One Man's Poison

Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1953.

"Robert Sheckley: the best short-story writer the field has produced." — Alan Dean Foster

"I had no idea the competition was so terrifyingly good." — Douglas Adams

"Sheckley at his best is Voltaire and Soda." — Brian W. Aldiss

"Probably the best short-story writer during the 50s to the mid-1960s working in any field." — Neil Gaiman

"Always he crackles with ideas." — Kingsley Amis

"[Robert Sheckley is] witty and ingenious... a draught of pure Voltaire and tonic." — J. G. Ballard "If the Marx Brothers had been literary rather than thespic fantasists ... they would have been Robert Sheckley." — Harlan Ellison

"Journey of Joenes is a mid-20th century version of Voltaire’s Candide." — James Lovelock

Something had gone wrong when they'd loaded the ship, and the rations hadn't quite lasted long enough to make the outbound end of the uranium prospecting trip. Then they found an abandoned world, and landed the ship on an old warehouse facility . . . desperately searching for something to eat.

Not an easy thing to do, going through an alien warehouse when they could barely read the manuals, without as much of an inkling as to the nature of the local biology.

They would have eaten a horse, if there'd been one. But there wasn't. And that was probably for the best -- it might have eaten them first!