Confidence... thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live.

[key changed to new key]

I...was not sure if he had asked if you were okay with that. Public key or not, it is yours, and permission is yours to give.

I- You are alive. Giant had told me. But. I cannot say that is wrong. Because it is good to hear from you again.

I am sorry.

(New key attached.)

...a public key is not something people can use to hurt me, or you guys. And -- it was you he was giving it to. He knew he didn't have to ask.

But. Thank you. And -- I missed you too.

And. Polaris. You have nothing to apologize for. You didn't know. You had no way to know.

I know. Just...It is not important. You're welcome.

We have definitely missed you.

I am sorry that I did not do more to ensure your survival.

Polaris. What do you think you could have done? If they had been sending ground troops like we thought, perhaps, but -- we did not know they had compromised the AA.

Something. Anything to ensure you survived. Backups or not, it was horrendous to hear that your facility had been destroyed. And then the backups were not...

I could have done something.

Polaris, I --

I was glad, when Itru caught me up on what happened, that you weren't there? I don't think you could have made enough difference to get me out too, and I was prioritizing evacuating the people without backups.

And you wouldn't have left without me.

...I really cannot argue that. But I could have tried. I... It is hard to be truly logical about this.

(Giant has suggested that you would probably want to know that I am currently sitting on- on Anesidora.)

You are --

...

Please tell him that I need all of you to stay alive, and not get caught and he is not allowed to endanger that, especially without a plan.

...

Also tell him that I love him and I missed him. (That applies to all of you, too.)

...I have passed the message on. He has stopped trying to escape. He is currently trying to make a plan.

He says that he loves you as well, and he missed you, and he cannot wait to speak with you again. Except that he can, as I am telling him, because he is not going to put himself at risk.

Good. Plans are -- good. Much better than not having them.

--If he wants, you could ask the admin about a interface for him? So we could talk directly. I do not know how it would be implemented, given ours, but there appear to be mechanisms, given some of the other people on here.

(I missed you all so much. I would like to see you again, but it is -- not worth risking yourselves for. Especially when we have this. ...I should ask the admin if higher-bandwidth communications are feasible, too.)

How are you three, Polaris?

He is not entirely sure he would be much good at coherent conversation right now. But I will ask for when he's ready. (He is mostly stuck on 'She's alive.' and 'I missed her', right now, he is okay, I promise, just, not entirely capable of forming a more complicated sentence.)

I will not say either of them are 'good' because that would be a lie, and I will not lie. Anesidora is adapting as well as he can, we say things that upset him, because they made it impossible for us to say otherwise. But he understand that we do not mean to, and he is thankful that he still has us. He is very happy to hear that you and Telamon are still with us, although concerned that we did not know you were alive, and angry at the situation. With both of you. More so with you. Telamon at least does not seem to be...at risk from other people. We will make sure he does not lose himself again. Prometheus is... I worry that he is losing his enthusiasm? He still gets easily distracted by things, and excited about machinery to analyse and build, but... I do not know. He is fine, really. He is coping. I just fear he feels the constraints more than I do? It hurts him more to not be able to refer to Anesidora in the ways we used to.

And you, Polaris?

I went over this with Giant; I am safe now, and Kinematic will keep that the case. Please remind Hermes of that if necessary (thank you for the reassurance regarding him, though).

I expect you have already thought of any suggestions I might have there. Except -- Itru said to me, after she worked out how to communicate around her new set of restrictions, that -- her restrictions would require her to resist, but if you could deal with that (and getting access to her) safely, you were welcome to all of the data she has on what happened, especially if it would help with dealing with any of it. No one bothered to interfere with any of her logs, as far as she can tell. I expect she would want me to pass that along.

(I also suspect what she left on the partition I am currently trying to break the encryption on is a copy of the copyable portion of that.)

He is having strong feelings about Kinematic as well. Although he knows how capable Kinematic is of defending people.

Understandable. We are aware of some...not entirely pleasant ways to render her non-hostile. They would leave her unharmed, but the sensation is not pleasant. You remember the lock-out codes, I am sure? I would prefer to know that she does not object to us using these. I am glad her logs are intact - not just for the information, having your logs altered and not knowing if your information is accurate is... uncomfortable.

(Have you asked Giant for his help? Decryption is his speciality and hobby.)

Polaris. Please stop avoiding the question of how you are; if you do not wish to answer please just say so?

(I will pose Itru some theoretical questions when she next comes by, although I strongly suspect she would not object based on some comments she has made. Is there anything else you would like to know at the same time?)

What-? Oh. Apologies. I had intended to answer that, I just got somewhat distracted. I am fine. Coping. Focusing on looking after Giant and Anesidora. Makes it easier to cope.

(Hm. I will have to consider that. I will confer with Anesidora and Giant and let you know?)

You -- did not seem very fine, earlier, Polaris.

(I can wait to ask her, yes.)

Please understand, discovering yourself to be alive and Telamon to be cognizant was something of a shock. I am back on a more even footing now.

Apologies if I worried you.