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.