“ Small identical wooden or metal discs with a strange pattern engraved upon them (do not appear to be coinage). The discs can be found all over the continent; a farmer typically overturns several dozen when ploughing a field. Though they are unnaturally hard to break, they have no known use and are widely used as good-luck charms: almost all households would have them on the doors and on mantle pieces; many people carry one or more on them, bound on to a belt, necklace or sewn on to their clothes.”
“ Daedalus Station is a 550-meter long space hulk drifting in trans-Uranian space, reduced to a derelict by the catastrophic failure of its dimensional reactor. The failure of the short-lived Paradigm VI reactor created a stable dimensional bore, a three-meter wide disc in the engineering section.
What is on the other side of the rift?
Why is the rift anchored to the ship instead of a point in space?”
“ In this culture it is not wise to talk too much good things about anything - especially children,lest some evil spirit steals it. So it is customary to say it is ugly and weak and will surely not survive. Also:
'The man who boasts of his young woman is a fool,
The man who boasts of his wares will get rich.'”
