Pilgrimage to Earth

by Robert Sheckley

  “And I’m the infection spot.”

  “We must accept the rules,” Morgan said, standing erectly in front of Feerman’s desk. “Your salary will continue until you reach some resolution.”

  “Thanks,” Feerman said dryly. He stood up and put on his hat.

  Morgan put a hand on his shoulder. “Have you considered The Academy?” he asked in a low voice. “I mean, if nothing else seems to work—”

  “Definitely and irrevocably not,” Feerman said, looking directly into Morgan’s small blue eyes.

  Morgan turned away. “You seem to have an illogical prejudice against The Academy. Why? You know how our society is organized. You can’t think that anything against the common good would be allowed.”

  “I don’t suppose so,” Feerman admitted. “But why isn’t more known about The Academy?”

  They walked through the silent office. None of the men Feerman had known for so long looked up from their work. Morgan opened the door and said, “You know all about The Academy.”

  “I don’t know how it works.”

  “Do you know everything about any therapy? Can you tell me all about Substitution Therapy? Or Analysis? Or Olgivey’s Reduction?”

  “No. But I have a general idea how they work.”

  “Everyone does,” Morgan said triumphantly, then quickly lowered his voice. “That’s just it. Obviously, The Academy doesn’t give out such information because it would interfere with the operation of the therapy itself. Nothing odd about that, is there?”

  Feerman thought it over, and allowed Morgan to guide him into the hall. “I’ll grant that,” he said. “But tell me; why doesn’t anyone ever leave The Academy? Doesn’t that strike you as sinister?”

  “Certainly not. You’ve got a very strange outlook.” Morgan punched the elevator button as he talked. “You seem to be trying to create a mystery where there isn’t one. Without prying into their professional business, I can assume that their therapy involves the patient’s remaining at The Academy. There’s nothing strange about a substitute environment. It’s done all the time.”

  “If that’s the truth, why don’t they say so?”

  “The fact speaks for itself.”

  “And where,” Feerman asked, “is the proof of their hundred percent cures?”

  The elevator arrived, and Feerman stepped in. Morgan said, “The proof is in their saying so. Therapists can’t lie. They can’t, Feerman!”

  Morgan started to say something else, but the elevator doors slid shut. The elevator started down, and Feerman realized with a shock that his job was gone.

  It was a strange sensation, not having a job any longer. He had no place to go. Often he had hated his work. There had been mornings when he had groaned at the thought of another day at the office. But now that he had it no longer, he realized how important it had been to him, how solid and reliable. A man is nothing, he thought, if he doesn’t have work to do.

  He walked aimlessly, block after block, trying to think. But he was unable to concentrate. Thoughts kept sliding out of reach, eluding him, and were replaced by glimpses of his wife’s face. And he couldn’t even think about her, for the city pressed in on him, its faces, sounds, smells.

  The only plan of action that came to mind was unfeasible. Run away, his panicky emotions told him. Go where they’ll never find you. Hide!

  But Feerman knew this was no solution. Running away was sheer escapism, and proof of his deviation from the norm. Because what, really, would he be running from? From the sanest, most perfect society that Man had ever conceived. Only a madman would run from that.

  Feerman began to notice the people he passed. They looked happy, filled with the new spirit of Responsibility and Social Sanity, willing to sacrifice old passions for a new era of peace. It was a good world, a hell of a good world. Why couldn’t he live in it?

  He could. With the first confidence he had felt in weeks, Feerman decided that he would conform, somehow.

  If only he could find out how.

  After hours of walking, Feerman discovered that he was hungry. He entered the first diner he saw. The place was crowded with laborers, for he had walked almost to the docks.

  He sat down and looked at a menu, telling himself that he needed time to think. He had to assess his actions properly, figure out—

  “Hey, mister.”

  He looked up. The bald, unshaven counterman was glaring at him.

  “What?”

  “Get out of here.”

  “What’s wrong?” Feerman asked, trying to control his sudden panic.

