Doctor Prahd leads Gris into the hospital to discuss the reason why all the patients are being treated outside - that ridiculous stockpile of medical supplies takes up so much space that there's no room to see patients indoors. On top of that, without a nice refrigerated facility to store his cultures and whatnot, Prahd won't be able to do any good cellology work.
Gris decides to show Prahd the hospital under the hospital, with the rooms decorated like prison cells so the mobster patients "feel at home." The good doctor apparently has no problem with working on criminals, but still insists that the not-secret hospital be able to run. Gris reluctantly calls up his contractors and arranges the next round of construction.
Then things get bad.
Prahd wants to chat about the latest news from Voltar, or more specifically the nymphomanic Widow Tayl's reproductive organs. The good doctor "enlarged her ovaries, as a beginning. She can now have three times as many orgasms as before and much more strongly." And I'm not sure if this is "satire" about misinformed doctors, a biological difference between humans and Voltarians, or the author simply not having a clue, but I'm pretty sure that's not how women's bodies work.
Of course, Prahd was just getting started. Knowing that nymphomania is often caused by sterility (note: it is not), he fixed a blockage in the widow's innards. And then things get worse.
Prahd was smiling happily, the true professional. "Well, remember the first day I had the honor of meeting you? You had intercourse with her in the house? Well, I took some of your semen..."
And so Prahd crosses the line from "one of the few bearable characters in Mission Earth" to "creepy perv doctor" in but a single chapter. Yes, he made sure to collect Gris'... ah, "deposit," and use it for some in vitro fertilization. The Widow Tayl is now pregnant with Gris' child and just delighted with the whole situation.
Gris is not, though, and demands an explanation. Prahd says how he wanted the line of the great Gyrant Slahb (the cellologist Gris disguised himself as to recruit Prahd) to continue, and of course was too professional to use his own genetic material, so he used Gris' without his permission. Once Gris has him by the neck, the doctor also admits that after Gris' threats against the widow, he thought if she was pregnant with Gris' kid, she might be spared.
So the chapter ends with Gris reading a sappy card from his "cuddly Taylsy-Waylsy," returning to his room, and lying down on his bed for a good cry. "It was too bad Prahd was officially dead. Otherwise, I could have killed him on the spot."
I think that's one of those sentences Hubbard threw together because he thought it sounded dramatic without considering whether or not it made a lick of sense.
Back to Chapter Four
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