A Ticket to Tranai

by Robert Sheckley

  A Ticket to Tranai

  Robert Sheckley

  “Most of Seakirk’s inhabitants were indifferent to the spectacle of corruption in high places and low, the gambling, the gang wars, the teen-age drinking. They were used to the sight of their roads crumbling, their ancient water mains bursting, their power plants breaking down, their decrepit old buildings falling apart, while the bosses built bigger homes, longer swimming pools and warmer stables. People were used to it…”

  Robert Sheckley, A Ticket To Tranai

  Robert Sheckley

  A Ticket to Tranai

  One fine day in June, a tall, thin, intent, soberly dressed young man walked into the offices of the Transstellar Travel Agency. Without a glance, he marched past the gaudy travel poster depicting the Harvest Feast on Mars. The enormous photomural of dancing forests on Triganium didn’t catch his eye. He ignored the somewhat suggestive painting of dawn-rites on Opiuchus II, and arrived at the desk of the booking agent.

  “I would like to book passage to Tranai,” the young man said.

  The agent closed his copy of Necessary Inventions and frowned. “Tranai? Tranai? Is that one of the moons of Kent IV?”

  “It is not,” the young man said. “Tranai is a planet, revolving around a sun of the same name. I want to book passage there.”

  “Never heard of it.” The agent pulled down a star catalogue, a simplified star chart, and a copy of Lesser Space Routes. “Well, now,” he said finally. “You learn something new every day. You want to book passage to Tranai, Mister…”

  “Goodman. Marvin Goodman.”

  “Goodman. Well, it seems that Tranai is about as far from Earth as one can get and still be in the Milky Way. Nobody goes there.”

  “I know. Can you arrange passage for me?” Goodman asked, with a hint of suppressed excitement in his voice.

  The agent shook his head. “Not a chance. Even the non-skeds don’t go that far.”

  “How close can you get me?”

  The agent gave him a winning smile. “Why bother? I can send you to a world that’ll have everything this Tranai place has, with the additional advantages of proximity, bargain rates, decent hotels, tours…”

  “I’m going to Tranai,” Goodman said grimly.

  “But there’s no way of getting there,” the agent explained patiently. “What is it you expected to find? Perhaps I could help.”

  “You can help by booking me as far as…”

  “Is it adventure?” the agent asked, quickly sizing up Goodman’s unathletic build and scholarly stoop. “Let me suggest Africanus II, a dawn-age world filled with savage tribes, saber-tooths, man-eating ferns, quicksand, active volcanoes, pterodactyls and all the rest. Expeditions leave New York every five days and they combine the utmost in danger with absolute safety. A dinosaur head guaranteed or your money refunded.”

  “Tranai,” Goodman said.

  “Hmm.” The clerk looked appraisingly at Goodman’s set lips and uncompromising eyes. “Perhaps you are tired of the puritanical restrictions of Earth? Then let me suggest a trip to Almagordo III, the Pearl of the Southern Ridge Belt. Our ten day all-expense plan includes a trip through the mysterious Almagordian Casbah, visits to eight nightclubs (first drink on us), a trip to a zintal factory, where you can buy genuine zintal belts, shoes and pocketbooks at phenomenal savings, and a tour through two distilleries. The girls of Almagordo are beautiful, vivacious and refreshingly naive. They consider the Tourist the highest and most desirable type of human being. Also…”

  “Tranai,” Goodman said. “How close can you get me?”

  Sullenly the clerk extracted a strip of tickets. “You can take the Constellation Queen as far as Legis II and transfer to the Galactic Splendor, which will take you to Oume. Then you’ll have to board a local, which, after stopping at Machang, Inch-ang, Pankang, Lekung and Oyster, will leave you at Tung-Bradar IV, if it doesn’t break down en route. Then a non-sked will transport you past the Galactic Whirl (if it gets past) to Aloomsridgia, from which the mail ship will take you to Bellismoranti. I believe the mail ship is still functioning. That brings you about halfway. After that, you’re on your own.”

  “Fine,” Goodman said. “Can you have my forms made out by this afternoon?”

  The clerk nodded. “Mr. Goodman,” he asked in despair, “just what sort of place is this Tranai supposed to be?”

