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"I've only got everyday uniforms and surgical scrubs that are fit to wear. My dress uniform looks like it got stored underneath an earthquake."

"Go with what you've got," Roslyn said. "I hold press conferences dressed like this."

"How'd you end up with this job?" Reece asked. "Most politicians I've met are a lot less pleasant than you."

"After the attack on the Colonies, I became first in line of succession." Roslyn tried not to think about what would happen when she died. There was no real line of succession after her.

"Where did you start?"

"I was the secretary of education," she said after a moment. "Forty-third in line."

"I've seen worse. When America got nuked when the Kangas first attacked, the entire cabinet, the vice president and the joint chiefs of staff were all in military bases that got bombed. The president died when the small town he had been evacuated to got swamped by a tidal wave from a Kanga warship that crashed into the sea close to that coastline, and all six of the surviving senators out of the hundred they had to start with were in areas with no means of long-distance communication for several days. The White House and the Capitol, not to mention the entire city of Washington, became one big crater which took out most of the elected representatives and the executive staff. The presidency fell to the chief of staff of the President's wife, who was in a hospital in Bethesda on maternity leave. Oddly enough, she turned out to be phenomenal at it. Her name was Ellen Richards. Without her, America would have fallen to pieces in a day. She's generally acknowledged as the greatest president America ever had. She ended up directing a major recovery initiative while giving birth, which is great devotion to duty in the book of anyone who's ever had children." She paused. "You ever had children?"

"No. Never."

"Pity. Mine are some of the best things that ever happened to me."

Third Species, Chapter 24