He had brought a young woman who was introduced as his personal secretary and who had the specific quality of someone who had been chosen because she was good at her job rather than because her appointment served someone else's interest. She was twenty, maybe less. She took notes with the focused efficiency of someone who understood that her function was to ensure nothing was lost.
Elara filed her.
Under: *his. Actually his.*
The meeting began.
He asked questions.
This was the thing about him — she was noticing it more clearly in the working room than she had at the reception. He asked questions the way people asked questions when they actually wanted to know the answer rather than when they were performing the act of asking. He asked them and then he listened, fully, without the partial listening of someone already forming their response. When something she said raised another question he asked that one too.
They spent an hour on the eastern coastal infrastructure.
