But now Apsalar was trying to tell him that competence was not justification. That necessity demanded its own path and there was no virtue to be found at its heart.

'The future can ever promise but one thing and one thing only: surprises.'

'Not that freedom ensured happiness. Indeed, to be free was to live in absence. Of responsibilities, of loyalties, of the pressures that expectation imposed.'

'An army that waits is soon an army at war with itself.'