Intermission - So Which Disaster was the One in the Title?

I don't like any of these books, but I will say that I have less enmity for Disaster than the others.

Stuff happens in Disaster, a ton of stuff.  Heller flies around waving his magic wand to fix all the world's problems, killing only a hundred million people.  The Afyon base finally turns on Gris.  The heroes briefly return to Voltar, learn the state of the Confederacy, rescue the emperor, and flee back to Earth, where Heller gets to deal with the fallout of his actions at the beginning of the book.  There are not-explosions, shootouts, dramatic confrontations, with a notable lack of interminable boat trips or statutory rape.

More than that, a lot of long-dangling subplots finally come to a head.  The mystery of Utanc is revealed.  Heller's ties with the Corleone crime family pay off.  Mary Schmeck is not only remembered, but Heller's experiences with her even manage to save someone's life.  The story is tightening up, getting ready for the Third Act - figuratively speaking, of course, trying to fit Mission Earth into a three-act structure works about as well as putting a pineapple in a cake mold.

And none of this saves the book.

The reason Disaster is action-packed and full of significant developments is because the other books weren't.  Voyage of Vengeance's climax was truncated so the reveal of Heller's survival and Raht's defection could happen at the start of this one, because Hubbard wanted each book to end with a cliffhanger.  Similarly, Villainy Victorious - well, we'll see shortly.  I'd suggest that the base defection, Heller's energy revolution, the heroes' discovery of Hisst's coup, and the whole war sequence at the end were the result of Hubbard growing weary of Mission Earth and rushing to finish it, and that may indeed be the case.  But even if it wasn't, it's hard to see how things could have happened differently.  With Mission Earth supposedly completed, it's quite natural for Heller and Krak to go home, where they'll of course notice what the Apparatus has been up to.  Rockecenter's reaction to Heller's inventions are also obvious and timely.

So I think Hubbard wrote himself into a corner of sorts.  He'd set up all these plotlines over the last seven books, and when one was resolved the rest went off in sequence.  While it's certainly an improvement over the vast amounts of nothing that happened in Voyage of Vengeance, an overabundance of action is nearly as much of a pacing problem as excessive inaction.  None of these books stand on their own as functional stories, leaving Disaster as a parade of explosions and gunfire, without room for any niceties like character development.

Another problem concerns the subplots that I praised Disaster for wrapping up.  I already mentioned how the Corleone-Narcotici mob war was kicked off so Heller could bypass a couple of policemen, which is staggeringly stupid, but at least confined to a couple of chapters in this one book.  Utanc had been going on since Book Two.  We wasted countless - as in "I'm not going to go back and count," any number greater than 0 is too many - chapters watching Gris "order" her, pamper her, fall in and out of her good graces, and so forth.  And for what?  Well, Utanc draining Gris' funds prompted him to seek an alternative source of income, meaning he resolved to make Rockecenter rehire him by stopping Heller - or in other words, the author invented a subplot to make the book's villain actively oppose the book's hero.  That's about it.

Sure, Utanc turned out to be a KGB spy, but astonishingly enough it looks like a terrestrial power discovering an alien base had absolutely no effect on the book's plot, even before Heller annihilated Russia.  Maybe it'll come up later to raise the grim specter of a Code Break, but that would be redundant due to all the fantastical technology Heller's been throwing around.  It looks like Utanc's main reason for existing was to allow the reader to laugh at Gris for getting beejays from a man in a dress.

Heller's affiliation with the Corleones isn't much better.  He fell in with the mob shortly after arriving on Earth, helped kill some people, threw pasta in a guy's face, became the adopted son of its leader, before being cast out after said leader read a newspaper, but what about this association helped move the plot forward?  He got a valuable lackey in the form of Bang-Bang, who served as a sniper during that wholly unnecessary demo derby car race to promote Heller's new carburetor which got built anyway so what the hell, and Bang-Bang went to ROTC in Heller's place so Heller ended up an officer in the army which allowed him to keep the Army from apprehending the Corleones during the gang war at the end of this book so Heller could get past a couple of policemen.

It's like the author is intent on using the longest, most convoluted means of getting from Point A to B, inventing detours and taking us on scenic routes to look at things he finds appealing but have nothing to do with where we're trying to go.  Heller could've attached a zipline to another skyscraper and gotten his friends out of the Empire State Building that way.  Heller could've used his disintegrator ray to cut a hole in the floor above his offices and had Izzy and Bang-Bang and Twoey take the elevator out the front door.  He could've used that paralysis beam or whatever he used to knock out the Coast Guard a book or two ago.  He could've had that damned cat make a distraction.  But instead, the author decided that a half-dozen schmucks was an obstacle that could only be overcome by a mob war.  Because mobsters are awesome, right?  Let's throw a bunch of them into a book about alien espionage and social commentary!

Another "one step forward, two steps back" development in Disaster is the end of Gris' role as narrator.  Though a potentially interesting conceit, it was always sabotaged by two factors: the lengths the author had to go to keep Gris in the dark about certain developments despite the lengths previously gone to in order for Gris to monitor Heller from the comfort of his couch, and the fact that Gris is such a lousy villain.  He's wasted as a villainous viewpoint character because it takes an extraordinary effort to get him to act like a villain, and he's terrible at it.

So after a brief interlude with a prat named Monty, the book adopts a standard third person omniscient narrator, so that at long last the narrative is freed from the emptiness between Gris' ears, allowing us a potential glimpse of what goes on in Heller's head... and the author doesn't take advantage of it.  He's content with describing Heller's actions and dialogue, but our book's hero remains as closed to us as he was through Gris' eyes.  A particularly annoying element is removed from the book, but nothing replaces it, and the void continues to hurt the story.

Finally, there's the matter of Russia.  I wouldn't call it the story's Throw-Away Country, the Soviet Union's obliteration is a huge deal and has a lasting impact on the plot - just not on the character who killed it.  But the incident remains disturbing for showing the author's limited imagination, which is ironic for somehow who wrote a foreword praising sci-fi for moving society forward.  Hubbard apparently couldn't conceive of any way to end the Cold War without wiping out the other side.  He simultaneously acknowledges how horrifying the millions of resulting deaths would be, while having everyone talk about how the world is better off for their loss, how nobody's sad to see them go, how the whole holocaust proves that there really is a God.  Heller gets to dodge responsibility for all the deaths since it was that nasty other pilot's fault for getting in the way, but he also gets a bit of the credit for saving the world, if accidentally.

