After damning his faulty loaded dice to the darkest netherhells, Gris goes back to the Countess Krak's training halls, disinterestedly supervising another Heller visit. The Countess is instructing an assistant on how to train someone to juggle a half-dozen razor-spined lizards, while Heller is casually performing some dangerous gymnastics that Hubbard spends four paragraphs talking about. Meanwhile another assistant trainer is handling a wrestling match between a hulking humanoid and a primate. Circus stuff.
So, Hubbard, I'm curious: why the freak shows? Why the circus acts? And why is your "satirical" equivalent of the CIA the one running them? What's the connection between J. Edgar Hoover and Barnum and Bailey? Why is this stuff in a book about the shadowy world of alien espionage? Why couldn't the not-CIA make its money from blackmailing the Voltarian Treasury, or counterfeit currency, or ransoms, or illegally-seized property? Why are circus freaks the backbone of the Apparatus' economy? Why do we have to watch someone wrestle a monkey?
Maybe it's snide commentary on how CIA spymasters are little more than ringmasters getting trained animals to balance balls on their noses or walk in conga lines or jump through flaming hoops. Or maybe Hubbard just loved the circus and thought his readers would enjoy one in his crappy book.
Anyway, Gris gets interested in the wrasslin' match because it isn't going well. It's a "comedic-acrobatic wrestling act" over a piece of fake fruit, and though the primate is well-behaved, his opponent - a huge, roaring, muscled, hairless "yellow-man" probably from the "Deepst Mountains" - is getting carried away and no longer pulling his punches. When the assistant trainers steps in to take the primate's place to show how to do a specific routine, the "yellow-man" goes nuts and tries to kill him.
In a flash Heller is there, doing something totally different from the Vulcan Nerve Pinch to disable the "yellow-man," then he KOs the brute with a kick to the back of the head, easy-peasy. Heller helps the trainer up, solemnly shakes hands with the ape, and goes home to shower.
This leaves Gris with his enemy, the Countess Krak, who is admittedly beautiful and looking snazzy in an outfit I refuse to waste words on. She comes up to him, tears in her eyes, and fearfully admits that she's run out of things to teach Heller. To prolong his "training," she asks Gris if she can instruct him in the rudiments of espionage, an idea Gris shoots down with the explanation that Lombat Hisst's orders were specific, even though he feels a little urpy at the thought of how Heller 's naivete could put him in mortal danger.
And then, because Heller curb-stomping Big Yellow wasn't enough, we get another action sequence. Big Yellow has recovered, and Gris watches without saying anything as he lumber up behind the unaware Countess. Big Yellow strikes the woman, demanding that she keep "that (bleepard) Heller away from me or I'll break his (bleeping) neck!"
So she kills him.
It take a full page of the usual Hubbard action scene formula, with one-sentence exclamations, or paragraphs full of short, bland sentences. The gist of it is: the Countess goes berserk with a kung-fu flavor, breaking bones and pulping flesh, killing the brute a little more with each strike. She's able to redirect a killing blow and send her enemy head-first into an electroshock device. When she orders her victim taken to the infirmary, an assistant trainer informs her she killed him. She rolls with it and declares "That'll teach him not to threaten Jettero!"
Question: is the Countess a Good Guy or still a Bad Guy? 'cause the Apparatus are evil because of how often they murder each other, or other people. But then Krak fell in "love" with Heller and became a Good Guy, right? So is it okay when she kills somebody in the name of Heller? Did her karma get reset when she switched sides, negating her earlier murders? Are we supposed to share her triumph right now or be vaguely worried?
Gris is certainly shaken by the display, which could very well happen to him if the Countess figures out what he has planned for Heller. He goes home and finds the target of his ire relaxing, so Gris comments that their current quarters are very dirty, adding that he's completed all his training at Spiteos, hoping that Heller can take a hint.
This makes Heller look around as if examining his surroundings for the first time before declaring "Soltan, you are right! This fortress is uncomfortable!" That makes Gris hopeful, a good mood that persists even when the Countess comes over later and she and Heller ramble on about Prince Caucalsia and the handmaiden Nepogat. That night he goes to sleep in a dirty closet while Heller and Krak engage in some more physical therapy, hoping that at last he will have Heller out of Spiteos.
To summarize: unnecessary circus stuff, an unnecessary murder, but the plot might start moving next chapter.
Back to Part Four, Chapter Nine
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