The fateful spotlight hits their table again, meaning it's Hightee's turn to perform. She takes up an instrument called a "chorder-beat," an eighteen-inch-wide, electronic half-globe that functions as a space-age drum, and gets the band to play a certain song.
Spaaaang! went the chorder-beat. Yow-yow! went the band.
For the first full melody she played and did not sing. And it was sexy! Her body swayed and curved, her left hand seemed to be indicating something else than the chords. Her right hand writhed to the beat. It was SEXY!
Well it must be, you've used that adjective twice now. And capitalized it. Sure, other authors might describe the effects of the scene on their viewpoint character, or find a way to convey what's going on in a manner that makes the reader blush. By why do that when you can just tell us what to feel?
Most of this chapter is Hightee singing, so I guess most of this blog post will be the same. It's not a long song, it's just printed with gaps around each three-line stanza. No title, as far as I can tell. So without further ado, the lyrical stylings of L. Ron Hubbard:
There once was a man when I was young,
Who said he knew a foreign tongue,
He'd teach me!
He said it went a funny way,
A thing the ancients used to say,
He'd teach me!
It'd need, he claimed, a very soft bed,
A place where he could lay my head,
To teach me!
So we found a place we could repose,
And he removed my underclothes,
To teach me!
And so we got down to the song,
He kept it up so very long,
He taught me!
Yes, a witty ballad about a cunning linguist. And then it gets stupid.
Hija, hoopah, jiggety plow,
Lecheroo, pokeroo, pow, pow, pow!
Hourly too!
I had to read it. Figured it was only fair that you'd get to see it too.
The language is not hard to learn,
And I invite you, if you yearn,
To be taught!
And then the "hija hoopah" crap starts repeating again. This is the point when the crowd hits the stage.
See, by the second verse someone in the audience figured out the identity of the mysterious singer in the wood nymph mask... why is it always "wood ____" anyway? Wood devils, wood nymphs, wood gods; are arboreal societies associated with superstition here, or what? Anyway, the cries of "ZOMG its Hightee Heller!" leads to a mob rushing the nightclub as neighboring businesses empty and everyone tries to get in before the singer gets to the verses with "jiggity-plow" in them. And of course the film crew in the press box is recording everything.
After Hightee finishes the song with "Come see me!", in danger of being shoved into the band's ranks by the surging tide of frenzied clubgoers, Gris shoots the lights with his blaster. This is not out of any desire to save Heller's sister, but because he sees that yellow-man struggling through the crowd in his direction, holding what can only be the bill. Then Gris blasts the switchboard behind the bandstand, killing the rest of the lights in the club.
As emergency lighting flickers on, the police rush in to start restoring order. In the chaos, the Countess Krak drags Gris out through the emergency exit, followed closely by the Heller siblings. The police are hot on their heals, but luckily it's Guard Commander Snelz in a police uniform! That's... huh? Well, obviously the guard detail coordinated with Heller as to where he was planning on going, then disguised themselves as civilian policemen, then followed Heller and Gris and everyone to the club, then hid themselves nearby and closely monitored the situation, ready to leap into action to save the wonderful, handsome Jettero Heller. Heller's life must be saved so he can get laid that night, thereby giving the guards' lives meaning.
Hightee gets dropped off, assuring her brother and sister-in-law-to-be that she "really approve[s]." And then once the Countess is taken to her lodgings in Tug One, Heller stops to apologize to Gris. You see, he noticed how Gris was cringing every time they ordered something, and deduced that his "friend" was broke. So Heller used his own identoplate to pay the bill, and assures Gris that he wouldn't have called in his party debt if he'd known it would be so inconvenient.
In other words, Heller's name is now in the nightclub's records, proving that not only has he been running around outside of Apparatus custody, but also that Mission Earth has, like this novel, not gone anywhere in the weeks since its launch.
Gris is furious, wants to kill Heller, and is immediately sick to his stomach. So once again, the chapter concludes with Gris being miserable. But at least we're done with the whole "dinner date" sequence.
Back to Chapter Four
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