And really, Russia's just part of a trend.  As I mentioned last time, this book's heroes tend to solve their problems through violence, physical or mental, either killing those that oppose them or overwriting their minds.  There's rare occasions when a former foe like Raht gets recruited for the cause, but that's never Heller or Krak's first resort, is it?  Heller didn't make any effort to persuade Raht to join him, the guy defected on his own.  The only reason the guys in the Afyon base survived to defect was because Gris accidentally triggered Heller's explosives early, forcing him to use a non-lethal back-up plan.

I guess that's the lesson of Mission Earth - this horrible world is so broken that the only way to save it is to destroy it.  Wipe out Russia to end the Cold War.  Mind-control opposing witnesses and threaten their lawyers if they ever go against you again.  Cheat and then destroy the global economic system.  Create a fake energy crisis to drive oil stock down so you can buy control of every company for cheap.  Hand over a city to a criminal organization so the police stop getting in your way.  Blackmail the most powerful man in the world with murder if he doesn't agree to your demands.  All so the wretched planet survives long enough to become part of an alien empire.

So remind me again why we're supposed to be cheering for Krak and Heller?  What's the substantive difference between all this and what the Apparatus is doing?  Is using a hypno-helmet to get control over others any better than getting them hooked drugs only you can provide?

At least Disaster wasn't boring.  It was loud and stupid and taught us a bad lesson, but it wasn't boring.  We'll see how Villainy Victorious stacks up.


Back to Part Seventy, Chapters Six and Seven 

Forward to the start of Villainy Victorious

Part Seventy, Chapters Six and Seven - First Annual Rockecenter Family Reunion

All those explosions and shootings and hover-sledding and netting from the last few chapters to say:

Two hours later, Izzy, Bang-Bang and Twoey were celebrating their joyous deliverance from the Empire State Building by eating anything and everything Heller could stuff into them at Sardine's Restaurant.

When there was nothing left to consume but the tablecloth, he sent them home to get rested and cleaned up with orders to meet him in the morning at the condo.

Bam, two whole sentences describing how they left the office.  Makes all the death and mayhem worth it, no?

The battle was not over.  The hardest part was just ahead: Rockecenter.  And in this one, Heller was very short of troops.

Whatever happened to those five hundred Corleone mobsters?

Heller's able to use his Army intelligence resources to learn that Rockecenter's currently at his Pokantickle Estate, until he leaves on Sunday to meet with a bunch of evil businessmen before Congress declares war on Maysabongo on Monday.  New York's National Guard is... guarding the mansion, to make Heller's attempt to gain entry all the more dangerous and therefore dramatic.  And I'm sure Heller could have figured all this out by using that Command Isolation Geometry of his.

He uses a Voltarian magic wand to turn the antique cab Army green and paints on some insignia.

While he worked, the radio battered him with war hysteria, not the least of which was news that Maysabongo saboteurs had attempted to blow up the New York City Hall but had been foiled by an army tank unit under Colonel Boots.  Motorists were also being warned to keep off major highways and leave them clear for the army: a safe enough order since there wasn't any gas.  People were also being requested to stay alert for Maysabongo partisans who might be planning to blow up railroads, airfields and convoys, and to report such information to the army.

Much martial music was also on the airways.  The country was obviously girding up its loins for battle.  Heller knew that, with a lot of luck, he might be able to prevent it.  Nobody else seemed to be trying.

Guess Miss Simmons' guild has a raid this weekend or something.

At eight the next morning, Heller assembles some of the more important secondary cast members - Bang-Bang Rimbambo, dressed as an Army driver, Izzy Epstein, as himself, and Delbert John Rockecenter II or "Twoey," who misses his pigs.  No moment where Heller reflects on the absurdity of the situation, or muses that he's never led a commando team like this before, or feels a glimmer of doubt.  No thoughts, no feelings from our main character.  He's a man of action!

The cab doesn't have to worry about the gas crisis, Heller gave it a magic carburetor that eats asphalt, so they zip along the empty streets, arriving at Rockecenter's mansion in less than an hour.  When challenged by the National Guardsmen, Heller shows them Twoey's driver's license, and since obviously no one could forge an ID, they get waved through with a big FAMILY sticker to get the other soldiers out of the way.   No "wait, I never heard of no Rockecenter II, what're you trying to pull?" or anything.  Certainly don't need to bother the big man in the mansion to verify things.

They drove on up the winding drive past tents, troop carriers, motorcycles, field pieces and two tanks.

"I am not going to join the army!" said Twoey with determination.  "They shoot pigs!"

"You shut up," said Heller.  "Let me do the talking."

"All right, brother," said Twoey, "but don't you go getting me in any army!"

If you have to use a pig-loving simpleton as a glorified parking pass, would it kill you to be polite to him?

They park, Heller gives Bang-Bang a satchel full of mystery, and tells him to wait with the car.  When he leads Izzy and Twoey into the building the three of them get frisked by a guard, while the security detail of the most powerful man on the planet chooses to ignore Bang-Bang.

The key words for Rockecenter's mansion are "enormous" rooms and furniture, and "outdated."  Remember, bad guys have no taste when it comes to interior decorating, while Heller's exquisitely-arranged apartment back on Voltar proves he's the most noble hero in the story.  The three of them march into Rockecenter's study to see the bad guy "standing like an angry vulture back of the desk."

Cue m... hmm.  Well, I don't have any ominous tunes to recommend for this encounter.  Rockecenter's so pants-on-head crazy that it's hard to believe he could ever assemble a world-spanning financial empire, and more to the point he's being bamboozled by his lackey Mr. Bury.  Plus, Lombar Hisst is arguably the big bad of the book since he - despite suffering the same drawbacks as Rockecenter - has more resources to work with and a greater ability to cause harm.

So what soundtrack goes well with a "climactic" confrontation with a demented, decrepit secondary villain who will be almost constantly wrong-footed during the encounter?

