A World Called Crimson by Stephen Marlowe (the beach read TXT) 📕

camp over here. I know the men still in the ship will want to stretch their legs soon as possible. We don't want to have to go looking for you, Glaudot."

"Not me, Captain," Glaudot assured him, and walked off toward the crater rim with young Ensign Chandler.

"What the devil was that?" Chandler said forty-five minutes later.

"Stop jumping at every shadow you see. Relax."

"I thought I saw something moving behind that rock."

"So, go take a look."

"But—"

"Hell, boy, don't let that Purcell put the fear of the unknown into you on your very first trip out. Huh, what do you say?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Glaudot," Ensign Chandler replied.

"After all," Glaudot went on, "we have nothing to be afraid of. We're still within sight of the ship."

Chandler turned around. "I don't see it," he said.

"From the top of that rock you could."

"Think so?"

"Sure I do. Why don't you take a look if it will make you feel better?"

"All right," Chandler said, and smiled at his own temerity. But he knew vaguely that he'd been caught in a crossfire between the cautious Purcell and the bold, arrogant Glaudot. Sometimes he really thought that the Captain's caution made sense: on Wulcreston, he'd learned at the Academy, a whole Earth expedition had been slaughtered before contact because the natives mistook hand telescopes for weapons. And surely on any world a spacesuited man looked more like a monster than a man although he was vulnerable in a spacesuit, even more vulnerable than a naked man because he could only run awkwardly.

All this Chandler thought as he climbed the high rock rampart. He'd send a subspace letter back to the folks tonight, sure enough, he told himself. Not only had he been chosen for the preliminary exploration party, he'd made the first trip out of sight of the spaceship. It certainly was something to write home about, and Mom would be very proud ...

He was on top of the rock now. The vast tortuous landscape spread out below him like a relief map in a mapmaker's nightmare. Far to his left, beyond Glaudot's spacesuited figure, he could see the projectile-shaped spaceship resting on its tail fins. And to his right—

He stared. He gawked.

At the last moment he tried to get down from the rock, but his spaceboot caught on an outcropping and his fatal mistake was standing upright in an attempt to free it.

Then all at once in a blinding burst of pain he was clutching at something in his chest but knew as his life ebbed rapidly from his young body that it would not matter if he was able to pull the cruel shaft out....

Glaudot went rushing up the side of the rock. He still couldn't believe his eyes. Ensign Chandler had been impaled by two long feathered shafts, two arrows. The force of the first one had spun Chandler around and he lay now with his back arched across the topmost ramparts of the rock, two arrows protruding from his chest and his life blood, starkly crimson against the white of the spacesuit, pouring out.

Reaching the top of the rock in an attempt to drag the dying boy down, Glaudot saw the Indians rushing up the other side of the crater wall. Indians, he thought incredulously. Indians, as in the American West hundreds of years ago. Indians ... But just what the hell were they doing here?

A muscular brave notched an arrow, his right hand drawing the feathered shaft back to his ear. Quickly Glaudot flung his arms skyward, hoping that the universal gesture of surrender would be understood. The brave stood statue-still. His lips opened. He was speaking to another of the half-dozen Indians in the raiding band, but Glaudot could not hear the words through his space helmet. He knew his life hung in the balance.

He watched, fascinated and helpless, as the Indian who had slain Ensign Chandler came toward him.

Tashtu said: "Two raiding bands, Lord. One go north. Other south. We follow?"

They had reached the advance Indian camp on the fringe of the Wild Country. So far they had seen nothing of the Cyclopes who lived in this part of the world. Of all their creations, Charlie and Robin feared and avoided only the Cyclopes, the enormous one-eyed giants which had so intrigued Robin in the encyclopedia that she'd had a compulsion to create them, and had done so.

"We can't follow both bands," Charlie said, looking troubled.

"Why can't we?" Robin asked. "You go north with some of the braves, Charlie. I'll go south. We ought to be able to overtake the raiding parties before anything happens."

"I can't let you go alone."

"All right. I'll take Tashtu with me. Don't you think Tashtu can take care of me as well as you can?"

"Well, I just don't like the idea—" Charlie began.

"That's silly. If we have to find them before there's trouble, we have to find them. Well, don't we?"

