CHAPTER 7

That night Fenchurch lay fitfully in her own little tent. The tent was in the archeologist's campsite in the main cavern. She tossed and turned, her head spinning with the new ideas the others had planted there a few hours earlier. And on top of that, she always had trouble sleeping whenever she arrived on a new planet. The gravity was never quite the same from planet to planet. The smells were always different. And though every part of her that was the least bit scientific tried to deny it, she just felt that the "attitude" of the each and every planet was somehow unique.

And all this talk about her origins had only served to remind her of just how alone she truly was. Arthur still stubbornly refused to turn up magically. And she could really have used his company right about now.

She wondered if Arthur was the only one she would ever truly love. Was that a failing on her part? Or did that mean they were destined for each other? Was it perhaps simply because she was from a monogamous race? Had she simply been designed this way by the Golgafrincham or Earth computer programmes? So were her feelings genuine? Or was she merely the product... the victim of her programming?

Of course she had heard of even stronger cases of monogamy than human beings. She had once read of another race that was so monogamous that once they found their life partner, they never left the other's side. They would go to work together. They went to the lavatory together. They did absolutely everything together.

And then of course there was the Washootie race of the planet Ishi-tah. The males and females of the Washootie would physically merge with their significant other and actually became a totally new individual entity. And this entity would then seek out its own significant other and merge with it. And they went on like this for millions of years until they all merged into one god-like, bliss-filled being. Who then died of loneliness a couple of years after achieving total unity.

#

Fenchurch was very tired, but she ached all over from space-lag. So it must have been quite a while since she had last slept. The trouble was that when she was too tired, she always had trouble falling asleep. Or had that evolution machine done something bad to her after all? She wasn't doomed to be tired and yet not able to sleep for the rest of her life now, was she!

She tried to remember the last time she had slept. It wasn't at the restaurant. It wasn't on the Time Flies or the Suicidal Insanity. It must've been back in her little corner near the balcony café. She remembered being awaken by a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri who had an annoying laugh that sounded like a small and angry child abusing a trumpet.

Fenchurch wondered if any of the café's employees would miss her. Or even if they would take a moment to wonder what had happened to her. That strange primitive woman who didn't seem to know anything about anything.

And her loneliness continued.

At that point her tent opened and Hugo the android crawled in. He noticed that she had noticed him, and so he waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Hello," he said. And on his forehead was a hologramatic image of Hugo himself having sex with Fenchurch.

She therefore knew what he wanted, but had to ask anyway, "What do you want?"

"What do I want?" Hugo thought it was obvious. "I just wanted to see if you were all right. I wanted to see if you wanted anything. You know, a cuddle, a sympathetic shoulder, a great big cock."

"No, thank you."

"Oh, but you haven't seen it yet! Can I show you!" Obviously once he showed it to the Earth woman, she would change her mind and let him ravage her.

"No," she said more firmly. "Thank you," she added, simply because she was English.

"I tell you what... can I at least talk to you about it at great length? Maybe you could fall asleep to the sound of my voice as I tell you pornographic stories about myself and my body parts."

"No. Can you just go away, please?"

"Of course I can," he said agreeably. "But I don't want to," he added, equally agreeably. "I'd much rather stay here and have sex."

"Not with me. Just get out of my tent."

"You know," he said, an idea occurring to him suddenly, "if it's only my presence that offends you, I could still give you pleasure... but from outside the tent."

"What?"

"I can give you an orgasm from up to twenty feet away if you like," he said as though it was the best compromise ever and there was no way she would refuse it.

"Hugo, will you just stop it?"

"What? Doing it or talking about it?"

"Both. All of it. Stop it and leave me alone!" Fenchurch was exhausted and getting quite angry.

"Oh, all right." And the android turned to go. Then another idea occurred to him and he turned back to Fenchurch, "Did you know that my genitals are detachable?"

Fenchurch grabbed the pillows and pulled it over her head to wait for his batteries to run down or something.

"Look, here they are." She pulled the pillow down tighter over her face in order to avoid whatever horror it was he was trying to show her. "If you twist it right here," he went on enthusiastically, "it'll give you an instantaneous orgasm. And if you look at the dial, there are lots of different settings available. My genitals go all the way up to twenty!" Apparently he was quite impressed with such a high number. And so he said it again, "Twenty! Can you believe that? Twenty guarantees that you won't be able to walk upright for at least an hour afterwards! It's a pleasure beyond what most people even know they're capable of experiencing! Some sex androids only go up to ten! But President Beeblebrox made sure that he got me... I'm the ultra deluxe model!" He then stopped with his excited sales pitch, and continued on with a much more quiet tone of voice, "I only wish he'd avail himself of my services. But he won't, you know. I'm starting to think that he must be a wanker. Do you think our beloved ex-president is a wanker, Fenchurch?"

"I don't know," came her voice from underneath the pillow.

After several seconds Fenchurch noticed that Hugo had stopped talking altogether. She slowly removed the pillow and looked up to see him sitting there, looking sadly, at his detached genitals in his hands. "Don't you like me?" he asked her.

"Do you know what I would really like, Hugo?"

He instantly brightened up, "What? Name it! Just name it, and it's yours! I'll do anything! I'll give you anything! I'll do whatever you want! I'll wear whatever you want! No matter how racy!"

"I would like you to leave me alone so that I can get some sleep."

The holographic display of pornography on his forehead vanished, to be replaced by an image of Fenchurch herself sleeping peacefully in her tent. "So you really don't want to have sex with me, then."

"No, I don't. Okay?"

"I see. All right. That's all right. Some people are just like that. I'll just go then. And I won't hold it against you. I shall still think very highly of you." The android kissed her gently on the forehead and left her tent, muttering to himself, "Maybe I'll get lucky with that old man."

The flood of relief that surged through her body at that point actually helped Fenchurch drift off to sleep.