We slipped down secretly through the darkness toward our base on Planet Earth.
That's about it. There's a line about how the puny Earthling radar can't detect them, they pass through the simulated mountaintop, and they're in the hangar. Ta-da.
Even though we already had a summary of the last book's events at the start of this one, we get another situation report in this chapter. Gris, faced with a delusional and drug-addled boss, has decided that the best thing to do is to write up a two-page "resume of position." The gist of it is that the Apparatus' drug supply depends on Delbert John Rockecenter, a pharmaceutical and energy magnate who controls much of the planet, and whose energy empire is threatened by the clean alternative fuels Heller is supposed to be introducing. Gris also notes that an assassin has been ordered to kill him if he screws up, so he resolves not to.
There is something new, though. Gris notes that if Heller succeeds and Earth's tech-level increases over the next hundred years, it would be subject to a PC or "Peaceful Cooperation" style of "invasion," in which Voltar would establish a few bases and leave Earth to mostly run itself. As opposed to a premature intervention to wipe out Earth's civilizations before they can do more damage to the real estate.
I'm not sure how we're supposed to feel about this. Are we going to root for Heller in hopes that our homeworld becomes an alien client state? Not that a "peaceful" invasion really seems plausible, given the bloodthirsty soldiers we've been seeing so far, not to mention the lousy administration of the Voltarian government. And why didn't anyone bring up this possibility a book ago? Wouldn't showing up and offering some nice clean fuels be a great way to win over potential vassals?
With his potentially-inflammatory write-up completed (and not instantly thrown in a disintegrator or anything), Gris is in a good mood as he disembarks, at least until he walks under one of the invisible "pressure beam supports" holding the ceiling up and gets knocked down. A physical support column is much too primitive for these awesome aliens, you see.
Gris has The Actual Captain Stabb spread the word that a Royal agent is coming to town who should be avoided, sends Heller to get some local clothes and start taking in the sights, then goes to visit the base commander. Timyjo Faht of Flisten has taken the local name of Faht Bey, and for added humor is indeed overweight. He's visibly shaken to see an Apparatus officer unexpectedly appear in his base, and is not reassured when Gris tells him that he'll be killed if he doesn't follow orders.
Gris looses a flurry of orders, telling Lord Tubso to use his contacts in Afyon to spread the word that an agent of the American Drug Enforcement Agency matching Heller's description is nosing around and shouldn't be talked to. He also demands that some local thugs give Heller a Will Smith-style welcome to Earth - not to kill him, just to show him what things are like here. Gris demands his old quarters back and orders a replacement dancing girl to keep him company, sends word for Raht to join fellow Apparatus advance agent Terb in New York in anticipation of Heller's arrival, and requisitions ten thousand each of American dollars and Turkish lira for his personal use by means of a forged order.
To cap all this off, Gris takes the base commander's personal sidearm for his own, an M1911 pistol, and playfully mock-shoots the man in the gut with it. He pockets the gun in imitation of Humphrey Bogart, dragging another entertainment icon into this terrible book, and hops in a taxi for home.
For in truth, I was home. This was my kind of country. Of all the places in the universe I'd been, this was the one place that really appreciated my type. Here, I was their kind of hero. And I loved it.
A pretty malicious slander not just to Turkey, but the entire planet. Fun note: Soltan Gris' Turkish alias is "Sultan Bey," which is roughly as nonsensical as "Prince Duke."
Back to Chapter Five
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