Hyde-White sat enthroned behind an ancient oak desk whose top was eccentric, the shape of a crosscut bole. His massive gut was wedged into a concavity that allowed him easy reach of the telecom on one hand and the bank of internal intercoms on the other. The grey light of the telecom monitor, the brightest source of illumination in the room, lit his face from below, reversing the normal pattern of highlights. The lighting roughened the softness of the broad face and made his eyes a glitter in pools of darkness.