 Why did Amanda know Giles so well?
Giles made the expected comments, smiled the proper smiles and greeted his staff by the right names, but it was purely automatic. But with the Procyon shuttle arriving yesterday, there was no telling what might turn up. Giles heard his secretary come in, but it wasn’t until the smell of the coffee reached his nose that he looked up. SHE JERKED her gaze away guiltily and turned to the incoming basket. A personal letter for you, relayed from some place I never heard of. They found it drifting half a light-year out and captured it. For eighty years now, they’d been sending out the little ships that vanished at greater than the speed of light, equipped with every conceivable device to make them return automatically after taking pictures of wherever they arrived. So far, none had ever returned or been located. This was the first hope they’d found that the century-long trips between stars in the ponderous shuttles might be ended and he should have been filled with excitement at Jordan’s hasty preliminary report. The little ship apparently had been picked up by accident when it almost collided with a Sirius-local ship. Scientists there had puzzled over it, reset it and sent it back. Giles dropped the report wearily and picked up the personal message that had come on the shuttle. Only his youngest son would have sent an elaborate tercentenary greeting verse—one that would arrive ninety years too late! It had been the bitter quarrels over that which had finally broken Giles’ fifth marriage. He barely mentioned being married on the way or his dozen children, but filled most of the frame with glowing description and a plea for his father to join him there! GILES SNORTED and turned to the third frame, which showed a group picture of the family in some sort of vehicle, against the background of an alien but attractive world. He had no desire to spend ninety years cooped up with a bunch of callow young emigrants, even in one of the improved Exodus shuttles. The discovery that men could live practically forever had put an end to most family ties; sentiment wore thin in half a century—which wasn’t much time now, though it had once seemed long enough. Giles forced his attention on the picture again and this time he noticed the vehicle shown. Earth was becoming a backwater world; no real progress had been made in two centuries; the young men were sent out as soon as their first fifty years of education were finished, and the older men were too conservative for really new thinking.
 she had worked with him for over 100 years
 she had worked with him for over 100 years  they had dated once  she paid attention to what he liked and didn't like  it was her job to do so