  Goodman smiled a beatific smile. “A Utopia,” he said.

  Marvin Goodman had lived most of his life in Seakirk, New Jersey, a town controlled by one political boss or another for close to fifty years. Most of Seakirk’s inhabitants were indifferent to the spectacle of corruption in high places and low, the gambling, the gang wars, the teen-age drinking. They were used to the sight of their roads crumbling, their ancient water mains bursting, their power plants breaking down, their decrepit old buildings falling apart, while the bosses built bigger homes, longer swimming pools and warmer stables. People were used to it. But not Goodman.

  A natural-born crusader, he wrote expose articles that were never published, sent letters to Congress that were never read, stumped for honest candidates who were never elected, and organized the League for Civic Improvement, the People Against Gangsterism, the Citizen’s Union for an Honest Police Force, the Association Against Gambling, the Committee for Equal Job Opportunities for Women, and a dozen others.

  Nothing came of his efforts. The people were too apathetic to care. The politicoes simply laughed at him, and Goodman couldn’t stand being laughed at. Then, to add to his troubles, his fiancee jilted him for a noisy young man in a loud sports jacket who had no redeeming feature other than a controlling interest in the Seakirk Construction Corporation.

  It was a shattering blow. The girl seemed unaffected by the fact that the SCC used disproportionate amounts of sand in their concrete and shaved whole inches from the width of their steel girders. As she put it, “Gee whiz, Marvie, so what? That’s how things are. You gotta be realistic.”

  Goodman had no intention of being realistic. He immediately repaired to Eddie’s Moonlight Bar, where, between drinks, he began to contemplate the attractions of a grass shack in the green hell of Venus.

  An erect, hawk-faced old man entered the bar. Goodman could tell he was a spacer by his gravity-bound gait, his pallor, his radiation scars and his far-piercing gray eyes.

  “A Tranai Special, Sam,” the old spacer told the bartender.

  “Coming right up, Captain Savage, sir,” the bartender said.

  “Tranai?” Goodman murmured involuntarily.

  “Tranai,” the captain said. “Never heard of it, did you, sonny?”

  “No, sir,” Goodman confessed.

  “Well, sonny,” Captain Savage said, “I’m feeling a mite wordy tonight, so I’ll tell you a tale of Tranai the Blessed, out past the Galactic Whirl.”

  The captain’s eyes grew misty and a smile softened the grim line of his lips.

  “We were iron men in steel ships in those days. Me and Johnny Cavanaugh and Frog Larsen would have blasted to hell itself for half a load of terganium. Aye, and shanghaied Beelzebub for a wiper if we were short of men. Those were the days when space scurvey took every third man, and the ghost of Big Dan McClintock haunted the spaceways. Moll Gann still operated the Red Rooster Inn out on Asteroid 342-AA, asking five hundred Earth dollars for a glass of beer, and getting it too, there being no other place within ten billion miles. In those days, the Scarbies were still cutting up along Star Ridge and ships bound for Prodengum had to run the Swayback Gantlet. So you can imagine how I felt, sonny, when one fine day I came upon Tranai.”

  Goodman listened as the old captain limned a picture of the great days, of frail ships against an iron sky, ships outward bound, forever outwar
d, to the far limits of the Galaxy.

  And there, at the edge of the Great Nothing, was Tranai.

  Tranai, where The Way had been found and men were no longer bound to The Wheel! Tranai the Bountiful, a peaceful, creative, happy society, not saints or ascetics, not intellectuals, but ordinary people who had achieved Utopia.

  For an hour, Captain Savage spoke of the multiform marvels of Tranai. After finishing his story, he complained of a dry throat. Space throat, he called it, and Goodman ordered him another Tranai Special and one for himself. Sipping the exotic, green-gray mixture, Goodman too was lost in the dream.

  Finally, very gently, he asked, “Why don’t you go back, Captain?”

  The old man shook his head. “Space gout. I’m grounded for good. We didn’t know much about modern medicine in those days. All I’m good for now is a landsman’s job.”

  “What job do you have?”

