And then, almost as an afterthought: “Please read our letters.”

“I have letters for you,” said the computer, as the holospace went empty.

“Save them,” said Mazer. “I’ll get to them.”

“You are authorized to send a visual reply,” said the computer.

“That will not happen,” said Mazer. But even as he said it, he was wondering what he could possibly say, if he changed his mind and did send them his image. Some heroic speech about the nobility of sacrifice? Or an apology for accepting the assignment?

He would never show his face to them. Would never let Kim see that he was not changed.

He would read the letters. He would answer them. There were duties you owed to family, even if the reason they got involved was because of some meddling jerk of a lieutenant.

“My first letter,” said Mazer, “will be to that git, Graff. It’s very brief. ‘Bugger off, gitling.’ Sign it ‘respectfully yours.’”

“’Bugger’ is a noun. ‘Git’ is a substandard verb, and ‘gitling’ is not in any of my wordbases. I cannot spell or parse the message properly without explanation . . . Do you mean ‘Leave this place, alien enemy’?”

“I made gitling up, but it’s an excellent word, so use it. And I can’t believe they programmed you without ‘bugger off’ in the wordbase.”

“I detect stress,” said the computer. “Will you accept mild sedation?”

“The stress is being caused by your forcing me to view a message I did not want to see. You are causing my stress. So give me some time to myself to calm down.”

“Incoming message.”

Mazer felt his stress levels rising even higher. So he sighed and sat back and said, “Read it. It’s from Graff, right? Always use a male voice for the gitling.”

“Admiral Rackham, I apologize for the intrusion,” the computer baritoned. “Once I broached the possibility of letting your family contact you, my superiors would not give up on the idea, even though I warned them it would be more likely to be counterproductive if you hadn’t agreed in advance.