Part Fifty, Chapter Six - Krak Learns Nothing

Wait a minute, if the yacht had guards around to hear something breaking, why didn't Krak scream for help when she thought Heller was going to rape her?

Krak and Heller snuggle for a bit, then the Countess gets up, starts pacing, and begins wailing about "Oh, how I have wronged you!" and sullying "the honorable word of a Royal officer of the Fleet."  Remember, Jettero Heller was born better than you.

While she goes on about how terrible her crimes are, she keeps ignoring Heller's protests that he instantly forgives her.

"Oh, no!  It is too horrible!"  She got down on her knees beside him.  "I can never make it right!  It's an absolutely unforgivable thing I did!"  She sprang up again and began to pace.  "Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!  How can I ever make it up to you!"

"By just being your beautiful self," said Heller.

No, Krak being Krak is what got you two into this mess.  She needs to be not-Krak for a bit.  Someone sane, rational, less prone to solving her problems through violating free will.

Krak continues to berate herself for believing the media and legal institutions instead of her "darling Jettero," then drops to her knees again and apologies to him for all the terrible physical injuries she's inflicted upon him - she "slashed [his] face to ribbons" with that thrown lotion bottle (Heller cut himself shaving without a mirror), "smashed [his] chest" with that hurled magazine Heller didn't think was worth dodging, and positively shrieks when she sees the state of his hands (a few pinpricks from those nasty metal cables). 

So she plays doctor.  She helps the man who was several minutes ago pinning her to the floor onto his feet, offering to let him lean on her as she leads him to a couch.  She washes his terrible wounds and cries about how from now on, every time he looks or her or she looks at him, they'll remember the time she led him to get "maimed and crippled."  Krak begs Heller to forgive her, and he forgives her, but she still isn't satisfied that she got exactly what she asked for.

So she has a mood swing.

She got back up. "No.  That isn't enough.  I can't permit you to forgive me.  It is too awful!"  Then she suddenly stood up very straight.  She said in a firm voice, "I have no right to inflict my upset on you when you're in so much pain.  You don't need an emotional female on your hands.  So stop worrying.  I will be efficient and effective."

Krak robotically strips Heller of his wetsuit, uses the magic light of science to turn his skin back to pure, sinless white, orders rooms service, and feeds him broth and crackers while he lays on her bed.  She also does something reasonable by asking for the full story of his escapades on Earth, and Heller just as smartly decides to tell her things that might provide context or explanations for what's been going on.  He mentions all the girls he's had platonic relationships with, that might get misrepresented in the paper.  He mentions the "bad publicity," which neatly explains why there's so much sensational Whiz Kid stories in the paper.  He mentions the arrest warrants out for him, which gives an idea of how the legal system is being used against him.

In short, he does all the things he could've done last book that would've made a lot of the nonsense in this book entirely unnecessary.  He acts like someone in an equal, healthy relationship with another rational, intelligent human being.

He's wasting his time.

She thanked him and sat back.  "It's the women," she said.  "They caused the trouble.  And because my Jettero is so handsome and so darling, I was a jealous fool.  Yes.  It was the women."

"Izzy says---" began Heller.

"No, no.  Izzy is a man.  He wouldn't understand these things," said the Countess.  "A woman--any woman--would move Heavens and planet to get her hands on my Jettero.  I understand that completely.  It all makes sense."

"I think there is more to it than . . ."

But she was not listening.

Instead Krak steps out and has a muffled conversation with someone.  I thought Heller had super-hearing at some point, but I guess it's too inconvenient for the plot.  When Krak returns she has some sleeping pills to help Heller rest and recover.  Despite his protests, she puts them in his mouth and gives him some water to wash them down, promising that everything is gonna be all right.  Heller passes out.

Gris... well, it's puzzling.  He knows that obviously Heller will be out for a while, but also knows when to set the viewer alarm for when he'll wake up.  So either someone discussed how long these Nembutal pills keep you asleep in a conversation not recorded on the book's pages, or else the viewscreen recorder is smart enough to know when Heller wakes up.

So Gris decides to get some sleep.  And since it's the end of a Part, he also decides to slather on the foreshadowing with a trowel.

Fool that I was, I had no clairvoyance whatever of the blazing storm of disaster which was about to be turned loose!  With me in the eye of the worst series of disasters Hells had ever unleashed.

Stupid with shock, champagne and marijuana, I had no inkling that my last days on Earth were about to pounce.

