Part Fifty-One, Chapter Six - Flower Girl

I'm starting to feel bad about spending so many, many posts making fun of Gris.  The man's clearly mentally defective.  I may as well laugh at stroke victims.

By the second paragraph he's wondering if everyone's working against him, if Krak sent Teenie to oh-so-euphemistically "distract" him while she moved in for the kill.  Typical paranoia, in other words.  He talks to himself, recites a little mantra: "Steady.  Be calm.  You heart is still beating.  There is hope yet.  Steady.  Be calm."  And with that, he has an incredible revelation.

THE VIEWER!

If I looked a the viewer I could see where she was.

So maybe it was unfair of me to yell at Gris at this book's beginning for spending chapter after chapter setting up a hit on the Countess.  Maybe he didn't know that he could use a gun on her as well.  It could even be psychology's fault, maybe he's been told for so long that man is a victim of biological forces that he's become hopelessly passive, unable to directly act and change his destiny.

Krak's looking at a building that consists of a porno store, massage parlor, National Association of Mental Stealth office, and law firm stacked atop each other.  Yes, Krak is approaching "THE LAW OFFICES OF DINGALING, CHASE AND AMBO!"

I think this is "alarming news capslock" rather than "quote unquote unexpected plot twist capslock," since it's kinda obvious Krak would go after the source of the problem.

Speaking of sources of problems, in a hugely convenient coincidence, Gris has turned on the viewscreen in time to watch Krak watch Maizie Spread, Toots Switch and Dolores Pubiano de Cópula, all of the Whiz Kid's alleged wives, walk out of the building.  Krak follows them.  Cue the Jaws theme.

Gris does what he does best - call up someone and yell at them to do something about his problems.  He warns one of the lawyers that the "female fiend" he previously warned them about is outside their windows, stalking their star witnesses.  Shabby Man In The Shabby Coat With A Shabby Hat is dispatched to intercept her but, as Gris watches the viewscreen, passes right by Krak without noticing, even though he'd met her in person.  "What crazy magic was this?" Gris wonders, as if several chapters ago he didn't see the results of appearance-altering technology.

Krak follows the women into a restaurant, and while they wait for a waitress, asks them in a quavering voice if they want any flowers.  She doesn't wait for an answer, and plops down some plants and reaches into the women's purses, one after another, to get her due payment.  She gets thrown out, of course, but not before knocking out the restaurant's owner with a blow from one of the purses.  Sucks to be a small businessman in Mission Earth, I guess.

At this point Gris realizes that Krak has somehow disguised herself as a little old lady wandering into restaurants to aggressively sell flowers, so that's why Shabby didn't recognize her.  And the best part is that, since we never actually see Krak's face thanks to the whole bugging gimmick, we don't have to worry about how she disguised herself.  Make-up, theatrical training, some alien gizmo, it doesn't matter, rest assured that she somehow completed the deception.

Gris is about to call up an ambulance to get a certain old lady committed to an asylum, when he notices that Krak has, while rummaging in her purses, extracted three cards bearing the women's addresses!  Conveniently, the girls each put down their personal information on handy little cards that Krak could distinguish by touch from all the other stuff in their purses.  Even more conveniently, the girls all live together.  Things could only get easier for Krak if her future victims were hit by a bus after leaving the restaurant.

So instead of calling the asylum, Gris calls the lawyers again, and warns that their target is not only disguised as a flower seller, but about to murder their witnesses at their apartment.  Mr. Chase assures him that they're not going to bother with the police.  No, they've got a "tough security company" with orders to shoot on sight and ship any survivors off to the asylum.

I rang off.  I was much relieved.

Where the hell did Gris pick up so many Britishisms? 

Thank Gods, Dingaling, Chase and Ambo and I were on the job.

The trap was laid.

The Countess Krak didn't stand a chance.

Much like how Heller didn't stand a chance against the marina's National Guard defenders.  Or the Coast Guard.  Or Grafferty and the police.  Or how Krak couldn't possibly survive an encounter with that fearsome mob killer Gris sicced on her.

