"Hi, Solly." Sure enough, when Scott opened and decrypted the message, a holographic image of Bern stared back at him from across the round black table in the comm booth.
He hadn't seen her in a while, but she seemed much the same as he'd expected--a compact woman in her early hundreds who looked more like she was in her late sixties. As always, her bright white hair was tied back in a tight bun from her round face...but the expression there was different, more grim than grandmotherly. There was no twinkle in the pale green eyes behind the big glasses, no dimple of a smile in the chubby cheeks.
The rest of her showed similar signs of distraction. Her loose-fitting black uniform with the white piping was creased and rumpled, not impeccably pressed as usual. Her posture and body langu
