Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  In those early days of the New World, the Fijians were most interested in Lum’s theory about the evil inherent in metal. Being a naturally adventurous and far-travelling people, they set sail in great fleets, led by Lum, to throw metal into the sea wherever they could find it.

  On their expeditions, the Fijians gathered new advocates for the fiery Lumist faith. They spread the destruction of metal throughout the Pacific, journeying past Australia to the jungle-clad coasts of Asia, and then eastwward to the shores of the Americas. Their exploits are recorded in numerous songs and stories, particularly of the work they did in the Phillippines, and, with the aid of the Maoris, in New Zealand. Only late in the century, long after Lum’s death, were they able to complete their work in Hawaii, thus ridding the Pacific Islands of an estimated nine-tenths of their metal.

  At the height of Fijian prestige, these fierce men briefly conquered many of the islands they touched at. But they were far too lacking in numbers to make their conquests endure. For a while, Fijians ruled in Bora Bora, Raiatea, Huahine, and Oahu; but the local populations either absorbed them or drove them out. Also, most Fijians respected Lum’s explicit instructions concerning islands other than the Fijis: “Do your bit and then split the scene; above all, do not hang around and be a party-poop.”

  Thus ended the Fijian adventure.

  Joenes, unlike Lum, left behind no organized body of philosophical writings. He never explicitly disapproved of metal, but was himself indifferent to it. He distrusted all laws, even the best, while at the same time recognizing the necessity for them. For Joenes, a law took its goodness from the nature of the men administrating it. When the nature of those men changed, as Joenes believed was inevitable, then the nature of the law changed, too. When this happened, new laws and new lawgivers had to be found.

  Joenes taught that men should strive actively toward virtue, and at the same time recognize the extreme difficulties involved in that striving. The greatest of these difficulties, as Joenes saw it, was that all things, even men and their virtues, were continually changing, thereby forcing a lover of the good to abandon his illusions of permanence and to search out the changes occurring in himself and others, and to center his goodness in a never-ending search for momentary stability in the midst of life’s metamorphoses. On a quest like this, Joenes pointed out that one needed luck, which was indefinable but absolute essential.

  Joenes spoke of this and many other things, always stressing the excellence of virtue, the necessity for an active will, and the impossibility of perfection. Some say that in his old age Joenes preached in an entirely different way, and told men that the world was nothing more than a horrid toy built by evil gods; the form this toy took was of a theater, in which the gods put on endless plays for their own amusement, creating and using humans for the cast. And what the gods did was to stuff these men full of consciousness, and imbue this consciousness with virtues and ideals, hopes and dreams, and all manner of qualities and contradictions. Then, with the actors so constituted, the gods set problems for them, and found vast enjoyment in the spectacle of these strutting puppets, filled with their own importance, convinced of their place in the scheme of things, suspecting or proving their immortality, laboring to resolve the dilemmas which the gods had put before them. The gods roared with laughter at this spectacle, and nothing delighted them more than to see some little puppet determined to live with decency and to die with dignity. The gods always applauded this, and laughed at the absurdity of death, which was the one thing that rendered all of man’s solutions impossible. But even this was not the most terrible thing. In time, the gods would tire of their theater and their little human puppets, would put them all away, tear down the theater, and turn to different amusements. After that, in a little while, not even the gods would remember that there had been man.

  This tale is not characteristic of Joenes, and your editor does not think it worthy of him. We will always remember Joenes in the strength and pride of his middle years, when he preached a message of hope.

  Joenes lived long enough to see the death of the old world and the birth of a new one. Today all civilization worthy of the name exists upon the islands of the Pacific. Our racial stock is mixed, and many of our ancestors came from Europe, America or Asia. But for the most part we are Polynesian, Melanesian and Micronesian. Your editor, who dwells upon the island of Havaiki, believes that our present peace and prosperity is a direct consequence of the smallness of our islands, their great number, and the large distances between them. This renders impossible any hope of total conquest by one group, and allows easy escape for any man who does not like his own island. These were advantages which the people of the continents did not possess.

  We have our difficulties, of course. Warfare still breaks out among the island groups, though on an infinitesimal scale in comparison to the wars of the past. There is still social inequality, and injustice, crime and disease; but these evils are never so great as to overwhelm the island societies. Life changes, and this change often seems to bring evil as well as progress; but the changes take place more slowly today than in the hectic past.

  Perhaps this slowness of change is due in part to the great scarcity of metal. It was always in short supply in our islands, and the Fijians destroyed most of what was available. A little metal is sometimes dug out of the earth in the Philippines, but hardly any of it gets into circulation. Lumist societies are still active, and steal any metal they can find and throw it into the sea. Many of us feel that this irrational hatred of metal is a deplorable thing; but we still cannot answer Lum’s ancient question, with which the Lumists still taunt us.

  The question goes: “Man, you ever try to build a atom bomb out of coral and coconut shells?”

  As for the end of the Journey, the following is told. Lum met his death at the age of sixty-nine. Leading a party of metal-destroyers, Lums head was stove in by the club of a huge Hawaiian who was trying to protect a sewing machine.

