“I didn’t set a specific location. Just told it to hunt for population centers in the three hundred to five hundred thousand range with gating affinities.”

“Then you did good,” Rhiow said to Arhu, “even if you did panic. You had ‘here’ and ‘there’ perfectly synchronized.”

“Until I panicked.” Arhu was washing now, with the quick sullen movements of someone both embarrassed and angry.

“It didn’t do any harm. You should always brace yourself, though, when opening a gate into a new location, even on visual-only. It’s another good reason to make sure the gate defaults to invisible/intangible until you’ve got your coordinates solidified.”

“Take a break,” Urruah said: but Arhu turned back to the gateweave and began hooking his claws into it again, in careful sequence.

Stubborn, Rhiow said silently to Urruah.

This isn’t a bad thing, Urruah said. Stubborn can keep you alive, in our line of work, at times when smart may not be enough.

Rhiow switched her tail in agreement. They watched Arhu reconstruct the active matrix, and pull out the strings again, two pawsful of them: then he leaned in and carefully began taking hold of the next groups with his teeth, pulling them down one by one to join the ones already in his claws. The gate shimmered—

Traffic flowed by in both directions right before them, cars and buses in a steady stream: but there was something odd about the sight, regardless. In the background, beyond some lower buildings, two great square towers with pointed pyramidal tops stuck up: a roadway ran between them, and some kind of catwalk, high up.