Nine chapters to go, folks.
Ske and Gris bring Heller to the Widow Tayl's private "hospital," where Dr. Prahd is waiting. Presumably at this point Hubbard was as tired of typing "Bittlestiffender" as I am. The doctor, a little nervous since Ske told him just how screwed he is if he messes up, ushers Heller into the operating room. They pass the Widow Tayl on the way, who stands as though transfixed - Gris recognizes the symptoms of "adoration fixation" and regrets that he has that affect on women.
You can laugh if you want to, but I'm not really feeling it.
Once in the little surgical suite, the doctor has Heller strip down, with Gris hanging around like it's normal for a third party to be present for someone's physical. Prahd compliments Heller on being "certainly extremely well built. And equipped," like it's normal for doctors to compliment patients on the quality of their genitals (edit from the future: this is a warning sign, right here). Gris admits to himself that Heller could be considered a handsome man with the sculpted physique of an athlete, but calls the doctor's focus away from Heller's groin and to the "glaring" distinguishing marks that need removal.
This leads to the story of the stone arrowhead Heller got shot with, which the doctor is shocked to learn was never formally treated. So Prahd takes an X-ray - excuse me, "viewplate" - and aims it at Heller's head, and sure enough finds signs of "creeping penetration syndrome," which will kill Heller in a few years if left untreated. In fact, with this terrible injury, there's no way Heller can be sent on Mission Earth.
Fortunately, the procedure to remove the arrowhead will only take a couple of hours. Heller is extremely reluctant to go along with this, since he's promised a certain someone to never be unconscious in the presence of a certain other someone. But Gris produces a camera - excuse me, "security recorder" - that can be locked on Heller's wrist with a set combination, thereby assuring him that nothing bad happens while he's out. Heller heaves a weary sigh and straps the thing on, resting his wrist on a little wheeled table at Gris' direction, while mentally the Apparatus agent dances with glee.
So Heller gets hit with the anesthesia, while Gris plays nurse to Dr. Prahd. He feigns nausea and distress for the benefit of the tape and flees into the hallway. There he tugs on the string he had cunningly concealed the previous day, rolling the wheeled table Heller's wrist is resting on so that his arm flops to his side, aiming the not-camera at the side of his bed.
I'm not sure if I should compliment Gris on finding a simple, low-tech solution to his problem, or harangue him for not coming up with something that didn't depend on a length of string, especially since he was the one supplying the recording equipment in the first place.
The chapter ends with an exultant Gris... and a paragraph about lobotomies, or more specifically how he regrets being unable to put Heller through one. A lobotomy is, as you're no doubt well-aware, the horrifically-violent procedure devised by those loathsome Earth psychiatrists, guaranteed to either kill your victim outright or reduce them to a vegetative state that will see them dead in five years, tops. Apparently no one told Hubbard that this particular treatment was largely out of use by the 1970's, fifteen years before Mission Earth's release. But I guess he was too busy writing the book to do any research on what he was saying in it.
Now I'm worrying that we'll see a lot of discos when we get to Earth.
Back to Part Ten, Chapter Nine
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