  “We don’t serve no madmen here,” the counterman said. He pointed to the Sanity Meter on the wall, that registered everyone walking in. The black indicator pointed slightly past nine. “Get out.”

  Feerman looked at the other men at the counter. They sat in a row, dressed in similar rough brown clothing. Their caps were pulled down over their eyes, and every man seemed to be reading a newspaper.

  “I’ve got a probationary—”

  “Get out,” the counterman said. “The law says I don’t have to serve no plus-nines. It bothers my customers. Come on, move.”

  The row of laborers sat motionless, not looking at him. Feerman felt the blood rush to his face. He had the sudden urge to smash in the counterman’s bald, shiny skull, wade into the row of listening men with a meat cleaver, spatter the dirty walls with their blood, smash, kill. But of course, aggression was unsane, and an unsatisfactory response. He mastered the impulse and walked out.

  Feerman continued to walk, resisting the urge to run, waiting for the train of logical thought that would tell him what to do. But his thoughts only became more confused, and by twilight he was ready to drop from fatigue.

  He was standing on a narrow, garbage-strewn street in the slums. He saw a hand-lettered sign in a second-floor window, reading, J.J. FLYNN, PSYCHOLOGICAL THERAPIST. MAYBE I CAN HELP YOU. Feerman grinned wryly, thinking of all the high-priced specialists he had seen. He started to walk away, then turned, and went up the staircase leading to Flynn’s office. He was annoyed with himself again. The moment he saw the sign he had known he was going up. Would he never stop deceiving himself?

  Flynn’s office was small and dingy. The paint was peeling from the walls, and the room had an unwashed smell. Flynn was seated behind an unvarnished wooden desk, reading an adventure magazine. He was small, middle-aged, and balding. He was smoking a pipe.

  Feerman had meant to start from the beginning. Instead he blurted out, “Look, I’m in a jam. I’ve lost my job, my wife’s left me, I’ve been to every therapy there is. What can you do?”

  Flynn took the pipe out of his mouth and looked at Feerman. He looked at his clothes, hat, shoes, as though estimating their value. Then he said, “What did the others say?”

  “In effect, that I didn’t have a chance.”

  “Of course they said that,” Flynn said, speaking rapidly in a high, clear voice. “These fancy boys give up too easily. But there’s always hope. The mind is a strange and complicated thing, my friend, and sometimes—” Flynn stopped abruptly and grinned with sad humor. “Ah, what’s the use? You’ve got the doomed look, no doubt of it.” He knocked the ashes from his pipe and stared at the ceiling. “Look, there’s nothing I can do for you. You know it, I know it. Why’d you come up here?”

  “Looking for a miracle, I suppose,” Feerman said, wearily sitting down on a wooden chair.

  “Lots of people do,” Flynn said conversationally. “And this looks like the logical place for one, doesn’t it? You’ve been to the fancy offices of the specialists. No help there. So it would be right and proper if an itinerant therapist could do what the famous men failed to do. A sort of poetic justice.”

  “Pretty good,” Feerman said, smiling faintly.

  “Oh, I’m not at all bad,” Flynn said, filling his pipe from a shaggy green pouch. “But the truth of the matter is, miracles cost money, always have, always will. If the big boys couldn’t help you, I certainly coul
dn’t.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” Feerman said, but made no move to get up.

  “It’s my duty as a therapist,” Flynn said slowly, “to remind you that The Academy is always open.”

  “How can I go there?” Feerman asked. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  “No one does,” Flynn said. “Still I hear they cure every time.”

  “Death is a cure.”

  “But a nonfunctional one. Besides, that’s too discordant with the times. Deviants would have to run such a place, and deviants just aren’t allowed.”

  “Then why doesn’t anyone ever leave?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Flynn said. “Perhaps they don’t want to.” He puffed on his pipe. “You want some advice. Okay. Have you any money?”

  “Some,” Feerman said warily.

  “Okay. I shouldn’t be saying this, but...Stop looking for cures! Go home. Send your robutler out for a couple month’s supply of food. Hole up for a while.”