  “I’m a foreman for the Seakirk Construction Corporation,” the old man sighed. “Me, that once commanded a fifty-tube clipper. The way those people make concrete… Shall we have another short one in honor of beautiful Tranai?”

  They had several short ones. When Goodman left the bar, his mind was made up. Somewhere in the Universe, the modus vivendi had been found, the working solution to Man’s old dream of perfection.

  He could settle for nothing less.

  The next day, he quit his job as designer at the East Coast Robot Works and drew his life savings out of the bank.

  He was going to Tranai.

  He boarded the Constellation Queen for Legis II and took the Galactic Splendor to Oume. After stopping at Machang, Inchang, Pankang, Lekung and Oyster — dreary little places — he reached Tung-Bradar IV. Without incident, he passed the Galactic Whirl and finally reached Bellismoranti, where the influence of Terra ended.

  For an exorbitant fee, a local spaceline took him to Dvasta II. From there, a freighter transported him past Seves, Olgo and Mi, to the double planet Mvanti. There he was bogged down for three months and used the time to take a hypno-pedic course in the Tranaian language. At last he hired a bush pilot to take him to Ding.

  On Ding, he was arrested as a Higastomeritreian spy, but managed to escape in the cargo of an ore rocket bound for g’Moree. At g’Moree, he was treated for frostbite, heat poisoning and superficial radiation burns, and at last arranged passage to Tranai.

  He could hardly believe it when the ship slipped past the moons Doe and Ri, to land at Port Tranai.

  After the airlocks opened, Goodman found himself in a state of profound depression. Part of it was plain letdown, inevitable after a journey such as his. But more than that, he was suddenly terrified that Tranai might turn out to be a fraud.

  He had crossed the Galaxy on the basis of an old spaceman’s yarn. But now it all seemed less likely. Eldorado was a more probable place than the Tranai he expected to find.

  He disembarked. Port Tranai seemed a pleasant enough town. The streets were filled with people and the shops were piled high with goods. The men he passed looked much like humans anywhere. The women were quite attractive.

  But there was something strange here, something subtly yet definitely wrong, something alien. It took a moment before he could puzzle it out.

  Then he realized that there were at least ten men for every woman in sight. And stranger still, practically all the women he saw apparently were under eighteen or over thirty-five.

  What had happened to the nineteen-to-thirty-five age group? Was there a taboo on their appearing in public? Had a plague struck them?

  He would just have to wait and find out.

  He went to the Idrig Building, where all Tranai’s governmental functions were carried out, and presented himself at the office of the Extraterrestrials Minister. He was admitted at once.

  The office was small and cluttered, with strange blue blotches on the wallpaper. What struck Goodman at once was a high-powered rifle complete with silencer and telescopic sight, hanging ominously from one wall. He had no time to speculate on this, for the minister bounded out of his chair and vigorously shook Goodman’s hand.

  The minister was a stout, jolly man of about fifty. Around his neck he wore a small medallion stamped with the Tranian seal — a bolt of lightning splitting an ear of corn. Goodman assumed, correctly, that this was an official seal of office.

  “Welcome to Tranai,” the minister said heartily. He pushed a pile of papers from a chair and motioned Goodman to sit down.

  “Mister Minister…” Goodman began, in formal Tranian.

  “Den Melith is the name. Call me Den. We’re all quite informal around here. Put your feet up on the desk and make yourself at home. Cigar?”

  “No, thank you,” Goodman said, somewhat taken back. “Mister — ah — Den, I have come from Terra, a planet you may have heard of.”

  “Sure I have,” said Melith. “Nervous, hustling sort of place, isn’t it? No offense intended, of course.”

  “Of course. That’s exactly how I feel about it. The reason I came here…” Goodman hesitated, hoping he wouldn’t sound too ridiculous. “Well, I heard certain stories about Tranai. Thinking them over now, they seem preposterous. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you…”

  “Ask anything,” Melith said expansively. “You’ll get a straight answer.”

  “Thank you. I heard that there has been no war of any sort on Tranai for four hundred years.”

  “Six hundred,” Melith corrected. “And none in sight.”

