"I spoke with some of the diggers this morning as we were preparing to depart. They feel I can assist them with my meds knowledge. I will find that interesting and it will give us another perspective in this job and in discovering the sources and the outcomes of it."
        "Yes. Good."
        "When were you in the Long Rift's lot? Do you know anything about it?"
        "It crosses Eoe."
        "Where you came from, to us. Far beyond Gamedon."
        "Yes. It divides Eoe east to west and cuts off the southern portion for the Eoeun will not descend into it and they have no other way to cross it. They told me that a different sort of Eoeun live there. Strange. Odd. But so they thought me. They aren't afraid. They don't travel. They may accept the Rift as a barrier with relief."
        "But they think some of their people live within it and the Progenitor says no 1 lives there now. Fossils, she said."
        Ince nodded.
        "Will you visit those you know while we are there? Will you ask Sem Partoldi about the Septa passengers?"
        "I may. I intend to know the answer to that but I will choose my time. I do not trust the Progenitor not to harm the Eoeun. That will be my 1st priority. She must not harm them or disrupt them. After I have finished this acceptance then I can confront the Sem. If I do not meet her in the Progenitor's encampment," she added.
        "She will be asked, you think? As a guest honoring her people?"
        "I sincerely doubt that. I think the Progenitor classes Eoeun between beasts of burden and pet flyads. But the Sem is unusual. She is immensely old and in her life has traveled much, even, I think, outside the lot though she is too sly to state this clearly to me and her hints and innuendoes may be to make me think she has traveled less than she has or more; each would have advantages for her. I haven't yet decided which would suit her better. She has unusual acquaintances as well. Unusual for Eoeun. Her intellectual interests, her gambling interests, or her interest in seeking the Heourkavna spirit may have led her path to cross that of the Progenitor. That would be a meeting capable of most unusual results."
        Was she thinking, perhaps, that as well as forcing her from the service the Progenitor had forced or intrigued or beguiled Sem Partoldi into some unpleasant interlude with the Septa beings? There were some remarkable connections in life. There were as well many marvelous conspiracies budding only within fertile minds. The rider's mind was certainly fertile. It knew devious ways, avid ways; it knew many ways.
        A shadow suddenly rippled across our threshold.