Rockecenter is interrupted while ranting about sending Bury in for some electroshock therapy when said lackey shouts "WISTER!", then starts gibbering about the "fuel man."

"Perhaps I had better explain," said Heller.  "We have come to make you a fair offer that can settle all this oil trouble, Mr. Rockecenter."

"Who is this?" Rockecenter asked Bury.  "What's he talking about?"

"Sir, that one in uniform is Jerome Terrance Wister!"

"And this," said Heller, "is Mr. Israel Epstein.  He controls the companies that own the microwave-power setup, Chryster Motors, gasless carburetors, gasless cars---and he controls, as well, all the U.S. oil reserves now possessed by Maysabongo."

Rockecenter sat down very suddenly.  He stared at Izzy.  Then he said, "The Jew.  You're that (bleeped) Jew!"

This is a good strategy - if you ever get worried that readers might find a hint of intolerance in your story, create a transparently racist character as a lightning rod.

Rockecenter asks to see the patents for these alternative-fuel devices, and Izzy complies, but Heller's ultimatum is more complicated than a quick exchange for peace.  Instead they're offering Rockecenter 49% of the shares and money from those upcoming stock options on the oil companies, if he recognizes Twoey - Heller generously withdraws any claims - as heir to that ten billion dollar trust and the entire Rockecenter estate.  With Izzy as executor.  Rockecenter is naturally quite surprised to learn he has two sons, but Bury can't find any fault with the documents Izzy and Heller brought to prove it.

Twoey of course has nothing to say to all this, no reaction worth narrating.  Guess he took Heller's "shut up" order to heart.  Nor does Rockecenter have any specific reaction to his son.

"And if I do this thing?"

"The oil companies can have these patents, the U.S. will have its oil. The refineries will get back in operation...."

"They can't!" said Rockecenter. "The protest marchers claim they're radioactive! They won't let them open!"

"I will promise to see that they are decontaminated and gotten' back into operation," said Heller. 

With science.  I'm sure that tugboat of his has a false-radiation negator beam installed.

Remember, Heller can't "decontaminate" all the oil now, he needs prices to stay low so he do stock market no jutsu and... destroy the world financial system... and then everyone's driving a gasless car.  It's a great plan, just with the side effect of provoking an oil war and global energy crisis.

Rockecenter asks what happens if he refuses, and Heller bluntly threatens him and Bury with charges of conspiracy to murder Rockecenter's "wife and son."  Not "children," oops!  Heller just let slip that one of the two Rockecenter children in this room is a fraud!  Not that anybody notices.

"That's blackmail!" said Rockecenter.

"That's murder," said Heller coolly.  "And when you add it up with millions of other murders in the name of war,

Hubbard's against the military-industrial complex.

millions of babies dead from your abortion programs

And pro-life.  Huh.

and hundreds of millions of lives ruined with inflation

And... I don't know, pro-regulation?  In favor of set prices?  I need to bite the bullet and take an economics course, get some terminology.

just so you can make a quick buck with oil, I wonder that they haven't hanged you a hundred million times over.  I'd be glad to hold the rope myself!"

And for capital punishment.  Also, all this from the man who killed a hundred million Russians in his attempt to solve a problem that only existed in his mind.

"No, no," said Izzy hastily.  "This is a business conference."

"Well, this bird has caused me a lot of trouble," said Heller.  "What he calls business is just banditry on a planetary scale.  He's just a pirate and I don't like looking at him or talking to him.  I disagree completely with the generosity of your offer, Mr. Epstein."

"Mr. Wister," said Izzy, "please stand over to the side, there, and let me continue these negotiations.  Mr. Rockecenter can recognize a profit when he sees it."

Remember, Rockecenter's a pirate for taking control of a planet, while the Voltarian Confederacy, which also seeks control of that same planet, is a legitimate government Heller's willing to fight and die for.

Anyway, Rockecenter agrees, and gives his "sacred word" that he'll cancel the war.  He signs the documents, Izzy signs the documents, Twoey pops into existence to sign the documents.  There's also some notary work that requires them to get out their ID's and such.  And we can't end the book like this.  You can't just talk or reason with people to convince them to abandon their evil ways.  No, the only way to accomplish things is through force - either by physically removing those who oppose you, or scrambling their brains to remove their will to oppose you.

Heller bent over to fill it in and sign it.

He had his eye on the top of a solid silver inkwell.

In distortion, he saw Bury draw!

Behind his back, the gun came out like a striking snake!

I'm assuming this is Heller drawing his own pist- wait, no, he was disarmed.  Well, that makes this next part weird.

Heller whirled. His hand shot up!

He caught Bury's wrist, forcing it toward the ceiling!

THE GUN WENT OFF!

Heller bent the arm into a smashing blow!

He made the clenched gun strike Bury's head!

The scalp parted to the bone!

So Heller forces Bury's arm up, then manages to flex his elbow so that Bury's own gun hits him in the head hard enough to tear flesh.  Without breaking the out-of-shape lawyer's elbow or anything.  Eh, sure, why not.

"HOLD IT!" came a shout.

Heller whirled.

The library doors had slammed open.

If you're a guard protecting the home of the most important person on the planet, suddenly faced with dangerous intruders who could wish that man harm, what weapon do you bring to the situation?  The obvious answer is

THERE CROUCHED AN INFANTRYMAN WITH A BAZOOKA!

an explosive anti-tank weapon that could kill everyone in the room, yes.

The two other soldiers were smart enough to pick rifles, at least.  Bury's down and out, but the gun's still in his hand so Heller's unarmed and too far away to rush the soldiers.  Rockecenter cackles, gathers up all the patents and legal documents and identifications and puts them in an armored combination briefcase.  And, because he's a villain, he gloats.

"You think I'd keep my word on a crazy deal like that?  All I wanted from you was the patents!  Now we can nullify and hide this work and keep the world on profitable oil." 

Wonder what the National Guard is making of this.  "Wait, did he just admit to..."

He peered over at Bury on the floor.  The man appeared to be dead.  "I'll take the rest of this along to keep it out of plotting hands."  He stuffed the papers and wallets and all Izzy's papers into the case, got them out of the way of the beveled, fitted edges, closed it and spun the combination.

