“Why is everyone saying good today when I tell zhem somezhing unpleasant?”
Trokhym opened his folder.
“Because you showed up.”
Kimia considered this.
“Fine.”
Rimil arrived next.
Yinglet. Also Peshtulan. Dark cream fur. Light blue eyes. Small spectacles. A neat gray coat despite the relative informality of council.
Domestic and foreign affairs.
Rimil spoke less than almost anyone Kimia knew.
Not from shyness.
Selection.
He appeared to possess a fixed lifetime allotment of words and considered wasting any of them a moral failing.
He sat.
Nodded once to Kimia, then to Trokhym.
His eyes went immediately to the papers.
Last came Garang.
Human. Dinnish. Defense.
Garang entered carrying three binders.
Of course.
He was thick through the shoulders, gray beginning at the beard, and possessed the perpetually disappointed posture of a man to whom logistics had revealed every weakness in civilization.
He belonged to the new school of war because he understood that there was nothing new about it.
Fuel. Food. Rail. Road. Ammunition. Replacement parts. Medical evacuation. Motorized carriage tires. Bridges. Weather.
Machines consuming other machines.
Garang had little patience for people who discussed mechanized warfare exclusively in terms of armored carriages and aircraft.
Once, during an argument with another minister, Kimia had heard him say: “An armored division is a traffic jam with artillery attached until somebody feeds it.”
She had liked him ever since.
Garang put his binders down.
“I apologize.”
“For?”
“Three binders.”
“I would have worried if you brought one.”
He sat.
Kimia looked around the table.
Three. That was all.
A small council for a small House whose responsibilities had ceased being small centuries earlier.
She checked the watch.
Three precisely.
Good.
Kimia returned it to her pocket.
“Let's begin.”
Trokhym opened his folder.
“Domestic first?”
Rimil said: “Foreign.”
Garang looked between them.
“Why?”
Rimil pushed one sheet toward the center.
“Tilmuhl.”
The word entered the room and remained there.
Kimia leaned back.
“Again.”
“Yes,” Rimil said.
Trokhym looked toward her.
“You already had Ivenmoth in here today.”
“Earlier.”
“What did they say?”
“Unstable equilibrium.”
Trokhym smiled faintly.
“That means they don't know.”
“It means zhey know enough to be worried.”
Garang opened the first binder.
“Same thing.”
Kimia looked toward him.
“You're worried?”
“I am paid to prepare for things I hope don't happen.”
“Zhat's not an answer.”
“Yes.”
There.
Kimia took another shellfish from the ice.
“Explain.”
Garang turned several pages.
“Olissingen's regular forces remain where expected. VSEA deployments have changed slightly. Nothing dramatic.”
“How slightly?”
“Readiness posture. Vehicle maintenance accelerated at two installations. Ammunition allocations increased. Additional radio watches.”
Trokhym added: “Leave was quietly restricted at three bases.”
Kimia looked at him.
“Ivenmozh didn't mention zhat.”
“They wouldn't.”
“Why?”
Trokhym shrugged.
“Because you didn't ask.”
Kimia hated good answers.
Rimil spoke.
“Eauritsstad irregulars crossed zhe northern boundary twice zhis week.”
“Confirmed?”
“Yes.”
“Casualties?”
“One Olissingen constable. Two civilians. Possibly 'zhree irregulars.”
“Possibly?”
“Bodies removed.”
Kimia ate the shellfish.
The medication made the information seem slightly farther away.
She did not know whether this improved judgment.