Venus on the Half-Shell

by Philip José Farmer

  Simon thought a lot about predeterminism and free will.

  Anubis thought mainly about food, unless it was mating season, and so he didn’t even wait for Simon to quit talking. He trotted into the ship, and Simon’s belly, which also could not digest philosophy, urged him to follow the dog. He explored the ship, finding it empty of life, as he’d expected. But it was well stocked with food and drink, and that was all he cared about for the moment. Since he didn’t want to throw up, he forced himself to eat lightly. Anubis resented being fed small portions, but there wasn’t much he could do about it except look reproachful.

  “More later,” Simon said. “Much more. And it sure beats eating dried-up old Pharaoh, doesn’t it?”

  His next step was to search through the lockers and find clothes that fitted him. Once more, he was clad in a baggy gray sweatshirt, black tight-fitting Levis, and sandals.

  When he returned to the room by the still open port the owl was sitting on the back of a chair.

  “Who?” it said.

  “Not who? Why?” Simon replied.

  The question of where the owl had come from was still unsettled, but Simon thought it likely that it had been riding on top of the spaceship. It must be hungry, too, so Simon prepared some egg foo young for it. When he came back to the room with the food, the owl was sitting on a pile of torn-up papers on the seat of the chair. Simon put the plate on the floor before it. It flew down to grab the food, enabling Simon to determine its sex. It—she—had just laid an egg.

  Anubis leaped up onto the chair and swallowed the egg. The owl didn’t seem to mind, which made Simon think that the catastrophe had bent its mother instincts out of shape. That was just as well, otherwise the two animals might have gotten off on the wrong foot in their relationship.

  Simon decided to name his new pet Athena. Athena was the Greek goddess of wisdom, and her symbol was the owl. Owls were supposed to be highly intelligent, though actually they were as dumb as chickens. But Simon was mythology-prone, which was only to be expected from a man who’d named his banjo Orpheus.

  He examined the instruments in the control room, since he had heard that even a moron could navigate a spaceship. However, in this case, it had to be a Chinese moron. But if there was a book aboard which could teach him Chinese, he’d figure out how to fly this computerized vessel. He had already made up his mind to leave Earth for good. There was nothing here to hold him.

  In later years, during his wanderings, he would often be asked what had happened to his native planet.

  “Earth is all washed up,” he would reply. “The game of life there was called off on account of rain.”

  The big question at the moment was: who had done this to Earth? Somebody had caused this deluge. It would never have occurred in the normal course of Terrestrial events. Somebody had pushed a button which activated a machine or chemicals which had precipitated one hundred percent of the water in the atmospheric ocean.

  Who and why?

  Was it the gone-wrong experiment of some mad scientist? Or had some planet whose business was being ruined by Earth triggered off this flood? Or was it simply because Earthmen smelled so badly? Terrestrials had a reputation as the most odoriferous race in the universe. A million planets referred to them as The Stinkers. There was an old Arcturan saying that exemplified this attitude. “Never stand downwind of a shrook or an Earthman.” A shrook was a little beast on Arcturus VI that exuded the combined scents of a skunk, a bombardier beetle, and dog farts with a touch of garbage heap.

  Some extraterrestrials claimed that it was the Earthman’s diet, which consisted mainly of hot dogs, potato chips, soft drinks, and beer, even among the Chinese, that caused this offensive odor. But the octopoids of Algol, perhaps the most philosophical of all races, contended that it wasn’t the food that caused the bad smell. Psychology affected physiology. Earthmen stank because their ethics stank.

  This reaction had upset Terrestrials, but they’d gone about solving this problem with their usual vicious efficiency. A huge perfume industry, employing millions, had been created, and travelers from Earth had always perfumed themselves just before they disembarked on an alien planet. These were specialized, since the perfume that pleased the Spicans would offend the Vegans. The only planet where perfumes were taboo was Sirius VII. The caninoids there identified each other by sniffing assholes, and so they strictly forbade the use of perfumes. The Earthmen had to go along with this custom, otherwise they’d never get to first base in selling Terrestrial goods. They tried to get around this by sending agents who had no sense of smell, but this didn’t work out. All Sirians looked exactly alike, and they refused to carry nametags. Thus, an Earthman didn’t know whom he was dealing with unless he had a keen nose.

