A Summary of "Pilgrimage to Earth" by Robert Sheckley

A collection of science fiction short stories by American writer Robert Sheckley was published as a book in 1957. This book is a satirical panorama of human vices and delusions, where a cosmic setting exposes bureaucratic absurdity, rampant consumerism, and the mechanization of genuine feelings. The stories’ plots are built on paradoxes that push conventional social rules to their logical conclusion.

The traps of commercialization and consumer paradise

Farmer Alfred Simon leaves the grain-growing town of Kazanga-4 and rushes to the ancestral home of humanity in search of the romance celebrated by ancient poets ("Pilgrimage to Earth"). In New York, the firm "Love, Incorporated" arranges a client a date with Penny Bright on the seashore under a mad moon. The next morning, manager Tate presents the bill and explains the procedure: the girl was instilled with ardent passion using hypnosis, and after the date, her memories were erased for the sake of the next client. The company guarantees the quality of its products: "We use our scientific knowledge of the laws of human thought." Shaken, Simon, in a fit of rage, returns to the street shooting range to shoot real live ammunition at live female targets.

The uptight Mr. Esmond approaches the upstanding employee Ferguson, offering to secretly eliminate any annoying person ("Liquidation Service"). The visitor assures him that the firm’s main source of income comes from failed marriages. Ferguson spends a long time analyzing his nagging wife’s shortcomings and considers a romance with his attractive secretary, Dale. Before the end of the workday, he decides to spare his wife and declines the tempting offer over the phone. At home, the repentant husband is tied up by orderlies with a burlap sack, as his wife had filed a similar request a couple of hours earlier.

The Carrin family lives in a house crammed full of Avignon Electric automatic appliances ("Cost of Living"). A regular visit from financial inspector Pathis reveals an astronomical debt of over two hundred thousand dollars. The owner’s salary is insufficient to cover the interest. Carrin signs a bond on her young son Billy’s future earnings for thirty years. The child dreams, unsuccessfully, of flying to Mars to escape the endless financial shackles. The head of the family takes up his night shift at the factory’s washing machine assembly line, suddenly developing a deep aversion to the mechanical act of pressing start buttons.

Unemployed Joe Collins finds a gray metal cube in the middle of his squalid rented room, labeled "Class A Recycler" (Something for Free). The device materializes any material goods on demand. Joe consistently demands wads of cash, a country mansion, a luxurious palace in Central America, perfect health, and immortality. Soon, Civil Protection Union Inspector Flynn materializes with a final receipt for eighteen billion credits. Deprived of funds, the debtor is transported to an icy plain to crush rock in a quarry, having been given immortality for free for thousands of years of hard labor.

Contact with Space and the Crisis of Human Supremacy

Anthropologist Carver is completing a scientific paper on the innate inferiority of extraterrestrial races ("Scavenger on Lorei"). His armed assistant, Fred, discovers the secret of the sacred sap, called serei, which can heal mortal wounds and grant longevity. For profit, the assistant shot a village scavenger and forcibly took the elixir. The healing liquid triggers a reverse mutation, transforming the earthling into a gray-skinned Lorean. Carver coolly pushes his former partner into a crowd of natives, defending his racist doctrine from public refutation: "I’ll give you all our serei sap."

Researcher Bentley lands on the planet Tels IV wearing the experimental "Protect" protective suit. The bulky, seventy-three-pound device is strapped tightly to his back. The apparatus instantly reacts to any movement, surrounding the researcher with an impenetrable black sphere of force. Local shamans mistake the protective field for an evil demon, which the alien must be cleansed of with sacred fire. Suffocated in the darkness, the cosmonaut cuts the plastic straps with wire cutters. The islanders begin making sacrifices to the empty armored device.

Chief of Security on Mars, Tully, catches the skinny stowaway Johnny Franklin ("The Hare"). The scientific expedition is too expensive to support the unskilled laborer. The young man tells of persecution on Earth because of a philosophical concept he discovered. Right before the astonished officer’s eyes, the carpenter levitates and moves through space by the power of his thoughts: "Once you see the Truth, truly see it, everything becomes possible." Tully leaves the phenomenal craftsman at the Martian base and allows him to call his nurse.

Chronic loser Anton Nastoych is hired as a pioneer on the uninhabited planet Theta ("Minimum Human"). The colonization agency supplies him with faulty equipment and a saboteur robot, programmed to counteract any successes the settler makes in order to test the survivability of weak humans. Nastoych sets up a farm and establishes contact with intelligent mole-folk. The robot, driven mad, destroys the farm. Anton lures the steel companion onto a mountain cliff and drops it into a crevasse, forever ridding himself of his inferiority complex.