Whaaaaaa?!  We're not even on Book Seven yet and you're gonna leave?  But how will the author be able to satirize Earth music if you're not around to listen to it?

Looking back on that moment, I am incredulous that I could have been so unalert and calm.

Dark, devilish disaster was on its devastating way.

Eh, if you're gonna try to be alliterative, don't end by breaking the streak.  Better a terrific, truncated tidbit than a nearly noteworthy segment.


Back to Part Fifty, Chapter Five

Forward to Part Fifty-One, Chapter One

Part Fifty, Chapter Five - Krak and Heller Get Physical

Heller goes from beginning work with his "picklock" at the end of last chapter to quickly slipping through the door and silently shutting it behind him so "that the surprise was absolute."  Krak's in a silken-covered bed, staring disinterestedly out the viewport at all the fires and floating corpses in the harbor instead of reading her magazine, clad only in a blue negligee. 

Something must have made her aware that someone else was in the room.

She whipped her head sideways.  She went white!

"THE BLACK!" she cried.

With all her might she hurled the magazine across the room.

Krak's not shrieking about "the black man who the harbormaster warned was coming to attack me!"  No, she recognizes Heller immediately, she just thinks that "Your sins have blackened your face."

Let the reconciliation begin.

"Dear," he said, "you've got to listen."

"There is nothing to listen to!" she flamed.  "You lied to me about other women!

True.

You married some cheap harlot!  And then you married another one!

Not as true.

You have blasted all my hopes and dreams! 

Krak never had any aspirations beyond "enter a monogamous marriage with Jettero Heller."

Get out!  I never want to see you again!"

"Dear, are you going to listen to me or do I sit on you!"

"Don't touch me, you philandering, unprincipled beast!"  Her hands had been grasping about.  She seized a bottle of sun lotion and hurled it at him with all her might!

Yeah.  First a magazine, now a bottle of suntan lotion, maybe a chair next.  Gris is actually wondering whether Krak might kill Heller.  She's not wearing her stomping boots, boyo, don't get your hopes up.

She doesn't get very far, though, as Heller frickin' tackles her legs to bring her crashing to the (Persian) carpet.  When Krak starts scratching at him, Heller gets both of her wrists in one hand and pins them to the floor over her head, keeps a knee across her thighs to stop her from kicking, and sits on her.  The most she can do is struggle and fail to bite him.

"You," he said, "are going to do some listening!"

"I won't!"

If you ever need to summarize what's been wrong with Krak and Heller's relationship for the past third of this book, here you go.

While Krak accuses Heller of planning to rape her like he did those other women, Heller reaches into an undoubtedly waterproof satchel to retrieve some key pieces of evidence.

Heller had taken a piece of paper off the stack.  He opened it and shoved it in front of her face.  "Look at this."

"I won't!"  She turned her face away from it.

Remorselessly,

If the word "remorselessly" can ever be applied to an aspect of your relationship, it's probably best to just end it before things get any worse.

using the elbow of the arm that held her wrists, he forced her head the other way toward the paper he held.  She closed her eyes, tightly and violently.

Heller said, "LOOK AT THAT PAPER!  What is it?"

"You can prove nothing to me!" she said.

"Answer me.  What is the paper?"

"You're hurting me.  Ouch."

So does Edward ever do this to Bella?  I hear he stalks her and breaks into her house and sabotages her car and kidnaps her and threatens her and basically takes over her life, but that's all emotional abuse and domination that Bella apparently finds appealing.  But does he ever just pin her down and force her to do something, despite causing her pain and distress?

Put it like that, this chapter is just as, if not more rape-y than the one where Gris actually rapes people.

She looked.  Her eyes flamed.  "It's that nasty suit by that awful Mexican (bleeptch)!"  She struggled to get free.

He shifted the paper in his hand and pushed it at her face.  "Read that paragraph!  What is the date in it?"

She was hissing and snarling.  Then, "Ouch.  You're breaking my arms!  ALL RIGHT!  It says you married her twenty-six months ago!"

This goes on for another page.  Heller gets out the Toots Switch suit ("You're bruising my neck") and makes Krak note the date on it ("Why are you torturing me?").  He gets out a paper covering the Mamie Spread affair ("You're breaking my legs!") and points out the date on that.  Then he gets out his Fleet logbook...

