Sunday January 30, 2005
Book 6: Resident Mad Scientist — Part IV: Old Habits Die Hard

Transcript

NARRATOR: It's been six weeks since the Toughs untimely departure from Mahuitalotu.  Forty-one days have passed since they fled the Kelrik Hub.  Captain Kaff Tagon has been dead for forty-five days.

ENNESBY: You've got messages, Captain Andreyasn.

KEVYN: Oh, life!  More death threats?  The night is strong that ever blinds the fey!

ENNESBY: Do you want me to open your mail for you?

KEVYN: My cabin fever has passed, and left only despair in its wake.  I'm frozen in time.  I cannot move.  I can barely speak.  To breathe, or not to breathe...

ENNESBY: So that's a "yes, Ennesby, please open my mail," then?

KEVYN: What diet through ponderous milky shakes?

ENNESBY: You're pronouncing "yes please" a little oddly, but I'll go ahead anyway.

ENNESBY: The first message is from a mister "anonymous."  Nice use of invective, but in the end it's just another death threat.

ENNESBY: The second one is a formal invitation to a masquerade and orgy.  It looks enticing, especially some of these pictures, except that it originated from the same hypernet address as the first one.

ENNESBY: Third up... a pair of Gavs and some Nejjat named Triniko are begging you to attend the Emergency Council on Teraport Degradation.

KEVYN: Really?

ENNESBY: It's sponsored by, among others, the UNS Academy of Peer Review, and the Celeschul Sciences Board of Prefect Tenure.

KEVYN: You're just making that up to make me feel good.

ENNESBY: I used to be a boy-band, sir.  I can do more convincing, more enticing fiction with half my processors recursively tied behind my back.

ENNESBY: I'm not saying this is authentic, mind you.  I'm just saying that I didn't make it up.

KEVYN: That's... that's far more tempting than any mere orgy.

ENNESBY: ...which naturally begs the question of what exactly you scientists do at these conventions.