Venus on the Half-Shell

3 THE HWANG HO

Simon knew now that he was on top of one of the plastic showcases in which mummies of ancient Pharaohs were displayed in a Cairo museum. Airtight, it had floated up out of the building.

Simon pushed the protesting dog back into the sea and then lowered himself over the edge alongside the animal. He had a hard time raising the lid and sliding it into the water, but he finally succeeded. Then he crawled back over the edge and let himself, and some water, into the case. Standing on the edge of the open coffin on the case’s floor, he hauled the dog in. The dog sniffed at the mummy and began howling.

After many thousands of years of neglect, the mummy had a mourner.

Simon got down onto the floor and stared at the falcon face of an ex-ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt. The skin was as tight as a senator from Kentucky and as dry as a government report. Time had sucked out, along with the vital juices, the flesh beneath the skin. But the bones had kept their arrogance.

Simon looked around the case and found a placard screwed into the side. He couldn’t read it because it was facing outward. On the other side of the coffin, on the floor, he found a screwdriver, a dried-up condom, a pair of panties, and a cheese-and-salami sandwich wrapped in tinfoil. Evidently, some museum worker had had an assignation behind the coffin. Or perhaps the night watchman had brought in a woman to while away the lonely hours. In either case, someone had disturbed them, and they had taken off, leaving behind them the clues he had put together à la Sherlock Holmes.

Simon blessed them and opened the wrapper. The bread, cheese, and salami were cardboard-hard, but they were edible. He broke the sandwich in half, gave one piece to the dog and gnawed away gratefully at his. The dog, after gulping down his half, looked at Simon’s sandwich and growled. Simon thought he was going to have trouble with him until he understood that it was the dog’s belly, not his throat, which was growling.

He patted him and said, “You like old bones? You can eat away. But not now.”

Using the screwdriver, he removed the placard. It bore this legend:

Moses and history had, in turn, given Merneptah a hard time. Everybody considered him to be a villain. When they read in the Bible that he’d been drowned in the Red Sea while chasing the refugee Hebrews, they thought, “Drowning was too good for him.” But this story was a myth. Merneptah, at age sixty-two, had died miserably of arthritis, plugged arteries, and bad teeth. As if this and an evil reputation hadn’t done enough to him, the undertakers had removed his testicles and tomb robbers had hacked his body, incidentally removing the right arm.

“You’re still useful, old man,” Simon said. He tore off the wrappings and then the penis and threw it to the dog. The dog caught it before it hit the floor and swallowed it. So much for the mighty phallus that had impregnated hundreds of women, Simon thought. Just so the resin-soaked flesh doesn’t give the dog a stomachache.

Meanwhile he wished that he had something more to eat. His belly was growling like a truck going up a steep grade. If he couldn’t somehow catch some fish, he was going to starve. And then the dog would be eating him.

Since he had nothing else to do, he decided to think about giving the dog a name. After rejecting Spot, Fido, and Rover, he chose Anubis. Anubis was the jackal-headed Egyptian god who conducted the souls of the dead into the afterworld. A jackal was a sort of dog. And this dog, if not a conductor, was certainly a fellow passenger in this queer boat that was taking them to an unknown but inevitable death.

Whatever the dog’s old name, he responded to the new one. He licked Simon’s hand and looked up with eyes as big, brown, and soft as Ramona’s. Simon patted his head. It was nice to have someone who liked him and would keep him from feeling utterly alone. Of course, this, like everything, had its disadvantageous side. He was expected to provide for Anubis.

Simon got up and ripped off the Pharaoh’s right leg. For a moment, he was tempted to chew on it himself, but he didn’t have the teeth or the stomach for it. He threw it to Anubis, who retreated to a corner and began gnawing on it voraciously. A few hours later he had a violent attack of diarrhea which stank, among other things, of resin. Simon got up on the coffin and leaned out over the edge of the case to get fresh air. At the same time, he saw the owl.

Simon yelped with joy. Since owls lived in trees, and trees grew only on land, land couldn’t be far away. He watched the big bird turn and fly northward until it had disappeared. That way was salvation. But how to get there?

When dusk came, with no land in sight, he prepared despondently for bed. He heaved Merneptah out into the several inches of water on the floor and stretched out on the coffin. When he awoke with the sun in his eyes, he was even weaker and hungrier. He wasn’t thirsty, since the sea water was diluted enough with rain to be potable. But water has no calories.

He looked over the side of the coffin. The Pharaoh was a mess. Anubis had chewed him up, leathery skin, bone, and all. But the Pharaoh, that inveterate traveler, had made another passage. Anubis lay in the corner, sopping wet and sick. Simon felt sorry for him but could do nothing for him. As it was, he had to stick his head over the edge of the case to keep from dying of the stench before he died of starvation.

A few hours later, while he was thinking of voluntarily dying by drowning, he saw something to the northwest. As the day passed, this slowly became larger. Just as the sun slid into the waters, he saw that it was not, as he had hoped, land. It was a submarine or something that looked like a submarine. But it was too far away for him to hope to swim to it.

Dawn found him awake, looking northwest, hoping that the sub had not gone away during the night. No. It had drifted on the same collision course during the night. And it was close enough so he could see that it was a spaceship, not a submarine. On its side were two big Chinese ideograms and underneath them, in Roman letters: Hwang Ho. Since it wasn’t proceeding under power, it must be crewless. It had been sitting on some spaceport field somewhere, and when the rains came, its crew hadn’t been able to take refuge in it. They had probably drowned while roistering in the tavern or in bed with a friend or friends.

Its ports were closed, but it was no problem to open one. There’d be a plate by the port which only had to be depressed to make the port open.

More hours passed. By then Simon saw that the case was not going to bump into the ship. He shoved the heavy wooden coffin to the wall of the case, causing it to tilt and to ship water. Simon’s weight made it lean even more, and Simon went into the sea. Anubis didn’t want to leave the case, but he had no choice. Simon swam to the nearest port and pushed in on the plate. The port sank back and then swung aside. He put the banjo case inside, reached up, grabbed the threshold, and pulled himself in. After hoisting Anubis inside, he stood up shakily and watched the swirl which marked the sinking of the case until the surface was smooth again.

“Just think,” Simon said to Anubis. “If old Merneptah had really been drowned in the Red Sea, and his body had been lost, there would have been no case for him in the museum, and you and I would have drowned several days ago. Kind of makes you wonder if it was destined or we’re just lucky, doesn’t it?”

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.

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.