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
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