Charlie gave her an uncertain nod. He had grown up with her and had seen her every day of his life, but every time he took a good look at her, at the lovely face and the tawny, long-limbed form ill-concealed by the gold-mesh garments, it took his breath away. Although in a sense a whole world was his plaything, he had never seen anything so lovely. Finally he said, "I guess you're too logical for me. Take care of her, Tashtu."

"With my life, Lord," the Indian vowed as the group broke up. Robin ran to Charlie and hugged him, kissing his cheek half playfully, half in earnest.

"You be careful, too," she said, and went off with Tashtu and several of the braves.

Naturally she was excited. She knew more about spacemen than Charlie did. She had read the encyclopedia more carefully, hadn't she? She wondered what the spacemen would be like. She couldn't help wondering it because the only man she had ever known, except for those they had created, was Charlie. Of course, she hadn't told Charlie this in so many words, but she felt, had always felt, vaguely and now felt clearly, that before she could settle down contentedly with Charlie, she would have to know something of the world beyond Crimson. And there was a vast world—a multitude of worlds—beyond Crimson. She knew that. The encyclopedia mentioned all of them but did not mention Crimson at all.

They walked for several minutes through green forest, and then abruptly came to the edge of the Wild Country. Even the idea of the Wild Country brought an eagerness to Robin's limbs and made her walk more rapidly. The Wild Country was unknown, wasn't it? They had created it without knowing quite what they were creating, and had never explored it.

She went ahead with Tashtu over the rocks and crushed pumice. No winds blew in Wild Country. The air was neither hot nor cold. The landscape seemed changeless and eternal, as if it had been that way since before the dawn of history, although actually Charlie and Robin had created it only a few years before.

They forged on for two hours, Tashtu following the easily read spoor in the pumice. They came at last to a low crater wall, where the spoor disappeared. At first Tashtu was confused, but then he pointed to the top, several hundred feet above their heads. Robin caught a glimpse of tawny skin and feathers and buckskin in the sunlight.

"Haloo!" Tashtu called, and some of the braves above them whirled, all speaking excitedly in the clumsy English which was the only tongue they knew.

"Huragpha slay monster," they said. "Capture other monster. But then see ..." the words drifted off into silence. Obviously, the Indians were perplexed. "You come, see. Monster, him bleed like man."

At Tashtu's side, Robin rushed up the steep rocky slope. When they reached the top, breathless and all but exhausted, Robin put her hand to her mouth with a little cry of horror.

There was a dead man stretched out on the rock there, two arrows transfixing his chest through the fabric of his spacesuit. The spacesuit had probably frightened the Indians, but he was a man all right. Had they been closer, even the Indians would have known that. That poor man.... Why, he was hardly more than a boy.

Spacemen!

And there was another, surrounded now by several of the Indians. "Him prisoner," said the Indian called Huragpha a little uncertainly.

Robin walked over to the man in the spacesuit. He was a big man, even bigger than Charlie. He looked very strong, but the spacesuit might have been deceptive. He looked frightened, but not terrified.

"Are you really a spaceman?" Robin asked.

Glaudot said: "Well, so one of you can speak more than a few grunts. That's something." He looked carefully at Robin. "Beautiful, too," he said. The way he said it was not a compliment. It was an objective statement of fact.

"I know it won't help to say I'm sorry about your friend. Words won't help, I guess. But—"

"Yeah," Glaudot said. "All right. He's dead. I can't bring him back and you can't bring him back, sister."

"I'm not your sister," Robin said.

Glaudot told her it was a way of speaking. He couldn't quite believe his ears. She spoke English as well as he did, which was incredible enough here on a world halfway across the galaxy. But he got the impression that she was almost fantastically naive. Yet the Indians—and, incredibly, they were Indians—seemed to be subservient to her, almost seemed to worship her.

Glaudot sat down on his space helmet, which he had taken off some minutes before, and said: "Are you the boss lady around here?"

"Boss lady? I don't understand."

"Are you in charge? Do you run things?"

Robin smiled and said: "I created them."

"I'm sorry. Now I don't get you."

"I said I created them. It's very simple. My friend and I decided a very long time ago it would be nice or interesting or I forget what, it was so long ago, if we had some Indians. So, we created Indians."

Glaudot threw his head back and laughed. "For a minute," he said, "you almost had me believing you." The girl was dressed like a savage, he told himself, like a beautiful savage, but at least she had a sense of humor. That was something.

