The Journey of Joenes

by Robert Sheckley

  I had never known about this state of affairs, since news like this is generally ignored in a democracy, and is banned in a dictatorship. But I saw these horrors in Africa. And I learned that the same was true in the tropical parts of Asia, Central America, and India. All of those places were now truly neutral, through accident or through design, since they were engaged in a desperate struggle for life itself.

  As a doctor I was saddened because of the many diseases, old and new. These sprang from the jungle, which had been aided and augmented by man. The growth rate of that jungle was fantastic; and therefore equally fantastic was its decay rate. Because of this, disease germs of all kinds multiplied and spread in the most congenial atmosphere possible.

  As a man I was maddened by the perverted way in which science had been used. But still I believed in science. I told myself that evil men of little vision had created much harm in the world; but that humanitarians, working through science, would set it all right again.

  I set to work with a will, aided by humanitarians the world over. I went to all the tribes within my district, treating their illnesses with my supplies of drugs. My successes were overwhelming.

  But then the spawning diseases became resistant to my drugs, and new epidemics began. The tribes, although strong in their resistance, suffered terribly.

  I wired urgently for newer drugs. These were sent to me, and I put down the epidemic. But a few of the germs and viruses managed to survive, and disease spread once again.

  I requested newer drugs, and these were also sent to me. Once again disease and I were locked in mortal combat, from which I emerged victorious. But there were always a few organisms that escaped my drugs. Also, there were mutations to be reckoned with. Given the right environment, I learned that diseases could change into new and virulent forms much faster than men could make or discover new drugs.

  In fact, I found that germs behaved quite like humans in times of stress. They showed every evidence of an astonishing will to survive; and quite naturally, the harder one struck at them, the faster and more frantically they spawned, mutated, resisted, and at last, struck back. The resemblance was, to my way of thinking, uncanny and unnatural.

  I was laboring prodigiously at the time, twelve to eighteen hours a day, trying to save the poor, patient, suffering population. But disease outstripped my latest drugs, won a sort of victory, and raged with unbelievable violence. I was in despair, for no new drugs had been invented to meet these newest ills.

  Then I found that the germs, in mutating to meet my new drugs, had become vulnerable once again to the old drugs. Therefore, in a perfect frenzy of scientific fervor, I began to apply the old drugs once more.

  Since I had come to Africa, I had battled no less than ten major epidemics. Now I was beginning to fight my eleventh. And I knew that the germs and viruses would retreat before my attack, spawn, mutate, and strike again, leaving me to fight a twelfth epidemic, with similar results, and then a thirteenth, and so forth.

  This was the situation into which my scientific and humanistic zeal had carried me. But I was drunk with fatigue, and half dead with my labors. I had no time to think of anything but the immediate problem.

  But then the people of my district took the problem out of my hands. They possessed very little education, and they saw only the great epidemics which had ravaged them since my coming. Those people looked upon me as a sort of supremely evil witch doctor, whose bottles of supposed healing drugs actually contained the refined essences of the diseases that had ravaged them. They turned to their own witch doctors, who treated the sick with useless daubs of mud and bits of bone, and blamed every death upon some innocent tribesman.

  Even the mothers whose children I had saved now turned against me. These mothers pointed out that the children had died anyway, of starvation instead of disease.

  At last the men of the villages gathered to kill me. They would have done so if I had not been saved by the witch doctors. This was an irony, because I considered the witch doctors my greatest antagonists.

  The witch doctors explained to the people that if I were killed, a fiend of even greater evil power would be sent to them. Therefore the people did me no harm; and the witch doctors grinned at me, because they considered me a colleague.

  Still I would not abandon my work among the tribes. For that reason, the tribes abandoned me. They moved inland to an area of desolate swamp, where food was scarce and disease was common.

  I could not follow them, since the swamp was in a different district. This district had its own doctor, also a Swede, who gave out no drugs at all, no pills, no injections, nothing. Instead, he got drunk every day on his own supplies of alcohol. He had lived in the jungle for twenty years, and he said he knew what was best.

  Left completely alone in my district, I had a nervous collapse. I was sent back to Sweden, and there I thought about everything that had happened.

  It seemed to me that the villagers and witch doctors, whom I had considered so perversely intractable, had merely behaved with good common sense. They had fled from my science and my humanism, which had improved their lot not an iota. On the contrary, my science had done nothing but produce more pain and suffering for them, and my humanism had foolishly attempted to wipe out other creatures for their benefit, and by doing so had upset the balance of forces upon the Earth.

  Realizing all this, I fled my country, fled Europe itself, and came here. Now I drive a truck. And when someone speaks to me in glowing words about science and humanity and the marvels of healing, I stare at him as though he were insane.

  That is how I lost my belief in science, a thing more precious to me than gold, the loss of which I bemoan every day of my life.

  At the end of this story, the second truck driver said, “No one would deny that you had misfortunes, Joenes, but these are less than what my friend has just told you. And my friend’s misfortunes are less than mine. For I am the most unfortunate of men, and I have lost something more precious than gold and more valuable than science, the loss of which I bemoan every day of my life.”