Is this the end of

the Countess Krak?

Sure.  Unless - and this is just a hypothetical situation - she had some sort of technology capable of making a squad of policemen run away screaming.  Or some magical gesture that forced others to grab whatever booby-trapped item she thrust at them.  Or was able to disguise herself in a way that let her walk right past without them noticing her.  If Krak could do anything like that, I think the odds of this particular security force stopping her would be quite low.

Read 

MISSION EARTH

Volume 7

VOYAGE OF VENGEANCE

Why?  What do we have to look forward to?  The heroes are so damn unstoppable and the villains are so damn incompetent that there's no dramatic tension.  This book ends with the promise of Heller in Turkey, which is a place where nothing interesting or plot-relevant happens, and Krak going around mind-controlling people, which we've seen this book and last.  And then you keep treating us to sex scenes with minors, Hubbard.  What is the reader's incentive to continue? 

I'll answer my own question: morbid curiosity.  Not so much to see just how awful this series can get - I can only hope we've plumbed its depths with this volume (editor's note from the future: ahahaha NO) - but to explore the mind of its author.  To see what L. Ron Hubbard considered heroic and what he felt was villainous.  What he felt was romantic, even erotic, and what he deemed humorous.  More importantly, since he called this satire, this lets us catch a glimpse of how he viewed the world, how he thought it should be, and how he thought he could convince readers to change the former to the latter.

Hubbard may have hated psychology, but he's really jumping on the couch for us.  And oh, the things we have learned!


Back to Part Fifty-One, Chapter Five

Forward to the Intro to Voyage of Vengeance

Part Fifty-One, Chapter Five - Getting the Picture

This book's really looking up.  For one thing, this is the second-to-last chapter in it.  For another, Teenie won't be making a reappearance in the remaining ten pages.  And Gris keeps his pants on the whole time!  Yes, life is good.

Gris wakes up without a murderous headache and comes to the amazing conclusion that wow, if you lay off the alcohol, you don't get hangovers.  With a cup of coffee, he may even be capable of thinking his way through an episode of Blue's Clues.  "And thinking brought my attention to the viewers.  I uncovered them and turned them on."

Heller's playing cards with the captain of the seaborne luxury resort, learning poker in a salon of "amber and beige carpets and brass."  Gris starts thinking that the captain might be in danger of losing a week's pay, then decides "But who cared what happened to Captain Bitts?"  Probably no one.  Wonder why the author even mentioned him.  Beyond as an excuse to describe Heller's luxurious and tastefully-decorated accommodations, of course.

Krak's screen is still blank, and using the power of not being drunk or high off his ass, Gris deduces that since Heller's in the Gulf Stream down in the Caribbean, Raht must have had the initiative to follow him down there with the bloody relayer for the bloody optic and aural bugs.  So he calls up his henchmen on the "two-way response radio," and once again I most note how utterly pathetic it is that these advanced alien infiltrators have to differentiate between a "normal" radio and proper two-way communications equipment.

To summarize two pages of conversation: Gris is like "So when'd you get back?"  But Raht is like "I didn't go anywhere."  And Gris is like "But you put the relayer down on Heller's boat in the Caribbean, right?  He's in the Gulf Stream and everything."  And Raht points out that "The Gulf Stream runs up the East Coast towards New Jersey, so Heller's still in range."  And Gris is like "Then how come I can see Heller's viewscreen but not Krak's?"  And Raht tells him "I dunno boss, you've got her equipment."

So Gris hunts down the "activator-receiver" for Krak's bugging implants and eventually finds it under a pillow in the closet - maybe the weight pressed the buttons?  He starts punching things and the viewscreen lights up.

The full import of this took several seconds to sink in.  And then a freezing horror began to chill my bones.

THE COUNTESS KRAK WAS WITHIN RANGE OF ME!

Like she was for the entirety of this book!!!!1!

For days she had not been observed!

In a mere matter of weeks she might start competing with Heller's record month spent off the radar!

