Part Ten, Chapter Two - Nor Swedish, Farsi, Japanese, Sumerian, Latin...

Back at the hanger again, Gris sees that the refitting of Tug One has entered a new phase - Heller is replacing the vessel's "absorbo-coat," which "takes all incoming waves and simply drinks them up; absolutely no energy gets reflected, visible or invisible." Stealth stuff, in other words. TV Tropes has a pretty good article on the issue of stealth in space, the most obvious problem of which isn't evading incoming sensors, but masking your own spaceship's heat emissions. And since Hubbard's "absorbo-coat" is absorbing all this energy in addition to the energy generated by the boat's engines, life support, and freaking movie theater, Tug One is going to have some problems in that regard.

Anyway, Gris' attention is soon grabbed by the arrival of the Blixo, a rather generic freighter that makes regular, secret runs to Earth for the Apparatus. Crews are unloading its mysterious "priceless cargo" for shipping to the storerooms of Spiteos, but there's something else: a shouting prisoner.

"Take your God (bleeped) hands off my God (bleeped) neck and get these God (bleeped) cuffs off my God (bleeped) wrists!" It was in English! Not Turkish or Arabic. But English!

Hubbard, honey... why is the specific human language being spoken more important than the fact that a human language is being spoken? Shouldn't the sentence read "It was in English! Not Voltarian, but English!" Are Turks or Arabs being towed into Spiteos a common occurrence not worthy of attention, but a guy speaking English, ooh that's a big deal? Were you expecting us not to care if the captive was babbling in Cantonese but for our hearts to go out to him if he sounded American? Is this pandering towards your readers or just some more of your casual racism?

Stupid. Upon being questioned by Gris, the human prisoner refuses to confirm or deny that he is Gunsalmo Silva (who? how does Gris know to ask this?), and demands to speak to his senator or the U.S. consul. Then the guards take him away for interrogation at Spiteos, and he exits The Invaders Plan, leaving readers to wonder if Silva will reappear, how many books it will take for him to do so if he does, and how the hell Hubbard expects us to remember who he is with so many other pointless characters floating in and out of the story.

This short but thoroughly baffling encounter concluded, Gris goes to speak to Captain Bolz, a big shaggy bear of a being who offers the agent a glass of the Earth whiskey he's about to break into. This friendliness is because Bolz wants twenty cases of Scotch smuggled into Joy City and needs Gris' help to do so. Gris refuses monetary compensation, but has Bolz agree to taking on some special passengers and cargo for his next run to Earth - Twolah the Mincing Agent, a certain doctor, some "cellological" supplies, and some "radioactive" boxes Gris is looking forward to liquidating on Earth. All hush-hush, off-the-record of course.

Gris explains how he'll be able to intercept this cargo on Earth, which leaves Bolz to question how Gris could get there before him. And that leads to another tiresome paragraph in which a spacer marvels at Tug One's dangerousness and explosiveness, in case the other fifty times it's happened in this wretched book have failed to impress upon the reader how daring and fearless Jettero Heller is in choosing such a vessel.

Next chapter we learn what the Voltarian Army does on its days off, and it isn't pretty.


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Forward to Chapter Three