A major general came rushing in, followed by a squad.

"General," said Rockecenter, "hold this riffraff until I return.  Then, as we will be at war, we'll have work for a firing squad!"

We got here an example of Villain Classic, not only monologuing in front of the heroes, but deciding to hold them prisoner instead of telling his flunkies to shoot 'em in the head right then and there.  And Heller decides not to protest, or argue, but let the soldiers grab him.

While no doubt thinking, "I should've brought the cat along!"

Has Rockecenter
foiled the entire plan?

What will Hisst do 
to retaliate?

Find out in 
MISSION EARTH
Volume 9
Villainy Victorious

Well, judging by the title, I guess the answers are "yes" and "defeat the heroes."


Back to Part Seventy, Chapter Five

Forward to an Intermission
Skip that and go to the start of Villainy Victorious

Part Seventy, Chapter Five - In Which the Author Flunks 1st Grade Science

Operation: Kamikaze Kitten is working so far, and of course Mr. Calico is dragging an inert black ball and sparkler instead of a real bomb.  Heller's able to tie Faustino's hands while everyone else flees the building, then muscles the fat man into his office.  Faustino collapses near that canopied chair, Heller tells the cat to "guard" him, but then the mobster somehow triggers something to make the metal canopy fall over the chair, sealing him and the cat off from Heller.  So that's what that thing was: an incredibly obvious Bond villain escape route.

But hey, what was step two of Heller's plan?  Spark a panic so that all the New York officials flee the building, grab Faustino, take him into the office, and what?  Gonna strap him to the hover-sled and fly out?  Lower him from the skyscraper with a rope?  We're never told.

At this point Heller can hear guards discovering that the sizzling bomb is a fake, so he quickly tries to slice through the steel barrier with his disintegrator gun - but, because the plot requires it, his space-age device cannot carve through the metal quickly enough.  While mobsters start battering down the office door, Heller peeks through the little hole he's made to find "EMPTINESS!"  And, just past the nothing, a "spiral chute" leading down.  So, the bad guy escaped on a playground slide.

Have a Hubbard Action Sequence.

A shotgun blasted again at the door.

Heller grabbed his satchels.

He threw himself on the spacetrooper sled.

The shotgun roared again!

Heller hit the controls.

The sound of the door bursting in.

The sled started out the window.

Another shotgun blast!

Something tugged at his heel!

He shot out into the dark night!

THE FIRST EXPLOSION WENT!

The cover lies to us, though - these aren't fireballs or anything, just loud-as-all-hell concussive blasts.  Heller continues flying through the night as "THE SECOND EXPLOSION WENT!" and "THE THIRD EXPLOSION WENT!", landing right before "THE FOURTH EXPLOSION WENT!" behind the Corleone lines.  We get to see how these fit into the battle plans as "THE FIFTH EXPLOSION WENT!", and Narcotici mobsters flee down the street... to blunder into fishing nets.  Where Corleone gunmen grab their catch and send the prisoners further back to be held.

It's not as stupid as the rubber band across the highway when Mr. Bury caught Madison, but still, I can't help but wish it was a little less silly.  Maybe an ankle-high tripwire?  Or just a bunch of thugs who tackle them?

After "THE SIXTH EXPLOSION WENT!", a mobster wonders about the racket.

"Jesus, what are those things?" said a Corleone to Jet.  "There ain't any flame or debris.  Sounds like a whole God (bleep) floor goes up each time."

Heller could have told him that they were matter-vibration-intensifying bombs used by Voltar combat engineers to create diversions at point B when they were really quietly blowing up point A.  They did not transmit their sound directly into the air but only through matter molecules. 

Air is matter, dumbass.

They didn't destroy anything except perhaps an eardrum if you were inside the place.  But Heller said, in Italian, "Who knows?  The wrath of Gods, perhaps."

Seriously, the reason you can even hear the explosions in the first place is because the vibration is being transmitted through the matter of the air to reach your eardrum.  If these magic bombs worked the way Heller says they do, everyone'd just be feeling rumbles through their feet.  And speaking of which, what kind of effect are these deafeningly loud not-explosions having on the building?  Not stressing the foundation or tearing apart the superstructure?  What about the windows?  Why isn't everyone being filleted by a rain of glass?

After the remaining four explosions go off, and the final wave of Narcotici stragglers are netted and captured, Babe orders her men not to hold Heller back until things are underway (because he's just a little boy), and then gives the command to attack.

A sudden shout from half a thousand throats, "CORLEONE!"  A rush and thunder of feet moving forward in the blackness.  The general assault had begun.

A blaze of gunfire flamed.

"You can go now, kid," said a voice near Heller.

Heller rushed forward.  It was not quite as dark.  Gun flashes coming from lower windows and those replying gave the night a fitful, jerking light.  Most of the assault force was inside now but those in view were seen like sudden still pictures as a rifle went.

Missing: spotlights, flares, tracers.  Who knows what these people are shooting at. 

Heller stands on the pavement below Faustino's office, wondering about the floor plans, which didn't mention a secret spiral chute escape tunnel.  He succeeds on his Spot (or is it Search?) check and finds "AN ARCED SCAR ON THE PAVEMENT!"  Using the disintegrator gun to widen the crack and then pulling "a bar" out of his ass, Heller makes the Strength check necessary to pry the door open.

He shined in the light.

There was the cat!

He was sitting on the tied Faustino's chest!

Faustino tried to turn toward Heller's light.

"Save me!" he screamed.

The cat hit him.

"I got it, Mister Calico," said Heller. "You've done great tonight!"

"Clawed" or "scratched" I can accept, but getting hit by a cat?  A little ten-pound critter batting at you with his furry paws?  This is just sad.

Heller summons some friendly mobsters to take the evil mob boss to the good mob boss, but gets interrupted when "A TANK!" rolls up to politely inquire what's going on, what with all the gunfire and explosions.  And here Heller's fake Army credentials come in handy, as he explains to the colonel that he's rounding up "Maysabongo saboteurs" with the help of his plainclothes unit.  Then the "COPS!" arrive and another guy we're supposed to hate, Inspector Grafferty, comes out to hassle Heller, only to get shouted down by the colonel.

