The next morning my beauty sleep was shattered by a shrieking sizzle at my bedside. It interrupted a beautiful dream: Heller and Krak were in a bread line in New York and a Manco Devil was standing there with a soup ladle, not only refusing them food but also banging them expertly over the head with the sharp edge.
The "sharp edge." Of a ladle. I.e. a big spoon. The sharp edge of a spoon. Is this the author's way of subtly conveying some of the oddities of dream-logic, the result of Gris' brain thing, or the author not paying attention to what he's writing?
The noise that wakes Gris is the intercom, which until now has never rang because Faht Bey never wants Gris' help for anything - so he knows this must be serious. Sure enough, when Gris pushes the button Faht Bey yells about Dr. Crobe getting killed down in the hangar.
And Gris' first impression is "so what?", except Faht Bey closes the line before waiting for a response. And then it occurs to Gris that well, maybe he should try to keep this asset he hauled in all the way from Voltar alive, "in the event that Heller and Krak muddled through." I know, I know, right now Heller is sad and therefore completely neutralized, but what if he watches a romantic comedy at some point? Best not to take any chances.
This doesn't stop Gris from complaining about being "responsible for everyone at this base" when he suits up and goes to the hangar, though. The good doctor is hanging by his fingertips fifty feet up the hangar wall (how he climbed up there is left unexplained), while underneath some Antimancos and four of those "assassin pilots" raise an unholy racket and yell cuss words. "Unprintable!" Gris claims, unaware that he's in a book that censors words that can get by in a PG-13 movie.
The angry mob reveals that Dr. Crobe managed to steal a guard's keys, then wake one of the assassin pilots by slicing into him with a bayonet. Why Crobe would do this is a mystery until Gris, in a "stroke of genius," has an incredible idea - "ask Doctor Crobe."
Crobe's defense is that he is only doing what Gris told him, that is studying English... by reading the foulest, most evil tomes imaginable.
"You gave me texts on psychology and psychiatry as part of my reading assignment! They say man has a reptile brain in the lower middle of his skull. That was news to me, and I was only trying to find out! Why all this furor over somebody just trying to do his homework?"
Well, he had a point. The assassin pilots and the Antimancos didn't see it that way.
Good heavens! Once again, the sinister teachings of psychology/psychiatry have turned someone evil! ...Wait, Crobe was already a mad scientist who grafted people together to make circus freaks.
Well, the sinister teachings of psychology/psychiatry have convinced Crobe that men... wait, so Voltarian biologists never tracked neurological evolution and development? And Voltarians assume that Earth-based biology applies to their own kind? We really are the same species as these aliens? And nobody's boggled at this, or given second thoughts to that condescending Prince Caucalsia legend?
Well, the sinister teachings of psychology/psychiatry have given Crobe the exceedingly poor judgment to attempt a dissection of a living "assassin pilot" rather than a cadaver, and an urge to perform said autopsy so strong that Crobe had to break out of prison to do it.
Gris convinces the mob to go cool off for a bit, then gets the hangar crew to rig a net underneath Crobe, but the doctor refuses to let go of the "electro-beam support box" he's now clinging to. Or rather, Crobe can't get his hands to let go of the "electro-beam support box" he's now clinging to. Psychology! You've turned that poor man's fingers against him!
But remember, Gris is an expert marksman able to hit a songbird at half a mile. He gets out his stun rifle, cranks it down at its lowest setting, takes aim at Crobe's hand, and fires... exploding the box Crobe's clinging to and dropping ten tons of rock on the hangar crew as part of the cavern wall collapses
Comedy? I guess? Gris is incompetent and people are being injured? Ha ha?
Emergency sirens, tense digging-out of the survivors, Gris grumbling that nobody actually died and anyway it's not his fault because the stupid gun "had not been recharged for two years and, low-powered, had missed his hand and shot low. My marksmanship was not in question. But nobody would stop long enough to hear the explanation." Another random-ass reference to Bugs Bunny not being able to a better job, and end chapter.
So here's the riddle - Gris seems to be implying that his gun was insufficiently charged, so the energy rays it was shooting dropped below where he was aiming at. His "laser-bullet" didn't leave the barrel with enough force, so it was affected by gravity before it could hit its target. It'd be easy to declare this a case of Gris making excuses, except the alternative is equally plausible given the sort of crap Mission Earth's been pulling.
Back to Chapter One
As I recall, one of the people injured by the roof falling in had his head crushed, but is still alive. Gris seems to think this is fix-able. The extra heads conferred upon Voltarian cricus freaks earlier in the story suggests that Voltarian medical technology can actually do this - but it would of course necessitate an in-depth knowledge of the cranial nervous system.
ReplyDeleteHubbard contradicting himself? Say it ain't so...