  Joenes asked the man to tell his story. And this is the story the second truck driver told.

  THE STORY OF THE

  HONEST TRUCK DRIVER

  My name is Ramon Delgado, and I am from the land of Mexico. My one great pride was in being an honest man. I was honest because of the laws of the land, which told me to be so, and which had been written by the best of men, who had derived them from universally accepted principles of justice, and had fortified them with punishments so that all men, not just those of goodwill, would obey.

  This seemed right to me, because I loved justice and believed in it, and therefore believed in the laws that were derived from justice, and in the punishment that enforced the law. Not only did I feel that man’s conception and execution of justice was good; I also felt that it was necessary. For only through this could there be freedom from tyranny and a sense of personal dignity.

  I labored for many years in my village, saved my money, and led an honest and upright life. One day I was offered a job in the capital. I was very happy about this, for I had long desired to see that great city from which the justice of my country derives.

  I used all my savings to purchase an old automobile, and I drove to the capital. I parked in front of my new employer’s store, where I found a parking meter. I went inside the store in order to get a peso to put in the parking meter. When I came out, I was arrested.

  I was taken before a judge who accused me of illegal parking, petty larceny, vagrancy, resisting arrest, and creating a public disturbance.

  The judge found me guilty of all these things. Of illegal parking because there had been no money in the meter; petty larceny, because I had taken a peso from my employer’s till to put in the meter; vagrancy, because I had had only a single peso on my person; resisting arrest, because I had argued with the policeman; and creating a public disturbance, because I had wept when he took me to the jail.

  In a technica
l sense, all these things were true, so I considered it no miscarriage of justice when the judge found me guilty. In fact, I admired his zeal in serving the law.

  Nor did I complain when he sentenced me to ten years of imprisonment. This seemed severe, but I knew that the law could be upheld only through stern and uncompromising punishment.

  I was sent to the Federal Penitentiary of Morelos, and I knew that it would be good for me to see the place where punishment is served out, and thus to learn the bitter fruits of dishonesty.

  When I arrived at the Penitentiary, I saw a crowd of men hiding in the woods nearby. I took no notice of them, for the guard at the gate was reading my commitment papers. He studied them with great care, then opened the gate.

  As soon as the gate was opened, I was amazed to see that crowd of men come out of hiding, rush forward, and force their way into the prison. Many guards came out and tried to push men back. Nevertheless, some were able to get into the Penitentiary before the admittance guard was finally able to close the gate.

  “Is it possible,” I asked him, “that those men wanted to get into prison on purpose?”

  “Obviously they did,” the guard said.

  “But I had always thought that prisons were for the purpose of keeping people in rather than out,” I said.

  “They used to be,” the guard told me. “But nowadays, with so many foreigners in the country, and so much starvation, men break into prison merely to get three meals a day. There’s nothing we can do about it. By breaking into prison they become criminals, and we have to let them stay.”

  “Disgraceful!” I said. “But what do the foreigners have to do with it?”

  “They started all the trouble,” the guard said. “There’s starvation in their own countries, and they know that we in Mexico have the world’s best prisons. So they come great distances in order to break into our prisons, especially when they can’t break into their own. But I suppose foreigners are really no worse or better than our own people, who do the same thing.”

  “If this is the case,” I said, “how can the government enforce its laws?”

  “Only by keeping the truth a secret,” the guard told me. “Someday we will be able to build penitentiaries that will keep the right people in and the wrong ones out. But until that time comes, the thing must be kept secret. In that way, most of the population still believes they should fear punishment.”

  The guard then escorted me inside the Penitentiary, to the office of the Parole Board. There a man asked me how I liked prison life. I told him that I wasn’t sure yet.

  “Well,” the man said, “your behavior for the entire time you have been here has been exemplary. Reform is our motive, not revenge. Would you like an immediate parole?”

  I was afraid of saying the wrong thing, so I told him I wasn’t sure.

  “Take your time,” he said, “and return to this office any time you want to be released.”

  Then I went to my cell. Within I found two Mexicans and three foreigners. One of the foreigners was an American, and the other two were Frenchmen. The American asked me if I had accepted a parole. I said that I hadn’t yet.

  “Damn smart for a beginner!” said the American, whose name was Otis. “Some of the new convicts don’t know. They take a parole, and wham, they’re on the outside looking in.”

  “Is that so bad?” I asked.

  “Very bad,” Otis said. “If you take a parole, then you don’t have any chance of getting back into prison. No matter what you do, the judge just marks it down as parole violation and tells you not to do it again. And the chances are you don’t do it again because the cops have broken both your arms.”