Those tension-free encounters effortlessly defused, Heller strolls into the Narcotici building, now occupied by Corleone troops and a very happy Babe.  The fishing wire's gone, a single old Corleone soldato is given the task of picking up all the spent cartridges, poor bastard, the die-hard Narcotici mobsters are dead, and the Corleones now have over five hundred New York City officials taken prisoner.  Our hero has delivered the whole city into the hands of the mafia!  Hooray!

And, now that the Chief of Police is a hostage, Heller's able to get him to recall the guards from the Empire State Building so Izzy and Bang-Bang can leave.  Or in other words, Heller just instigated a mob war and decapitated the government of America's greatest city so he could get past five police officers standing outside an elevator.

Christ doing handstands on a skateboard, this book is stupid.


Back to Chapter Four

Forward to Chapters Six and Seven

Part Seventy, Chapter Four - That Damn Cat

Okay the police headquarters gets emergency lighting, but the courthouses are still dark.  I can only assume New York's hospitals are getting power, but what about restaurants?  What about refrigerators?  Where's the food trucks, the mass exodus to the countryside, the rampant cannibalism?  We're two weeks without gas, remember.

Maybe all that stuff happened last week, and the New York we're seeing is a ghost town inhabited by a few tribes of degenerate ghouls and the public servants desperately trying to impose order, while the local politicians go through their routines, pretending nothing is wrong.  Which sounds kinda interesting.  Can I read about it instead?

Anyway, Heller and his mafia friends arrive at the "Narcotici mob building."  While Heller looks over the building blueprints with a nifty infrared flashlight and special lens, Babe's signore keeps trying to talk her out of this mission, it's far too risky, your private jet is on standby if you have to flee, etc.  In other words, "wow, Heller sure is brave and handsome for coming up with this incredibly dangerous attack plan!"

Señor signore informs Babe that their goons are all in position, while the city officials are meeting with Faustino in a banquet room on the thirty-fifth floor, guarded by all of the Narcotici outfit's gunslingers, as well as a nearby police station and an Army tank unit?!  Way to make the most of your limited fuel supply, guys.  Babe gives the go-ahead, Heller synchronizes their watches, and flies off on his hover-sled.

Delicately manipulating the controls, he edged sideways to the building as he climbed.  It was a fifty-five-story building and it was so dark he almost missed the top.

Hmm.  So he and Krak brought along pieces of fabric that make you chase other pieces of fabric, and a device that changes your skin tone, but not a set of night-vision goggles.  Even though the last would probably be of more use to a space commando.  And what, doesn't he have Super Vision that lets him measure the granularity of rock in a dark room?  Does that not translate into decent night vision?

The gleam of chrome was to his hand.  He made the sled hover.  He reached into his bag and brought out a handful of round objects.  Working with one hand, he looked at their numbers.  He found one that said 1 in a glowing numeral.  He pushed it against the chrome.  He glanced at his watch.  He gave the blob a twist.

So much for the top floor.

He dropped down two floors.  He found a blob that said 2.  He pressed it against the chrome building side.

Lower he went, two more floors.  He fixed a number 3.

Down and down he went, pausing each time, pushing in another one.

Finally he planted a number 10.

Sabotage is actually kinda boring.

That done, Heller flies around to the window of Faustino's office, with murals of Sicily on the walls ('cause he's Italian) and a chair with a weird metal dome over it that will be important next chapter.  He uses a disintegrator gun on the window so its edges "curled away," passes inside, then makes a spyhole through the door with a thin beam.  "Despite the narrowness of the aperture he could see quite well," the book assures us.  I guess the lesson is that Heller sees precisely as well as the author needs him to.

A sudden setback!  Faustino has the table in the banquet hall set up in the wrong way!  Heller was hoping that the rival mob boss would be closer to the office door, but instead there's a hundred feet between them!  How ever will Heller manage to run up and grab Faustino... by the collar...  huh.  Really?

By the light of candles, Faustino was making a speech.  Something about the great success of the Civic Betterment League.  What he was saying was getting guffaws and applause every few words.  He was enormously fat, better than three hundred pounds.  His face was so puffy he didn't even seem to have eyes: a balloon with a hole in it that opened and closed for a mouth.

Oh, good.  See, we the reader don't have a real reason to hate this Faustino fella.  Sure, he's a drug-pushing mobster in cahoots with big bad Rockecenter, but Faustino hasn't had much to do with the plot beyond that.  He's an offscreen, impersonal sort of bad guy.  But thanks to this bit of description, I guess we can look down on him for being overweight.  You kick that fat guy's ass, Heller.  Teach him to deviate from society's standards of beauty.

Heller checks his watch, sees that it's time, and opens a satchel to withdraw the cat.  After making some preparations that the narration hides from us, Heller quickly opens and closes the office door - "The blast of air burst like a gale into the room!"  With all but one of the candles blown out, Heller swiftly crawls across the floor to get behind Faustino, who appeals to calm with promises of bonuses.

And then it gets silly.

"Now, march!" Heller whispered into the transmitter, mouth dosed.

There was a sizzle of sputtering at the other end of the room.  Instead of beholding the uplifted envelope, all eyes turned to the office door!

The cat walked into the banquet hall.

He was towing a black, round sphere which slid along behind him.

He was dragging it by holding the fuse in his mouth.

The end of the fuse was throwing sparks!

Why a cat, Hubbard?  Why not a dog?  Was the fact that Krak was able to teach it English meant to show just how incredible an animal trainer she is?  Were you simply a cat person?  Was the animal based off one you knew in real life?

A startled gasp of horror went through the assemblage.

Sedately the cat marched forward toward the middle of the U.

Its eyes were pale green orbs in the candlelight.

The sparks trailed across the floor.

"A BOMB!" came the concerted scream.

And don't you know what this does to the story's tone?  Here we have a sequence with two mobs going to war, amid a global energy crisis and military mobilization.  Things are pretty damn grim.  And now a cat is walking through a scene, dragging a Cartoon Bomb.  Goodbye, gravitas!

Faustino snapped a hand into his coat, grabbing for a holstered gun in some insane effort to shoot the cat.

