Treaty-witness Ulessa (Mnemari, Ilenne)

The room was the room. The other room was also the room, and she was in both, which was the work.

She did not confuse them. Nothing in her was built to confuse anything. The composite of this room was older than the composite of that one had been, and had a different give under the feet, and this room's slot of light lay a hand's width further toward the chair; she had each of them whole, and the one she was asked for was the one she gave. The table of that day had been new. The Corps' officer who spoke for the Corps had kept one hand flat on the sheet throughout, and the officer's name was on the compact and did not need her. The chair of that day had a way of saying noted that closed an item like a hand on a lid.

She had been asked for words, and words were what she had. Everything else she also had, and nobody had asked for it, which was the arrangement, and she kept to it.

The reader of that day had asked leave with a voice that had not been steady, because the mark had arrived that morning and the reader had read it in the corridor and known it would come after the term and had read it anyway. That was not in the words. She did not give it. The reader had died in a year she could have given and did not, in the way of a people who die, and had been among those she had stayed to see out, as she stayed to see most of them out. She gave the reader's cadence, because the cadence was in the words, and kept the rest.

The session took the words. She heard it take them, on the membranes along her sides, which took a room whole: the Prismere wings on the floor, settling; the Verdance seat's vanes, folded, which made a small dry sound when the delegate held still that the delegate did not know about; the recorder's draw; the chair's breath before the thanks. She leaned the head toward the chair, who was speaking. That was how a witness was seen to listen, and it was also how she listened; the two had never needed to come apart.

The Prismere delegate's question she had answered before, in other rooms, with the same words, because they were the true ones. Nobody present could contradict her. That was not the same as being right, and she knew the difference exactly, and the difference was the session's to carry. She had carried enough. The word her people had for what she carried did not go into any language at this table in fewer than a sentence, and she had not been asked for it, and did not give it.

At the opening she had raised the item, as she did. She had given the day it was first raised by the name of the chair of that day, which was the only name she could give that would mean it, and had watched it mean nothing, as it did, and had not minded, because minding was not the item. The item was that Cirrane was not in the room. Cirrane had not been in the room then. The mark on the table in front of this session's reader had come in that morning. It was on item four, which the session had closed the day before, and she did not know what it said, and tomorrow, when it was read, she would know, and then she would always know.

She leaned her head to the chair, and listened, and kept it.