A tension went out of the air. Their business here was over then, and they all knew it; the magic moment had arrived when it was understood that nothing more would be established, discovered, or decided today. But the meeting, having once begin, must drag on for several long more hours before it could be ended. The engines of protocol had enormous inertial mass; once set in motion they took forever to grind to a stop.
The five of them proceeded to dutifully chew the scraps of the agenda until all had been gnawed to nothing-at-all.
- Michael Swanwick, Stations of the Tide, p.141
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