Part Four, Chapter Five - Bow Chicka Bow Wow

Now it might not be logical to blame Mission Earth for giving me the stomach bug that kept me up past five in the morning, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to hold it responsible anyway.

So Gris' tender tummy is feeling better (wish mine was), but then there's a knock on the door and a guard delivers a big ass box marked "URGENT, OFFICER GRIS ONLY!" The Apparatus agent pops the top only for to be confronted with the head of a "zitab," the most venomous reptile on Voltar, and Gris flips out.

I literally sailed through the air. I hit into the shower compartment! My scrambling hands pulled the curtain down! The perched lotion and soap bottles fell and hit my head in a cannonade! I was still

You get the picture! Short exclaimed sentences! This means action! Isn't it exciting!

But surprise, it's not an assassination attempt, just Countess Krak using a five-foot kill-lizard to pull a prank. She emerges from the box, holding the reptile in check, while she and Heller and the guards all have a good long laugh at Gris' expense, because enjoying the terror and discomfort of others is heroic if the victims are from the Apparatus.

Once things calm down, Heller plays the charming host and shows the Countess around his and Gris' quarters, even putting on some soft music. Krak meanwhile breaks out the sparklewater, a bubbly beverage with "a lot of minerals and proteins in it" (eww) that assimilates so quickly in your stomach that you can get "a trifle high" from it (but these aren't drugs, remember). Gris gets to be a third wheel while Heller and Krak have a romantic dinner of sweetcakes and fizzy protein shakes, and he describes them as being so pleased they practically "glowed."  He senses that they're playing footsie under the table, and I'm bitterly lamenting that Hubbard decided to try his hand at writing romance instead of just skipping it like he did in Battlefield Earth.

Eventually Heller interrupts what is increasingly becoming a date to talk business. He gets out a lot of photos to show the Countess, who takes them for his relatives or other people from their homeworld of Planet Manco, but they're actually pictures of Earthlings. Krak gets all excited about the legend of ol' Prince Caucalsia, and they both press Gris on the issue. Gris suddenly has a memory on par with Heller's, and he admits that there is a Caucasian or Caucasoid ethnic group thought to have migrated out from the Caucasus region in Russia, and that there's legends about an advanced civilization called Atlantis or Atalantis that sank into the sea.

Krak and Heller conclude that the legends of a Manco colony on Earth must be true, that Prince Caucalsia's colony was flooded the poles shifted, causing the ice caps to melt (?!) and leaving his people to disperse and settle the rest of the world. Heller vows that Mission Earth will succeed in order to save Caucalsia's descendants from suffering the same fate. When Gris complains that there is no hard data backing this theory, Heller is stubborn, insisting that "it's more poetic this way" and that anyway the Countess seems to like it.

And then they both stare at Gris for a bit, until Heller asks if Gris might be able to find a different room to sleep in that evening. And here comes the "hint of sex" promised on the back cover.

Gris steps outside to join the pair of guards flanking the door, but instead of slouching off to find a bunk, he sits down, ears open. The soldiers are behaving "like the relatives of the bride and groom, serious, hopeful. They sure had their ears glued to that door." They, and Gris, listen to a whispered conversation coming from inside the room, followed by the sound of clothes hitting the floor and the bed creaking, their imaginations afire with what could be happening past that door. Over the music they can hear the Countess say "You will have to be careful with me, darling. I have never had a man before," which Gris scoffs at since he knows from his file that Heller is just as inexperienced as she.

There were rhythmic creakings then. They went on and on and on.

Then the Countess's voice. "Oh, Jet." She repeated it. She said it faster and faster, "Oh, Jet, oh, Jet, oh JetohJet. Oh JET!" And there was a shuddering moan from Heller.

And that's not the best part.

The two guards instantly leaped to their feet, totally silent! They shot their arms above their heads the way people do in a bullet ball game after a winning hit. They beat their fists together and jumped up and down. They had ecstatic expressions on their faces. They turned to each other and enthusiastically shook hands. And all without the tiniest sound. My, they were pleased!

I'm now imagining something like the Special Edition ending of Return of the Jedi, only instead of cheering crowds across the galaxy celebrating the death of a tyrant and the dawn of a new era, they're all exulting in the fact that Jettero Heller got laid. Seriously, Hubbard, what the hell? Why did we have to hang around for this? Why couldn't we conclude for ourselves what Heller and Krak got up to after Gris left? Why does everyone's happiness depend on Jettero Heller's? Did you think this was romantic or titillating or fun to read?

After a bit the clinking mattress starts up again, and Gris concludes that with the vigor of youth both of them will be at it for the rest of the night. So he goes off and finds an unoccupied room and tries to make himself comfortable on the floor since there's no bed. Meanwhile I'm wanting a shower to wash off the sleaziness from this second-hand voyeurism.


Back to Chapter Four

Forward to Chapter Six