Venus on the Half-Shell

20 OUT OF THE FRYING PAN

Simon cried a lot on his way to the next planet. Anubis whimpered. He was a faithful mirror to his master’s moods. Athena, on the other hand, looked as happy as an owl can look. She was glad to get rid of Chworktap. She had made Chworktap nervous, which, in turn, had made her nervous, which, in turn, had increased Chworktap’s nervousness. Their relationship was what the scientists called negative feedback. This had also been the relationship between Simon and Chworktap, but they preferred to call it love gone sour.

Simon never did forget Chworktap. He often thought of her, and the more time that passed, the fonder the memories became. It was easy to love her as long as they weren’t cooped up in a small room twenty-three hours of the day.

In the meantime, Simon wandered on from world to world while the legend of the Space Wanderer grew. Often, it ran ahead of him, so that when he landed on a new planet, he found himself an instant celebrity. He didn’t mind this. It meant being lionized and free drinks and an uncritical appreciation of his banjo-playing. Also, females of various types—some of them six-legged or tentacled—were eager to trundle him off to bed.

Simon noticed that the deeper he got into this area of space, the more sexual vitality there was. Everybody, including himself, seemed to be soaked in horniness. Earth had seemed to him to be a sex-obsessed planet, but now he knew that, relatively speaking, Terrestrials were geldings.

“Why is that?” Simon said one night to Texth-Wat. She was a huge round thing with six wombs, all of which had to be impregnated before she could conceive. She had a pleasing personality, though.

“It’s the big blue bubbles, dearie,” she said. “Every time one comes through this galaxy, we all stay in bed for a week. It wrecks hell out of the economy, but you can’t have everything.”

“If they come from only one place,” he said, “their effect must get weaker the further they get from the point of origin. I wonder if there’s any life on the planets at the other edge of the universe?”

“I don’t know, honey,” Texth-Wat said. “You aren’t done yet, are you?”

Simon had been wandering through space for three thousand years when he landed on the planet Shonk. He was arrested as he stepped out of the ship and hustled off to a place which made a Mexican jail look luxurious. He was convicted and sentenced without the formality of a trial, since his guilt was obvious. The charge was indecent exposure. On Shonk, the people went naked except for their faces. These were covered by masks. Since genitals didn’t differ much in size or shape, and couldn’t be used to distinguish one person from another, the Shonks regarded the face as their private parts. The Shonks reserved the glory of their private parts for the eyes of their spouses alone. Many a man or woman had lost his reputation forever because of the accidental unveiling of the face.

“How long am I in for?” Simon asked after he had learned the language.

“For life,” the turnkey said.

“How long is that?”

The turnkey looked funny, but he said, “Until you die. What else?”

“I was hoping the length of life’d been legally defined,” Simon said.

At least he had a fine view through the iron bars. There was a big lake with flying fish that fluoresced at night and beyond that mountains covered with trees that bore multicolored flowers and beyond that the inevitable candy-heart-shaped tower of the Clerun-Gowph. After four years, the scenery palled, however.

Simon decided that he’d just have to sit it out. One day, the elements would weaken the bricks and cement that held the iron bars. He’d pull the bars out and make a dash for his ship. One good thing about being immortal was that you acquired a lot of patience.

At the end of the fifth year, a spaceship landed by the lake. Simon should have been happy, since there was always the chance that travelers would rescue him. But he wasn’t. This vessel emanated the peculiar orange glow that distinguished the ships of the Hoonhors.

“Oh, oh!” Simon muttered. “They finally caught up with me!”

After a while, the Hoonhors came out. They were about eight feet tall, green-skinned, and shaped like saguaro cactuses. They had bony spines all over their body, long and sharp like cactus needles. It was these that had made everybody regard the Hoonhors as a standoffish race, though the truth was that it was the other way around.

Whatever their esthetic appearance, they were smarter than Simon. They’d looked the situation over, decided it was wise when on Shonk to do as the Shonks did, and had covered their upper parts with masks. What the Shonks didn’t know was that the Hoonhor face was on the lower part of the body. The projections that the Shonks thought were noses were actually their genitals and vice versa.

The next day, the Hoonhors, having conferred with the Shonks, showed up at Simon’s door. The Shonk officials were glittering with glass beads, which the Hoonhors must have given them in exchange for Simon. The officials also reeked of cheap trade whiskey. Simon was escorted into the spaceship and before the desk of the captain.

“At least you can’t say I didn’t give you sons of bitches a run for your money,” Simon said. He was determined to die as an Earthman should, theoretically at least. With dignity and defiance.

“Whatever are you talking about?” the captain said.

“You’ve finally caught me!”

“I don’t know how we could do that when we haven’t been chasing you.”

Simon was stunned. He didn’t know what to say.

“Sit down,” the captain said. “Have a drink and a cigar.”

“I prefer standing,” Simon said, though he didn’t explain why.

“We were happy when we found an Earthman in this godforsaken waterstop,” the captain said. “We thought Terrestrials were extinct.”

“You should know about that,” Simon said.

The captain turned a dark green. He must be blushing, Simon thought.

“We Hoonhors have long felt guilt and shame for what we did to Earthlings,” he said. “Although Earth is now a nice clean planet, which it wouldn’t be if we hadn’t done what we did. However, that was my ancestors’ fault, and we can’t be held responsible for what they did. But we do extend our heart-felt apologies. And we’d like to know what we can do for you. We owe you much.”

“It’s a little late for restitution,” Simon said. “But maybe you can do something for me. If you can tell me where the Clerun-Gowph live, I’ll let bygones be bygones.”

“That’s no secret,” the captain said. “Not to us at least. If you hadn’t been so scared of us, you could have saved yourself three thousand years of searching.”

“The time went fast,” Simon said. “O.K. Where is it?”

The captain showed him a celestial chart and marked the goal with an X. “Feed this to your computer, and it’ll take you directly there.”

“Thanks,” Simon said. “Have you ever been there?”

“Never have been and never will,” the captain said. “It’s off-limits, tabu, forbidden. Many millennia ago one of our ships landed there. I don’t know what happened, since the information is classified. But after the ship gave its report, the authorities ordered all ships to steer clear of that sector of space. I’ve heard some wild rumors about what the explorers encountered, but, true or not, they’re enough to convince me to suppress my curiosity.”

“Pretty bad?” Simon said.

“Pretty bad.”

“Maybe the horrible thing was that the Clerun-Gowph had the answer to the primal question.”

“I’ll let you find out,” the captain said.