Brin saw the governor arrive from the dispatch window.
Four guards walked around him, close enough that the people in the yard knew what the arrangement meant. Veyr wore his good coat. One sleeve had twisted beneath a guard’s hand, leaving the cuff higher than the other. He stopped at the first desk and said something Brin could not hear.
The receiving clerk answered without standing.
Behind the governor’s group, a woman pulled a small handcart around a puddle. A child slept under its tilted cover. She could not pass until the guards moved, and after a little while she asked them to make room.
They did.
Brin looked down at the dispatch he was holding.
The last emergency food allotment had been unloaded in the north store. Two hundred and thirty-eight tons, the scale returns agreed, with the wet outer covers separated from the dry sacks before the receiving weight was accepted. The week’s incoming total was complete. Elian had gone to check the store entry against the actual issue doors, leaving Brin with the final acknowledgment to send back.
He signed the receipt he was allowed to sign.