This is just sad.

She might this very moment be picking the lock of the front door to come in and kill me!

Something worse than terror gripped my throat.

Acid reflux!

I raced to the front door and looked.  No.  She wasn't there.

I sped to the back garden and looked.

No.  She wasn't there.

Where is Countess Krak?, a children's book by L. Ron Hubbard.

I wrung my wrists in extreme agitation.

WHERE WAS THE COUNTESS KRAK?

So this chapter ends on a mystery.  Where is the Countess Krak?  And how can Gris, someone with a television displaying everything she sees and hears thanks to some transmitters implanted in Krak's skull, possibly hope to find out?


Back to Chapter Four

Forward to Chapter Six

Part Fifty-One, Chapter Four - Missed Opportunities

More Teenie shenanigans.  More Gris being stupid to notice what's happening in the actual plot.  But at least he keeps his pants on this time.

Gris is awoken by Mrs. Gris, who informs him that she'll be out late at a mandatory company meeting, where there will be a live demonstration of a new abortion technique by that rising star of psychiatry, Dr. Crobe.  Remember, psychology is about killing people, which is why it's pro-choice but anti-contraception.  Pinchy also mentions that Teenie just got fired during a Rockecenter "personal staff inspection," when he noticed that she was, as the book so bluntly puts it, "full of semen."  Why, this clashes with what Teenie said yesterday about how and when she lost her job!  Much like how her story about her parents changes each time she tells it!

Whatever, that's a mystery for next book, albeit one that seems irrelevant to the larger plot.  Gris, still hungover and confused from all the sex and drugs, oozes back to his room to check the viewscreens.  Heller's peering about at the endless ocean, and Gris concludes that he must be very far away.  Crobe's preparing for the night's lecture and demonstration. Krak's screen remains blank.

I felt sort of fixated on the viewers.  There was something wrong here.  It eluded me.  I concentrated very hard.  If Heller was far away and still on the viewer and Krak wasn't on the viewer, then Krak had to be further away . . . I sort of gave it up.  Something was odd.

The main source of "tension" in Hubbard's stories is whether the villains will bang enough braincells together to reach obvious conclusions.  It's impossible to think that Heller might lose to someone like Gris.  It's impossible to think a squirrel might lose to someone like Gris.

And then Teenie starts gabbing at Gris for watching "television."  Yes, she stole one of his keys and had a copy made (or so she says), and then she starts talking about her continued education.  She's up for hygiene and disease control classes soon, and shows off more of her muscle training - nothing like last chapter, thank God.  It's "the new, scientific Chinese system," which uses probes and electrodes to teach her to move individual muscles on her leg and stomach, send nerve impulses to specific parts of her body, which will lead to blocking nerve impulses and then using those techniques on another person.

The confusing bit is that all this talk of electronic measurements and fantastical bodily mastery reminds me of nothing less than Dianetics.  So the message is that even a teenage "sexhibitionist" tainted by psychology can learn to master her own body to better pleasure the narrator?

Teenie shows off some stretches and "sexual choreography," and Gris begs her to leave due to his headache.  The girl gives him the sound advice that he shouldn't mix marijuana and alcohol - better to just stick with pot - then administers some aspirin and runs off to school.  Gris screams at her to leave when she's already in the process of doing so, and in the very same paragraph rants at himself that he's missed a third opportunity to kill the girl.

Despite making no effort to kill Teenie.  Or making any real plan to kill Teenie beyond noting that he's missed an opportunity or two to kill Teenie.  That's like me saying just now that I missed an opportunity to watch 30 Rock.  I hadn't really planned on it, and didn't turn on the TV or anything, but I could have and didn't.

Gris as retrospective narrator tells us that it was his last chance to kill her, making it one he would "look back on it with longing from that day on."  Wonder if I'll ever look back at this missed chance to watch 30 Rock and sigh with wistful regret?  Could be.  Some folks say it's pretty good.  Might be missing out.


