Ryan,

Why does Commander Ferris feel compelled to treat me like a child? I’m qualified to view adult entertainment and to vote and to convert Dale’s roughshod data into navigational maps of space-time, both Minkowski and Riemannian, but Ferris considers me too feeble-minded to determine my own actions, everything from where I will do my work to with whom I will exercise the universal biological imperative to reproduce.

To that end he’s assigned me a keeper, Rifleman Roy Cobb. Until tonight I would have described Cobb’s chief attributes as a large firearm and an uncanny ability to grab the collar of my overgarment just when something interesting happens. But we had a chance to speak as I investigated the computers at the facility to which I shall henceforth refer as Dinosaur Playground. Cobb has an unrefined but promising mathematical aptitude and a pleasant nature. He informed me that Ferris has instituted a moratorium among the Marines, at least, on the unlikely expression of sexual interest toward me. He also advised that I consult the females of the expedition on mating signals, but he wouldn’t specify an expert. I shall have to consult the males to find the expert females to teach me to attract the optimal males—an unnecessarily convoluted process. Nevertheless it will give me some small task to pursue in the awful, tedious gulf between interesting problems to solve.

Speaking of interesting problems, I have determined from my inspection of the columns that form the communication network on Mina that they have holographic capabilities, so I intend to take your lesser self—sorry, lesser self—and install him into it as soon as I can resolve the technical difficulties. Hutch and Rabbit (oh dear, what puns) might help. Bishop might also benefit from this conversion although so much of his personality matrix seems to revolve around strict utility that I expect him to forgo the opportunity.