The strangeness of everything having to do with the goose and the eggs increased to a level that was causing Robert to find it all impossible to believe. According to the goose the very fate of the world was in his hands. Robert wasn't comfortable with having so much responsibility on his shoulders and was giving serious consideration to telling the goose that he wanted nothing further to do with all of this. He ended up saying nothing, his curiosity wouldn't allow him to bring his time with the goose to an end.

"Why were those mobsters after you?"

"I stayed with them for a while, while I was waiting for you. They made things very comfortable for me and I ended up staying much longer than I should have. Mr. Missucci was very nice to me, he always fed me good food and gave me good wine to drink, and because of that I forgot myself and shared things with him that I shouldn't have."

"The Missuccis became the most powerful family in the city because of you?"

"Yes, I feel awful about that and I'll make amends for that at some point but right now all of our focus needs to be on the egg."

They had been on the road for four hours when the goose told him that they had reached their destination, an overpass in Delaware which several homeless people had made their home.

"This is where the oracle is?" Robert asked, his voice thick with incredulity.

"She has to make sure she keeps herself hidden, and the best way for her to remain anonymous is to live like this, which is a sad indictment of your species."

Robert agreed with the goose's assessment and trusted that the woman he was being taken to meet was a true oracle. The goose waddled forward and Robert followed behind it toward a shelter constructed of cardboard boxes.

"Who is it?" Shouted a voice from inside the cardboard shelter.

"It's me," the goose said back.

A cardboard door cut out of one of the boxes opened up and an old woman pushed her head out.

"Is this him?" She asked the goose.

"This is him," the goose answered.

"Come in."

The inside of the cardboard shelter looked like what you would expect the inside of a homeless person's shelter to look like and the woman looked like every old homeless woman Robert had ever seen. The difference was the smell, the woman and the shelter smelled immaculately clean, just like the goose. She was the real thing, Robert was certain of that.

"Have you brought the egg with you?" She asked.

"No, I didn't think that would be wise," the goose responded.

"You left the egg alone?!"

"Don't worry, it's perfectly safe, much safer than it would be if we were lugging it around with us all over the place."

"I have no choice but to trust you, which includes trusting your choice of this man as the vessel."

"You have doubts about him?"

"I'm not sensing anything special about him, but then that's been the case with most of the vessels that you've chosen."

"And this one will do fine just like all the others."

"Are you leaving on the pilgrimage immediately?"

"No, there are some loose ends that need to be tied up first, we'll be returning to New York to do that and then we'll set off on the pilgrimage."

"Pilgrimage? What pilgrimage?" Robert asked.

"I'll tell you about it later. The pilgrimage is fun, don't worry about it."

Robert spent the entire four hour drive back to the hotel thinking about the pilgrimage and what he had gotten involved in and whether he was up to seeing it through to the end. The goose's evasiveness about important issues like the nature of the pilgrimage and the contents of the egg was suspicious, like there were dangers involved in all of this that the goose didn't want him knowing about. Robert would get his answers from the goose in due time, for now he would continue to follow it. Back at the hotel, they talked about their plans going forward.

"We'll return to New York to get ready," the goose said.

"What about the Missuccis?"

"I'll have a talk with them, tell them that if anything happens to you there will be no chance of me ever returning to them."

"Do you think they'll believe you?"

"I was very valuable to them, if they believe there's a chance of me returning to them they'll do what I ask."