Why would you let a covert commando infiltrate an alien, hostile planet with a complete log of his activities over the past couple of years?

Gris narrates that Heller "applied pressure" to get Krak to open her eyes to examine it, which leaves entirely too much to the reader's imagination.  But once she starts reading, Heller finally lets his girlfriend sit up to page through the logbook and conclude that why, Heller hadn't even seen Blito-P3 until last year, and only landed on it a few months ago.  There's no way he could have been around to rape and/or marry all those women!  So the newspaper and lawsuits are lying!  (Or else the logbook is, but that never occurs to Krak.)

And with that revelation she bursts into tears and clutches Heller while the orchestra swells into a sweeping romantic piece that would have been perversely ironic had it played a few paragraphs ago.

There was a rap on the door.  A gruff voice said "Ma'am, are you all right in there?  A sentry reported something breaking somewhere this end of the ship."

But the sentry didn't hear all the screams of "You're hurting me!" and "READ IT!" and the thumps and crashes and struggling and damn I hate this book.

She raised her head, swallowed hard, and made a determined effort to speak.

"No, nothing is broken now!" she cried.  "Thanks Gods it's just been mended!"

The footsteps went away.

The Countess Krak.  A woman so viciously, purposefully stupid, so insanely jealous, that you have to pin her down and force-feed her the information to snap her out of her delusions about her partner's fidelity.

Jettero Heller.  A man not afraid to knock his girlfriend down and force some sense into her, a man who couldn't send her an anonymous package containing some newspaper clippings and a mission log page with the relevant dates circled in red marker to get the same point across.

I'd wonder if the horribleness of these characters and their pairing is intended to be satire of... I don't know, action hero romances?  But having read Battlefield Earth, I can only conclude that the author thinks such relationships are acceptable, even romantic.  So yeah.  Delbert John Rockecenter trying to either kill everyone through psychology or turn them gay through psychology?  Satire.  J. Warbler Madman trying to turn the Whiz Kid into Jesse James through a thoroughly fictitious media campaign?  Satire.  Krak x Heller?  Twue Love.


Back to Chapter Four

Forward to Chapter Six

Part Fifty, Chapter Four - The Countess Krak's Floating Palace

Well, most of Heller's obstacles have either been effortlessly neutralized by Voltarian technology or proved themselves too stupid to live, so all that's left to do is sneak about Krak's yacht.

The boat has been ringed with "rigged collision stages" in case that black PLO-trained boatorist tried a kamikaze attack, tied to the lowest of the ship's three decks.  There is "A guard.  With a rifle" patrolling above him, but of course the grunt is spending too much time looking at the blazing marina, destroying his night vision.  So Heller's able to swing his scuba straps over the cable and climb it hand over hand to board the boat.

Witness our hero's dedication!  Though the metal cable has sharp loose strands jutting from it, enough to shred his cotton gloves and make Heller whisper "Ouch!", he resolutely continues his ascent!  Note that these injuries are mainly to his clothing and will have absolutely no impact on his ability to use his hands.  But still, look at him heroically endure physical discomfort!

The guard either never looks down or never notices him, and so Heller makes it safely to the ship's lowest deck, then no doubt quickly and silently divests himself of the air tanks, flippers, mask, weights, and other parts of his diving kit.  He stows the stuff in a locker and moves inside the ship proper, ducking into a side room when he hears footsteps on a ladder.

Now wait a minute, Hubbard.  Heller's got Superman vision, right?  Enough to measure the granularity of a stone wall in a dreary dungeon without a microscope?  Enough to differentiate a Coast Guard clipper from the other water traffic as it approaches from miles away?  Enough to navigate the murky waters of a nighttime harbor when Gris has to crank up the brightness on his TV to just barely see things?  And yet here Heller has to flip on a light switch to see where he is, revealing sleeping crewmen who almost but don't quite wake up at the intrusion.

Breaking continuity for a mildly "tense" moment?  I'm disappointed, Hubbard.

Heller kills the lights and backtracks without incident, then tries to find out where he is.  Luckily there's a nearby framed floor layout displaying the boat's fire escape plan... set in a brass frame, on a walnut-paneled wall, which sets the tone for the type of boat Krak ended up with.

I had not realized how extensive this yacht was!  But two hundred feet of vessel with lots of beam must make her at least two thousand tons.  Music salon.  Nightclub.  Theater.  Steam baths.  Breakfast dining room.  Luncheon dining room.  Banquet hall.  Gymnasium.  Inside swimming pool.  Sun swimming pool.  Squash court.   Race track . . . race track?  Yes, there it was marked, and beside it, Miniature car garage.

