It was an old legend I had run across. The queer story of a man with many names ("I have had so many names," Moran had said) who wandered endlessly about the Earth, perhaps the universe now, simply because he had not let another rest for a moment on his doorsill.
Sometimes this man had been known as Cartaphilus. He had also been known as Juan Espera en Dios, as Ahasverus, and as Butta Deus. The Parisian gazette, "Turkish Spy," had in 1644 A.D. reported his presence in that city traveling under the name of "Paul Marrane." But men in general knew him by a more descriptive name. The Wandering Jew. The Eternal Jew....
But I did not tell Cap McNeally this. After all, it was a fanciful thought. And surely Moran—or Marrane, or Cartaphilus—was mad when he claimed to have met and talked with Simon Magnus twelve hundred years ago?
Anyway, when we saw that ad in the classified columns of this week's Spaceways Weekly, and McNeally claimed Moran would return to claim his reward, it raised again the question in my mind.
Will he return? Or will he find, at last, whatever peace awaits him out there? In the vast emptiness of space, where the power cannot—must not—extend? I wonder....