Part Eight, Chapter Six - Generic Not-Spies Co.

The next day we're back in the Hangar of Endless Spaceship Maintenance, as Gris nurses a migraine from a night of stomach pains and nightmares. Ske doesn't have any painkillers for him, but drops off a newspaper and walks off with a smug smile.

The headlines are, of course, about the famous Hightee Heller's brush with death the previous evening, her heroic rescue at the hands of her brother, and the whole riot at the nightclub. A Grand Council spokesman made a statement concerning the presence of Jettero Heller, who was supposed to be on a secret mission, and how the Council will be looking into it.

At the end it mentions related articles: "HIGHTEE HELLER, HUMAN OR GODDESS?" and "THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JETTERO HELLER, THE MODEST HERO WHO BECAME THE IDOL OF THE FLEET." Yes, Heller-worship transcends all levels of society, from the military to the media.

So Gris just sits in the hangar while work on Tug One continues, completely numb and exhausted, waiting for death now that his blunders have been exposed. He tries to take solace in how Heller will surely be next on the chopping block after him, but this causes those mysterious stomach pains to strike again. A crew from the Educational Aids Company comes and goes without incident, and then guys from the Mineral Resources Equipment Company begin unloading boxes from their lorry.

I sat there waiting. I knew it would come and it would not be boxes.

Ah, the innocent days before Metal Gear Solid.

Finally it was there. I felt it. Sort of like an infusion of black poison gas into the scene.

It's a shame - this comes close to doing an almost decent job of creating an atmosphere of dread tinged with paranoia, with lethal danger hiding somewhere in a mundane scene, a threat that only Gris with his Apparatus-trained instincts can sense. And then you describe that danger as a big, obvious cloud of darkness, something that anyone should be able to see. Kinda ruins the effect, Hubbard.

Then again, you just called your aliens "human" a few paragraphs ago, so I'm not sure you even bothered to reread this between churning it out and dropping it in your editors' laps.

A voice from behind a pile of crates: a horrible whisper.

"Officer Gris."

My God, this could only be more suspenseful and terrifying if someone covered Gris' eyes with their hands and said "Guess who?" So there's our cliffhanger ending for this happily brief chapter.


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