  Lum’s final words were: “Well, boys, I’m on my way to that Big Tea Party in the Sky, run by the Greatest Junkie of them all.”

  So saying he died. This was Lums final recorded statement on religious matters.

  With Joenes, the end came in an entirely different way. In his seventy-third year, while visiting the high island of Moorea, Joenes saw a disturbance on the beach and went down to see what was the matter. He found that a man of his own race had drifted ashore on a raft, his clothes in shreds and his limbs badly sunburned, but otherwise in good condition.

  “Joenes!” the man cried. “I knew you were alive, and I was sure I’d find you. You are Joenes, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” Joenes said. “But I’m afraid I don’t recognize you.”

  “I’m Watts,” the man said, “as in watts the matter? I’m the jewel thief you met in New York. Do you remember me now?”

  “Yes, I do,” Joenes said. “But why have you sought me out?”

  “Joenes, we talked for only a few moments, but you had a profound influence on me. Just as your Journey became your life, so you became my life. I cannot explain how this knowledge came to me, but it did come, and I found it irresistible. My work was you, and concerned only you. It was a long hard task for me to gather together everything you needed, but I did not mind. I received help, and marks of favor in high places, and was content. Then came the war, rendering everything more difficult. I had to wander for many years over the ravaged face of America to find what you would require, but I completed my work and came at last to California. From there I set sail for the islands of the Pacific, and for many years I went from place to place, often hearing of you, never finding you. But I never grew discouraged. I always remembered the difficulties you had to face, and took heart from them. I knew that your work had to do with the completion of a world; but my work had to do with the completion of you.”

  “This is very amazing,” Joenes said in a calm voice. “I think perhaps you are not in complete possession of your senses, my dear Watts, but tha
t makes no difference at all. I am sorry to have caused you so much trouble; but I had no idea you were looking for me.”

  “You could not know,” Watts said. “Not even you, Joenes, could know who or what was looking for you until it found you.”

  Well,” Joenes said, “you have found me now. Did you say that you had something for me?”

  “Several things,” Watts said. “I have faithfully preserved and cherished them, since they are necessary for your completion.” Watts then took out an oilskin package which had been tied to his body. Smiling with pleasure, he handed the package to Joenes.

  Joenes opened the package and found the following things:

  1. A note from Sean Feinstein, who said that he had taken it upon himself to send the things, and also to provide Watts as an agent. He hoped that Joenes was well. As for himself, he had escaped the holocaust with his daughter Deirdre, and had gone to Sangar Island two thousand miles off the coast of Chile. There he was enjoying a modest success as a trader, while Deirdre had married an industrious and open-minded local boy. He sincerely hoped that these enclosures would be of value to Joenes.

  2. A brief note from the doctor whom Joenes had met in the Hollis Home for the Criminally Insane. The doctor wrote that he remembered Joenes’s interest in the patient who had believed himself to be god, and who had vanished before Joenes could meet him. However, since Joenes had been curious about the case, the doctor was enclosing the only bit of writing which the madman had left—the list which had been found on his table.

  3. A map of the Octagon marked with the official Cartographer’s seal and approved by the highest officials. Marked “accurate and final” by the chief of the Octagon himself. Guaranteed to take anyone to any part of the building, swiftly and without delay.

  Joenes looked for a long time at these things, and his face became like weathered granite. For a long time he did not move, and then did so only when Watts tried to read the various papers over his shoulder.

  “It’s only fair!” Watts cried. “I carried them all this way, and I never looked at them. I must have one peek at that map, my dear Joenes, and just a glance at the madman’s list.”

  “No,” Joenes said. “These things weren’t sent to you.”

  Watts became furiously angry, and the villagers had to restrain him from seizing the papers by force. Several of the village priests came expectantly up to Joenes, but he backed away from them. There was a look of horror on his face, and some people thought he would throw the papers into the sea. But he did not. He clutched them tightly to him and hurried up the steep trail into the mountains. The priests followed, but soon lost their way in the dense undergrowth.

  They came down and told the people that Joenes would soon return, and that he had merely wished to study the papers alone for a while. The people waited and did not lose faith for many years, although Watts died. But Joenes never descended from the mountains.

  Nearly two centuries later, a hunter climbed the high slopes of Moorea in search of wild goats. When he came down, he declared that he had seen a very old man sitting in front of a cave, looking at some papers. The old man had beckoned to him, and the hunter came forward, not without fear. He saw that the papers which the old man held were faded by sun and rain to an indecipherable blur, and the old man himself seemed to have gone blind from reading them.

  The hunter asked, “How can you read those papers?”

  The old man answered, “I don’t have to. I’ve learned them by heart.”

  Then the old man rose to his feet and went into the cave, and in a moment everything was as though he had never been.

  Was this story true? In spite of his incredible age, could Joenes still be living in the mountains and thinking about the highest secrets of a vanished age? If so, did the madman’s list and the Octagon map have any meaning for our own age?