I never knew how empty my life was until Heller and Krak's luxury yacht, with its own go-kart track, came along to fill that hole inside me.

Cabins, cabins, cabins.  The ship must have room for fifty guests or more.  In suites, yet!  What a yacht!  More like a liner!  And apparently fairly new, given the modernness of the decor.  It must have cost a fortune to build and was costing another one to keep up.

So Krak bought a boat, for herself, that can accommodate 50+ guests in sprawling luxury apartments, with multiple dining areas and entertainment centers.  This feels entirely appropriate coming from the guy who spent his final years blowing millions of dollars renovating a "virtually-uninhabited" ranch house.

Heller eventually finds the Master Suite on the ship's map, then stalks along colorfully-tiled halls with walls of walnut and mahogany and polished brass until he reaches a certain passageway.  And perhaps I've erred while relating this tale, and missed some ambiguity concerning Heller's objective.  I immediately assumed he's trying to reunite with the girl he, for some ineffable reason, loves, but maybe we're supposed to be wondering what Heller's motives are here.  He gets out a satchel and retrieves "something" from it, making Gris hold his breath in anticipation - "Was he going to shoot up this ship?  Blow it up?"

So I guess we should be on the edges of our seats as Heller passes the Owner's Master Suite, Drawing Room, and the Owner's Master Suite, Bathroom, and the Owner's Master Suite, Dressing Room to arrive at the Owner's Master Suite, Bedchamber.  He doesn't even bother with the knob, he starts picking the lock.  Could this be the end of the Countess Krak?  Have the last nine chapters been part of his attempt to assassinate the Countess Krak in revenge for running out of him?  Might we see a murder instead of poorly-written "romantic" dialogue in the next chapter?

Of course not.  Which is not to say that Krak and Heller's reunion won't be violent.


Back to Chapter Three

Forward to Chapter Five

Part Fifty, Chapter Three - Hope Nobody Was Taking a Nighttime Walk at the Marina

In case it isn't clear yet that Hubbard's vision of his near-future, our present-past was a little inaccurate, in this chapter we get proof that nobody in this world has ever played a video game.

Gris watches Heller for two straight hours, with nothing to see but a few bubbles or watery views of the harbor.  Our hero evidently grabbed a wet suit, so fear not, he should be comfortable instead of all pruney from his extended swim.  Gris keeps calling the harbormaster with helpful information about there still being a fugitive in the harbor, and the guards continue sweeping the water with searchlights.

Heller gradually approaches Krak's yacht, so Gris calls again to warn that the enemy is approaching the starboard side of the Golden Sunset, a patrol boat moves into position, and Heller ducks underwater for a few minute.  Rinse and repeat once.

Gris is kinda dumb, by the way.

A water-washed glimpse of the patrol boat showed.  It was coming straight at him!

Blackness.  One minute, two minutes, three minutes.  I was holding my breath.  Four minutes, five minutes . . . What the Hells was going on?

Dizzy and lightheaded from not breathing, I shook my head to clear it.  My viewer was just staying black!

Scuba gear!  He must be using scuba, taken from the 81!  Yes, there was the hollow, rhythmical sound I had ignored.

Yeah.  He's holding his breath in excitement until he almost passes out, and was disregarding the sound of a breathing apparatus the whole time - a sound he of course never bothered to tell us about.  I guess this way it's an exciting surprise that Heller had an air tank along with his wetsuit?  Unless the reader read "wetsuit" and automatically assumed he had scuba gear to go with it.

Sure is lucky Heller got scuba training at some point, too.  Or that these advanced aliens' space navies train their commandos with similar equipment.

Gris eventually gets the bright idea to crank up the "viewer gain" so that he can make out where Heller is (of course Heller isn't having any trouble seeing).  He finds Heller looking at a floating fuel platform, calls the harbormaster, and concludes that Heller's under the dock right next to the fuel depot.  The harbormaster realizes that this means the foe is right under his office, tells his men that the "God (bleeped) Fed on the phone" knows where the enemy is, and orders them to start firing into the water underneath them.

Shooting blindly, near fuel containers.  I could end the post right here and you'd know what happens next.

Blackness.

The funky thud and moan a bullet makes when going under water! Another shot. Another!

