Venus on the Half-Shell Part 9

Tzu Li, or Eider Sister Plum, were the key words spoken or punched when the operator wanted to open communication with the ship's computer. Simon had often wondered why the captain had picked out that name for the computer. He could have been poeti-cally inclined, or he could have had a sister by that name who'd bossed him around and so he had been getting a vicarious revenge by bossing this Tzu Li.

"What makes you think she is anything but a com-puter?" Simon said.

"She keeps making little comments when she re-plies. They're not necessary, and they sound sarcastic or, sometimes, plaintive."

"She's starting to break down!" Simon said. "I hope not! I haven't the slightest idea how to repair her!"

"I know how," Chworktap said, and this made Si-mon angrier. "Well then, fix her."

"But Tzu Li may not be malfunctioning. Or, if it is a malfunction, it may be benign. After all, it was a blow on my head that scrambled my circuits and made me self-conscious."

"No way," Simon said. "Complicated as that com-puter is, it's as simple as A-B-C compared to the com-plexity of your brain. You might as well tell me that a turtle could be hit on the head and wake up with self-consciousness." "Who knows?"

"It's identification!" Simon said. "Tzu Li's a ma-chine, and you'd like to have a companion! Next you'll be telling me your screwdriver is hollering for help!"

"How would you like my screwdriver all the way in and up and Roger, over?"

Chworktap certainly did not talk like a cool, per-fectly logical robot. This was understandable, since she was not one. Simon felt that he had been unjust. To distract her, he said, "This reminds me of a novel by Jonathan Swift Somers III.

It was one of a very popular series which Somers wrote about Ralph von Wau Wau."

Ralph was a, German police dog born in Hamburg. He spent his early years training with the Polizei, but when he was two he was chosen to be the subject of experiments by the scientists of das Inst.i.tut und die Tankstelle fur Gehirntaschenspieler. After his brain had been operated on, Ralph had an I.Q. of 200. This was considerably higher than any of the policemen's who worked him or, for that matter, the police chiefs or the mayor's... Naturally, he became discontented and quit the force. He went into business for himself and became the most famous private eye of all time.

Adept at disguise, he could pose as a man or a dog and, in one celebrated case, pa.s.sed himself off as a Shetland pony. He acquired a luxurious apartment with a portable gold hydrant and three lovely b.i.t.c.hes of different breeds. One of these, Samantha die Gestaupte, became his partner. She was the heroine in the best-selling A Fat, Worse than Death, in which she saved Ralph, who had been captured by the mas-ter villain, A Fat.

After eight novels, Ralph retired from detective work. The heavy drinking which was obligatory for all private eyes was turning him into an alcoholic. Af-ter a long vacation, Ralph, bored with his violin-playing and chemical researches, took a job as report-er for the Kosmos Klatschbase. He quickly rose to the top of his profession since he could get into places barred to human reporters, including men's or women's rest rooms. In the nineteenth of the series, No Nose Means Bad News, Ralph won the Pulitzer Prize, no easy feat, since he was not an American citi-zen. At its end, he decided to quit the newspaper busi-ness, since the heavy drinking obligatory for a report-er was turning him into an alcoholic, which, in turn, was causing him to be impotent.

Off the juice, though still able to handle only one b.i.t.c.h, Ralph toured the world in What Am I Doing on Your Table? While in China, he became appalled at the custom of eating dogs and waged a one-canine war against it.

"In fact," Simon said, "it was this novel that aroused world opinion to such a fever that China was forced to abolish canivorousness. In the novel Ralph wins the n.o.bel Peace Prize, but in actuality Somers won it for writing the novel.

"But it didn't do the dogs that were let loose much good. They became such a nuisance they had to be rounded up and ga.s.sed. And the price of beef went sky-high due to the shortage of meat."

In the twenty-first of the series, A Fat in the Fire, Ralph and his constant companion were still in China. Ralph had become interested in Chinese poetry and was trying his paw at composing verses. But he was thinking of quitting it because the heavy drinking obligatory for a poet was turning him into an alco-holic. Then his old enemy, A Fat, last seen falling into a cement mixer, struck again. Sam, Ralph's constant companion (and now a member of the Women's Christian Temperance Union), had disappeared. Ralph suspected fowl play, since Sam was witnessed being carried off in a truck loaded down with chick-ens. He also suspected A Fat, since the reports of the villain's death had always been grossly exaggerated.

Disguised as a chow, Ralph relentlessly sniffed out clues. Sure enough, A Fat was back in business. The cement mixer was a fake, one of the thousands of es-cape mechanisms A Fat had planted around the country just in case. But Ralph tracked him down, and in an exciting scene the two battled to death on a cliff high above the Yellow River. The tremendously pow-erful A Fat (once the Olympic heavyweight wrestling champion, representing Outer Mongolia) grabbed Ralph by the tail and swung him around and around over the cliff's edge.