"But what is so funny?" Robin asked.

"You just now said—"

"I know what I said. My friend and I created the Indians. Of course. Why? Can't you create anything you want? Just anything?"

"All right, sister," Glaudot said a little angrily. He did not like being made fun of, for he lacked the capacity to laugh at himself. "Just how much of a fool do you think I am?"

"Why, I don't know," Robin replied. "How much of a fool are you?"

Glaudot glared at her. Purcell was going to be one mad captain when he was told of Chandler's death, but men had died on expeditions before and it really wasn't Glaudot's fault. At any rate he had established contact with somebody of obvious importance among the natives, and Purcell would appreciate that.

"Never mind," Glaudot said.

"Tell me about being a spaceman. Do you really fly among the stars?"

"Well, yes," Glaudot said, "although it isn't really flying."

"And do you create new stars as you go along?"

There she went again with her talk of creation, as if creating things out of nothing was the commonest occurrence in the world. Glaudot stood up. "All right, sister. Show me."

"Why, show you what?"

"Create something."

"You mean," Robin said, disappointed, "you actually can't?"

"Just go ahead and create something."

Robin shrugged. "What would you like?"

Glaudot thought for a moment. "A piano!" he said suddenly. "How about a piano?" It was complicated enough, he thought. "And while you're at it, how about telling me how come everyone speaks English—or tries to speak English around here?"

Robin frowned. "Is there some other way of speaking?"

Glaudot also frowned. That line of thought wouldn't get him anywhere. "O.K.," he said. "One piano coming up?"

"All right," Robin said.

Glaudot blinked. The pretty girl hadn't moved. She hadn't even changed her facial expression. But a parlor grand piano stood on the rock before them.

"Well, I'll be damned," Glaudot said. "What else can you create?"

"We made all the natives here. We made the green and crimson. We made this whole Wild Country. We made some of the animals too."

"Like—the piano? Out of nothing?"

"Is there another way?"

Glaudot said, "You better come back to the ship with me. Captain'll like to see you."

Tashtu shook his head. "The Lady Robin awaits the Lord."

Glaudot looked at Robin. "Who's that?"

"Charlie. He's just my friend. I—I don't think I have to wait for him. I've always been more interested in reading about spacemen than he has. I'll go with you now if you want."

Tashtu looked unhappy. "Lord Charlie, he say—"

"Well, you wait right here, Tashtu, and tell Charlie where I've gone. What could be simpler? I'll be all right, don't worry about me."

"Lord Charlie, he say watch you."

"And I say I'm going with the spaceman to his spaceship."

Tashtu bowed. "The Lady has spoken," he said, and watched Robin descend the rocky rampart and walk back with Glaudot toward the far distant glint of metal which was this spaceship they were talking about.

"So you can create just anything," Glaudot said.

"I guess so."

A goddess, he thought. A beautiful goddess who ...

Suddenly he stared at her. Who could make him the most powerful man in the galaxy.

"This spaceship of yours—" she began.

"Wait. Wait a minute. If you can create anything, how's about re-creating Chandler?"

"Chand-ler? What is Chand-ler?"

"The boy back there. The one your braves killed."

Robin said: "If you wish," and Glaudot held his breath. The power over life and death, he thought....

He looked down and saw Chandler's spacesuited body there, the two arrows protruding from his chest. He shook his head. "Not dead," he said. "What good is he to anybody dead?"

Robin nodded. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just hadn't thought before of bringing people back to life. It ... why it seems ..."

"What's the matter?"

"I wouldn't really be bringing him back, you know. It would be a copy, just a copy."

"But a perfect copy?"

"I think so."

"Then if it's just a copy it shouldn't bother you at all, should it?"

"Well ..." Robin said doubtfully.

"Go ahead. Show me you can do it."

Glaudot gaped. Another figure sat alongside Chandler's corpse, Chandler's second corpse. The other figure got up. It was Chandler.

"Look out!" the new Chandler cried. "Look out—Indians!"

"Just take it easy," Glaudot told him. Glaudot's face was very white, his eyes big and round and staring.

Chandler looked down at the body on the rocks. His knees buckled and Glaudot caught him, stopping him from falling. Chandler tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come. He stared with horrified fascination at the body, which was an