Why is it insane to shoot a bomb-toting animal?  Or, why is it more insane to shoot an animal dragging a bomb than it is to attach a bomb to a cat in the first place?

But Heller's hand darted and had the gun.

Heller's other hand had Faustino by the collar.

"IT'S GOING TO EXPLODE!" screamed Heller.

Some officials had been trying to leap over the table to get at the fuse.  But at Heller's yell, they abandoned it.

There was a crush and a rush at the door.

So they were literally inches away from possibly snuffing out the bomb's fuse, but if it's about to explode, well, they're counting on their ability to get outside the blast radius. 

All were leaving but Faustino---and Heller held him firm.

So, there we have it, the reason Heller brought the cat along, his grand strategy for capturing the mob boss.  The weird thing is that all those fleeing officials are going to get caught anyway, so there's no reason to go through such eccentric efforts to apprehend Faustino.  The insulting thing is that Faustino ultimately has little to nothing to do with getting Izzy and everyone out of the Empire State Building.

I guess we can call this Action Padding: stuff is about to blow up, but it doesn't advance the plot.


Back to Chapters Two and Three

Forward to Chapter Five

Part Seventy, Chapters Two and Three - The Tuxedo on the Cover is the Wrong Color

Babe Corleone spends the day assembling her forces to take down her rival crime boss and become capa di tutti capi, "chieftainess of all chiefs," which would put the mayor's wife in her place once and for all!  And Heller sleeps for about twelve hours, until six the following evening.

Heller awoke, much refreshed, feeling he had caught up with what they call on that planet "jet lag."  Of course, a spacer seldom cares what time he sleeps, for all his days in flight are apt to be out of phase with the planets he visits.

So compared with to cross-continental flight, flying through deep space for a week and landing in a random time zone on a new planet with potentially shorter or longer days is absolutely no sweat to a seasoned spaceman.  Pleh.

Clothes!  Geovani walks in to give Heller "a summer-weight suit of the blackest black with an indigo velvet flared collar," black shirt on black bow tie on black pearl studs, tailor-made for a dead executive, but just so happens to fit Heller perfectly, a metaphor for the whole planet.  All tuxed up, Heller leaves the bedroom to find Babe "dressed in a beige silk safari suit with a wide collar and ruby buttons, suitably attired for a war."

Food!  Heller eats some antipasto while discussing the "war" plan.  A menu's worth of Italian dishes is thrown at him, because the poor little boy looks so thin, and Babe Corleone is so Italian, and old Holy Joe always said "there was nothing like going to war on a full stomach unless it was getting stuffed at Sardine's afterwards."  Glad that wasn't the saying Heller bluffed Babe into remembering last chapter.  Babe plays "The Ride of the Valkyries" to help Heller's digestion and prevent him from doubling over in the middle of a firefight because she insisted he have a second helping of greasy, cheese-smothered starch.

Danger!  Babe knows that an undefined "they" meet with Faustino every week at eleven at night for a round of payoffs, with guards outside and Faustino himself certainly armed.  When it comes time to set the timetables, Babe balks at Heller's plan to, after being inserted via "a kind of helicopter" onto the roof, reach Faustino by going through a window.  Declaring war on a rival mob is one thing, but this stuff about a thirty-fifth story window?  Even with a safety line?  "If you insist on this, the whole thing is off.  You might FALL!"

I don't think a willingness to deal in drugs is the only reason Faustino's outfit has been beating the Corleones.

Heller points out that it's a little late to start changing things, and Babe backs down, only to get scared again when she notices the part of the plan involving explosions.  Heller really omitted some stuff when he "sketched out" his strategy last chapter.  But I'm not surprised Babe agreed before fully understanding what she was getting into, because this author has a thing about people agreeing to follow the book's hero before they know what they're getting into, or even their new leader's name.

Once night falls they all get in limos and head out.  The Heller-induced catastrophic fuel shortage has some advantages, mainly that the roads are completely empty, and the shutdown of oil power plants means that there won't be any floodlights or streetlights working.  In fact, New York City is almost invisible, with only a few aircraft beacons lit on the top of the skyscrapers.  Yet nothing about the last two chapters indicates that Babe's apartment is having trouble powering phone lines, air conditioning, showers, or a kitchen able to prepare an absurd amount of pasta.  No mention of power rationing or anything.  It's like this critical fuel shortage only matters when it's convenient, and certainly isn't causing the collapse of modern society or anything like that.  Which is weird coming after the Russian apocalypse.

In the car, Heller uses the limo-phone to check for any messages from Krak at his penthouse (His Majesty's condition remains unchanged).  Babe can't help but eavesdrop.

"Who was that?" said Babe.  "Some girl?  It's very important that you marry well, Jerome.  You must introduce her to me."

"Oh, you'd approve of her," said Heller.  "She's from the same country as that Prince Caucalsia I told you about.  The one that belongs at the top of your family tree."

Some people are just born better than others, remember.

"Really?" said Babe.

"Oh, yes," said Heller.  "And she's blond, tall, blue-eyed except when they are gray, very beautiful, talented, educated.  She's also an aristocrat."

Physical appearance first and foremost, skills and learning second, breeding third.  Absolutely nothing about what kind of person Krak is outside her meat and circus diploma. 

"Jerome!" said Babe, looking a him.  "You're in love!"

Heller laughed.  "I plead guilty.  And she'll love you, too, when she meets you.  Who wouldn't?"

Someone with an appreciation for the sanctity of free will.  Someone who likes mentally-stable individuals who aren't prone to destroying people's lives based on jealous delusions.  Someone who doesn't restrict his or her standards of beauty to the Aryan ideal.  Someone who likes women to stand as equal partners in a marriage instead of worshiping their husband.  Someone who - wait, wait, Heller was talking about a hypothetical person loving Babe.  In that case: someone with an appreciation for the rule of law.  Someone who values human life.  Someone who opposes desecrating the dead and invoking Satan during a church service.  Someone who likes women who don't fall victim to illusions that they warn other people about...

Anyway, Heller starts talking about the engagement party they'll have once this "war" thing is over, so either he's lying, has forgotten about His Majesty and the situation on Voltar, or plans to bring a mummified heroin addict along for the festivities while he postpones dealing with a galactic coup.  Babe is thrilled to learn that Krak is a countess, and the planned festivities at Madison Square grow all the more extravagant.

