The next morning Gris schedules an appointment with Louseini for later that day, then gets back to what he does best - watching Krak and Heller on the viewscreen. They're in a public library conference room with a bunch of books and charts, obviously up to no good, and the worst part is that they're in blue jogging outfits: "That they were in running suits, even though this was a current style, filled me with alarm. It seemed to indicate too much eagerness for progress and that was something I strictly did not want."
Heller's doing something, and Krak offers to help him if he'll only tell her what he's up to, which indicates that they left to jog off to the library without Krak being told or asking about what they'd be doing there. Heller explains that he's working on some math, military math, what he calls "Command Isolation Geometry." These super-advanced space aliens have worked out equations and formulas that will give you the physical location of command posts in enemy cities and whatnot, so combat engineers like Heller can go and blow them up. All you need to know is the number of troops in the area, what their highest-ranking commanding officer is, what kind of communications network they have, where their supply lines are and the routes they take...
So if you know all this, why is the "geometry" even necessary?
Anyway, Heller isn't trying to figure out who to blow up (yet), but who will try to oppose him when he attempts to clean up the atmosphere with his magical space spores.
"[...] I'm just making sure I isolate whoever's toes it will step on so I won't be too surprised. The way this planet is organized, apparently, is that if you try to do anything to help it, some special-interest group jumps all over you. They have some crazy idea that chaos is profit. Very short-range think [sic]. So I am just making sure that when I start putting spores into the stratosphere and get shot at, I know who's shooting."
Guess there's going to be some pro-pollution lobby who tries to kill Heller for wanting to clean the atmosphere. Someone, somewhere, somehow, is profiting from acid rain and smog and stuff.
The problem is, Heller's formulas keep giving results with repeating answers... for equations that are supposed to produce geographic coordinates? Like, Washington D.C.3333333? Heller puts this down to having too narrow a question. He was originally trying to figure out which local cytologists - that is to say, those who study cytology, "an Earth name for our cellology," which ought to be translated as "cytology" too if the subjects are the same, since we don't call Voltarian military science fightology or anything even though it's obviously so much more advanced than our puny Earth combat...
I'm getting distracted. Heller broadens his search parameters to include the entire planet, not just local cytologists, even though he calls this absurd.
"Why is that absurd, Jettero? I never saw you do anything absurd in all the time I've known you." But she added in a lower mutter, "Except Miss Simmons, of course."
"It's absurd because this planet doesn't have an emperor. I'll wind up with Buckingham Palace in England or something."
"And then you'll blow that up and we can leave," said the Countess Krak with an air of finality.
He laughed quietly. "What a bloodthirsty wench. I'm not trying to find out who to shoot. I'm just trying to figure out who might shoot at me if I put spores in the stratosphere."
This is... cute? Krak "joking" about assassinating the British royal family? Heller laughing at his "bloodthirsty wench" of a girlfriend? Krak still convinced that her lover is a liar and had an affair with Miss Simmons?
Heller gets back to work, throwing everything into his equation from government control to fuel control to finance to media to law enforcement to food. Everything. When I did that in my multiple regression project, my equation crapped itself and spat out a bunch of exponential nonsense. But when Heller does it, the magic of Command Isolation Geometry produces a spiral of symbols, and he traces lines from them to the center of his graph. Earth does have an emperor with total control of the planet, an emperor with two command posts.
"Where are the command posts and WHO is the emperor?" said the Countess Krak.
"I know a nice place to have lunch," said Heller.
"No, no, Jettero. Except for certain females, I have never seen you do an absurd thing ever. You are always right on. Tell me."
"You'll laugh. The planet doesn't have an emperor and its royal palaces are actually just tourist attractions. But I'll finish it anyway, if you like."
Underneath "command posts" he wrote in the center of the plot OCTOPUS OIL COMPANY BUILDING and POKANTICKLE ESTATE, HAIRYTOWN, NEW YORK.
In the center of the plot, in red, he printed, EMPEROR: DELBERT JOHN ROCKECENTER.
Duh-duhn-dah! Six books in, the hero has finally figured out who the Big Bad is! Even though Gris and the audience has known this since the first volume. Which makes this... not dramatic at all.
Gris, predictably, freaks out. Heller's learning things he shouldn't, and even though he dismissively gives Krak the graph to "teach the cat to run in circles," she carefully folds it up in a way that Gris knows means that she thinks it's legit and might act on this information.
And then Krak and Heller go grab lunch at the Museum of Modern Art... what? Heller was serious about his lunch offer. "Are we going to eat paintings?" asks Krak.
They load up on salads and ice cream rather than canvas and pigment, but the weird thing is that Hubbard doesn't take advantage of the setting to deride modern art, and he only mentions some odd-shaped sculptures in passing before Krak and Heller go from the cafeteria to a garden dining area. They eat in silence until Heller laughs to himself about "Crown Prince Junior." Krak demands an explanation and complains that even though he accuses her (correctly) of being secretive, he's the one being evasive now. Heller responds that it's a former name of his, then tries to distract her by talking about the ice cream.
Krak gets angry, in a "deadly" voice demands a full explanation, and after I'm-not-even-going-to-check many days on the planet, Heller finally gives Krak the full story of Mission Earth, and how he initially landed under the name of Delbert John Rockecenter Jr. Well, "full" except that he leaves out poor Mary Schmeck. And even though couples shouldn't keep secrets from each other, you really can't blame him in this case.
Heller thinks it's all a whole lot of nonsense, but Krak is convinced that between Mr. Bury's attempts to get Heller killed and the responses of the clerk who gave Heller the Rockecenter Jr. birth certificate, there must be a real son of Rockecenter out there somewhere, being hidden by Bury for his own purposes, while Rockecenter Sr. is completely oblivious! Krak knows this because she's an aristocrat, naturally, even though none of Heller's advanced alien geometry was able to pick up this shocking plot twist.
Speaking of Heller, he's completely dismissive of his girlfriend's theory and even doubts his own findings about a planetary "emperor." Instead he reveals the real reason they're at the Museum of Modern Art, and why Hubbard isn't disparaging it - there's an exhibition on science fiction spaceship art, and some of it almost looks like a "real" spaceship! So "stop worrying your pretty head about emperors who don't exist." But Krak remains unconvinced. Or rather, convinced that her own theory is correct.
They go through the exhibition, but Krak seems disinterested, as if she's planning how to blow up Octopus Oil and Pokantickle Estate. Gris decides "I HAD TO GET THAT SNIPER ON THE JOB QUICK!"
Not "I must stop her immediately," but "I need to hire someone to stop her immediately." He's noticing all these great opportunities to put a bullet in Krak's spine while they're at the museum, but Gris is totally dependent on someone else being able to do this job for him. And hope that it turns out better than all those other times he decided not to play an active role in the mission.
Back to Part Forty-Three, Chapter Four
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