The churn of the launch engine.

A view!

It was from mid-channel, looking back at the dock.

BEROOOOOOM!

Flame geysering into the sky!

Concussion in the water!

The whole office went in slow motion up into the sky, turned over, and fell apart in flaming chunks.

Thrill as the hero sits and watches as his enemies destroy themselves!

So the dockmaster and his office get blown to smitheroons, followed by a patrol boat ("BEROOM!") and then the entire fuel depot ("BEROOOOOOOOOOOOM!").  Once the debris stops falling from the sky and the secondary explosions are finished, Heller surveys the carnage.

"Well, it wasn't just underwater detection gear, anyway," muttered Heller.  Then his eye fastened on a distant floating body.  He said, "I'm sorry, you guys.  May your Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on your souls."  He sounded very sad.

Wonder if he could've gotten Izzy to give Krak a call once he found out where she went?  Maybe skipped all this boating nonsense and needless, stupid death?

So Gris curses that he no longer has anyone to call, but tries to stay optimistic that maybe the guards on the yacht itself will catch Heller.  He did hear through Heller's ears the marina guards yelling about the Fed on the phone who mysteriously knew exactly where Heller was, and he just heard Heller mutter about being up against more than underwater sensors, making it increasingly likely that Heller knows someone is working against him who has him under constant surveillance.  It goes without saying that Gris fails to make that connection. 

Next chapter we'll get a sense of just how luxurious Krak's yacht is.  Also, Heller will hurt his hands.


Back to Chapter Two

Forward to Chapter Four

Part Fifty, Chapter Two - It Didn't Even Last Six Chapters

Gris wakes up around 8:00 pm with a rage-, alcohol-, and marijuana-induced hangover, showers, and suddenly remembers to check on his nemesis.  Krak's viewscreen is already blank, Crobe's screen is of "no interest," but Heller's parked his pirated patrol craft with the lights of Atlantic City on the horizon.  So Gris' settles down to watch Heller get blown up by the harbormaster.

Oh, and he is aware of the potential consequences of ordering Heller's death.

Oh, I knew I could count on the harbor master: they didn't like blown-up ships clogging their channels.  Heller, I said, you are going to catch it good this time and I hope to the Gods that Lombar has removed your Grand Council contact, for tonight, you could get your head blown off.  And a pleasure it will be to see it done.

Well, boss, I knew Heller's sudden death would lead to either an investigation or a full invasion, both of which would blow the lid off your whole plan to use Earth to take control of the Confederacy, at least until you'd found a way to either forge his reports or make them unnecessary.  But see, I really hoped that you had already done that even though you hadn't yet given me the go-ahead to kill the guy.  It's really the Gods' fault for letting me down.  So we cool?

And then Lombar would shoot him.

Heller continues trolling the Coast Guard by plotting a course from Atlantic City to the Devil's Triangle, and continues to copy the logbook's "calligraphy" to report that the friendly sea monster was offering to help them solve the "mystery" of that million-mile, statistically-unexceptional patch of ocean.  He then gives a speech to the still paralyzed - paralyzed is another word for "unconscious," right? because these guys were hit by a nerve-paralyzer beam but wound up asleep - National Guard crewmen about how hopefully their bosses will believe their story based on his work, and hops aboard his Sea Skiff.

As he boats towards Atlantic City, Heller talks to himself about cannibals, making Gris nervous that he suspects a trap until he realizes it's a Giovanni da Verrazano reference.

You could never tell when he was joking.  It was a disconcerting trait, typical of the villain. Threw you off.  He had owned the place once: he knew very well that, aside from Federal tax collectors, there were no cannibals in Atlantic City.

Zing.  Gris just so happens to have a map of Atlantic City's coastline and harbors on-hand, and sees that Heller's taking a back-door approach through a waterway.  He calls the harbormaster again to warn them that a desperate, black, PLO-trained terrorist is trying to sneak up on them.  The other guy assures him that their guards have been supplemented with National Guard forces.

An oblivious Heller sails on for another half-hour, annoying Gris by drinking a (non-alcoholic?) beer. But as he nears his destination, he readies a dummy he manufactured out of spare clothes and pillows while Gris was... preoccupied last chapter, stuffs it behind the wheel, puts on some headgear, and jumps off the stern.  Gris realizes that Heller also rigged a radio control for the ship's autopilot, so he can continue to steer the ship even as it's greeted by "A CHATTERING BURST OF MACHINE-GUN FIRE!"