  We will never know. Three expeditions to the place have turned up no evidence of human habitation, although the cave is there. Scholars believe that the hunter must have been drunk. They reason that Joenes went out of his mind with grief at receiving important information too late; that he fled from the priests and dwelt like a hermit with his fading and useless papers; and finally died in some inaccessible place.

  This explanation seems only reasonable; but the people of Moorea have built a small shrine on the site.

  A somewhat expanded version of this novel will be published later this year by Signet under the title Journey Beyond Tomorrow.

  1965

  SHALL WE HAVE A LITTLE TALK?

  Earth didn’t just walk in and conquer planets—there were definite rules! Why wouldn’t these people cooperate?

  I

  The landing was a piece of cake despite gravitational vagaries produced by two suns and six moons. Low-level cloud cover could have given him some trouble if Jackson had been coming in visually. But he considered that to be kid stuff. It was better and safer to plug in the computer and lean back and enjoy the ride.

  The cloud cover broke up at two thousand feet. Jackson was able to confirm his earlier sighting: there was a city down there, just as sure as sure.

  He was in one of the world’s loneliest jobs; but his line of work, paradoxically enough, required an extremely gregarious man. Because of this built-in contradiction, Jackson was in the habit of talking to himself. Most of the men in his line of work did. Jackson would talk to anyone, human or alien, no matter what their size or shape or color.

  It was what he was paid to do, and what he had to do anyhow. He talked when he was alone on the long interstellar runs, and he talked even more when he was with someone or something that would talk back. He figured he was lucky to be paid for his compulsions.

  “And not just paid, either,” he reminded himself. “Well paid, and with a bonus arrangement on top of that. And furthermore, this feels like my lucky planet. I feel like I could get rich on this one—unless they kill me down there, of course.”

  The lonely flights between the planets and the imminence of death were the only disadvantages of this job; but if the work weren’t hazardous and difficult, the pay wouldn’t be so good.

  Would they kill him? You could never tell. Alien life forms were unpredictable—just like humans, only more so.

  “But I don’t think they’ll kill me,” Jackson said. “I just feel downright lucky today.”

  This simple philosophy had sustained him for years, across the endless lonely miles of space, and in and out of ten, twelve, twenty planets. He saw no reason to change his outlook now.

  The ship landed. Jackson switched the status controls to standby.

  He checked the analyzer for oxygen and trace-element content in the atmosphere, and took a quick survey of the local micro-organisms. The place was viable. He leaned back in his chair and waited. It didn’t take long, of course, They—the locals, indigenes, autochthons, whatever you wanted to call them—came out of their city to look at the spaceship. And Jackson looked through the port at them.

  “Well now,” he said. “Seems like the alien life forms in this neck of the woods are honest-to-Joe humanoids. That means a five-thousand-dollar bonus for old Uncle Jackson.”

  The inhabitants of the city were bipedal monocephaloids. They had the appropriate number of fingers, noses, eyes, ears, and mouths. Their skin was a flesh-colored beige, their lips were a faded red, their hair was black, brown, or red.

  “Shucks, they’re just like home folks!” Jackson said. “Hell, I ought to get an extra bonus for that. Humanoidissimus, eh?”

  The aliens wore clothes. Some of them carried elaborately carved lengths of wood like swagger sticks. The women decorated themselves with carved and enameled ornaments. At a flying guess, Jackson ranked them about equivalent to Late Bronze Age on Earth.

  The talked and gestured among themselves. Their language was, of course, incomprehensible to Jackson; but that didn’t matter. The important thing was that they had a language and that their speech sounds could be produced by his vocal apparatus. />
  “Not like on that heavy planet last year,” Jackson said. “Those supersonic sons of bitches! I had to wear special earphones and mike, and it was a hundred and ten in the shade.”

  The aliens were waiting for him, and Jackson knew it. That first moment of actual contact—it always was a nervous business.

  That’s when they were most apt to let you have it.

  Reluctantly he moved to the hatch, undogged it, rubbed his eyes, and cleared his throat. He managed to produce a smile. He told himself, “Don’t get sweaty; ’member, you’re just a little old interstellar wanderer—kind of galactic vagabond—to extend the hand of friendship and all that jazz. You’ve just dropped in for a little talk, nothing more. Keep on believing that, sweety, and the extraterrestrial Johns will believe right along with you. Remember Jackson’s Law: all intelligent life forms share the divine faculty of gullibility; which means that the triple-tongued Thung of Orangus V can be conned out of his skin just as Joe Doakes of St. Paul.”

  And so, wearing a brave, artificial little smile, Jackson swung the port open and stepped out to have a little talk.

  “Well now, how y’all?” Jackson asked at once, just to hear the sound of his own voice.

  The nearest aliens shrank away from him. Nearly all of them were frowning. Several of the younger ones carried bronze knives in a forearm scabbard. These were clumsy weapons, but as effective as anything ever invented. The aliens started to draw.

  “Now take it easy,” Jackson said, keeping his voice light and unalarmed.

  They drew their knives and began to edge forward. Jackson stood his ground, waiting, ready to bolt through the hatch like a jet-propelled jackrabbit, hoping he could make it.