  “Hole up? Why?”

  Flynn scowled furiously at him. “Because you’re running yourself ragged trying to get back to the norm, and all you’re doing is getting worse. I’ve seen it happen a thousand times. Don’t think about sanity or unsanity. Just lie around a couple of months, rest, read, grow fat. Then see how you are.”

  “Look,” Feerman said, “I think you’re right. I’m sure of it! But I’m not sure if I should go home. I made a telephone call today...I’ve got some money. Could you hide me here? Could you hide me?”

  Flynn stood up and looked fearfully out the window at the dark street. “I’ve said too much as it is. If I were younger...But I can’t do it! I’ve given you unsane advice! I can’t commit an unsane action on top of that!”

  “I’m sorry,” Feerman said. “I shouldn’t have asked you. But I’m really grateful. I mean it.” He stood up. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing,” Flynn said. “Good luck to you.”

  “Thanks.” Feerman hurried downstairs and hailed a cab. In twenty minutes he was home.

  The hall was strangely quiet as Feerman walked toward his apartment. His landlady’s door was closed as he passed it, but he had the impression that it had been open until he came, and that the old woman was standing beside it now, her ear against the thin wood. He walked faster, and entered his apartment.

  It was quiet in his apartment, too. Feerman walked into the kitchen. His robutler was standing beside the stove, and Speed was curled up in the corner.

  “Welcome home, sir,” the robutler said. “If you will sit, I will serve your supper.”

  Feerman sat down, thinking about his plans. There were a lot of details to work out, but Flynn was right. Hole up, that was the thing. Stay out of sight.

  “I’ll want you to go shopping first thing in the morning,” he said to the robutler.

  “Yes sir,” the robutler said, placing a bowl of soup in front of him.

  “We’ll need plenty of staples. Bread, meat...No, buy canned goods.”

  “What kind of canned goods?” the robutler asked.

  “Any kind, as long as it’s a balanced diet. And cigarettes, don’t forget cigarettes! Give me the salt, will you?”

  The robutler stood beside the stove, not moving. But Speed began to whimper softly.

  “Robutler. The salt please.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the robutler said.

  “What do you mean, you’re sorry? Hand me the salt.”

  “I can no longer obey you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You have just gone over the red line, sir. You are now plus ten.”

  Feerman just stared at him for a moment. Then he ran into the bedroom and turned on the Sanity Meter. The black indicator crept slowly to the red line, wavered, then slid decisively over.

  He was plus ten.

  But that didn’t matter, he told himself. After all, it was a quantitative measurement. It didn’t mean that he had suddenly become a monster. He would reason with the robutler, explain it to him.

  Feerman rushed out of the bedroom. “Robutler! Listen to me—”

  He heard the front door close. The robutler was gone.

  Feerman walked into the living room and sat down on the couch. Naturally the robutler was gone. They had built-in sanity reading equipment. If their masters passed the red line, they returned to the factory automatically. No plus ten could command a mechanical.

  But he still had a chance. There was food in the house. He would ration himself. It wouldn’t be too lonely with Speed here. Perhaps he would just need a few days.

  “Speed?”

  There was no sound in the apartment.

  “Come here, boy.”

  Still no sound.

  Feerman searched the apartment methodically, but the dog wasn’t there. He must have left with the robutler.

  Alone, Feerman walked into the kitchen and drank three glasses of water. He looked at the meal his robutler had prepared, started to laugh, then checked himself.

  He had to get out, quickly. There was no time to lose. If he hurried, he could still make it, to someplace, any place. Every second counted now.

  But he stood in the kitchen, staring at the floor as the minutes passed, wondering why his dog had left him.

  There was a knock on his door.

  “Mr. Feerman!”

  “No,” Feerman said.

  “Mr. Feerman, you must leave now.”

  It was his landlady. Feerman walked to the door and opened it. “Go? Where?”

  “I don’t care. But you can’t stay here any longer, Mr. Feerman. You must go.”