What follows is not an action sequence.  It may be written like one, but there's no drama or excitement to be had... um, let me rephrase that: there's nothing at stake except the boat.  Heller is safely floating in the water, ignored, while his unmanned boat zips around getting shot at by clueless guards.  

"I'm sorry," said Heller.  "You were a good boat."

The Sea Skiff turned again.  It passed under the bridge and was racing toward a nearby marina entrance.

The sharp staccato hammer of machine guns above the roar of the engines.

The crash of a shattered windshield!

The vicious multiple whines of ricochets!

A heavier burst of fire!

Still surging toward the marina docks, the Sea Skiff seemed to stagger.  Then it went racing on!

A gout of flame!

The blue-white flash of exploding gasoline!

All the extra fuel cans must have gone up as one!

BLOWIE!

The remains of the rocketing speedboat hit the end of a pier!

CRRRRASHHHHH!

Sure hope nobody was on that pier.

Heller dives when searchlights start scanning the waters, and only then does Gris think to call the harbormaster to inform him that they've just killed a dummy.  But the man insists that they distinctly saw a non-dummy body fly up into the air, forcing Gris to use his Fed credentials and order him to continue the search.

Gris concludes the chapter fuming that Heller must've been tipped off by the message sent to the Coast Guard ship.  "(Bleep) Heller!  Him and his can of beer!"

In fairness, only part of it is Heller's fault, the rest is the ineptitude of the marina staff.  We'll see just how catastrophically stupid they are next chapter.


Back to Chapter One

Forward to Chapter Three

Part Fifty, Chapter One - This Stupid Thing is Fifty Parts Long and We're Not on Book Seven Yet

Heller continues boating along, checking his charts to plot his course, but he's only going about ten knots so it'll be hours before he reaches Atlantic City.  So let's spend a chapter with Gris as he cures more women of their lesbianism.

Gris' wives come home and drag him off to do his "husbandly duties," and he meets Mike, "a somewhat sallow woman of thirty-five, dressed in long mannish clothes," and twenty-five-year-old Mildred, who has "a rosy complexion, was soft and round a quite pretty."  I'm suddenly struck with a disturbing question - is Hubbard just living out his sexual fantasies here, or are these based on anyone he knows?  Is this a nostalgic trip back through the notches on his bedpost, or what he wishes were notches on his bedpost?

But there's a third female lurking in the corner - "TEENIE!"  Yes, Miss Pinch invited the teenager (and not the "barely legal" kind of teenager) along to continue her education.  She's just there to take pictures, Gris' wife assures him, and Teenie says she'll behave: "I love spectator sports but I won't even cheer.  I promise."

So Gris opens his robes to reveal his mighty man parts, and Mike turns pale at the sight of his [clever euphemism for penis here], but before she can run all the others grab her, strip her, and pin her down for Gris to have his way with, because consent doesn't matter when the alternative is being condemned to a life of lesbianism.  Mike was wearing a breast compressor, as "male" lesbians are wont to do, but Pinchy assures her that she'll never want to wear it again once Gris is finished, because hetero sex has something to do with chest binding.

Things start off predictably - "Ooh, it isn't a falsie after all!" - but then Gris' groove is thrown off by the brilliant "FLASH!" of Teenie's camera.  Gris continues as best he can, but it eventually develops into a "race" between Gris and Teenie's distracting photography.  Gris, er, wins. 

Initial misgivings aside, Mike says she had a great time and declares an end to "biting and scratching.  And using Polish sausages for dildos."  Immediately after it's Mildred's turn, and Gris' wives stick a joint in his mouth to try and lessen his irritation with Teenie.  It doesn't really work.

FLASH!

I came straight off the bed!

It took me a moment to see again that it was not a spaceship landing.

Teenie's oversize lips were smiling sweetly.  "That was a good one," she said.  "She looked just like she was dying!"

"Kill this kid," I said bitterly to Adora.

"Oh, why should you be upset with a little thing like that?  After all, it was only the artistry in the girl.  Education and art go hand in hand.  She saw something she wanted and took it."

"I'm going to kill her," I said.

