The Journey of Joenes

by Robert Sheckley

  “Do you have any explanation for it?” Joenes asked.

  “Well, for one thing, mapmakers have their individual styles and idiosyncrasies, and that might account for the discrepancy. For another, even the best of memories is untrustworthy, so we might not have mapped the same section. But to my way of thinking these explanations are not sufficient, and only one thing makes sense.”

  “What’s that?” Joenes asked.

  “I believe that workmen, under orders from the high officials, are continually changing portions of the building. It is the only explanation that satisfies me. I have even caught glimpses of what could only be workmen. But even if I hadn’t seen them, I would still believe it. Just consider. The high officials are concerned with security, and the finest security possible would be to keep the building in a constant state of change. Next, if the building were static, a single mapmaking survey would be sufficient, instead of the continual drawing and revising we are called upon to do. Finally, the high officials are trying to control a complex and ever-changing world; therefore as the world changes, so must the building. More offices must be built, and old ones have to be altered for new tenants; a row of cubicles must be removed and an auditorium put in its place; whole corridors must be closed down to allow the installation of new wiring and plumbing. And so forth. Some of these changes are extremely evident. Any man can see them, not only a mapmaker. But other changes are made apparently in secrecy, or in parts of the building I do not visit until the work is completed. Then the new looks bafflingly like the old, although I can still sense a difference. It is for those reasons that I believe the building is continually being changed, thus rendering a complete knowledge of it impossible.”

  “If this place is as unknowable as you say it is,” Joenes said, “then how do you find your way back to your own office?”

  “There, I am ashamed to say, my mapmaking skill does not help me. I find my office just as everyone else here finds his office—by something that resembles instinct. The other workers don’t know this; they think they find their way by some process of the intelligence, some kind of a turn-right turn-left system. Like the spy, they believe they could learn anything about the building if they wanted to. It would make you laugh or cry to hear the statements these people make about this building, even though they have never ventured beyond the corridor that leads to their office. But I, a mapmaker, wander all over the building in my work. Sometimes great changes occur in territory I have already passed, rendering it unrecognizable. Then something that is not knowledge guides me back to my office, exactly as it guides the office workers.”

  “I see,” Joenes said, though he was actually very confused. “So you really don’t know what I should do in order to find this office?”

  “I really do not know.”

  “Could you give me any advice about the way I should go about looking, or what sort of thing I should look for?”

  “I am an expert on the building,” the colonel said sadly, “and I could talk about it for a year without repeating myself. But unfortunately, there is nothing I can say that would aid your particular situation.”

  Joenes asked, “Do you think I will ever find the office I was sent to?”

  “If your business here is important,” the colonel said, “and if the high officials really want you to find the office, then I’m sure you’ll have no trouble. On the other hand, your business may not be of importance to anyone but you, in which case your search will doubtless be a long one. True, you carry official orders; but I suspect that the high officials occasionally send men to imaginary offices simply to test the security of the inner defenses of the building. If that is the case with you, your chance of success is small indeed.”

  “One way or another,” Joenes said gloomily, “my prospects don’t look very good.”

  “Well, those are the risks all of us run here,” the colonel said. “Spies suspect that their rulers have sent them on a dangerous mission simply to get rid of them, and mapmakers suspect that they are ordered to draw simply to keep their fingers out of mischief. We all have our doubts, and I can only wish you the best of luck and the hope that your doubts are never proved true.”

  With that, the colonel bowed courteously and walked down the corridor.

  Joenes watched him go and considered following him. But he had already gone down that way, and it seemed a necessary act of faith to go forward into what he did not know rather than turn back at the first discouragement.

  So Joenes went on, but not entirely out of faith. He also suspected that the corridors behind him might have been changed by now.

  Joenes walked down great halls and corridors, up stairways, through bypasses, across lobbies, and down more corridors. He resisted the urge to consult his beautiful false map, but he couldn’t bring himself to throw the thing away. So he kept it in his pocket and kept on walking.

  There was no way to tell the passage of time, but at last Joenes became very weary. He was now in an ancient part of the building. The floors here were of wood rather than marble, and they were badly decayed, making the footing dangerous. The walls, built of an inferior plaster, were flaked and torn. In some places the plaster had fallen away to reveal the wiring of the building, most of its insulation rotten and constituting an obvious fire hazard. Not even the ceiling seemed secure; it bulged ominously in places, making Joenes fear it would come down on him.

  Whatever offices had once been here were now gone, and the place was in need of immediate and drastic repairs. Joenes even saw a workman’s hammer lying on the floor; this convinced him that repairs would be made someday, even though he didn’t see any workmen.

  Lost and deeply discouraged, Joenes lay down on the floor, his great fatigue allowing him no other choice. He stretched out and within a minute fell asleep.

  THE STORY OF THESEUS

  Joenes awoke with a feeling of uneasiness. Standing up, he heard the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor.

