Venus on the Half-Shell

9 CHWORKTAP

Simon couldn’t have been more shocked than if he had been Crusoe when he saw Friday’s footprint. It was, in fact, Friday on the Earth calendar in the spaceship, another coincidence found only in bad novels. What was even more unforgivable—in a novel, not in Nature, who could care less about coincidences— was that the scene looked almost like Botticelli’s famous painting Birth of Venus. She wasn’t standing on a giant clamshell and there wasn’t any maiden ready to throw a blanket over her. Nor was there any spirit of wind carrying a woman. But the shoreline and the trees and the flowers floating in the air behind her did resemble those in the painting.

The woman herself, as she waded out of the sea to stand nude before him, also had hair the same length and color as Botticelli’s Venus. She was, however, much better looking and had a better body—from Simon’s viewpoint, anyway. She did not have one hand covering her breast and the ends of her hair hiding her pubes. Her hands were over her mouth.

Simon approached her slowly, smiling, and her hands came down. They didn’t understand each other’s language, of course, but she pointed inland and then led him into the woods. Here, under the branches of some big trees, was a small spaceship. They went into its open port where she sat Simon down in a small cabin and gave him a drink, alcohol mixed with some alien fruit juice. When she returned from the next room, she was dressed. She had on a long, low-cut gown covered with silver sequins. It looked like the dresses hostesses wear in honky-tonks.

It took several weeks before she was able to converse semifluently in English. In the meantime, Simon had taken her to his ship. Anubis and Athena seemed to like her, but the owl made her nervous. Simon found out why later.

Chworktap was not only beautiful, she was fun to be with. She talked very amusingly. In fact, Simon had never met anyone who had so many stories, all howlingly funny, to tell. What’s more, she never repeated herself. What’s also more, she seemed to sense when Simon did not want to talk. This was a big improvement over Ramona. And she liked his banjo-playing.

One day, Simon, coming back from a walk, heard his banjo. Whoever was playing it was playing it well since it was in his exact style. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought it a recording. He hurried in and found Chworktap strumming away as if to the banjo born.

“Do you have banjos on Zelpst?” he said.

“No.”

“Then how did you learn to play it?”

“I watched you play it.”

“And I spent twenty years learning what you’ve learned in a few hours,” he said. He wasn’t bitter, just amazed.

“Naturally.”

“Why naturally?”

“It’s one of my talents.”

“Is everybody on Zelpst as talented as you?”

“Not everybody.”

“I’d sure like to go there.”

“I wouldn’t,” she said.

Simon took the banjo from her, but before he could ask her more, she said, “I’ll have supper in a minute.”

Simon smelled the food when she opened the radar oven, and he became ecstatic. He was getting fed up with chop suey and egg foo young and sour-sweet pork, and he was too soft-hearted to kill anything for a change of diet unless he’d been starving. And here came Chworktap with a big tray of hamburgers, french fries, milkshakes, ketchup, mustard, and dill pickles!

When he had stuffed his stomach and had lit up a big cigar, he asked her how she had performed this miracle.

“You told me what food you liked best. Don’t you remember my asking you how it was made?”

“I do.”

“I went out and shot one of those wild cows,” she said. “After I’d butchered it and put the extra in the freezer, I scouted around until I found some plants like potatoes. And I found others to make ketchup and mustard from. I found a plant like a cucumber and fixed it up. I have an extensive knowledge of chemistry, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” he said, shaking his head.

“I found chocolate in the pantry and instant milk. I mixed some chemicals with these to make ice cream and chocolate sauce.”

“Fabulous!” Simon said. “Is there anything else you can do?”

“Oh yes.”

She stood up and unzipped her gown, let it fall to the floor, and sat down on Simon’s lap. Her kiss was soft and hot with a tang of milkshake and ketchup. Simon didn’t have to ask her what it was she also did so well.

Later, when Simon had taken a shower and a doubleheader of rice wine, he said, “I hope you’re not pregnant, Chworktap. I don’t have any contraceptives, and I didn’t think to ask you if you had any.”

“I can’t get pregnant.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Do you want children? You can always adopt one, you know.”

“I don’t have any mother love.”

Simon was puzzled. He said, “How do you know that?”

“I wasn’t programmed for mother love. I’m a robot.”