So Pinchy gets Gris another joint so he can get back to business, and Gris again sneers triumphantly at Teenie when he "made it" despite her presence.  But the teen complains that she needs more pictures to further her education, and like ice skaters trying to get their form right, she needs to look at pictures of herself.  So with Pinchy's approval, she shucks her clothes and walks over to Gris, looks down at him with disapproval, and decides that some music is what he needs.  Teenie pops in her record, not a CD, not a tape cassette, and actual honest-to-Elvis record:

NEO PUNK ROCK

MORAL

For Grade-School Kiddies

International Psychological 

Association Approved

Educational Ditty

The Naughty Boys

Biffer, Poker, Slider and Wowie.

And even though Gris knows it's "childish gibberish," he also knows that since psychology endorses it, it must be quality entertainment.  We could criticize Gris for having two mutually exclusive thoughts, but we really ought to be celebrating that he managed to stick two thoughts period in his tiny, tiny brain.

And now, more... music.

All the people in the room began to jerk in rhythm to those drums.  Teenie was wide-eyed, beating time with her hips and heels.

Then the whine and moan of electronic instruments.

Then a chorale like a tribal chant.

Freddie was a jumper!

Jump, jump, jump!

Freddie was a jumper!

Pump, pump, pump!

Freddie jumped his teacher!

Pump, pump, pump!

Freddie jumped his sister!

Pump, pump, pump!

Freddie jumped his brother!

Pump, pump, pump!

Freddie jumped his papa!

Pump, pump, pump!

Freddie jumped his mama!

Pump, pump, pump!

Freddie jumped a ROBOT!

Oh, my God!

Poor, poor Freddie,

Hasn't got a rod!

I don't remember meeting any robots in this story.  It may be for the best, they'd probably be rape-bots programmed by psychologist scientists.

And then in a perfectly normal voice at the end it said: So that's the moral, little kiddies. Don't never (bleep) robots!

Don't (bleep) the non-existent thing, got it.  Thanks, psychology!

The women in the room had almost had (bleeps) from the rhythm. I thought I had read the label wrong. I leaped up and snatched it from the turntable before it could repeat. Yes, it was approved by the International Psychological Association and its title was "Moral."

So it's not all the times that his grasp of psychology has failed him, or the fact that it clashes with everything Gris' education told him about the nature of the universe, it's psychology's lousy taste in music that's shaking his faith in it.

Then Teenie yanks Gris to his feet and starts doing "poses," with him, while Adora/Pinchy/Mrs. Bey takes pictures.  But these poses, they're strange - Teenie looking scared at Gris, or Teenie grappling with Gris, making him grab at her in time for the camera to go off, or Teenie tearing at Gris' robes so Gris latch on to her for another FLASH!, or Teenie slapping Gris and then scampering away for the camera to record his enraged pursuit.

I seized her ponytail.

She backed up! Against me! 

FLASH!

I made my hand flat to give her behind a powerful swat. "I'll teach you to insult me!" I snarled.

But Teenie was laughing!

Teenie turned over onto her back and began to hold her sides with mirth.

Adora was laughing.

Candy was laughing.

Mike and Mildred were laughing.

Anyone else?  Good.  Laughter is not a healthy response to this kind of situation.

A very confused Gris stomps off to his room, unable to comprehend what's going on and what's so funny.  He gnaws on his pillow - seriously - while looking forward to the day his boss blows Earth up "with Teenie in the middle of the cataclysm!"

So, why did Gris' wives think they needed more blackmail material?  They've already got the bigamy threat.  They're also his only source of income.  What purpose did this section serve, both in-story and more significantly out of it?  What is this satirizing?  Why did we need more inappropriate sexual contact with minors in this story?

The good news is that next chapter we get back to Heller on boats for another twenty-five pages, when Teenie makes her reappearance.  The bad news is that next chapter we get back to Heller on boats for another twenty-five pages, when Teenie makes her reappearance.


Back to Part Forty-Nine, Chapter Seven

Forward to Part Fifty, Chapter Two

Part Forty-Nine, Chapter Seven - A Sea Serpent That Spoke with All the Tongues of the Northmen

Gris is all confused by Heller's heroic rescue of the people who'd been trying to kill him, since as an Apparatus officer he would have happily watched the out-of-control Coast Guard boat smash into the beach.  In fact, he fully expects Heller to take the captured ship out into deep water before sinking it and killing its crew that way.

