Wait a minute,” Arhu said, sitting back again, but with a slightly suspicious look this time. “Are you trying to tell me that the whole species of People was built the way we are just so that we could be gate technicians—?”

“Maybe not just for that purpose, no. But don’t you find it a little strange that we’re perfectly set up to handle strings physically, and that we can see them naturally, when no other species can?”

“The saurians can.”

“That’s a recent development,” Rhiow said wearily. It was one of many “recent developments” which they were all slowly digesting. “Never mind that for now. No other species could. Meantime, do something before the thing defaults again …”