The Journey of Joenes
Page 17
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 chance of total conquest by one group, and allows easy escape for any man who does not like his own island. These were advantages 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, 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 they 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?”
This is how life is in the present day. With Sadness we are forced to realize that our peace and prosperity rest upon the body of a ravaged society whose destruction made possible our existence. But this is the way of all societies, and there is nothing we can do about it. Some of the mourners of the past might do well to consider the future. Far-wandering bands of Fijian Lumists have reported a stir of movement in the savage tribes who now inhabit the continents. These scattered and fearful savages may be ignored for the moment: but who knows what the future will bring?
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, Lum’s 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 Lum’s 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 irresistable. 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 that 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 that 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 these 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.
A brief note from the doctor 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 the madman had left—the list that had been found on his table.
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 merely wished to study the papers alone for a while. The people waited and did not lose patience for many years, although Watts died. But Joenes never descended from the mountains.
Nearly two centuries later, a hunter climbed the high slopes of the 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 the old man held were faded by sun and rain to an undecipherable blur, and the old man hims
elf 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.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1962 by Robert Sheckley
ISBN 978-1-4804-9676-7
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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