  Soon he saw the maker of the footsteps. He was a man, tall and in the prime of life, with a face both intelligent and suspicious. This man held a huge ball of string mounted on a spindle. As he walked, he unwound the string, which fell to the floor of the corridor and glittered faintly.

  As soon as he saw Joenes, the man’s face tightened into angry lines. He drew a revolver from his belt and took aim.

  Joenes called out, “Wait! Whatever you think, I have never done you any harm!”

  Controlling himself with obvious effort, the man did not pull the trigger. His eyes, which had gone blank and dangerous, regained a normal appearance. He put the revolver back in his belt and said, “I am very sorry to have startled you. The truth is, I thought you were someone else.”

  “Do I look like him?” Joenes asked.

  “Not really,” the man said. “But I become nervous in this damnable place and tend to shoot first and think second. Still, my mission is so vital that these actions of a hasty and high-strung nature can surely be forgiven.”

  “What is your mission?” Joenes asked.

  The man’s face glowed when Joenes asked that question. Proudly he said, “My mission is to bring peace, happiness, and freedom to the world.”

  “That’s quite a lot,” Joenes said.

  “I could never be satisfied with anything less,” the man said. “Mark my name well. It is George P. Theseus, and I confidently expect to be remembered as the man who destroyed dictatorship and freed the people. The deed I do here will live as a symbol to all men, and will also be good and just in its own right.”

  “What deed are you going to do?” Joenes asked.

  “Singlehanded, I am going to kill a tyrant,” Theseus said. “This man has managed to find a position of power within the building, and many gullible fools think he is a benefactor because he orders the building of dams to control floods, distributes food to the starving, finances medical work for the sick, and does many other gaudy things of that sort. This may deceive some people, but it does not deceive me.”


  “If he really does that work,” Joenes said, “then he does indeed sound like a benefactor.”

  “I might have expected you to say that,” Theseus said bitterly. “His tricks have taken you in, just as they have taken in most people. I cannot hope to change your mind. I have no skill at devious argument, while that man has the world’s best propagandists at his service. My vindication must rest with the future. For now, I can only tell what I know, and tell it in a blunt, unpleasing manner.”

  “I will be very pleased to hear,” Joenes said.

  “Well then,” Theseus said, “consider this. In order to do his good deeds, this man had to reach high office. To reach high office, he passed out bribes and sowed dissension, divided people into warring factions, killed off those who opposed him, corrupted the influential few, and starved the needy many. At last, when his power was absolute, he engaged in public works. But not out of love for the public. No, he did it as you or I might weed a garden, so that he might have something pleasant to look at instead of something ugly. This is how it is with tyrants, who will do anything to obtain power, and thereby create and perpetuate the very evils they purport to cure.”

  Joenes was moved by Theseus’s speech, but a little suspicious also, because Theseus had a shifty and dangerous look. So Joenes spoke with caution: “I can certainly understand why you want to kill this man.”

  “No you can’t,” Theseus said morosely. “You probably think I’m filled with nothing but hot air and ideals, a sort of pious madman with a gun. Well, you’re wrong. I’m an ordinary sort of man, and if I can perform a good deed and win a reputation, then I’m happy. But my action against this tyrant is primarily for personal reasons.”

  “How so?” Joenes asked.

  “This tyrant,” Theseus said, “has private tastes just as perverted as the wild passions that drove him to power. Information such as this is usually kept secret, or scoffed at as the ravings of envious, fools. His skilled propagandists see to that. But I know the truth.

  “This great man came driving through my town one day in his armored black Cadillac, secure behind bulletproof glass, puffing a big cigar and waving to the crowds. Then his eye chanced to fall upon a little girl in the crowd, and he ordered his car to stop.

  “His bodyguards chased the people away, except for a few who watched from cellars and rooftops, unseen but seeing. Then the tyrant stepped out of his car and walked up to the little girl. He offered her ice cream and sweets, and begged her to get into the car with him.

  “Some of the watching men understood what was happening, and rushed out to rescue the child. But the bodyguards shot and killed those men. They did so with silenced guns so as not to startle the girl; they told her that the men had decided to go to sleep for a while.

  “Although a complete innocent, the child had her suspicions. Something in the tyrant’s sweating red face and thick trembling lips must have frightened her. So, even though she wanted the ice cream and candy, she stood irresolute while the tyrant trembled with lust, and those of us watching helplessly in the cellars sweated out of fear for her.

  “After looking wistfully at the gorgeous array of sweets and observing the tyrant’s nervous movements, the little girl made up her mind. She would go in the car, she said, if her playmates could go with her. In the terrible vulnerability of her innocence, the child thought she would be safe among her playmates.

  “The tyrant went purple with joy. It was evident that this was more than he dared hope for. The more the merrier, that was his sinister motto. He told the girl to bring along all the playmates she wished, and the girl called for her friends.

  “The children came flocking to the black Cadillac. They would have come even without her summons, for the tyrant had had the wit to turn on his car radio, which played the most marvelous and enticing music.

