It's been a while since I've gotten to say "Gris is miserable," what with the whole month-long vacation and all, but now everything's back to normal, he and his driver are being flown back to Government City, and Gris is feeling down in the dumps.
When some authors - good authors - make their characters miserable, it's not just an attempt to wring some drama from the story. Put a character under stress, take away some of their options, hurt them, scare them, and you get to see what they're made of, what they'll do in extreme circumstances, who they are when things are at their darkest.
Hubbard makes Gris miserable because Gris represents everything - well, some of the things - he hates. Gris' ground state is miserable, so we never see any character development come from it, and because it's the default state of affairs it's neither dramatic nor interesting. Gris suffers because Hubbard thinks we'll enjoy it as much as he does.
Anyway, all the blood, sweat and tears shed by Ske over that vehicle ID number have paid off. They lug the hunk of metal down to the Apparatus Vehicle Center and greatly impress the guy behind the desk, who declares that a promotion is in order and that they'll be getting a better vehicle. The clerk is also incredibly flamboyant, cooing and slapping the "naughty boy"'s wrist and giving people big sloppy kisses and offering to show Ske the fold-down back seats of the new airbus. Said car's pretty flamboyant too, a Model 794-86 with "purple light spinners and green landing wheels with a bright red band all around it." And it has a minibar!
And then, because it was so entertaining and interesting the first time, we go back to Gris' office. Bawtch yells at him for showing up and upsetting things, then for not doing work, and tries to get Gris to stamp some blank forms. The contractors have put in the easy-break glass and escape tunnel to the roof, which I'm sure will be a very important plot point in Book 7 or something. The lisping duo of "Too-Too" and "Oh Dear" are around to tremble and faint at the sight of Gris. And Gris has a new master console he doesn't remember signing for.
Sadly, this computer doesn't give us any entertaining backtalk or anything, and Gris just uses it to check his pay status - which is apparently harder than it sounds, given that there's 22,681 people named "Soltan Gris" in government records. He's overdrawn in pay by a whole credit, which he refunds, only to learn that it'll take two months to process so he's still in critical danger of running into the Finance Department Court-Martial Unit.
And then Ske shows up and suggests that they go to the hangars. Hey, that's right, it's been a whole month. Maybe the work on Tug One is done, and Heller's wondering where Gris has gone off to, and in a few chapters we'll be off for Earth and the plot will begin in earnest and hahahaha oh god no.
Back to Chapter Five
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