Urgent Post

To: Ambassador Bare Rump Pulchra

From: Lieutenant Argh-pffff-uhh

Dearest Tina,

This is for your eyes only, all eight of them, perfect and lovely as black pearls on a jeweller's felt.

Kudos on your clever resolution of the Charles Ingalls situation, but I'm afraid you're not out of the stew yet. As he was being ripped to shreds, Ingalls got off a distress call to his Benevolent handler, P. Here is the transcript of the intercepted message.

Ingalls: You son of a bitch, if I have to rebuild myself from a smear of toe jam, so help me I'll do it, and I'll find you, and I'll eat your cold heart for breakfast --

P: Charles, Charles, calm down! Surely things are darkest before the dawn. Sleep it off. You'll be ever so much more chipper in the morning.

Ingalls: Chipper? I'm being eaten by alligators. It doesn't get much chipper than -- God damn that hurts. Seven-fold, P. I'll pay you back for this seven-fold if it's the last thing I do.

P: Alligators, you say? Charles, you mustn't put yourself in such perilous situations. Now speak slowly and explain to me why you're so annoyed.

Ingalls (sighing): Your brief. You never told me about Rump's capabilities. She's faster than I am, P, and she fires rope out of her ass --

P: Out of her -- out of her ass? I'm sorry. I could have sworn you just said she fires rope out of her ass.

Ingalls: That's what I srrggggggglh . . .

End transmission.

The transcript ends there, my love. I presume the alligators had made it to his larynx by then. Anyway, we subsequently intercepted P's missive to his supervisor, Z. That's the part that truly worries me, Tina. Pay careful attention.

P: Ingalls' telemetry has gone quite barmy. Why, it's almost as though he's scattered himself over an acre or more. I'm afraid we should assume the worst.

Z: Oh, really. You think so? You don't think, perhaps, that all he needs is a good night's rest, and all will be right as rain come sun-up, hmm?

P: Um.

Z: Oh, he's chipper all right.

P: I take it you heard our little conversation.

Z: I monitor all your transmissions, P. Now, look here: plainly, you've sent in a boy to do a man's job. Ingalls was an actor, for heaven's sake. We need a true button man for this one.

P: You don't mean?

Z: I do. We're sending in The Rabbit. Wait. What's this. P, you fool, you're transmitting on an unsecure line. Bloody --

End transmission.

I'm scurrying about, trying to find out what I can about "The Rabbit", but thus far I'm coming up empty-legged. Whizzer says it's not one of his synthetics. I know the Benevolents have been playing with the technology for several years, but the only products I've ever seen were pint-sized Barneys -- you know, for the little Benevolents -- and Pamela Anderson plug-and-plays. In short, nothing with any intelligence or finesse.

Do be careful, darling.

Yours eternally,

Valor