Gris' plan, as best as I can piece together, is for Doctor Crobe to "physically cripple" Heller. I guess he was supposed to come in around midnight, somehow overpower the combat engineer, and shorten his bones or something. Not destroy the time-sight and rob Heller of his ability to effortlessly make billions. Not find Heller's platen, allowing Gris to forge Heller's reports and kill Heller and Krak immediately. Not pretend to work with Krak and Heller while subtly sabotaging their progress. Physically attack Heller to stop him.
I say "piece together" because Hubbard doesn't really explain this plan, since it falls apart immediately.
The two unmarked Apparatus thugs take off Crobe's jacket, ready their blaststicks (Code Break?) and lurk out of sight around a corner while Crobe goes to the door of Heller's office/apartment. He uses his X-ray eye to look through the door, spots Mr. Calico, stares in MYSTIFICATION at this strange furry creature, then attempts to walk through a transparent door. Humor? And the only time he'll use the damn implant in this chapter.
Krak wakes up when Crobe knocks, sees that it's 5:39 in the morning, answers the door, and the aforementioned plan falling apart occurs. Gris actually breaks character when Crobe's screen flashes with TERROR at the sight of the Countess.
It was my fault. I accept all the blame.
See? Not trying to weasel out or shift the blame to someone else. He's not even using psychology to make up excuses.
I had not specifically told him she was in New York. I had only told him what to tell her if he met her. Suddenly I realized that he was probably unaware of the relationship between "the man" he was supposed to handle and the Countess Krak. Would he remember what he was supposed to tell her? Or would he mess up and get himself stamped into the rug?
So after being told that he might encounter the Countess, and what to say if he encounter the Countess, Crobe still freezes up in fear at the sight of the Countess. 'kay. She's a scary lady. Guess we'll get some tension over whether or not Crobe can remember what to say.
Crobe manages to stammer the cover story of trying to help "the man" with creating "the spore formula." Krak bids him sit down, then gets out a hypnohelmet. Crobe's viewer briefly reads DOUBLE TERROR before going through PEACE and HYPNOTIZED when Krak puts on the mind-control helm which is not nearly as bad as that twisted pseudoscience of psychology. Then she leaves Crobe in his chair and goes to shake Heller awake, asking what kind of spores he needs.
Despite being abruptly jarred out of sleep, Heller is able to jot down a description of what he's looking for.
"It's got to be airborne," said Heller, pointing at the sheet. "It should be able to float in the atmosphere. It has to be able to live on those noxious gases and pollution particles and convert them to oxygen and perpetuate itself. Blown around by the winds of the world, it should be able to depollute the atmosphere envelope of the planet. I don't have the cellology formulas to synthesize it. Say, if you're so interested, maybe I ought to get up and explain it further."
"Oh, no, dear. It's the middle of the night. You just lie back there and get your sleep. Don't mind stupid old me puttering about."
So Krak lies to her boyfriend and works behind his back. Heller doesn't argue when she refers to herself as stupid. Romance!
Krak returns to Crobe with Heller's notes and orders him to make a formula to synthesize what he's looking for, but the doctor is filled with CONFUSION and doesn't remember how to make it. So Krak convinces him that he's sitting for his final exam and won't pass med school unless he comes up with the formula, and then Crobe can do it. He flips through a book on "Earth spores," and purely by recognizing the pictures of alien microbes, because he's now mentally regressed to a time before he knew English, Crobe is able to jot down how to mix all these native "spores" into one that will eat pollution.
I keep using sarcastic quotation marks because spores are, by definition, reproductive dispersal units. If I understand correctly, a spore wouldn't "eat" pollution somehow, it would try to grow a baby plant or fungus in it. So unless Heller wants clouds of fungi somehow growing in Earth's upper atmosphere, he might want to look into some form of airborne bacteria that would consume the bad air, crap out good air, and reproduce itself. Hopefully one that wouldn't kill anything that breathed it. Or reproduce exponentially until it smothered the planet with copies of itself.
Anyway, once Crobe has "passed his exam," Krak implants an imperative to flee from Heller, convincing Crobe that if he ever touched Heller "tentacles will spring out of your ears and strangle you. One contact with an electric knife or a fingertip upon that man will cause you to cease to breathe." Krak removes the helmet, again shakes Heller out of bed, and invites him to join her for coffee. When he follows her into the room with Crobe, the doctor screams and runs out of the office.
Heller turned to the Countess. "That was Doctor Crobe," he said. "What's he doing yelling and screaming and running?"
"The spearmint Bavarian Mocha is a new kind," said the Countess Krak.
"What was Crobe doing here?" said Heller. "Why did he run away?"
"Oh, Crobe? Well, he just brought these formulas to give you. He saw no need to stay. He had another appointment."
Heller looked at the open door to the hall. He took the papers from the Countess and glanced over them.
"Dear, he said, "you look like you've been up to something."
"Me? Jettero," she said.
Remember, duplicity and outright lies are a normal part of a healthy relationship.
...Do you think Krak's used a hypno-helmet on Heller yet?
Back to Chapter Three
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