Gris slips into the building undetected, passes through a hall and finds the front door of Doctor Cutswitz. He "boldly" steps through - it isn't locked or anything, but it really should be, 'cause Gris finds the good doctor atop a "mechanical fornicator." Gris is extra loud shutting the door behind him so Cutswitz can get his pants on.
The room has two walls devoted to shelves holding uncounted jars containing human - well, Voltarian - brains in preservative fluid. The doctor, belonging to a profession that Hubbard loathes, looks like he had "soaked himself a year or two in oil and, from the smell of him, it must have been rancid," but he smiles and asks what he can do for Gris.
The cunning secret agent explains that his name is Ip, a common Voltarian appellation, who has "a friend" with a problem. After describing his inability to draw a weapon, the doctor immediately ascertains the nature of the illness and readies a "hypnohelmet" to see where and how "Ip" was hypnotized. Gris, being a suspicious, secretive Apparatus operative, sees no problem with donning mind-scrambling headgear and puts on the helmet without protest.
Gris hears the doctor's voice "like a shadow in the background," asking questions that he answers without hesitating, but Gris doesn't pay much attention. And then, eventually, he hears a new voice, a voice giving him four directives: if Gris contemplates harming Jettero Heller, he will become nauseous, and if Gris actively tries to hurt Heller he'll become violently ill. If Gris even plans to hurt Heller, he'll have nightmares about a Manco Devil, and if he tries to strike at Heller, his arm will stop working. The voice finishes by saying that after Gris awakens he'll read the word "obedience" and instantly forget hearing these orders.
And that voice is - dramatic musical sting - the Countess Krak! "(Bleep) her! (Bleep) (bleep) her!" She programmed Gris back when she did that "accent check" I-can-be-bothered-to-look-up-how-many chapters ago!
"Shocking" plot twist aside, this is actually an interesting move on Hubbard's part.
We just recently saw how the Countess is continuing to be "redeemed" by having her vicious backstory explained away (or parts of it, anyway). She didn't willingly program children to be thieves, and she never used nasty electroshock treatment to train her workers. And Hubbard evidently thinks those whip frenzies were justified. She's intended to be a Good Guy, a suitable love interest for Heller.
So why is she using hypnosis? Why, that's one of the tactics of those disgusting psychologists, isn't it, Hubbard?
Maybe Hubbard is going for a more complex character here, a Countess who isn't a squeaky-clean, misunderstood, fawning sex toy for Jettero Heller, but someone trying to pull herself out of degrading Apparatus work but still finds herself using their methods to do so. Or more likely, Hubbard is okay with mind-meddling being used by the right people for the right cause in the right situations.
Like if someone wanted to leave Scientology, for example.
Well, somehow Gris discovering who implanted those subconscious commands is enough to completely nullify them, and in a rage he (Bleep)s the heck out of Countess Krak and her precious Jettero Heller. "Every Hells any planet ever heard of would be a lovely place compared to the Hells you two will be in now!"
And with that wince-inducing bit of prose, this climactic chapter comes to a close.
Back to Chapter Three
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