Counter Vice Colonel, Minor, Rottingbottom IX (ret), a braggard and dunce (yet previously in command of a regiment of armed men) somehow made his mishapen digits control a writing instrument. Our intrepreters translated the ink blots thusly:

"The anti-incrustators in the Goliathon's plasma tubes are an ingenious bit of engineering and worked splendidly in the low gravity when my deuced pygmy guide caused yet another rambunctious Lunar Cockchafer to do a Tightener on us. Whilst the constant tingling in my teeth and buttocks is a minor bother, I find the effect quite bracing; and it is a damned sight better than sliding out of another giant insect's cloaca into a crater. Smashing work, old beans!"