“It must be difficult to find enough room on your planets for all those who think they’re saviors, mustn’t it?”
“We’ve a Charting Committee for that. Nine thousand Earthmen, hopelessly insane, beyond treatment on Earth, think they’re messiahs. That means a waiting list. There are only forty-seven thousand available cultures on forty-seven thousand planetoids between here and Saturn, and in the other sun systems.
And only two thousand of these cultures are gullible enough to accept a false redeemer. Therefore, there’s a long list of such applicants waiting to travel to some culture when an older savior dies. We couldn’t possibly introduce two self-deluded Gautama Buddhas into one culture simultaneously.
Oh! what dissension that would cause! But in event of one John, the Baptist, for instance, we could, at the same time, accommodate one Caesar, one Pontius Pilate, one Matthew, one Mark, one Luke, one John, along with him. You see?”
“I think so.”
“When you put one Mohammed into juxtaposition with one pseudo-contempory of ancient times, history repeats itself. All the drama of ancient times is being re-enacted here on these planetoids. Everybody’s happy, insanity is banished, drama lives.”
“Sounds faintly blasphemous.”
“Hardly. They’re happy, normal, to themselves. See that planet, there? Somewhere on it is a Joan of Arc listening for angel voices. Over there, see! A Mecca waits for a Mohammed to appear so they may finish out their acts.”
“It’s frightening.”
“Somewhat.” The captain walked off, away. Lisabeth watched him go.
Asteroid Number Thirty-six swung up and under the ship!
Other planetoids whirled by. Lisabeth watched them from her cell. They moved on the deep ocean blackness, full of some hidden drama and tragedy she could not fathom.
“There’s Othello’s planet!” cried John. “I read about that one.”
“Oh.” Alice was drinking steadily. She sat in a rubberoid chair, her eyes glazed. “Oh. Well, well. Isn’t that nice, isn’t it?”
“Othello and Desdemona and Iago! Warriors and banners and trumpets. Gosh, what it must be like down there.”
More planetoids, more, more. Lisabeth counted them with her simple, moving, pink lips. Moving, moving. More. There, and there!
“Down there somewhere is a man who thinks he’s Shakespeare!”
“Good for him, good,” murmured Alice, putting down her drink, lazily.
“Stratford on Avon’s down there, and strolling minstrels. All you do is bring some crazy fellow from Maine who thinks he’s Shakespeare up here and there’s the culture waiting for him, to really make him into Shakespeare! And do you know, Alice—Alice, are you listening?” John breathed swiftly.
“They live and die just as the famous men lived and died. They die the same deaths, in imitation. A woman who thinks she is Cleopatra puts an asp to her flesh. A man, who thinks he is Socrates, quaffs the hemlock! They live out old lives and die the old deaths. What an immensely beautiful insanity it is.”
“William, the things you say!” cooed Helen into the space phone. “I’ll be in Chicago next week, William. Yes, I’m all right. I’ll see you then, sweets.”
“Oh, pish,” said Alice.
“This is the best thing for Lizabeth,” John said. “We shouldn’t feel badly.”
“We certainly had to wait long enough.” Alice dropped her glass. “Put in application six months ago.”
“There were one thousand Catherines of Russia. One died yesterday. Lisabeth will fill her position. She’ll rule unwisely and not too well, but happily.”
Helen kissed her lips in front of the phone, pouting her red moist lips. “You know I do,” she said, eyes shut. “Love you, William, love you.” She was speaking softly over a few million miles of space.
“Time!” shouted the audio in the room. “Landing time!”
John got up and smoked a last cigarette nervously, his face wincing.
Catherine of Russia looked out at the three people. She saw Alice drink quietly and stupidly and John standing in a litter of cigarette butts under his shoes. And Helen was lying full length on a rubberoid couch, murmuring softly into the phone, stroking it.
Now John came to the window of the cell. She did not answer when he said hello. He did not believe in her.
“Sometimes I wonder where we’ll all wind up,” he said, simply, looking at Catherine. “Myself on a planetoid where I can burn gambling machines all day? First chop them with axes, then pour kerosene on them, then burn them? And what about Alice?
Will she wind up on a planetoid where oceans of gin and canals of sherry are the rule? And Helen? Will she land on a place full of handsome men, thousands of them? And nobody to reprimand her?”
A bell rang. “Asteroid Thirty-six! Landing! Landing! Time, time!”
John turned and walked to Alice. “Stop drinking.” He turned to Helen. “Get off the phone, we’re landing!” He took the phone away from her when she would not stop.
Catherine of Russia was ready for the welcome that came as she stepped from the ship. Streets were flooded with people, gilt carriages awaited, banners flew, somewhere a band played, cannons exploded into the roaring atmosphere. She began to cry.
They believed in her! They were her friends, all of these persons with smiling faces, all of these people in correct, shining costume. The palace awaited at the end of the avenue.
“Catherine, Catherine!”
“Your Majesty! Welcome Home!”
“Oh, your Majesty!”
“I’ve been away so long,” cried Catherine, holding her hands to her tearful face. She straightened herself. She controlled her voice, finally. “Such a long, long time. And now I’m back. It’s good, so good to be home.”
“Your Majesty, your Majesty!”
They kissed her hand, before conducting her to a carriage. Smiling, laughing, she called for wine. They brought her vast goblets of clear wine. She drank and threw a goblet shattering on the street! And a band played and drums beat and guns thundered!
And just as the horses pranced and the French and English Ambassadors stepped into the carriage, Catherine turned to give one last silent look at the ship from which she had stepped. For a moment she was quiet and for this brief time she knew a silence and a restive sadness. In the open port of the ship were three people, a man and two women, waving, waving at her.
“Who are those people, your Majesty?” asked the Spanish Ambassador.
“I don’t know,” whispered Catherine.
“Where are they from?”
“Some strange, far away place.”
“Do you know them, your Majesty?”
“Know them?” She put her hand out, almost to wave to them, then put her hand down. “No. I don’t think so. Odd people. Strange people. From some long ago, some horrible land somewhere. Insane, all three of them.
One works big game machines, another talks strangely over phones, and a third drinks, and drinks, forever. Really, quite insane.” Her eyes were dull. Now, her attention sharpened. She cracked her hand down. “Give them notice!”
“Your Majesty!”
“An hour’s notice to get out of Saint Petersburg!”
“Yes, your Majesty!”
“I won’t have strangers here, understand!”
“Yes, your Majesty!”
The carriage moved down the street, the horses dancing, the crowd hallooing, the band playing, leaving the silver rocket ship behind.
She did not look back again, not even when the man in the silver ship cried, “Good-bye, good-bye!” for his voice was drowned when the crowd on all sides rushed warmly in, engulfing her in happiness, shouting, “Catherine, Catherine, Mother of all the Russias!”
The End
