Guess it's time for the "nerve-shredding departure" Gris promised us last chapter.
Just as Gris relaxes on his bed (again), a loud noise jerks him upright (again). He races out the airlock to find the hangar in an uproar - crews are setting up massive platforms, portable stages, tup bars, the whole shebang. Truck after... excuse me, lorry after lorry pours in through the wide-open gates that normally keep the Apparatus hangars safely hidden from the world, or at least those parts of the world unprepared to scale a fence.
Gris rushes over to Heller and wails that "You can't have a go-away party! That was just a joke! THIS IS A SECRET MISSION!" A confused Heller reminds Gris that he was the one who signed all the forms ordering this extravaganza (during the heeelarious "Where was Lombar?!" bit several chapters ago). It's vital, he explains, that his ship have a proper naming ceremony, since it's terribly unlucky to fly around unchristened. But he tries to placate Gris by promising that the event will only take four hours or so, and he'll try to keep it a "family affair."
A sleep-deprived and panicking Gris climbs back to his bunk, but sits down on a bottle that wasn't there before. It's a sample of amphetamines from Earth like the one Lombar Hisst was showing off a few hours ago. Gris doesn't know how it got there, but he decides that the only way he's going to get through the next four hours is with the help of a hit of speed.
...Nah, too easy.
Gris slices off a chunk of a heart-shaped pill and lets it dissolve under his tongue. Immediately his pulse speeds up, his weariness is replaced with elation, and everything is just wonderful! He spends a full hour donning his Death Battalion uniform, due to unfamiliarity of how to fasten things and his new tendency to dance in front of the mirror. Most of it is several sizes too big, except for one too-small shoe, but it's all good. The spiked knuckles, the silvered dagger bearing the motto "Death to Everybody," the faux-intestine belts, the nooses - magnificent! Fits great, looks sharp!
He goes outside and spies the throng assembling to wish Jettero Heller luck on his super-secret mission - contractors who worked on the ship, their families, Fleet personnel, off-duty Apparatus guys, bands and choruses... and, arriving just hours from takeoff, Tug One's Apparatus-selected crew, a half-dozen former pirates. These Antimancos have pointed heads and wide jaws, giving them triangular skulls, along with squinty eyes and swarthy skin. Remember, folks, the less Caucasian a character looks, the more evil they are.
Hey, maybe that's why Gris hasn't been described yet. Maybe he's some sort of misshapen, discolored half-troll, the better to reflect his internal evilness. Maybe that's a shocking reveal Hubbard is saving for later. Kinda like that H.P. Lovecraft short story where the horrifying twist ending was that a character's grandmother or something had been a, duh-dum-duhn, "Negress!"
Gris goes to give his new crew a warm greeting, but for some reason an apparition in a skull-shaped helmet extending a spiked hand makes them a bit spooked. He shrugs off this mystery and then spots something that snaps him out of his pleasant buzz: Snelz marching in front of his platoon - no, a full company now! - with a shiny new captain's badge. With drug-boosted logic, Gris concludes that Snelz was the spy who told Hisst about the Countess Krak bunking with Heller. He starts babbling about Snelz's promotion, but Heller comes by and reveals that he gifted Snelz the cash to buy his next rank.
I'd rant about how stupid it is to have a market-driven officer corps rather than something approaching a meritocracy, but this is kinda clever. Since the Apparatus runs on sleaze and extortion and is generally a chaotic, mismanaged nightmare, being able to steal or blackmail or embezzle the money to purchase ranks is as much a display of the organization's relevant skills as clearing out a bunker or capturing an enemy spaceship are for proper military branches. Even Snelz toadying up to someone powerful and popular is a display of Apparatus values. It's so quietly clever that I wonder if it was even intentional.
But Gris keeps babbling, his mouth working faster than his mind ever did, and a concerned Heller sits him down in a comfy chair. The big ceremony is about to begin... next chapter.
Now I'm pretty much a teetotaler and was thoroughly scared straight by my elementary school's DARE program, so I have no idea if the symptoms Gris is displaying are characteristic of amphetamines. But in contrast to the suspicion and outright scorn I have for his scientific credentials, I trust L. Ron Hubbard to accurately describe the effects of speed.
Back to Chapter Seven
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