  This demand opened a whole new field to specialists who were paid huge bonuses. These had to earn a new degree, Ph.D.A., before they could be hired. Despite the fabulous salaries, there was a big turnover in this field, suicide being the chief cause of resignation. Then a bright young executive in the PR department got the idea of running a search through a computer for a particular type of fetishist. This revealed that there were over five hundred thousand masochists on Earth who liked to torture themselves with offensive odors. Of these, there were fifty thousand who specialized in dog crap. The Sirian Trading Corporation only needed twelve thousand, so suddenly the field became a monopoly of this handful. The doctor of philosophy of anumology was no longer required. Furthermore, since these were eager to work on Sirius, they underbid each other, and the STC was hiring them for slave wages.

  This same bright young executive later was inspired with the idea which rid Earth of all perverts. Somewhere in this universe was a planet where a particular Terrestrial perversion was regarded as not only normal but highly desirable. He ran another search through the computer, and soon the STC was advertising for fetishists, masochists, sadists, child-beaters, racists, professional soldiers, drug-addicts, alcoholics, gun-lovers, motorcyclists, pet-lovers, exhibitionists, religious fanatics, members of the WCTU, and science-fiction fans. The salaries and the prestige offered were so high that a number of non-perverts tried to sign up. These were carefully screened out, however, with a battery of psychological tests. Those who passed were trained in a business college run by STC. This became the most powerful business on Earth due to its expansion to other planets than Sirius.

  Earth was cleared of perverts, and everybody left looked forward to a golden age. But in twenty years Earth had just as many perverts as ever. This caused an uproar, and the governments of every nation set up investigative agencies. Their reports were never published, since they indicated that the system of child-raising was responsible. The voters just would not stand for this item of information. And so Earth quietly returned to normal, that is, it was once again full of perverts.

  STC hadn’t cared. It wasn’t going to run out of competent and dedicated employees.

  Simon wondered if this export of non-desirables had offended some planet which had decided to clean up the origin of offense. Perhaps he would find out some day, but he could only do this if he learned how to operate the spaceship. This was possible, since he’d found a book which taught Chinese speakers how to read and write English. By reversing the order of instructions, he could learn to read Chinese.

  Days passed. The ship drifted with the current. When storms came, he closed the port and rode them out. And then, one day, while he was studying at the control panel in the bridge, he felt a jar run through the ship. He turned on the exterior-view TV and saw what he had hoped for. The nose of the Hwang Ho was stuck in the mud of the shore of a big bay. In front of it was the slope of a mountain.

  Simon went out with the dog and the owl next day and looked around. Contrary to what he had first thought, they were not on a mountain but on a saddle between two peaks.

  Simon walked up the slope of the nearest mountain.

  Halfway up, he came across a stone tablet lying on its face, half-buried in mud that had carried it
down from a higher level. He heaved it upright and read the inscription on its face.

  ON SEPT. 27, 1829, J. J. VON PARROT, A GERMAN CITIZEN, BECAME THE FIRST MAN TO CLIMB TO THE TOP OF MOUNT ARARAT, 16,945 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL. HE DID NOT FIND THE ARK, BUT HE ENJOYED THE VIEW WHILE EATINC A SALAMI SANDWICH. THIS WAS 58 YEARS BEFORE “THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES.”

  Courtesy of Coca Cola Co.

  Simon had arrived in his ark at the same place where Noah was supposed to have landed. This was a coincidence that could only happen in a bad novel, but Nature didn’t give a damn about literary esthetics. The grasshopper voices of thousands of critics had shrilled at Her and then died while She went right on ahead writing Her stories, none of which had a happy ending.

  Simon didn’t now believe in the Biblical account of the flood. But as a child he’d taken it seriously. When he went to high school, however, he began to have his doubts. So he’d gone to a nice old rabbi named Isaac Apfelbaum and had asked him why the book of Genesis told such bare-faced lies as the stories of the Garden of Eden, angels knocking up the daughters of men, the flood, the tower of Babel, etc.

