Idrem sensed Brenlor swinging toward the rash reactivity that the Srin often mistook for decisive action when confronted with a crisis. - Charles E. Gannon

Caine, neither of us has a choice in this matter. The orders must be obeyed. The full truth of what you found, of what your troops know and can testify to, is too destabilizing. It's a delicate time, Caine. You, more than anyone else, should understand that."
"I do understand. I understand that the time has come to stop managing information and concealing the truth.

Veriden cut an annoyed glance at Riordan but said nothing; he suspected that even she saw the irony in starting an argument over whether she was argumentative.

No matter which images of battle and carnage came to haunt him, no matter which specific terror rose up through them, the lessons they rehearsed were always the same:
There’s no such thing as certainty.
Control is an illusion.
Death and destruction descend the moment you forget to watch for them.
That was what two years of intermittent war had taught him. And once you learned those lessons, you didn’t just remember them: you lived them, moment to moment.