  “Otis is right,” one of the Frenchmen said. “Taking a parole is extremely dangerous, and I am the living proof of that. My name is Edmond Dantes. Many years ago I was sentenced to this institution, and then offered a parole. In the ignorance of my youth, I accepted it. But then, on the Outside, I realized that all my friends were still in prison, and that my collection of books and records was still here. Also, in my juvenile rashness, I had left behind my sweetheart, Trustee 43422231. I realized too late that my whole life was in here, and that I was shut out forever from the warmth and security of these granite walls.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I still thought that criminality would bring its own reward,” Dantes said with a wistful smile. “So I killed a man. But the judge simply extended my period of parole, and the police broke all the fingers of my right hand. It was then, while my fingers were healing, that I resolved to get back in.”

  “It must have been very difficult,” I said.

  Dantes nodded. “It called for a terrible patience, because I spent the next twenty years of my life attempting to break into this prison.”

  The other prisoners were silent. Old Dantes continued:

  “Security was more rigid in those days, and a rush through the gates, such as you saw this morning, would have been impossible. Therefore, unaided, I tunnelled under the building. Three times I came up against sheer granite, and was forced to begin a new tunnel search somewhere else. Once I came almost to the inner courtyard, but the guards detected me, counter-tunnelled, and forced me back. Once I tried to parachute on to the prison from an airplane, but a sudden gust of wind forced me away. Thereafter, no planes were allowed to fly overhead. Thus, in my own way, I effected some prison reforms.”

  “But how did you finally get in?” I asked.

  The old man smiled grimly. “After many fruitless years, an idea occurred to me. I couldn’t believe that so simple an idea could succeed where ingenuity and raw courage had failed. Nevertheless, I tried it.

  “I returned to the prison disguised as a special investigator. At first the guards were reluctant to let me pass. But I told them that the government was considering a reform bill in which guards would be granted equal rights with the prisoners. They let me in, and I then revealed who I was. They had to let me stay, and some man came and wrote down my story. I only hope he put it down correctly.

  “Since then, of course, the guards have instituted rigid measures that would make the repetition of my plan impossible. But it is an article of faith with me that courageous men will always surmount the difficulties society puts between a man and his goal. If men are steadfast, they too will succeed in breaking into prison.”

  All the prisoners were silent when old Dantes finished speaking. At last I asked, “Was your sweetheart still here when you got back?”

  The old men looked away, and a tear coursed down his cheek. “Trustee 43422231 had died of cirrhosis of the liver three years previously. Now I spend my time in prayer and contemplation.”

  The old man’s tragic tale of courage, determination, and doomed love had cast a gloom over the cell. In silence we went to our evening meal, and no one showed good spirits until many hours later.

  By then I had thought until my head ached about this whole strange matter of men wanting to live in prison. The more I thought, the more confused I became. So, very timidly, I asked my cell mates whether freedom was not important, and if they never hungered for cities and streets, and for flowering fields and forests.

  “Freedom?” Otis said to me. “It’s the illusion of freedom you’re talking about, and that’s a very different thing. The cities you talk about contain only horror, insecurity, and fear. The streets are all blind alleys, with death at the end of every one of them.”

  “And those flowering fields and forests you mention are even worse,” the second Frenchman told me. “My name is Rousseau, and in my youth I wrote several foolish books based upon no experience at all, extolling nature and speaking of a man’s rightful place in it. But then, in my mature years, I secretly left my country and journeyed through this nature I had spoken of with such confidence.

  “I found out then how terrible nature is, and how it hates mankind. I discovered the flowering green fields make poor walking, and are harder on a man’s feet than the worst pavement. I saw tha
t the crops man plants are unhappy hybrids, seduced of their strength and kept alive only by men who fight back the conquering weeds and insects.

  “In the forest, I found that the trees communed only with themselves, and that every creature ran from me. I learned that there are beautiful blue lakes that may delight your eye, but they are surrounded always by thorns and swampy land. And when you finally reach them, you see that the water is a dirty brown.

  “Nature also gives rain and drought, heat and cold; and thoughtfully ensures that the rain rots man’s food, the drought parches it, the heat scalds man’s body, and the cold freezes his limbs.

  “These are only nature’s milder aspects, not to be compared to the wrathfulness of the sea, the frigid indifference of the mountains, the treachery of the swamp, the depravity of the desert, or the terror of the jungle. But I noticed that nature, in her hatred of mankind, provided that most of the earth’s surface be covered with sea, mountains, swamp, desert and jungle.

  “I need say nothing of earthquakes, tornadoes, tidal waves, and the like, in which nature reveals the fullest extent of her hatred.

  “Man’s only escape from these horrors is in a city, where nature can be partially shut out. And obviously, the type of city most removed from nature is a prison. That is the conclusion I have reached after many years of study. And that is the reason why I repudiate the words of my youth and live very happily in this place where I can never see a green thing.”

  With that, Rousseau turned away and contemplated a steel wall.

  “You see, Delgado,” Otis said, “the only true freedom is right here, inside a prison.”

  This I would not accept, and I pointed out that we were locked up here, which seemed contradictory to the notion of freedom.

  “But all of us are locked up upon this earth,” old Dantes answered me. “Some in a greater place and some in a lesser place. And all of us are locked up forever within ourselves. Everything is a prison, and this place here is the best of all prisons.”