The council's first offer gave us permission to share equipment which nobody had agreed to release.
I read it to the end in case the missing frames appeared in a generous final sentence.
They didn't.
The wording was pleasant enough. Cooperation, shared purpose, responsible use of available resources. I could imagine someone reading it aloud and feeling that a difficult matter had been settled.
I looked back at the equipment column. Still empty where the actual release should have been recorded.
My left hand had been resting on the page long enough to leave a faint crease at the corner. I flattened it and moved the motion beside our request. If I let those two documents drift apart, we could leave the room with approval for a plan nobody had the means to carry out.
Veylan placed the stores request beside the motion. "Permission is not availability."