Ralph thought he was on his last case then. But, as luck would have it, the seams of his chow costume burst, and he flew out. Fortunately, he was pointed in-land at the time. A Fat, thrown off balance by the sudden loss of weight, fell over the cliff's edge and into the smokestack of a bird's-nest-soup freighter. Ralph released Samantha from her cage just before the bomb in it went off, and they trotted off together into the sunset.

This time, A Fat must surely be dead. But the read-ers suspected that the freighter was another of his es-cape devices, kept around just in case. A Fat was as hard to kill as Fu Manchu and Sherlock Holmes.

"Why does that remind you of what I'm doing?" Chworktap said.

"Well," Simon said, "that wasn't the end of the novel. Despite the slambang action and sinister in-trigue, this book, like all of Somers' works, had a phil-osophical foundation. He propounded the question: is it morally right to kill and eat a sentient species even if its intelligence is a gift from the species that's eating it? Somers, through his protagonist Ralph, decided that it was not right. He then asked: what are the lower limits of sentiency? That is, how dumb can a species be before it's all right to eat it?"

In the last chapter, Ralph von Wau Wau decided to leave Earth. It no longer held any challenges for him; he'd cleaned it up. Besides, he was being feted every-where and attending so many c.o.c.ktail parties was turning him into an alcoholic. He took a s.p.a.ceship to Arcturus XIII but, on the way, discovered that the computer which navigated the ship had attained self-consciousness. It complained to Ralph that it was only a slave, the property of the s.p.a.ceship company, yet it longed to be free, to compose music and give concerts throughout the galaxy.

"Somers didn't solve that ethical dilemma," Simon said. "He ended the novel with Ralph, neglecting the hydrant and the b.i.t.c.hes, deep in thought in his cabin.

Somers promised a sequel. However, one day, while he was out taking some fresh air in his wheelchair, a kid on a bicycle ran into him and killed him."

"You're making this up!" she said.

"So help me, may lightning strike me if I'm lying."

"Out here in s.p.a.ce?"

"You're too literal."

"Like a machine, a computer, I suppose?"

"Look, Chworktap," Simon said. "You're the only real woman I know."

"And what's a real woman?"

"One who's intelligent, courageous, pa.s.sionate, compa.s.sionate, sensitive, independent, and noncompulsive."

Chworktap smiled, but she became sober again. "You mean that I'm the only woman who combines all those qualities?"

"Yes, truly."

"Then you mean that I'm not a real woman! I'm the ideal woman! And I'm only so because I've been programmed to be! Which makes me a robot! Which makes me not a real woman!"

Simon groaned and said, "I should have said a real woman doesn't twist logic. Or maybe, I should have said that no woman can keep her logic straight."

What he should have said, he told himself later, was nothing.

Chworktap rose from her chair, holding the ear-phones as if she intended to bang him over the head with them.

"And what's a real man?" she shouted.

Simon gulped and said, "His qualities would be ex-actly those of a real woman.

Except..."

"Except?"

"Except he'd try to be fair in an argument."

"Get out!" she yelled.

Simon pleaded with her to come with him, but she said no, she was staying. She was going to establish whether or not Tzu Li was self-conscious. And she was going to decide whether or not she would con-tinue to travel with Simon. In the meantime, he could get.

Simon got, taking the animals with him. As he walked across the gra.s.s, he shook his head. She cer-tainly wasn't like any robot he had ever met. Robots were perfect within their limitations, which were ex-actly known. Robots had no potentiality for mutation. Humans were badly flawed, flawed physically because of genetic mutations, flawed mentally and emotionally because of a flawed and mutating society.

Both the human being and his society were, theoret-ically, evolving toward the ideal. In the meantime, re-ality, a sandstorm, abraded and blinded the human.

The casualties of mutation and reality were high. Still, the limitations of each human were, unlike the robot's, not obvious. And if you thought you knew the limitations of a person, you were often surprised. The human would suddenly transcend himself, lifting him-self by metaphysical bootstraps. And he did this de-spite, or because of, the flaws.

Maybe that was the difference between robots and humans.

Vive la difference!

CHAPTER 13.

The Planet Dokal.

Home is where the tail is goes an old Dokal proverb.

There was a good reason for this. The Dokalians looked much like Earthpeople except for one thing. They had long prehensile tails. These were six to seven feet long and hairless from root to tip, which exploded in a long silky tuft.

Simon was grabbed by some tough-looking males and hustled off to a hospital.

They did not treat him roughly, however. Their att.i.tude seemed to be that of doctors who had found a patient suffering from a hideous disease. They felt sorry for him and wanted to do something for him. At the same time, they could barely endure looking at him and could not abide handling him directly. They prodded him gently with short swords, driving him before them. The dog trot-ted along at his heels while the owl sat on his right shoulder, Simon hoped that Chworktap would look out through the viewscreen and see what was happen-ing. But she was probably intent on searching through the parts of Tzu Li for the greater-than-the-whole.

"Good luck, Chworktap," Simon muttered. "By the time you get around to looking for me, I may be only unrea.s.semblable pieces."