  The rabbi had sighed and then had patiently explained that the holy scriptures of any people were not meant to be scientific textbooks. They were parables to teach people how to be good-hearted and how to stay within certain limits of behavior so life would go as smoothly as possible. They were, in effect, guidebooks to heaven on earth and, hopefully, to the afterworld. Wise old men had worked out the guidelines as the best way to stay out of trouble.

  “None of them were written by wise old women?” Simon had said. “Why? Do men have a monopoly on truth?”

  “You forget Mary Baker Eddy,” the rabbi had said.

  “She was in ill health all her life,” Simon said. “Can a sick person truly be wise?”

  The rabbi ignored that. He wasn’t keen on pumping the competition, anyway.

  “And how come the guidebooks are all different?” Simon had said. He was thinking of that question now as he stared around at Mount Ararat. He was also thinking of the guidebooks he’d picked up just before the picnic. If men couldn’t agree on the measurements of the Sphinx, a finite physical object, how could they ever blueprint heaven? If heaven existed, that is. Simon hadn’t said so to the rabbi, but he thought there was as much justification in believing in the Yellow Brick Road as in the Pearly Gates.

  “The guidebooks just send you down different paths,” the rabbi had said. “But the end result is the same. All roads lead to Rome.”

  The rabbi had shut up then. If he kept on, he’d be converting the kid to Catholicism.

  Simon looked at the writings that post-Parrot climbers had felt impelled to scratch on the tablet. Some wag had scratched below the bottom line of the inscription: I wuz here furst. noah.

  Another wag had scratched below that: NO, I WAS HERE FIRST, YOU ILLITERATE BASTARD. GOD.

  On the side, running vertically, was a later INSCRIPTION: GRAFFITI WRITERS SUCK.

  Running alongside that was a later one: O.K. I’LL MEET YOU IN THE MEN’S ROOM, UN BUILDING LOBBY.

  On the other side of the main text, also running vertically, was: DOESN’T ANYBODY LOVE ANYBODY?

  Under that Simon scratched with his screwdriver: I DO, BUT THERE’S NOBODY LEFT TO LOVE.

  After he’d done it, he felt ridiculous. He also felt like crying. He was the last of the fools whose names and faces oft appear in public places. What a last will and testament! Who, besides himself, the lone survivor, was around to read it?

  A moment later, he found out.

  4

  WHAT’S THE SCORE?

  The old man that staggered babbling toward him looked as if he was a hundred years old. His head was bald, and he had a long gray beard that fell to his knees. His clothes were of a style that had gone out of fashion over six hundred years ago. The old man wasn’t even born then. So why was he wearing yellow kid gloves, a white ruff, and a coat too tight in the waist?

  Simon conducted the old man into the Hwang Ho. He sat him down in an easy chair and gave him a glass of rice wine. The old man drank it all at once, and then, holding Simon with a skinny hand, he spoke.

  “Who won the series?”

  “What?” Simon said. “What series?”

  “The World Series of 2457,” the old man said. “Was it the St Louis Cardinals or the Tokyo Tigers?”

  “For God’s sake, how would I know?” Simon said.

  The old man groaned and poured himself another glass of wine. He smelled it, wrinkled his nose, and said, “You got any beer?”

  “Just German beer,” Simon said.

  “That’ll have to do,” the old man said. “Oh, how I’ve longed all these centuries for a cold glass of American beer. Especially good old St Louis-brewed beer!”

  Simon went into the pantry for the only bottle of Lowenbrau left. This must have been the property of the sole German sailor aboard. By his bunk were portraits of Beethoven, Bismarck, Hitler (after a millennium a romantic hero), and Otto Munchkin, the first man to die in a Volkswagen. The sailor also had a small library, mostly Chinese or German books. Simon had been intrigued by the title of one, Die Fahrt der Snark, but it turned out not to be a commentary on Lewis Carroll’s digestive problems after all. It was all about a journey some early 20th-century writer named Jack London had made to the South Seas. London had later on committed suicide when the people he loved and trusted gave him the shaft.

