There was a moment's noise from the other side of the door: but it only sounded like the scrape of metal on stone as a chair was pushed back, and maybe the soft thump of a small stack of papers being set down, or something like it. A voice from the other side of the door called out, "Please come in, General;" promptly, as though this Captain Quartz was a man accustomed to unscheduled interruption by his superiors.
The man within the room, when Natron chose to open the door, stood behind his small desk at crisp attention, hands clasped behind his back. He was mostly naked from the waist up -- but a moment's observation might reveal that this had less to do with any strong desire to go about topless and more to do with the fact that his uniform didn't seem to allow for a much more proper form of wear.
Captain Quartz did not meet General Natron's eyes, but looked deferentially at some point below them -- his chin or his collarbone, perhaps -- though he seemed to start at the realization that the person in his office was unfamiliar or unexpected, and that brought his gaze up with mild surprise to Natron's face.
There was an open wine bottle and a mostly empty glass on the desk nearby, and the Captain seemed to have been in the middle of going through several pages of hand-written notes for some purpose or another.
"General . . . Natron, is it?" he guessed. It wasn't a particularly exceptional feat for an Intelligence officer, or shouldn't have been -- the Negaverse roster was public knowledge, as were all officer's basic files at their simplest levels -- but it was, perhaps, reassuring to know that someone still bothered. "I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure."
His tone was extremely cordial and unfailingly deferential, but without any actual warmth in particular: if, indeed, Quartz thought meeting Natron was truly a pleasure, his intonation conveyed none of it. He sounded, if anything, quietly indifferent.
