Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Part Thirteen, Chapter Six - So Long, Turkey

Gris assures us that the prospect of owning a sex slave did not distract him at all the day before liftoff, and he was able to perform his duties with enough attention that he even found time to make a servant boy throw up again.  Heller, on the other hand, spends the day making candy, peppermints if the description is accurate.  Gris is dismissive of Heller's preparations and stops paying attention, which leads me to suspect that it's not candy at all and will later become a plot point.

They load up and take off at nightfall, then take a leisurely pace to follow the line of darkness creeping over the planet, so that they arrive at their destination at the same time of day that they left.  The landing zone is a deserted Virginia plantation, which they secure by bombarding with a quick burst from a paralysis beam of some sort.  Then crewmen jump out and quickly sweep the area with heat-detecting sensors.  As opposed to the ship using its sensors to see if there's any danger before landing.  Nope, it's fly over, paralyze what's immediately under you, and land before actually looking around.

After discovering that they stunned an opossum, Raht and Terb, a pair of bland Apparatus agents already inserted into America, arrive with suitcases full of clothes and papers for Heller.  While he goes back inside the tug to get dressed, Gris debriefs his underlings - they've got a military school diploma bought from a crooked teacher, and a birth certificate that needs signing in person because the crooked clerk doesn't think he's crooked.  They report that all the clothes and luggage are thoroughly bugged, but Gris orders them to take that 831 Relayer and stay within two hundred miles of Heller at all times, as part of an extra-special bugging.

And then Heller emerges, dressed in what the agents gave him.

Raht had done a wonderful job. The jacket was LOUD! Huge red and white checks. The pants were LOUD! Huge blue and white stripes. The hat was a bright green, banded Panama: too small! The shoes were orange suede and too tight! The shirt was purple!

He would stand out like a searchlight!

Mission Earth, where obnoxious outfits are described with more care than 90% of the cast.

It's time to divvy up money - Raht and Terb need some extra cash to counteract "inflation," while Heller's under orders to be given five thousand bucks in order to look affluent.  Gris gives him two thousand and happily notes that he's made a decent profit that night.  Heller has a letter Gris wants to deliver as a favor, since he promised "to keep him informed."  Gris doesn't bother to waste a thought on it before pocketing the thing, again convincing me of the letter's importance.

And then it's goodbyes.  Gris wishes Heller good luck while mentally exulting that he'll surely end up in jail within hours, the ship's crew use a special device that repairs grass to erase signs that a spaceship landed on it (God forbid the physics-breaking vehicle hover), and then Heller is on his own.  As the tug races back to Turkey before dawn there, the captain brings up how Heller removed the ship's time-sight and generally locked things up in his absence so they can't leave the planet.  Gris, concerned about being blown up by Apparatus Not-Assassins, gives it little thought, almost guaranteeing that it will become a vital plot point, possibly leading him to frantically save Heller so he can repair the ship and flee the planet.

With that, the Part comes to a close.  Looks like we're done with Turkey, at least until that dancing girl shows up.  Time to see what Hubbard thinks of rural Virginia.

I'm having another "why is this even happening?" moment.  So the Apparatus has a plan for Earth and doesn't want the Voltarian government involved, fine.  So they're going to manipulate the appointed agent sent to Earth so that he can't alert the government, right.  They'll forge his reports, that sort of thing.  Meanwhile they're trying to set up the agent to fail, imprisoned or killed by the Earthlings.  But since that would presumably make the government send another agent, they'll be keeping the agent's status secret.

So.  Take Heller to Earth, shoot him in the head, toss the body in the disintigrator, and forge reports telling an elaborate story of slow and painstaking progress, stalling the Voltarian government until the Apparatus coup is ready.  Or hell, put Heller on the ship to Earth and shoot him there.

The point is, this plot is entirely unnecessary and only occurs because the Apparatus has decided to achieve its objective of neutralizing Heller in a roundabout way instead of through much simpler, safer and successful options.  Kinda like how Battlefield Earth only happened because the Psychlos were too stingy to bring a hazardous-environment drone miner to Earth, necessitating human miners for Terl's scheme.

So I guess stupidity is the underlying ingredient of Hubbard's stories.  It's necessary to support the stories' premises, and a critical aspect of all the villains.


Back to Part Thirteen, Chapter Five

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