Agent Lee got out of the carriage and looked with interest at the stables built on the edge of the forest. The mayor had gotten out on the other side and was walking around the back of the carriage toward agent Lee with a concerned expression on his face. He quickly wiped the wrinkles from his face, for he noticed that Lee was studying him. “This is the terminus of the road, Governor. And there is the town Resurrection.” The mayor pointed to the village on the other side of the road. There was no reason to report that. Both men knew where they had been heading. Lee got the sense that the mayor was masking his concern with talk. 
The agent looked around. He wondered what was here to be seen. Minister Darsi had been vague about it. On the day that former Secretary Dumont was paid his last respects at the Center, Darsi had suggested that Agent Lee take a look at the spot where a dirt road emerged from the dense forest from the east. “take a look.” Darsi litteraly had said. Lee had asked him if there would be anything to see. “That…,” Darsi had replied, “I can't tell you. I can only ask you to look. Seeing is of a different order, which neither I nor you can control.”    

Agent Lee knew Minister Darsi far too well to think Darsi was joking. Darsi never joked. Agent Lee knew from experience that Darsi better be taken seriously, especially when it was not immediately clear what he meant. Agent Lee had been familiar with Darsi's didactic tactic of using ironic parabola since his college days at the Center. Lee therefore obediently travelled here and looked around carefully to check if he could indeed see anything. For the time being, he saw a perfectly ordinary terminus in all respects. Stables, warehouses, an inn and a dusty area that connected the stables to the main road along the edge of the forest. These types of terminuses could be found on all roads from Geertruiderdam. Lee watched where the road passed the stables and disappeared into the woods. The road was a typical country road. Unpaved with overgrown verges. Branches crossed the road, casting it in deep shadow. Lee studied the tracks left by traffic. In the middle of both tracks, grass grew in two long strips as far as the road was visible. Lee looked at the road he was walking on and the carriage he had arrived in. “What kind of vehicles travel on that road?” Lee asked. 
The mayor gestured to a row of carts in front of the stables. They were all equipped for the use of one horse per cart. Indeed, just such a cart pulled by one horse came along the road out of the forest. The horse did not want to walk on the grass strip in the middle of the lane and tried to trot along it on one side. That could not bear the approval of the driver as the carriage bumped one wheel across the grass strip in the center of the track and it was being shaken terribly. The man sent the horse back to the center of the track with a flick of his whip.
“Where does that road lead, exactly?” Agent Lee inquired. “I thought there were only swamps in that direction.” 
"A few farmyards.' answered the mayor. "Mainly forest. Further on the tidal swamp begins," the mayor said.    
   

"Then why such a large terminus?" 
The mayor coughed and looked away as if he didn't hear the question. 
“What is that?” Agent Lee asked. He pointed to one of the buildings, around which there was activity. It looked like a shed. The doors were opened and smoke billowed from under the roof. Agent Lee sniffed the air. There seemed to be a sweet smell emanating from it. 
"That's just a brandy distiller." the mayor replied. "That's why the terminus is so big, isn't it? It has industry.’ he added with some relief. 'Brandy? That can't be grain then, because the grain auction is in the other direction from Geertruiderdam. Potatoes, perhaps?” Officer Lee looked quizzically at the mayor. 
The poor man had turned pale and was wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. “Are you not feeling well?” the agent inquired.
The mayor coughed again and stared at the officer for a few moments. He shook his head. "It's just very warm today," he declared weakly. 
Agent Lee nodded in agreement and turned around. He walked to the stables. There didn't seem to be anything odd about it. Just stables. He walked in across the cement floor. Agent Lee stopped in the middle of the hall to watch the platform where the carriages were loaded and unloaded. He sniffed the air. The smell of the brandy distiller was clearly perceptible even here. There were a few damp spots on the cement. The floor had apparently just been rinsed clean. Lee leaned over to take a closer look at a residual puddle. It seemed to him that he could see all the colors of the rainbow in the moisture that had collected in the center of it. The mayor nearly fainted when he saw Lee bending over the puddle. “Probably spilled while loading.” he said quickly. 
Lee ignored him and scanned the hall. His gaze lingered on a pile of rusted objects strewn untidily in a corner. There were also the two men who had galloped out of the gate of the stables in Geertruiderdam, where Officer Lee and the mayor had nestled in their carriage. They now didn't seem to have much to do, though they appeared in an awfull haste then. Lee watched as they leaned against the wall with their hands in their pockets, staring back at him sullenly. Lee shrugged. He had done as he was asked. He had looked around. Agent Lee turned and walked out of the stables. 

As he passed, he beckoned the nervous-looking mayor along. "Come." he said. “Let’s find you a doctor in Resurrection. I do think you look ill, after all.” 
“Do you think?” the mayor asked with relief. Lee noted that with each step further from the terminus, the man's health improved noticeably. In fact, by the time the two were back in the carriage, he had recovered enough to pull out the basket of refreshments and hungrily popped a croissant into his mouth. He presented the basket to the agent. 
“Strange, really,” Lee remarked, studying a croissant before taking a bite. 
"What's strange about a croissant, Sire?" asked the mayor, his mouth full. 
“That something made from grain becomes more and more expensive in imperial banknotes, but cheaper in the coinage of the Eendracht. Oh dear. Be careful.” Officer Lee sat down next to the mayor to pat him on the back, as the poor man had choked on one bite.