  Simon returned to the old man and handed him the beer.

  “Do you remember now?” the ancient said.

  “Remember what?”

  “Who won the series?”

  “I never cared for baseball,” Simon said. “You are talking about baseball, aren’t you?”

  “I thought you were an American?”

  “There are no nationalities anymore,” Simon said. “Just Earth people, an endangered species. What’s your name?”

  “Silas T. Comberbacke, Spaceman First Class,” the old man said. He drank deeply and sighed with ecstasy. But he said, “Those Germans never did learn to make good beer.”

  Once Comberbacke’s mind was off baseball, he talked as if he hadn’t seen a human being in six hundred years. Which was true. He’d left Earth in A.D. 2457 because his fiancée had run off with a hairdresser.

  “Which gives you some idea of her basic personality,” old Comberbacke said. “Jesus, he knew nothing about baseball!”

  One day, while drinking in a bar on a planet in Galaxy NGC 7217, Comberbacke suddenly decided to go home and find out who won the 2457 series. He’d been asking other spacemen for years, but even the aficionados didn’t know. They were all too young to remember that far back. So, on impulse, he’d signed up as a S1C on a Ugandan freighter and was headed directly home—he thought. On the way, though, the ship had received a Mayday from a planet in NGC 5128.

  “NGC 5128 is actually a collision between two galaxies, you know,” he said. “It’s been colliding for a couple of million years, but the spaces between the suns are so big that most of the people on the planets there thought they didn’t have anything to worry about. But this planet, Rexroxy, was going to be hit in a thousand years. So they were getting everybody off. Actually, that Mayday had been transmitting for five hundred years. We landed on Rexroxy and made a deal with the locals. We dumped our cargo and crammed about three thousand aboard. They paid plenty for that, believe it!

  “The captain was going to head out for a planet of a star near Orion and dump his passengers there. But he needed to send a message quick to his home office. I volunteered to take it in a one-man ship. I wasn’t going to lose a month taking those funny-looking cyanide-breathers for a ride. I got here two days ago, parked my ship on the other side of the mountain, and walked around trying to find someone who could tell me what the score was.”

  “I was hoping you’d know what caused this rain,” Simon said.

  “Oh, I do! I meant, who won the series? The day I left, the Cardinals and the Tigers
were tied. Dammit, if I hadn’t been so mad at Alma, I’d have stayed until it was over.”

  “I know my question is trivial,” Simon said. “But what did happen to make it rain so hard?”

  “Don’t get so mad,” the old spacer said. “If you’d seen as many wrecked worlds as I have and as many about to be wrecked, you wouldn’t take it so personal.”

  Comberbacke finished his bottle and drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. Finally, Simon said, “Well, what did happen?”

  “Well, it must of been them Hoonhors!”

  “What’s a Hoonhor?”

  “Jesus, kid, you don’t know nothing, do you?” Comberbacke said. “They’re the race that’s been cleaning up the universe!”

  Simon sighed and patiently asked him to back up and start at the beginning. The Hoonhors, he found, were a people from a planet of some unknown galaxy a trillion lightyears away. They were possibly the most altruistic species in the universe. They had done very well for themselves and now they were out doing for others.

  “One thing they can’t stand is seeing a people kill off their own planet. You know, pollution. So they’ve been locating these, and when they do, they clean it up.

  “They’ve sanitized, that’s what they call it, sanitizing, they’ve sanitized maybe a thousand planets so far in the Milky Way alone. Haven’t you really ever heard of them?”

  “I think if anybody on Earth had, we’d all have heard of them,” Simon said.

  Comberbacke shook his head and said, “If I’d of known that Earth hadn’t, I would of hurried home and warned everybody. But space is big, and I didn’t think the Hoonhors would get around to Earth for a thousand years or so. Plenty of time, I thought.”

  Comberbacke knew that it was the Hoonhors who had caused the Second Deluge. He’d seen one of their ships heading out when he went past the orbit of Pluto on his way in.