Friday, April 27, 2012

Part Twenty-Three, Chapter Seven - Has Soltan Gris Mentioned He's Heterosexual Today?

Speaking of characters from two books ago making a reappearance, Gris is reminded that he has another guest from Voltar waiting in the dungeons - "Too-Too" the lisping, effeminate homosexual stereotype.  The prisoner bursts into tears at the sight of Gris.

He was pretty rumpled.  "Six horrible weeks in a horrible spaceship with a horrible crew trying to get at me," he said.  "And now you!"  The tears streamed down his pretty face.

I slapped him.  I hate homos.  They make me sick at my stomach.  The very thought of a man making love to a man makes me turn green!

Watches Heller shower, watches Heller get dressed... anyway, Gris threatens Too-Too with not sending the postcards containing orders to spare his and "Oh Dear"'s mothers.  Too-Too agrees to cooperate, but asks to use the toilet first, and makes Gris turn his back because there's little privacy in a prison cell.  Just a little detail the author thought you should know. Gris gets some intelligence about what Too-Too learned while working with the elderly boy-chaser Lord Endow, but unfortunately it takes a few tries for him to learn what he wants.

"The minute he saw me, he said 'Oh, how darling!'  Then he said, 'Your trousers seem a little tight.  Come into my bathroom so I can...'"

"No, no, no!" I stormed at him.  I hate homos!  Men making love to each other curdles my blood!  "I want you to tell me the essentials!  The important information!"

He's constantly trying to eavesdrop on Heller having sex... well, Too-Too fills Gris in on all of ten days' worth of happenings on Voltar before he got stuffed on the Blito.  Lombar Hisst has gotten some of the confederacy's Grand Council hooked on methedrine and morphine (to help their rheumatism, of course), and he's passed a variant of the Harrison Act to protect the Apparatus' monopoly on the production and distribution of drugs.  

I let him up.  I was almost reaching for the postcards when a sudden suspicion took me.  He looked smug, the way homos will.  I hate homos.  You can't trust them.

We remind you that Soltan Gris is and always has been 100% STRAIGHT.

Gris makes as if to shred the postcards, making Too-Too admit that the day before he left he saw Bawtch chuckling about a forgery and Gris being executed for sure.  With horror, Gris realizes that the forgers from section 451 had talked!  ...Do you remember that?  I kinda do.  Something about... oh yeah, they forged the king's name on something promising to clear the Countess' criminal record?  Or something?  It was two bloody books ago.

So now Gris has to figure out how to save his hide from Bawtch (but not in that way because Gris is straight, dammit!).  The only copies of those incriminating documents are being held by the Countess Krak back on Voltar, but how to keep them safe?  Gris leaves the cell and a hysterical Too-Too behind as he struggles to come up with a plan.

Spoilers: it will involve a mind-control helmet, a decrepit old prostitute, and a child molester.


Back to Chapter Six

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