The Fabulous Riverboat by Phillip Jose Farmer

Shortly before supper time, Sam was called away. A man who had landed from a small boat had demanded to see the ruler of the land. Since it was a Clemens man who took him in, Sam got the report. He went off at once in one of the two alcohol-burning “jeeps” that had been finished only a week before. The slender, good-looking blond youth at the guardhouse rose and introduced himself, in Esperanto, as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Sam questioned him in German, noting that, whatever the youth’s identity, he did speak the soft Austrian version of High German. His vocabulary contained words which Sam did not understand, but whether this was because they were just Austrian vocabulary items or eighteenthcentury items, he did not know.

The man calling himself Mozart said that he had been living about twenty thousand miles up The River. He heard about the boat, but what set him off on his journey was a tale that the boat would carry an orchestra to make music for the amusement of the passengers. Mozart had suffered for twenty-three years in this world of limited materials, where the only musical instruments were drums, whistles, wooden flutes and pan pipes and a crude sort of harp made of bone and the guts of a Riverfish. Then he had heard about the mining of the siderite and the great Riverboat and its orchestra with piano, violin, flute, horns, and all the other beautiful instruments that he had known on Earth, plus others that had been invented since his death in 1791. And here he was. Was there a place for him in the music-making ranks of the boat?

Sam was an appreciator, though not a passionate lover, of some classical music. But he was thrilled at meeting the great Mozart face to face. That is, if this man was Mozart. There were so many phonies on The River, claiming to be everybody from the original one-and-only Jesus H. Christ down to P. T. Barnum, that he took no man’s word for his identity. He had even met three men who claimed to be Mark Twain.

“It just so happens that the former archbishop of Salzburg is a citizen of Parolando,” Sam said. “Even though you and he parted on bad terms, if I remember correctly, he’ll be glad to see you.”

Mozart did not turn pale or red. He said, “At last, somebody I knew during my lifetime! Would you believe . . .”

Sam would believe that Mozart had not met anybody he’d known on Earth. So far, he himself had met only three people he’d known, and his acquaintanceship had been extensive during his long life and worldwide travels. That his wife Livy was one of the three was a coincidence exceeding the bounds of probability. He suspected that the Mysterious Stranger had arranged that. But even Mozart’s eagerness in seeing the archbishop did not confirm that he was indeed Mozart. In the first place, the impostors that Sam had met had frequently insisted that those who were supposed to be their old friends were either mistaken or else impostors themselves. They had more gall than France. In the second place, the archbishop of Salzburg did not live in Parolando. Sam had no idea where he was. He had sprung him just to test Mozart’s reaction. Sam agreed that Sinjoro Mozart could apply for citizen-

hip. First, he straightened him out about the musical instruments. These had not been made yet. Nor would they be wood or brass. They would be electronic devices which could reproduce exactly the sounds of various instruments. But if Sinjoro Mozart was indeed the man he claimed to be, he had a good chance of being the conductor of the orchestra. And he could have all the time he wanted to compose new works.

Sam did not promise him that he would have the conductorship. He had learned his lesson about making promises.

A big party was held in John’s palace in honor of Hacking, who seemed to have discharged his venom for the day at the first meeting. Sam talked with him for an hour and found that Hacking was very intelligent and literate, a selfeducated man with a flak for the imaginative and the poetic.