  “Music playing, sweets distributed, the tyrant herded them all into his enormous car and shut the door. His bodyguards closed around him, mounted on their powerful motorcycles. Then they all sped away, pound for the most shameful debaucheries in the tyrant’s private pleasure room. Those children have never been heard of again. And that first little girl, as you may have guessed, was my own sister, taken under my eyes, with townspeople lying dead on the pavement near her, and with me in the cellar powerless to help.”

  Theseus wiped his eyes, which were now streaming freely. He said to Joenes, “Now you know the real and personal reasons why I am going to kill the tyrant. To destroy his evil; to avenge my slain friends, to rescue the poor children, but above all, to find my poor sister. I am no hero, I am nothing but an ordinary man. But events have forced me to perform this righteous deed.”

  Joenes, whose own eyes were far from dry, embraced Theseus arid said, “I wish you good fortune on your quest, and I certainly hope you can succeed against so terrible a tyrant.”

  “I have my hopes,” Theseus said, “and I am not without the determination and guile necessary for this difficult work. To begin with, I sought out the tyrant’s daughter. I ingratiated myself with her, used every winning way I could think of, until at last she fell in love with me. Then I debauched her, and this gave me some satisfaction since she was not far from my poor sister’s age. She desired marriage, and I promised to marry her, although I would rather slit my throat. And I explained to her very artfully what sort of man her father was. At first she would not believe me, the little idiot loved her tyrant father so! But she loved me more, and slowly became convinced of the truth of everything I said. Then, as the final step, I sought her aid in my plan to kill her father. You can imagine how difficult that was. The horrible little girl did not want her daddy destroyed, no matter how evil he was, no matter what he had done. But I threatened to leave her forever if she would not help me; and between love of me and love of her father she was nearly driven mad. Over and over she begged me to forget the past, which no action could erase. Come away with her, she said, and live in some place far from her father, and never think of him but only of her. As though I could ever look at her and not see her father’s features! For days she held back, thinking she could convince me to do what she wanted. Endlessly she declared her love for me, stating it in the most exaggerated and hysterical terms. She would never allow us to be parted, she swore, and if death should befall me, then she would kill herself, too. And a great deal of similar nonsense, which, as a sensible man, I found most distasteful.

  “At last I turned from her and took my leave. Then her courage crumbled. This young monster, filled with the most exquisite self-loathing, said she would help me in murdering her beloved father, if only I would swear never to leave her. And of course I swore what she wanted. I would have promised anything to get the assistance I needed.

  “She told me what she alone knew; where her father’s office could be found in this great building. And she also gave me this ball of string so that I could mark my way and leave quickly once the deed was done. And she herself gave me this revolver. And so here I am, on my way to the tyrant’s office.”

  Joenes said, “You have not found him yet, I see?”

  “Not yet,” Theseus answered. “The corridors here are very long and winding, as you must have observed yourself. Also, I’ve had some bad luck. As I mentioned, I am of a hasty disposition and therefore inclined to shoot first and think second. Because of that, quite accidentally, I shot and killed a man in officer’s uniform not long ago. He came upon me suddenly, and I fired without thinking.”

  “Was it the mapmaker?” Joenes asked.

  “I do not know who he was,” Theseus answered. “But he wore a colonel’s badges, and he seemed to have a kindly face.”

  “It was the mapmaker,” Joenes said.

  “I am very sorry about it,” Theseus said. “But I am even sorrier about the three others I killed in these hallways. I must be an unlucky man.”

  “Who were they?” Joenes asked.

  “To my great sorrow, they were three of the children I had come to rescue. They must ha
ve slipped out of the tyrant’s rooms and tried to reach freedom. I shot them as I shot the officer, and as I nearly shot you; that is, hastily, before they had a chance to speak. I cannot describe my feelings of regret, and my increased determination that the tyrant shall pay for all this.”

  “What will you do about his daughter?” Joenes asked.

  “I won’t follow my natural instincts and kill her,” Theseus said. “But that ugly little bitch will never see me again. And I will pray that the tyrant’s whelp dies of a broken heart.”

  So saying, Theseus turned his wrathful countenance towards the dim corridor stretching before him.

  “And now,” he said, “I must go about my work. Good-bye, my friend, and wish me luck.”

  Theseus walked briskly away, unwinding his glittering cord as he went. Joenes watched until he had vanished around a corner. For a time he could hear receding footsteps, then there was no sound at all.

  Suddenly a woman appeared in the corridor behind Joenes.

  She was very young, hardly more than a child. She was plump and red-faced, and her eyes glittered insanely. She walked silently, following after Theseus. And as she walked, she gathered up the string he had so carefully laid down. She had a huge ball of it in her hands, and she continued winding as she came near Joenes, obliterating the trail by which Theseus had thought to return.

  As she passed Joenes, she turned and looked at him, and her face was wild with rage and grief. She said not one word, but put a finger to her lips in the sign of silence. Then she walked swiftly on, gathering the string as she went.