"I was met in there. In the tunnel," I paused, rubbing my forehead. This incoherence would not do. Determinedly I crossed my arms as if to contain my anger and push it back. "Upon reaching the base of the entry shaft," I began more collectedly as though making my report to Gallett, "I followed the tunnels according to my sensing of them." I glanced at them, but they nodded, accepting this.
        "The pad recorded nearly an hour, I think, the last time I saw it. The lights vanished, a wind came, then a cord of brilliant light snaking and rushing toward me changing colors while the wind forced me back. I was swallowed by the light which swelled quickly into a globe and took me."
        I faced the fire, watched it. "I could not get my breath. My heart was....I could not see, finally, but I could hear and there was a voice. It seemed inside my head which I will not tolerate. I will not allow that yet my struggles merely amused what entered me. I know who it was," I said after I had stared into the fire for a time vastly reluctant to continue, to reveal this to them.
        They did not move or speak though they must have wished me to continue.
        I could not say it. My throat closed and locked tight. I could not speak her name. I kept my face to the fire and closed my eyes hating this, hating this disclosure, hating undeniable evidence of this fury and hatred my weakness. I did not want them to know any of this. I could not say it. I felt myself begin to suffocate again as if she did linger in my mind to toy with me.
        Vettra pulled me back from the fire. She checked me with her medsens.
        I moved away. She knew I did not like this. I did not ever like it but I particularly did not like it outside a med station. I kept moving, with my back to them. I stopped near the glass wall and looked at the terrace without seeing it. I drew a hand down over my face and turned to them. "It...." I began. My throat closed; I swallowed, tried again to speak.
        Pennbaston glanced away, a trace of the pain she felt briefly marring her face.
        It served to strengthen my resolve. It was some quirk I possessed being unable to permit another's discomfort for my sake. I had never been able to accept that and now it forced words from me. "It was the Progenitor," I said. I must finish it: "Mine....my....progenitor."
        They did not know this about me though it was a common enough assumption however undocumented that riders often were of Progenitors. More often than pickers, or engineers, or even meds.
        Yes, and thrown away, too.