A living spaceship of the Galactic Commonwealth is caught in a photon storm and loses a vital crew member — the Accelerator ("Specialist"). The remaining specialized organs are sent to the outskirts of the galaxy for replacements. On uncontacted Earth, aliens abduct an ordinary man. Isolated humanity has created a mechanical civilization, having forgotten its natural gift for moving ships by sheer willpower. The Earthman connects to the shared neural network and accelerates the ship to eight times the speed of light.

Social regulations and psychological control

Future society is subjugated to a cult of stability and mental health ("Academy"). Built-in Cagill-Thomas devices continuously measure the social danger level of its citizens. Employee Firmen’s level crosses the critical ten. People turn away from the outcast, and the robot butler leaves the apartment. The patient voluntarily surrenders to the mysterious Academy instead of undergoing a surgical lobotomy. The doctor administers a sedative injection. The unfortunate person’s consciousness is plunged into a perpetual hallucination of a battle with phantoms: "Who will protect the individual from society?"

A reconnaissance ship from the totalitarian planet Glom lands near Earth’s nuclear power plant ("Form"). The crew members are capable of altering their bodies, but back home, changing one’s caste appearance is punishable by law. Radio operator Ilg and indicator Jer quickly escape into the forest, transforming into an oak tree and a hunting dog. The fugitives discover the joy of freedom. The pilot attempts to fulfill his duty by assuming human form, but at the last moment, he destroys the communications device and soars into the sky as a white bird.

The population of an isolated planet carefully preserves the remnants of a forgotten spacefaring civilization ("Ritual"). Customs regulations and unloading rules have evolved over five thousand years into sacred religious dances. A lifeboat carrying two thirsty earthlings lands on a field. An elder chanter leads a circle dance, mistaking the aliens’ wheezing and convulsions for divine approval. A sudden downpour saves the cosmonauts, as a junior priest proclaims their thirsty drinking a long-awaited sign from above.

The isolated colony of New Dilaver has enjoyed a lawless, tranquil life for two hundred years ("Murder Warrant"). Before a visit from a strict inspector from Earth, the mayor orders a hasty imitation of the trappings of a metropolis. Tom Rybak is officially designated the town’s criminal. He attempts to steal items left behind by his fellow townspeople and ambush his victim in an alley. No one in the peace-loving community succeeds in committing violence. The inspector, alarmed by a society without a murderous streak, quickly departs: "A dangerous infection."

The vicissitudes of fate and the burden of illusions

Insurance agent Arthur Hammett suddenly disappears from a Second Avenue intersection and materializes in the magical pentagon of the horned warlock Neelzebub ("Demons"). The alien sorcerer demands a ransom of ten thousand pounds of gold. Arthur learns the spell’s text, purchases sulfur and a dried hand in New York, and draws protective lines for the house. The five-meter-tall blue demon he summons deftly packages Neelzebub in a glass bottle. His fellow insurance agents amicably discuss compensation rates.

Partners Gregor and Arnold from the Ace Planetary Cleaning Service undertake the transport of a shipment of alien animals ("Milk Van Flight"). Quils multiply by the dozens from the cold, smags shrink from gravity, and firgel lizards freeze compartments with their icy breath. Metallic wool clogs the main engine bearings. The monopoly warehouse refuses to allow the damaged vessel to land. Resourceful Arnold registers the ship, stuck in orbit, as floating storage.

Prospector Tom Morrison searches for precious minerals in the scorching Scorpio Desert of Venus ("Prospector’s Special"). A broken wheel disables his sand buggy. Supply services flatly refuse to grant him a loan for water. Exhausted, the traveler fights off predators with his last bullets and falls right onto a rich vein. Threatening to destroy Williams-4’s mail robot, Morrison contacts a broker, submits a request, and receives a colossal copper bowl of spring water from the sky.

Future programmers attempt to prevent the death of tycoon Ben Baxter in 1959 to save the planet’s forests ("The Three Deaths of Ben Baxter"). The operators intervene in three parallel timelines. In the first world, a meeting with his partner, Brynn, ends in a fight with a fatal broken neck. In the second world, a rapier accidentally infects him with the deadly Hong Kong plague. In the third world, Brynn voluntarily cancels the meeting, but Baxter, terrified of bankruptcy, takes poison: "The air we breathe is in his hands."

An ordinary student meets an invisible alien, a derg, who volunteers to protect him from hidden threats ("Guardianship"). Avoiding ordinary troubles upsets the balance of probabilities. Vicious astral monsters descend on the apartment. The invisible man dies at the jaws of a trang monster, having managed to shout a mysterious warning to his charge: "Don’t polish!" The student locks himself in his room, afraid to commit an unknown act.

Farmer Edward Flaswell develops the rocky asteroid "Chance" and orders a hardy frontier bride by mail ("Man’s Burden"). The package delivers a capricious metropolitan model, Sheila, accompanied by a robot chaperone. She quickly establishes a cozy home, making jam, and repairing the broken robotic arms of the workers. Her devoted servant, Ganga-Sam, locks the annoying robot priest in a barn, allowing the young couple to declare their love.