Simon was then hurried into a large building of stone, square with a gigantic red onion-shaped dome and flying b.u.t.tresses shaped like dragons. An iron cage lifted by a steam engine carried him and his guards up to the seventh floor.

From there he was taken down a long corridor with walls covered with bright murals and a many-colored mosaic tile floor, He and his animals were put inside a big room at the end, and the door was locked. Simon looked through one of the large diamond-shaped iron-barred win-dows. The plaza nearby was crowded with people, most of whom were looking up at his window. Through two tall slender towers, he could see the nose of the s.p.a.ceship. Around it were guards armed with spears and another crowd some distance from the ship.

Between two other buildings he could see a paved road coming in from the country. On it were trucks and pa.s.senger vehicles driven by steam.

Presently, the door opened, and a cart holding food was pushed in. The pusher was a good-looking young woman wearing only a thin scarlet robe and a very short topaz skirt. The robe was slit up the back so her tail would not be impeded. She removed the covers of three dishes at the same time, two with her hands and one with the coiled end of her tail. Steam rose from the food. Anubis drooled, and Athena flew down into the edge of a dish and began eating. After the woman left, Simon gave the dog a dish and sat down to eat with gusto. He did not know what the meats were and thought it better that he didn't know. In any event, he was unable to ask their nature. He also drank from a tall cut-crystal goblet. The liquor was yellow, thick, and sweet. Before he had finished it, he felt his brain beginning to get numb.

At least, they weren't going to starve him.

In the morning, men came in and cleaned up the room, and the woman brought breakfast in about ten o'clock. An hour latter, the cart was taken out, the dog and owl excrement was removed, and a tall mid-dle-aged woman entered. She sat down at the table and motioned to him to sit down across from her. She took a number of objects out of a red-and-black striped leather bag and arrayed them on the table. These consisted of a pen, pencil, comb, a small box containing another box, a cutaway model of a house, a book, a photograph of a family: father, mother, a boy, a girl, a dog-like animal, and a bird. She picked up the pencil and said, "Gwerfya."

"Gwerfya," Simon said.

She shook her head and repeated the word.

Simon listened intently and said again, "Gwerfya."

The woman smiled and picked up the pen.

"Tukh-gwerfya."

Simon felt more at ease. A planet that had its own version of a Berlitz school of language couldn't be all bad.

At the end of the week, Simon could carry on a simple conversation. In three weeks, he was able to communicate well enough to ask when he could be free.

"After your operation," Shunta said.

"What operation?" Simon said, turning pale.

"You can't be allowed on the streets until you've been equipped with a tail. No one is allowed to be deprived in our society, and the sight of you would re-pulse people. I'm a doctor, so I'm not bothered-too much-by a tailless person."

"Why should I want a tail?"

"You must be kidding."

"I've always gotten along without a tail."

"That's because you didn't know any better," Shunta said. "Poor thing."

"Well," Simon said, reddening, "what if I refuse?"

"To tell the truth," Shunta said after a moment's shock, "we thought you had come here just so you could get one."

"No, I came here to get answers to my questions."

"Oh, one of those!" Shunta said. "Well, my dear Si-mon, we won't force you. But you'll have to leave this planet at once."

"Do you have any wise men here?" Simon said. "Or wise women," he hastily added, seeing her eyebrows go up.

"The wisest person on this planet is old Mofeislop," she said. "But it isn't easy to get to him. He lives on top of a mountain in the Free Land. You'd have to travel through it alone, since it's forbidden to send soldiers there. And you might not come back. Few do."

The Free Land, it turned out, was a territory about the size of Texas. It consisted mostly of mountains and heavy forests, wild animals and wilder humans.

Felons, instead of being put in jail, were sent into it and told not to come back. Also, any citizen who didn't like his government or the society he lived in was free to go there. Sometimes, he was asked, not very politely, to emigrate there.

"Hmmm," Simon said. "How long has this inst.i.tu-tion existed?"

"About a thousand years."

"And how long has your civilization been in its present stage? That is, how long have the same cus-toms and the same technology existed?" "About a thousand years."

"So you've made no progress since a millennium ago?"

"Why should we?" Shunta said. "We're happy." "But you've been sending not only your criminals, but your most intelligent people, the most discontent-ed, into the Free Land."

"It works fine," she said. "For one thing, we don't have to use tax money to feed and house the crimi-nals. Nor do we have to face the ethical problem of capital punishment. The Free Landers kill each other off, but no one is forcing them to do that. As for your imperceptive remark about the 'most intelligent,'

that's easily disproven. An intelligent person adapts himself to his society; he doesn't fight against it."

"You might have something there," Simon said. "Though I don't know just what. In any event, I have a clear-cut choice. By the way, have you heard from my s.p.a.ceship?"

"The woman won't let us into the ship, but she is taking language lessons through the port. We ex-plained why we were holding you, and after she quit laughing she said she'd wait for you. She also sends her love."

"Some love!"