Back to Chapter Three

Forward to Chapter Five

Part Fifty-One, Chapter Three - Ancient Chinese Secret

Unabridged version here, and don't say I didn't warn you.

This is not a fun chapter.  This is a chapter where the first-person narrator describes sex with what is optimistically a fifteen-year-old girl.

Gris is still all achy and hungover, especially after confusing some vodka for water and chugging too much before realizing.

Consequently, I have no slightest recollection of what had gone on that evening.  If there were two lesbians who had then become ex-lesbians, I could not tell you to this day. 

Are we supposed to be rooting for Gris?  Should we be worried at the prospect that two lesbians spent a night with him and left without switching teams?  Oh, and what did they look like?  How butch was the "husband," Hubbard?  How girlie was the "wife?"  What were their hair colors?  This is important.

The next day Gris takes an aspirin and checks on Crobe, who's mood-reading doodad declares "SATISFACTION" as he gives electroshock therapy to mental patients until they're wheeled to the morgue.  "Normal Earth psychiatric duties," Gris notes.  Krak's viewscreen is blank, so Gris puts her out of mind because that can only mean she's far away and out of range.  More on that later.  Heller's in physical training with the floating mansion's Sports Director, who praises him for being able to "run up to the top of the mainmast and down ten times without stopping," putting him in much better shape than most CIA agents.  The guy also points out the skies and water as proof that they're in the Gulf Stream, so Gris assumes the boat's in the Caribbean already, the logistics of which make his hangover worse.  More on that later, too.

Gris takes a nap instead of putting the pieces together, poor hungover guy.  Hours later, in what he thinks is a nightmare, he notices some music.  Well, "music."

Do it in the morning.

Do it in the night.

Do it to me, baby

And do it right.

Do it in the water.

Do it in the clouds.

Do it long and tenderly

And make me proud.

Do it, do it, do it!

And do it once again.

Write a day of ecstasy

With your lovely pen.

Do it, do it, do it!

Don't be shy!

Do it, do it, do it!

And gaze up at the sky.

For this must be heaven,

You can hear the angels cry,

"Do it, do it, do it!"

So open up your fly!

Thought psychology was cold and atheist, though.  And if it's trying to turn everyone gay, they should be more specific who we're supposed to be doing it to. 


As Gris notices the music, he also grows aware of... sensation, as well as something covering his eyes.  Yes, it's "TEENIE!" who decided to uphold her end of the "never see you again" bargain by putting a blindfold on Gris before mounting up.  Gris demands she get off him without making an effort to actually remove her, but she doesn't budge, instead talking about the training she's been getting from that Chinese hooker.  Things involving muscles, in places.

During this, Teenie mentions how proud her parents will be of her, explaining that they're serving life sentences for a failed assassination attempt on the president, and this time her sexual exploitation started at the hands of a judge.  Gris notices but does not call attention to her different story, instead telling her to get out, while again making no effort to make his wishes a reality.  Instead Teenie moves another muscle, and we get another "things exploding on shelves" Hubbard Sex Scene. 

It is, of course, satirizing how psychology is so unholy and sensual as to turn girls just out of their tweens into sexpots.  It's vital to the story.  Without it, we can't fully appreciate just how depraved psychology is.  The statutory rape is part of the satire.  Gotta have it.  Mission Earth wouldn't work without it.

Three exploding flower pots later, Miss Pinchy wakes Gris up and chides him for having "wet dreams" when there's a blonde and brunette lesbian waiting to be cured - and thanks for the hair colors, Hubbard, I'm trying to keep a spreadsheet of Gris' sexual conquests.  She gives Gris a hit of a bong, some gin, and an upper pill and sends him on his way.  Once again Gris has no memory of the night's events, but he wakes up at three in the morning screaming about the Fates being all around him, armed with drugs.  His wives give him a sleeping pill, but that doesn't mean he was wrong!

That very afternoon, I had missed my second opportunity to kill Teenie.  And the horror of it is, I didn't even realize it until much later--fatally MUCH later!