This is supposed to be one of those cases where we see how the evil Gris cannot comprehend the virtuous Heller's actions... except I'm kinda in agreement with Gris here.  So what, these Coast Guard boat jockeys deserve special treatment, but not Oozopolis or the Federal investigators going after the mob, who Heller helped set up for a bombing back in Book Two?  What about those IRS agents?  Do you have to be on a boat for Heller to spare you?

Whatever.  Gris could call the Coast Guard and inform them that their ship has been captured by the guy they were trying to apprehend, but again decides he needs to figure out exactly what Heller is planning before making the call.  So he watches as Heller wrangles the Sea Skiff and pulls it alongside the Coast Guard ship, then drags the paralyzed crewmen into the "salon" (which isn't on Wikipedia's glossary of nautical terms).  He makes a pile out of all the rifles, throws some "caps" onto it, then inspects the damage he caused with his ray gun.  He sprays the deck gun with a fire extinguisher to finish cooling it, then scrapes off the melted puddle that used to be the radio aerial and chucks it in the ocean, nature's garbage dump.  After that Heller uses some bolt cutters to make it look like the radio antennae had been broken off rather than melted by alien weaponry.  He finishes by changing into a spare uniform and continues boating along, towing the Sea Skiff behind him.

Gris keeps watching.

Heller puts the Coast Guard ship on autopilot and decides to respond to the faint but insistent messages that are managing to get through the damaged equipment.  He reports a "little mishap" affecting the radio and engines, and that "Everybody is a bit flaked out."  But the capture was a success and they're heading down the coast back to base, but oops the radio is going see you tomorrow bye.

Heller put down the mike and went back to gaze at the beautiful day.

It was probably his attitude, probably the way he propped his elbow on a radar and cupped his chin in his palm.  Heller can drive anybody absolutely insane with things like that!

I went crazy.  I phoned Captain Grumper.

"What's wrong now?" he said.

It was on the tip of my tongue to scream that an extraterrestrial had just seized his fast patrol craft.  I checked myself in time.  It would sound odd.

"The man," I said, "that you were supposed to capture has TAKEN OVER THE 81!"

It takes a while for him to convince the captain, though, I mean the boat just called in to say everything's fine.  So Gris pulls rank as a Federal agent slash Rockecenter henchman and gets the Coast Guard to send out a recovery force, while Heller yawns and watches the seagulls and writes in the ship's log about encountering a 300-foot sea monster with orange wings and purple horns that breathes fire and speaks "Scandinavian." 

But eventually three helicopters catch up with him and swing down low.  Heller waves at them, and then "THE THREE CHOPPERS WENT AWAY!"

Gris demands an explanation, and the Coast Guard captain tells him that one of the helicopter pilots recognized the officer at the helm, "Chief Jive, one of the most able blacks we have in service."  Gris drops the phone in shock from the reveal.

See, he had - along with me - assumed that nobody recognized Heller at the harbor because they were looking for the buck-toothed, bespectacled Whiz Kid "body double."  But no, Heller actually blackened his face using that skin blackener doodad he used.... a long time ago, to buy that roadhouse in Connecticut that we haven't seen in forever.  How convenient that the run-down bathroom he shaved in didn't have any mirrors to spoil this surprise for us.  How convenient that Mortie the cab driver was half-blind from being sprayed with mace so he couldn't notice his friend changing ethnicity.  It certainly made this revelation all the more...

No, it's still moronic, the equivalent of James Bond using an ingenious grappling hook disguised as a haddock to scale a wall right alongside a perfectly-usable ladder.  It was totally unnecessary and just as uninteresting as all the other times Heller pulls an alien gizmo out of his ass to solve his problems. 

I watched with great care.  And I confirmed it in the pilothouse window reflection at last.  Heller was black-faced!  And blacks all look alike to whites.  No wonder the day had looked so beautifully hazeless!  He was wearing tan contact lenses!

I can't tell if this is more of the author being racist, or the author trying to satirize racism but failing due to his own racism.

(Bleep) Heller!  How can you keep up with such a man!

Not with the Coast Guard, obviously.  So Gris calls the Atlantic City harbormaster, introduces himself as "a Fed," and tips him off that the Golden Sunset is going to be attacked sometime today or tonight, so they should put the boat under armed guard and not let anybody approach, especially the Coast Guard.  The culprit is a black fellow that is to be shot on sight.

Gee.  Only way this could go wrong would be if Heller had a device that let him change race at will.


Back to Part Forty-Nine, Chapter Six 

Forward to Part Fifty, Chapter One