Setting his viewscreens up in the closet again, Gris watches and Heller and Krak prepare for their day. Krak thinks Heller is "agitated" after Bang-Bang told him that his Nature Appreciation class has been relocated from the Bronx Zoo to Van Cortlandt Park. And you can guess what she's fixated on.
"That's that Miss Simmons, isn't it, dear?"
"I wish you'd forget about this Miss Simmons thing. She hates me like poison. My only interest in her is that she could cost me my diploma and nobody will listen to me when I make my proposals."
"I shouldn't be counting on proposing to Miss Simmons, dear."
"Please, can't we call a truce on. . ."
Hubbard spent a lot of effort telling us how wonderful Heller is, how he's brilliant and charming and smart and all that garbage, and we're supposed to be saddened when things somehow don't go his way. But the only time I actually feel sorry for him is when Hubbard gives him a girlfriend like the Countess Krak.
Krak casually asks Heller about what the weather's going to be like for the day, then assures him that she's got some museum exhibits to see. But instead of expanding her mind by studying the history and artwork of Earth, she hurries along to the garage ahead of Heller and hides in the luggage compartment behind the Porsche's front seats. And Gris is nervous because she obviously had a shopping bag full of magic tricks again, but he "had forgotten to fill the strip well in her viewer and had no way to check back on what she had packed in that shopping bag."
I bet 54 Charlee Nine, the Robotbrain in the Translatophone, runs on a tapedrive. We're dealing with aliens that harness the power of black holes to shift their capital forward in time so nobody can attack it, but apparently they haven't figured out digital data storage.
We get another case of Gris clumsily inferring what other people are thinking when Heller shows up at the garage.
He noted that the springs seemed a bit lower, for he gave the car a cursory exterior and motor check, probably for bombs. Then he gave an "Oh, well," and started the car up, possibly believing all the monkeying he was doing with it had changed its balance or weight.
Or maybe he ran over a squirrel the other day and was worried the furry pancake had gotten kicked up and lodged in the underside of his car.
Heller speeds off in his modified car, and Gris takes a break from mentally ranting about how the Countess Krak is worse than a mafia hitman and a Dracula combined to worry that if Heller got pulled over for speeding he might miss his "appointment with destiny" or otherwise interfere with "the coming catastrophe." Poor little guy still thinks everything's going to go his way.
There's also some suspiciously appropriate music on the radio, presumably another Hubbard original:
Fatal Woman,Fatal Woman,So drenched in sin.Fatal Womn,The Devil's twin.Fatal Woman,You done me in.And that's why I shall die.
This actually gets a smile - a hell of a smile - out of our villain, who "smiled so broadly, I almost tore my lip." Not only does Heller unknowingly have the extremely dangerous (to everyone else) Countess Krak in the back seat, but he's on his way to meet Miss Simmons. As Gris explains, "It was bad enough to face one woman. But he was absolutely surrounded with the treacherous species."
I almost wonder if the author's trying to deflect any accusations of misogyny towards Gris after doing that "rape the lesbians straight" chapter.
Heller arrives at the park, disembarks and walks off. Krak gets out shortly afterward, stalking her boyfriend from about two hundred yards back. They soon arrive at Near-Rape Grotto, where there's still visible bullet scars in the trees and Miss Simmons and the other students are waiting. The teacher is in a black topcoat and matching slouch hat, but not wearing her glasses, and bids Heller sit down on a particular rock, then resumes counting the attendees.
Gris is confused because he can also hear the counting coming from Krak's monitor. She taps the pair of sunglasses she put on as part of her stalking outfit, and Gris realizes: "THE GLASSES!" Yes, it's another Eyes and Ears of Voltar toy, sunglasses that amplify distant sound and can zoom in on things. She focuses on her not-rival, Miss Simmons.
"The hussy," said the Countess Krak.
Miss Simmons is still doing a rolecall, by the way. But apparently in a very slutty manner.
Twenty-nine," said Miss Simmons, in a cold voice. "And thirty if you count Wister. There are some surprises in store for all of you. We can begin."
How ominous!
I'm glad Gris is here to tell how dramatic or exciting these scenes are. Instead of the author conveying these emotions through, y'know, his writing.
I expected Grafferty or at least police to be waiting around that wood. I hugged myself. If they were, they would catch the Countess Krak! Maybe even arrest Heller for the original eight murders!
Good old Gris. He doesn't have a direct hand in events, or indeed any way of knowing how things are going, but he keeps these adorable expectations that just because he wants something, it's going to happen that way. And after all these books and all those slaps to the face, he's kept this stupid, stupid innocence.
Back to Chapter Eight
Technically, computer tape drives are a form of digital data storage. They're still used for very large enterprise data backups, even if they're now obsolete for the applications where Hubbard is using them.
ReplyDeleteI'm more willing to forgive him his alien tape-based data storage, since computer tape drives were still in common use when he wrote the books, than his references to Earth products that were obsolete decades before he wrote them (Bromo-Seltzer?).