Part Five, Chapter Six - More Spaceship Maintenance

We're still not done with Tug One.

Gris watches Heller do another "money handshake" with the hangar security chief to get a guard detail around the mission ship, while maintenance crews swarm over the ugly little spaceship, connecting hoses and scrubbing off years of dust. Then a big ol' "lorry" - Hubbard has come down with a mild case of Britishness - drives in, with signs on its sides advertising "tup," some sort of brewed beverage.

Yep, a commercial vehicle has just casually cruised into the Apparatus' secure hangers, filled with their private fleet of ill-gotten starships. Its crew unloads a bunch of picnic stuff before just as suddenly departing, and Heller gets the hangar workers' attention, promising a "tup party" if Tug One could pass a Fleet inspection by that afternoon. And everyone cheers, and the murderous curmudgeons the Apparatus fills its ranks with are all smiles and aglow about the wonderful Jettero Heller, and the workers all ooh and aaah at being in the same room with the famous race pilot and plan on bragging about it to their wife and kids, and I guess it's still better than Battlefield Earth because nobody's adding Heller to their pantheons yet. But there's nine books to go, so we'll have to see.

There's another description of Tug One, now in a horizontal position, with an emphasis on the unsightly, heavy "arms" protruding from either side of its fuselage. Gris, who apparently has no clue what a tug actually does, asks a nearby worker about it, who explains for the benefit of the audience that tugs are used to push and butt larger ships into position... but I'm kind of wondering why. 'cause Tug One can move around in all directions despite its engine placement, yeah? And space isn't known for its friction or gravity or anything. So why couldn't you stick the same engines that make Tug One so maneuverable on a larger ship? And if Tug One has tractor beams, which it does, are the prongs even needed? And why does Tug One need to be a tug, anyway? Why couldn't Heller have fallen in love with an experimental, high-speed recon vessel with similar engines? Did Hubbard just like tugboats? Did I ask these rhetorical questions earlier? My head's all stuffy from the weather, and these chapters all blend together into a smear of tedium, until I'm not sure what day it is or who I am or-

Anyway. Gris reiterates how ugly the ship looks, then finds Heller in the "communications cubicle" making outside calls to civilian contractors. Gris is enraged - "With his in security [sic], he could blow us apart!" But Heller is rather unconcerned about the risk, and assures Gris that these groups are used to sensitive government work. And then we're treated to half a page of Heller's side of conversations with restorers and gravity coil specialists and whatnot who he's all on a first-name basis with. Gris moans that the work planned could take weeks, or even months - so no, we won't be seeing Earth for a good while yet.

But Heller's got sound logic behind his choice of mission ship. If he and Gris were to leave right away on an old Apparatus freighter, they'd still get to Earth slower than they would if they refitted Tug One and then timehaxed their way across the gulf between galaxies. Assuming those baffling "willbe-was" engines don't blow them all to hell, of course. The chapter ends with Gris miserable - man, they always end with Gris being miserable, don't they? How many times have I typed those words? - and ranting about that (bleeped) tug.


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