So Book Seven "later?"  Or more of a Book Nine "later?"  (editor's note from the future: Book Nine) Also is "kill Teenie" a real subplot or hyperbole about how much she annoys you?  And what are you gonna do, hire another hitman?  Maybe try to get Teenie in the papers so a jealous love interest kills her? 

And right then, had I had my wits about me, I might have seen another Fate face grinning at me ghoulishly.

I didn't even think of Freud and his unerring analysis of dreams.  Frankly, I will be candid, that omission was the only mistake I ever made in my professional career.  Oh, I could weep tears of blood as I recall it now.  One should never desert his Gods as I deserted Freud that night.  Even two minutes spent on dream analysis would have told me of horrors to come that even now I have difficulty facing.

It's Krak.  Krak turns out to be in the same city as Gris, taking care of Heller's problems in her own special way.  You can do the horned lizard thing if you want to, though if you're the type to bleed from the eyes, that's not the part of this chapter that should have caused it.


Back to Chapter Two

Forward to Chapter Four

Part Fifty-One, Chapter Two - Teenie's Story

Unabridged version here.  If you absolutely must.

I'd complain that I really don't want to deal with a twelve-page Gris/Teenie chapter right now, but really, is there ever a good time to go through that?  If you were in a good mood the book would ruin it, and if you were in a bad mood you might resort to autocannibalism.

Gris kicks off this chapter by confessing that he was so hungover and drug-addled that he completely missed the disastrous implications of last chapter, i.e. Krak is going on another rampage and Heller is on a course to Turkey, where the Apparatus' drug operation is based.  It's going to take a few more chapters for Gris to notice what his foes are doing.  He's just so distracted, what with all that sex, drugs, and terrible modern electronic psychology-approved music.

The doorbell to Pinchy's apartment rings, and Gris, thinking it's "one of those (bleeped) paper boys who wants you to subscribe to a paper you are already subscribing to, so they can get an all-expense-paid tour to reform school"... just how long has he been living in the States?  There was nothing like that in Turkey, nor did anything like this happen since Gris went to New York in the series.  Anyway, Gris answers the door and finds not a paperboy hoping for him to resubscribe to a magazine, but the dreaded Teenie!

He slams the door on her, bolts it, closes the shutters, gets some ice from the fridge to put on his aching head, and watches "a wraith that looked just like Teenie" climb over the garden wall and waltz through the back door to take a seat in an easy chair.  Of course she isn't wearing any underclothes, and Gris is quick to offer a diagnosis.

If she matured--which I doubted, from the way she enraged me--she

Credit where it's due, this is a darkly humorous line from a villain describing an annoying kid.  I just wish the kid in question was wearing underpants, and not trying to jump the villain.

would probably become a model for nonexistant women's clothes.  No.  A female flasher!  Yes, a sexhibitionist all right, unfortunately real and no hallucination.  Bless psychology!

Teenie explains that she's here to complete her education, or in other words get Gris to (bleep) her.  Gris doesn't want to not because of the whole statutory rape thing, but because she has nails and she scratches.  Teenie complains that her education plans are in ruins because she's been fired from her job as a stamp-licker due to being "instruction-deficit."  See, she caught Rockecenter going down with the elevator boy, ahem, and tried to correct her boss' technique using what she'd learned watching Gris "cure" those lesbians.  But Rockecenter threw her out and yelled at her, so Teenie's only recourse was to try to get in Gris' pants. 

Gris' response is that "I HAVE A TERRIBLE HEADACHE AND I DON'T NEED ANOTHER ONE FROM YOU!"  Fortunately Teenie knows the cure for having mixed marijuana with champagne - mix marijuana with Neo Punk Rock music!

Subliminal, subliminal.

A toy car,

And a toy girl,

Ran up a tree!

SMASH!

A toy house,

And a toy boy,

Fell out of the tree!

SMASH!

The toy car

And the toy baby,

Dropped the tree!

SMASH!

Where was NASA?

Where was NASA?

Where was NASA?

SMASH!