  “Someone told me that there is no crime on Tranai.”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “And therefore no police force or courts, no judges, sheriffs, marshals, executioners, truant officers or government investigators. No prisons, reformatories or other places of detention.”

  “We have no need of them,” Melith explained, “since we have no crime.”

  “I have heard,” said Goodman, “that there is no poverty on Tranai.”

  “None that I ever heard of,” Melith said cheerfully. “Are you sure you won’t have a cigar?”

  “No, thank you,” Goodman was leaning forward eagerly now. “I understand that you have achieved a stable economy without resorting to socialistic, communistic, fascistic or bureaucratic practices.”

  “Certainly,” Melith said.

  “That yours is, in fact, a free enterprise society, where individual initiative flourishes and governmental functions are kept to an absolute minimum.”

  Melith nodded. “By and large, the government concerns itself with minor regulatory matters, care of the aged and beautifying the landscape.”

  “Is it true that you have discovered a method of wealth distribution without resorting to governmental intervention, without even taxation, based entirely upon individual choice?” Goodman challenged.

  “Oh, yes, absolutely.”

  “Is it true that there is no corruption in any phase of the Tranaian government?”

  “None,” Melith said. “I suppose that’s why we have a hard time finding men to hold public office.”

  “Then Captain Savage was right!” Goodman cried, unable to control himself any longer. “This is Utopia!”

  “We like it,” Melith said.

  Goodman took a deep breath and asked, “May I stay here?”

  “Why not?” Melith pulled out a form. “We have no restrictions on immigration. Tell me, what is your occupation?”

  “On Earth, I was a robot designer.”

  “Plenty of openings in that.” Melith started to fill in the form. His pen emitted a blob of ink. Casually, the minister threw the pen against the wall, where it shattered, adding another blue blotch to the wallpaper.

  “We’ll make out the paper some other time,” he said. “I’m not in the mood now.” He leaned back in his chair. “Let me give you a word of advice. Here on Tranai, we feel that we have come pretty close to Utopia, as you call it. But ours is not a highly organized state. We have no complicated set of laws. We live by observance of a numb
er of unwritten laws, or customs, as you might call them. You will discover what they are. You would be advised — although certainly not ordered — to follow them.”

  “Of course I will,” Goodman exclaimed. “I can assure you, sir, I have no intention of endangering any phase of your paradise.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t worried about us,” Melith said with an amused smile. “It was your own safety I was considering. Perhaps my wife has some further advice for you.”

  He pushed a large red button on his desk. Immediately there was a bluish haze. The haze solidified, and in a moment Goodman saw a handsome young woman standing before him.

  “Good morning, my dear,” she said to Melith.

  “It’s afternoon,” Melith informed her. “My dear, this young man came all the way from Earth to live on Tranai. I gave him the usual advice. Is there anything else we can do for him?”

  Mrs. Melith thought for a moment, then asked Goodman, “Are you married?”

  “No, ma’am,” Goodman answered.

  “In that case, he should meet a nice girl,” Mrs. Melith told her husband. “Bachelordom is not encouraged on Tranai, although certainly not prohibited. Let me see… How about that cute Driganti girl?”

  “She’s engaged,” Melith said.

  “Really? Have I been in stasis that long? My dear, it’s not too thoughtful of you.”

  “I was busy,” Melith said apologetically.

  “How about Mihna Vensis?”

  “Not his type.”

  “Janna Vley?”

  “Perfect!” Melith winked at Goodman. “A most attractive little lady.” He found a new pen in his desk, scribbled an address and handed it to Goodman. “My wife will telephone her to be expecting you tomorrow evening.”

  “And do come around for dinner some night,” said Mrs. Melith.

  “Delighted,” Goodman replied, in a complete daze.

  “It’s been nice meeting you,” Mrs. Melith said. Her husband pushed the red button. The blue haze formed and Mrs. Melith vanished.

  “Have to close up now,” said Melith, glancing at his watch. “Can’t work overtime — people might start talking.. Drop in some day and we’ll make out those forms. You really should call on Supreme President Borg, too, at the National Mansion. Or possibly he’ll call on you. Don’t let the old fox put anything over on you. And don’t forget about Janna.” He winked roguishly and escorted Goodman to the door.