In the morning, Dema showed up at Cern's apartment as promised. He offered her coffee from the fresh pot in the kitchenette, which she accepted, and went to grab his pack. 

She was pleased to see that the stag-horn illusion was not nearly as evident to her this morning. Overnight she had worked at getting her new sensitivity more under control, and it seemed to have helped.

While she stood sipping the coffee, her training kicked in and she inventoried the visible area. Her eyes came to rest on an unusual object hung on a wall near the door. It was a metal hoop, maybe six inches across, probably bronze, with a short gap between the ends and small balls formed onto the tips. 

It looked very old, not merely tarnished but well worn. There might at one time have been some runic markings on it, but if so they were nearly worn away. She was still studying it when Cern came up.

"Oh, that," he said. "Everybody asks about that. All I know is it's a family heirloom, passed on to me by my grandfather. He was named Cern too. I figure it's supposed to be a big letter C, a monogram." 

He reached over and adjusted it on its support so the C was more upright. As he touched it, the illusion of his antlers became much stronger for her. But he seemed unaware of the effect.

"It looks very old. Was it passed down through many generations?"

"I don't know. Grandpa traveled a lot, could have picked it up anywhere. Like I said, it probably caught his eye because of its shape."

He picked up his pack and opened the door, and Dema had to let it go. But there was something familiar about the C-shaped thing, and it was obviously linked to the stag-horns. That it came from his grandfather added to her suspicions about shaman ancestry. Something else to ask Sedna about.

"Nice Jeep," said Cern as Dema clicked the key to unlock it.

"It's practical," she said. "Sometimes I need practical."

He tossed his gear in the back and slid in beside her. "I admire practical," he said.

"I noticed. Nice practical boots. No overpriced yuppie gear."

"I've spent enough time in the woods to know how to pack light."

She pulled out into traffic and headed for the highway. They drove up Interstate 90. They would be going well past Madison, until they could pick up I-94, and then go straight north into Clark County. On the drive, Cern began to tell her more about his client.

"He has a small dairy farm, and belongs to a local co-op called Organic Foods Marketing."

"You'd better explain organic to me. I know it's supposed to be more natural, and I think that's good, but I don't know the legal side of it."

"You see a lot of foods labeled 'natural,' but that doesn't really mean much. Almost anything can be construed as natural by marketing people. But to be certified organic, a farm's products have to meet certain standards, both federal and state. The main ones are that they don't use any herbicides, pesticides, or chemical fertilizers.

"That's where the problem comes in. Cows have to eat, so he has pastures for them. Sometimes he waters the pastures to keep them growing well. That's legal, the standards don't say anything about watering. But if there are pesticides or fertilizer in the water, he could lose his certification, even if he's not the one who put them there."

"Surely the standards don't require zero pesticides!"

"Oh no, but there are parts-per-million standards that can't be exceeded. And the big farm upstream from his place uses all the forbidden stuff. Their excess runs off into the river he pumps his water from."

"And that makes the water he pumps from the river exceed the limits? Can't he use well water?"

"Actually he does use well water when he can. Standards or not, he wants to do right by his cows. But the time of year he needs to water most is also when the water table is lowest, so he can't always pump enough. At the same time, the river is low then too, so the runoff concentrations get higher. It's a lose-lose situation."

"Isn't there anything he can do? Filters or something?"

"I asked him about that. A filtration and treatment system that would remove the pesticides would be too expensive. Organic farms have to struggle to compete as it is. But it's not as bad as I've made it sound. Normally the river water dilutes the artificial stuff enough that he would be okay, even in the worst part of the year. Lately, though, it seems the big farm operators are using far more of it than they have in past years. They claim not, but where else could it be coming from?"

"All this sounds awfully familiar. Like it's another front of the drug war."

Cern smiled at her. "Then I've enlisted the right troops."