~ The GSV Death And Gravity.

~ Oh? Genar-Hofoen was mildly impressed. ~ I thought the old scoundrel wasn’t talking to me.

~ As did we all. Apparently it is. Look, do you want this message or not?

~ All right, but why do I have to gland quicken?

~ Because it’s a long message, of course . . . in fact it’s an interactive message; an entire semantic-context signal-set with attached mind-state abstract capable of replying to your questions, and if you listened to the whole thing in real time you’d still be sitting there with a vacant expression on your face by the time your jovial hosts got to the hunt-the-waiter course. And I did say it was urgent. Genar-Hofoen, are you paying attention here?

~ I’m paying fucking attention. But come on; can’t you just tell me what the message is? Précis it.

~ The message is for you, not me, Genar-Hofoen. I haven’t looked at it; it’ll be stream-deciphered as I transmit it.

~ Okay, okay, I’m glanded up; shoot.

~ I still say it’s a bad idea . . . muttered the gelfield suit.

~ Shut UP! the module said. ~ Sorry, Genar-Hofoen. Here is the text of the message:

~ from GSV Death And Gravity to Seddun-Braijsa Byr Fruel Genar-Hofoen dam Ois, message begins, the module said in its Official voice. Then another voice took over:

~ Genar-Hofoen, I won’t pretend I’m happy to be communicating with you again; however, I have been asked to do so by certain of those whose opinions and judgement I respect and admire and hence deem the situation to be such that I would be derelict in my duties if I did not oblige to the utmost of my abilities.

Genar-Hofoen performed the mental equivalent of sighing and putting his chin in his hands while - thanks to the quicken now coursing through his central nervous system - everything around him seemed to happen in slow motion. The General Systems Vehicle Death and Gravity had been a long-winded old bore when he’d known it and it sounded like nothing had happened in the interim to alter its conversational style. Even its voice still sounded the same; pompous and monotonous at the same time.

~ Accordingly, and with due recognition of your habitually contrary, argumentative and wilfully perverse nature I am communicating with you by sending this message in the form of an interactive signal. I see you are currently one of our ambassadors to that childishly cruel band of upstart ruffians known as the Affront; I have the unhappy feeling that while this may have been envisaged as a kind of subtle punishment for you, you will in fact have adapted with some relish to the environment if not the task, which I assume you will dispatch with your usual mixture of off-handed carelessness and casual self-interest--

~ If this signal is interactive, interrupted Genar-Hofoen, ~ can I ask you to get to the fucking point?