"But promise me faithfully one thing, Jerome."

"What's that?"

"Don't fall!"

So was Holy Joe really betrayed and murdered by a bodyguard, or did he trip on a flight of stairs and give his widow a complex?


Back to Chapter One

Forward to Chapter Four

Part Seventy, Chapter One - Hubbard Always Calls It a Satchel, Never a Bag

Look, up in the sky...

Heller launched himself into the first gray of the dawn.  Unseen, flying at a thousand feet like a javelin through the whistling air, he headed southwest.  The blackness and the lights of the Hudson lay below.  A very faint pink strand of cloud heralded the eastern sun.

No, he couldn't have taken the Rolls-Royce, don't even ask. 

Quite unlike him, his mind was filled with misgivings and doubt.  But like a gambler who stakes all on one last throw, he had to take the chance.

The first glimpse of Jettero Heller's thoughts in a while, after two or three chapters of pure dialogue and narrated actions.  Don't get used to it.

We get a page and a half or so of exposition; Heller needs to win his own war before the United States starts its war on Monday, and he needs troops to do it because he hasn't recognized the fact that he's basically a video game protagonist who could storm the Reichstag all on his own.  But hey, remember Babe Corleone?  The mob boss Heller had a falling out with, what was it, three books ago?

But she had soldati and, in his extremity, Heller thought just possibly he might be listened to.  He was taking a long chance.

So because Heller really needs those soldiers, he thinks that's what will make Babe forget all that bad publicity crap and forgive him and help him.  Like I ran over your grandma half a year ago, but my car just broke down and I desperately need to get to work in five minutes, so will you loan me yours?

He lands his hover-sled on the roof of Babe's apartment, which is of course defended "like a fort" against an attack from any direction but the sky.  Heller comes across "Geovani!  Babe's bodyguard!" who is "sitting in a chair by the elevator!" in an apparently exciting manner.  Heller playfully sneaks up on him, makes a finger-pistol, pokes the mobster in the back of the neck with it, and tells the guy to freeze, before adding "it's a friend."  The mobster is so surprised he invokes the sacred monkeys, "Sacro scimmie!"  I'm not sure why some people knock Catholicism, it's starting to sound fun.  Demonic invocations, monkeys...

Babe is alerted to the commotion, and we get our reunion.  Babe, who you might remember disowned Heller for his, ah, "betrayal" that she read about in the newspaper, breaks down in tears and sobs how happy she is Heller stopped being mad and came to visit, so she can beg forgiveness... wait, what?  See, Babe's figured out that Heller was actually duping her rival Faustino by "admitting" way the unholy hell back in Book Five (or was it Six?) that he threw that car race way the unholy hell back in Book Three, thereby forcing Faustino to pay back all those bets and giving the Corleones control of the numbers racket.

Or in other words, the book's villains are inadvertently defeating each other.

So Heller explains that he was afraid she was mad at him, but of course nobody could stay angry at Jettero Heller for long, and it all ends in hugs and tears and forgiveness and let's get this boy some milk and cookies!

I'm serious about the milk and cookies.  The mob boss orders her grizzled bodyguard to fetch some for little baby Heller.

Heller states that he has a way for Babe, the heroic murderous mobster who does not push drugs, to finally conquer Faustino, the evil murderous mobster who does push drugs.  He outlines his plan, and of course it's far too risky, Babe isn't willing to endanger the life of her "only son" - naturally, this strange kid who fell into her life a year ago is now more precious to her than any other member of the Corleone criminal family.

Heller took a shot in the dark.  "Well," he said, hoping it would awaken her nostalgia for her dead husband and hoping she would supply something he only thought existed, "You know what 'Holy Joe' used to say."

Babe nodded thoughtfully. "'The only good enemy is a dead enemy.'  You've got a point, Jerome."

"Then that settles it," said Heller.

She surged up, eyes glowing.  "I'll make the calls."

Yes, it's up to Heller to reinvigorate the mob boss so that she acts like a mob boss, shaking off the depression she'd settled into after her estrangement from, again, Heller.  I'd ask how in the world this woman managed to gather a criminal empire, but then I remember she basically married into it and inherited control from her husband.

Also, good thing for Heller that Holy Joe always talked to his wife about killing his enemies, or else Babe might be wondering how "(bleep) the Knicks" was relevant to the situation.

So Babe musters the mafia, while Heller showers, breakfasts, and prepares for a post-dawn night's sleep.  He also lets that damned cat out of his satchel, suddenly reminding the reader that Heller's had a live tomcat stuck in a bag for the entire chapter.  And that makes the whole thing worth it for me, the mental image of Heller trying to fly all dignified through the air on his space sled, but this satchel on his back is bucking and screeching like Lucifer during a root canal.  Or he and Babe having their heartwarming moment while his luggage yowls to itself.  Or the cookies being ruined by the aroma of a litter box wafting through the apartment.

If you're wondering why Heller brought the cat along, come on!  Of course the cat plays a key role in his upcoming "war."


Back to Part Sixty-Nine, Chapters Six and Seven 

Forward to Part Seventy, Chapters Two and Three

Part Sixty-Nine, Chapters Six and Seven - It's Not the Cover Art Yet, His Outfit's Wrong and Nothing's Exploding

New orders in hand, Heller removes his uniform's ROTC badge, polishes the Intelligence emblem, and gets chauffeured through the post-midnight streets to the Empire State Building.  The elevator boy - do they still have those?  Young 'uns who let you into the elevator "car" and press the buttons for you?  Seems like a decadent way to violate child labor laws to me, but I've never been to New York.

Anyway, elevator boy warns that the floor Heller wants is pretty heavily restricted, and sure enough he finds not one, not a million, but "FIVE cops!" waiting.  They're keeping all those malcontents holed up in the Maysabongo Legation (i.e. Izzy and Heller's offices) in lockdown until Monday, when a commando unit can properly sweep the building once the war is officially on.  Heller whips out his Army I.D. and asks to go "interrogate" the besieged businessmen, but the police say no dice, their orders are that nobody gets in or out.  So he goes back to his fantabulous rooftop apartment, defeated.