  Feerman went back for his hat, put it on, looked around the apartment, then walked out. He left the door open.

  Outside, two men were waiting for him. Their faces were indistinct in the darkness.

  “Where do you want to go?” one asked.

  “Where can I go?”

  “Surgery or The Academy.”

  “The Academy, then.”

  They put him in a car and drove quickly away. Feerman leaned back, too exhausted to think. He could feel a cool breeze on his face, and the slight vibration of the car was pleasant. But the ride seemed interminably long.

  “Here we are,” one of the men said at last. They stopped the car and led him inside an enormous gray building, to a barren little room. In the middle of the room was a desk marked RECEPTIONIST. A man was sprawled half across it, snoring gently.

  One of Feerman’s guards cleared his throat loudly. The receptionist sat up immediately, rubbing his eyes. He slipped on a pair of glasses and looked at them sleepily.

  “Which one?” he asked.

  The two guards pointed at Feerman.

  “All right.” The receptionist stretched his thin arms, then opened a large black notebook. He made a notation, tore out the sheet and handed it to Feerman’s guards. They left immediately.

  The receptionist pushed a button, then scratched his head vigorously. “Full moon tonight,” he said to Feerman, with evident satisfaction.

  “What?” Feerman asked.

  “Full moon. We get more of you guys when the moon’s full, or so it seems. I’ve thought of doing a study on it.”

  “More? More what’“ Feerman asked, still adjusting to the shock of being within The Academy.

  “Don’t be dense,” the receptionist said sternly. “We get more plus tens when the moon is full. I don’t suppose there’s any correlation, but—ah, here’s the guard.”

  A uniformed guard walked up to the desk, still knotting his tie.

  “Take him to 312AA,” the receptionist said. As Feerman and the guard walked away, he removed his glasses and stretched out again on the desk.

  The guard led Feerman through a complex network of corridors, marked off with frequent doors. The corridors seemed to have grown spontaneously, for branches shot off at all angles, and some parts were twisted and curved, like ancient city streets. As he walked,

  Feerman noticed that the doors were not number
ed in sequence. He passed 3112, then 25P, and then 14. And he was certain he passed the number 888 three times.

  “How can you find your way?” he asked the guard.

  “That’s my job,” the guard said, not unpleasantly.

  “Not very systematic,” Feerman said, after a while.

  “Can’t be,” the guard said in an almost confidential tone of voice. “Originally they planned this place with a lot fewer rooms, but then the rush started. Patients, patients, more every day, and no sign of a letup. So the rooms had to be broken into smaller units, and new corridors had to be cut through.”

  “But how do the doctors find their patients?” Feerman asked.

  They had reached 312AA. Without answering, the guard unlocked the door, and, when Feerman had walked through, closed and locked it after him.

  It was a very small room. There was a couch, a chair, and a cabinet, filling all the available space.

  Almost immediately, Feerman heard voices outside the door. A man said, “Coffee then, at the cafeteria in half an hour.” A key turned. Feerman didn’t hear the reply, but there was a sudden burst of laughter. A man’s deep voice said, “Yes, and a hundred more and we’ll have to go underground for room!”

  The door opened and a bearded man in a white jacket came in, still smiling faintly. His face became professional as soon as he saw Feerman. “Just lie on the couch, please,” he said, politely, but with an unmistakable air of command.

  Feerman remained standing. “Now that I’m here,” he said, “would you explain what all this means?”

  The bearded man had begun to unlock the cabinet. He looked at Feerman with a wearily humorous expression, and raised both eyebrows. “I’m a doctor,” he said, “not a lecturer.”

  “I realize that. But surely—”

  “Yes, yes,” the doctor said, shrugging his shoulders helplessly. “I know. You have a right to know, and all that. But they really should have explained it all before you reached here. It just isn’t my job.”

  Feerman remained standing. The doctor said, “Lie down on the couch like a good chap, and I’ll tell all.” He turned back to the cabinet.