The great thing about satirizing music is that you don't have to be good at songwriting to do it.  Just slap together some nonsensical lyrics, and if the result is crap, that's the point!  That's the satire!

When the healing power of song doesn't work, Teenie shows Gris how to use a "bhong" for some hair of the dog.  Then she goes into her tragic life story to try and coax him into having sex with her.  Teenie's parents were executed for murdering her grandparents over their retirement home fees, and her court-ordered guardian was a wino who had her foraging in trashcans.  Then her school psychiatrist diagnosed her with hyperactivity, and the only cure was to give him oral sex.

Gris points out that, why, that's "interfering with a minor," and illegal!

"Oh, no.  You don't understand.  My guardian--he drank himself to death three years ago and they never appointed another, due to legal delays--told the judge the treatment was making me so tired I couldn't look in garbage cans.  I was there.  The judge explained the psychologies and psychiatrists are professionals and they are not bound by ordinary law: they can even murder people and nothing is done about it because they actually work with the government and the courts and, like them, are above the law.  They can do anything they want with anyone placed in their care.  Even murder them.  I was surprised when my guardian questioned it because we were always taught in school that psychiatrists and psychologists are kind of sacred.  But that's just a bunch of horse (bleep), I know that now."

It's not so much that the story takes place in a world run by psychiatrists as it takes place in a world where Heller drives a racecar and Gris has sex with lesbians, and occasionally another character drops a few paragraphs about how psychiatrists run the world.  Then Heller gets a boat and Gris spends half a book trying to get in a belly-dancer's pants.

Gris objects that psychiatrists are paragons of truth and men of "SCIENCE!" and would never lie, but Teenie counters that... well.  They told her not to do something to avoid getting pregnant, but she did it anyway and didn't get pregnant.

The worst part, Teenie says, is that she never was offered any constructive criticism or coaching.  Gris complains that he still has a headache, Teenie tries to help in her own special way, and when Gris realizes what's going on he jumps back with a cry of "Utanc!  I must not betray you!"  As if Utanc has been mentioned at any other point in this book or has played a serious role in this godawful story's plot.  As if during any of Gris' sessions with those soon-to-be-ex-lesbians or his wives he was ever worried about staying faithful to his purchased belly-dancer.

Teenie grapples with Gris in an attempt to climb aboard, and gets thrown against a wall.  She sniffs and tries to heal him with more music, from a record, of course, but it doesn't improve Gris' mood any.

Teenie rants at Gris for being selfish, hogging "the finest sex equipment I've seen in my life" instead of sharing it with her, and not helping a poor, broke little girl with her sexual education.  She threatens to hang around and annoy him until he gives in to her advances, and in desperation Gris asks how much it would take for her to go and never return.  Teenie immediately replies "Five thousand dollars," the cost for an advanced class taught by a Hong Kong hooker who's willing to take Teenie on as an apprentice, despite her being an underaged girl and all.

Gris makes her swear that he'll never see her again before shelling out the cash.  She gives him a kiss, reveals that she lives in a "garret" at Tudor City, and is perfectly willing to use her various body parts on him should he ever visit.  She keeps hinting at what a waste it is for them to be in a house alone without engaging in any inappropriate activity, but Gris covers his ears with his hands until she leaves.

Then he waxes poetic while providing more foreshadowing.

How often in life does one go through the first tremors of a catastrophe and never realize that they were but the unheeded warning?  Ah, but if only one could change the fleeting moments of a yesteryear.  How different would life be.  I should have killed her when I had the chance!

And by "foreshadowing" I mean Teenie shows up next chapter to continue to annoy and distract him with her sexual wiles.

If there's one thing to take away from this book, it's that your life can never be so bad that L. Ron Hubbard can't find the right words to make it worse. 


Back to Chapter One

Forward to Chapter Three

Part Fifty-One, Chapter One - Drugging and Holding Your Beau Prisoner is Romantic, Right?