Look, he doesn't have a "let other people through police checkpoints" patch, and there wasn't a fan around, okay?  How else is a trained commando going to get through five civilian law enforcement officers?

Back at the ranch, Heller walks in just in time to get Krak's phone call, leading to a charmingly flippant conversation about recent developments.

"When you didn't call to say you arrived, I got worried.  How are my two warriors?"

"Well, one is now in the army and the other is lying here snoring off a pint of cream."

"How dreadful!"

"Oh, cream won't hurt him, it's pasteurized."

"I mean the army."

"They wouldn't take him.  Criminal record.  Illegal alien.  They only like to send good fellows out to be shot."

"Jettero, be serious."

Heller doesn't want to give any NSA eavesdroppers too much information, you see, that's why he only asks about "the sick man" instead of "His Majesty Cling the Lofty of the Voltar Confederacy."  Though I don't imagine there's a lot the NSA could do with that beyond file it in the loony bin.  Isn't that right, NSA eavesdroppers?

None of this would be an issue if Heller had brought along a viewscreen, of course.  Though then we'd probably get some nonsense about turning on and off the Relayer, so maybe it's just as well.

"You take care of yourself, Jettero.  This planet isn't worth it."

Look who's talking, person from an empire that just got taken over by a drugged-up, delusional dolt.

"It's the only planet we've got at the moment.  Take care of things, dear."

I don't recall giving it to you, space cadet.

Heller puts on his "black summer-weight suit, black engineer boots and black engineer gloves," then packs a satchel of explosives and grabs his "spacetrooper sled."  And the lunchbox of sandwiches his butler made for him.  Here's a safety whistle, too.  Can we get him one of those little hats Japanese gradeschoolers wear on field trips?

He has the chauffeur drop him off at the Empire State Building, and though the police "eyed him" they don't stop the black-clad man carrying a bulky satchel, much less ask who he is or what he's doing so early in the morning.  He takes an elevator to the floor above his offices, which is of course unguarded, and when nobody's looking uses a "spaceship safety line" to repel out the window down a floor, knocking on the glass until Izzy lets him in.  Never just a plain old rope in sci-fi, huh?  What'd Phantom Menace call them, "ascension cables?"  Say what you will about Jar-Jar, at least he didn't insult our planet every other sentence, Countess.

"Don't say 'Jet, how did you get here?'" said Heller.  "It will very shortly be dawn and we haven't got much time."

"Mr. Jet, how did you get here?" said Izzy, eyes round as saucers behind his horned-rimmed glasses.

Laugh track.  Heller asks for a sitrep, and Izzy explains that the plan was going swimmingly, with Maysabongo controlling all the oil in every last American tank and ship, which is why war is imminent.  They've also made more money than physically exists in the American banking system ($189 billion!), but they can't go through with the stock options on Monday because the phone lines have been cut and the police won't let them leave the offices.  Oh, if only Heller had some sort of communications system that bypassed terrestrial land lines...

"It's Rockecenter," said Bang-Bang.  "He got Faustino to order the New York City Police to bottle up this place."

The guy who controls the national government had to tell a mob boss to get the NYPD to mobilize.  Federalism at its finest!

Oh, and in case you haven't guessed, Bang-Bang's here too.

"He got the president of the United States to declare mobilization," said Izzy.  "Sunday evening, the Swillerberger Conference of International Financiers is meeting in Philadelphia.  They're ordering the president and Congress to declare war on Maysabongo Monday morning.  They'll take back the oil as enemy property and we'll be out our money.  They'll sell it back to Rockecenter for pennies and he'll make millions."

Are we talking about the oil that we established last time was useless because it can't be refined into fuel because of "radiation?"  That's how Rockecenter will get rich?  A bunch of liquid dinosaur that he can't do anything with?

"But what if we owned all the shares?" said Heller.

"The money we make with the sell options will do us no good," said Izzy.  "They'll keep the banking system intact

Those bastards!

by saying we're enemy-connected people and seizing all our funds.  Even if we execute our buy options, all those shares will be seized and the oil companies will be sold to Rockecenter for nothing.  He'll come out of this far more rich and powerful than he ever was before."

Also, what about the gasless engines and infinite black hole power?  Does it matter who controls the world's oil supply if it's all obsolete (not to mention radioactive)?  Why do we need to destroy the world's financial institutions if we've got a revolutionary new motor to solve the world's pollution problems?

On top of everything else, the SEC is now pretending it never got Izzy's document about taking ownership of these oil companies, and is threatening to bring in a Federal warrant.  So wait, if these corrupt financial institutions are ignoring Izzy and Heller's stock market magic, why is it necessary to declare war on a tiny African country?  Wouldn't that be a simple legal matter of returning stolen property?  If the SEC has suddenly gone deaf, why does it matter if Izzy can call them or not?

And why couldn't Mr. Bury sneak a bomb into Izzy's offices and take care of this problem all at once?  Why does this require the mobilization of the planet's remaining superpower?

Anyway, Heller tells everyone not to worry, have some sandwiches from his lunchbox.  He also notices that the real Rockecenter Jr. is hanging around, a "conscientious defector" who ran here after some bad guys shot up the land yacht and his pig barns... because Krak left Rockecenter's phone number in the yacht, and Twoey called dad to ask him to "do a commercial telling people not to eat ham."  Whoopsie!

Now Rockecenter knows about his heir, and thanks to Bleedum the attorney, Izzy now knows about the ten billion dollar trust fund awaiting Rockecenter's son, so the stakes are ramped up another notch and the tension rises even higher.  Once again, Izzy is all for taking a plane to Brazil and getting eaten by ants in the Amazon, because they're nicer than lawyers and stuff, don'tcherknow.

But Heller tells them to stay put and eat their sandwiches.  He assembles his anti-grav "spacetrooper sled," assures the astonished humans that "You didn't see this," and soars off into the pre-dawn grey.

I think that constitutes a Code Break.  Somewhere Gris just felt a flash of indignation he can't explain.


Back to Part Sixty-Nine, Chapter Five

Forward to Part Seventy, Chapter One