(greece to turkey)

Adnan,

Sending this from Kleve Anchorage outside Schlessen. The buggers left this morning and holy mother of god, they are slow. For some reason they decided that taking the stealthship was a bad idea or something and they've all piled into the airship instead. I guess it must seat five - or, well, six now - because they didn't have a problem getting off Nunat but that thing does not move fast. At all.

At this point I'm working on trust that they've planned to get there in time. But you don't organise meetings with pirates in a rusty old piece of space junk to show up to something like this fashionably late, right?

Didn't actually measure the frequency they've got in my haste to get out so now I'm flying blind with the viper's autosig function. In retrospect, I could have moved about as fast as a mob of turtles and I would still be ahead. Oh well, what's done is done so you be on the lookout for them coming in to Caput Halleri BC. We'll get the airship signals then.

We ought to meet closer to if there's time - I want an update of the Delivery's activities. When I get into Halleri airspace watch for me on Agency frequency #30 again (if Petros is hogging it again, tell him to quit and shove off). If there's no time before we start, well ... have your Eavesdropper on you and we'll meet up in the arena.

(PS heard the Delivery was caught near Hallar again with the implication that a shuttle might've been sent down. Know anything about this?)

(PPS actually scratch that. It's probably kind of hard to send a letter to a viper. Just remind me to ask you later.)

.:.

(china to ukraine)

Dear Yekaterina,

It's some time now I haven't heard from you. Of course, it is possible you have been busy, or the mailships have gone on strike or there has been upon Olyokin a tragedic paper shortage or the postman actually is an arsonist or indeed any manner of similar, waste-of-my-time thought scenarios. Perhaps even the incomprehensible and downright absurd has happened - no more do you want to write me.

But that's ridiculous!

I hope you have given more thought to my offer. Unlike the weight of sands in hourglasses I do not mean to press upon you, though it's clear I am not growing younger and at this rate you will marry a wizened, decrepit Veshnan king. You must forgive my haste as I bear no wish to crawl to the altar with a cane or walker; the squeaks of the wheels and the creaks of my bones fill my ears with utmost dread.

But Yao, I hear you cry, you will not be alone for we are nearly the same age. And so time you too will render lame, your skin no longer supple and smooth but wrinkle-rippled and scented with a clinical formaldehyde aroma, your breasts at your hips and your hips at your knees! (There is a proverb we have here: Good luck seldom comes in pairs but bad things never walk alone.)

Even then I do not rescind my offer, because with you I imagine that there is a kind of peace in merely sitting together in front of a large window (for the outside world will grow too harsh for us feeble and weak relics of past) as the rest of the city passes us by and time slips yet more inexorably out of our hands. I think you would enjoy watching the sun from Veshna with her thicker atmosphere (and directly above my home, the lines of her magnetic field bend inwards, and they present some fantastic nighttime views - imagine dancing curtains of brilliant light in skies that could be yours).

As for myself, having been raised on this planet, I find the image mundane; I cherish instead your appreciation and stupefaction. (After a long life of governance, I'm sure looking forward to peace and quiet is something you understand!)

This too can come in pairs.

In all seriousness, Katya, please think further on my offer and think of me with kindness, as I fondly think of you.

Yours,
Yao Wang of Veshna

.:.

(ukraine to china)

Yao - greetings;

I have given your offer some thought, though I will neither encourage nor discourage you by quantifying precisely how much.

I am not sure what you mean with your last letter. I feel certain that all it really tells me is that you have a very strange sense of humour. But it is a nice change and welcome departure from the remainder of my heretofore suitors who felt the need to compose page-long odes on the size and shape of my breasts, sometimes even extrapolating to other senses in hasty anticipation of introducing themselves to this flesh of mine with organs other than their eyes.

Those parts of your letter that describe me do so without unnecessary prose or glorification. Indeed, they are downright insulting. Perhaps I should be offended, but instead, I find it a pleasant change of pace, so you may insult me at will.

I understand you make a ritual of attending the annual auctions at Caput Halleri so I don't doubt you will be present for the Decennial. As chance would have it I will also be in attendance as my sister's Time is hastening and our usual trader contact has been indisposed of late. I hope you will accompany me for dinner at the Osteria Antica with my sister, my brother and my bondsmaiden. Send word at the Caput Halleri Deversorium and I will make proper arrangements.

I apologise in advance for my brother's unorthodox behavior. He thinks himself a libertine. Please allow him to continue thinking that. It is simpler for us all.

Yours,
Yekaterina Bragina of Olyokin

.:.

(latvia to china)

Yao,

Whatever I may have sent you before in a fit of accidental kindness you may disregard completely, and let this letter serve as a final summary of my feelings toward you:

In all my life I have never received such distasteful letters, and I would rather you had kept the parchment on which they were written for washroom tissue where they would no doubt be put to better use. In fact, judging from your handwriting this may have been exactly what you have done and you've simply made the mistake of sending the final product across space. If this is your idea of a new approach to sanitation procedures then consider me well and truly baffled at how you have managed to elude usurpment upon Veshna when your post offices are filled with manure.

Indeed, I ask that all your correspondences to me should cease immediately, because I haven't the time to waste on someone bearing the mental depth of a gnat and a physical description that makes me sick to my stomach.

It is genuinely pathetic that you think yourself a suitable match for me or anyone of Bragin of Olyokin! If you yourself have siblings then I pity them for suffering your company, even if they are doubtless as disgusting as you; and if you have none then it's evident your parents were sickened adequately with a single monster and felt no need to make more.

This assumes perhaps hastily that your parents are not mutant animals themselves - if they are your real parents, then that can be the only explanation I can divine; and if they are not then I don't dispute a creature as filthy as you being cast into adoption in the first place.

You have no soul. Never contact me again.
Yekaterina Bragina of Olyokin

.:.

(china to ukraine)

My dear Yekaterina,

Ah! the more I read, the happier I am made. Your letters nearly made me cry with mirth! I do not intend presumption but please allow me to express my barely-containable joy.

If this is you responding in kind to my 'strange sense of humour', then I am glad to possess the ability to induce works of such hilarity. If instead this is you responding with your own, I am gladder still to find a kindred spirit.

But consider this a warning: letters such as these will only make this helpless suitor redouble his efforts in winning your hand.

Ever yours,
Yao Wang of Veshna

PS - if I have read the recent society papers correctly your brother has an equally excellent sense of humour. Therefore I look forward to seeing it, and him, in action. We will meet upon Hallar in four days.