Gris wakes up with a hangover wrought by booze and pot and Teenie's camera,and once again hopes that somebody will kill the teenager.  He ventures outside to find "a beautiful spring day for some people but not for me," because Gris is evil, remember, and before he can try to relax in the beautiful-for-other-people sunshine, he's called back into his room by a buzzer.  Turns out the viewscreen does know when Heller's woken up.  Somehow. 

The book's hero is still in bed, staring at the sign reading "Please push Bell S" dangling on a string from a pipe.  Gris throws another glob of foreshadowing at us by mentioning how "I was so stupid after last night, not even a sixth sense warned me of the catastrophe that was to begin," as if anything about Heller being presented with a sign on a string indicates imminent doom.

Heller presses button, receives butler, a "gaunt-faced man" who bows, offers him some aspirin, and says he's under strict orders to help him get to breakfast.  Heller puts on his own bathrobe, but "resign[s] himself" to not just being shaved by this strange, nameless man, but scrubbed in his bath by the butler.  And here, I think, we can really see the inner turmoil of the author - on the one hand, Heller is so independent and dynamic that it's in his nature to do this sort of thing for himself, but at the same time Heller exists to be lavished with luxury and pampered and praised for being just so dang superior to the rest of us.

So we get a compromise, where Heller is independent enough to dress himself, but doesn't have to worry about matters of hygiene.  The boatmansion's Chief Steward presents Heller with a "nautical jersey, white with horizontal red stripes, white pants, a red sash, deck shoes and a yachting cap."  With the Costume Porn concluded, the Boat Porn continues.

They escorted him with no little ceremony down a broad stairway and into a cheerful breakfast salon with murals of sailing craft blending in color with nautical designs on the tiled floor.  A resplendent table was set in the middle.  It had snowy white linen, silver dishes and plates and a single huge red rose in a tall white vase as a centerpiece.  There was an engraved menu on a plate.

Yeah, just lovely.  Going with current trends, this whole damned boat is going to either blow up or get impounded at the end of the book, never to be seen again. (edit from the future: if only)

Heller asks where Krak is, same as he did first thing after waking up, but this time instead of deflecting him towards breakfast the staff gives him a letter.  Gris, despite being unable to see Heller's face, knows what he picks it up "with some alarm."  Must've been Heller's wrists that tipped him off.

Dearest,

This was all my fault for not believing in you.
The only way I can earn your pardon is to clear this matter up.
If you went back, they would arrest you.
These are just women

Krak proves that you can be misogynist despite lacking a Y chromosome.
 

and women are best handled by a woman.  It shouldn't take long.
I will send you a radio when it is all settled.

Love, love, love!

K

P.S. I told them your name was H. Hider Haggerty, as that is on your CIA passport.

P.P.S. I took all your money so you can't bribe the crew.

So, once again, Krak gets to run around, solving Heller's problems by mind-controlling people.  Except this time she was smart enough to drug her boyfriend and ship him to another country so he can't interfere.  Because that's what Heller finds out when he protests this turn of events - the crew explains that they're under strict orders to help him "recover his strength" after those terrible flesh wounds, and understands that he's in some sort of trouble in the States and so will be staying out of American waters.  They're going back to the home country of this boat's owner, who is allegedly "Sultan Bey and Concubine," which means Heller is on a course to Turkey.

We're going.  Back to.  Turkey.

Heller took hold of a funnel stay. He glanced at the letter he still held and then looked all around at the very empty sea.

"Well, I'll be blasted!" he said. "I'm a prisoner!"

Just use your magic paralyzer light to knock everyone out and turn the damn boat around.  Or explain that your girlfriend is a crazy, delusional psycho and talk the crew into not following her orders.  Or I'm sure this boat has a smaller, just as luxurious boat stuck in a garage somewhere, so go steal that.  Or sneak onto the bridge at night and use the radio.  Or use your CIA "credentials" to pull rank.

Please don't take us back to Turkey.


Back to Part Fifty, Chapter Six

Seriously Reconsider Going Forward to Part Fifty-One, Chapter Two

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