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

exact copy of himself—or a copy of the dead man from whom the new living man was copied.

"May we go to your spaceship now?" Robin asked Glaudot politely. "I have always wished to see a spaceship."

Here was power, Glaudot thought. Incredible power. All the power to control worlds, to carve worlds from primordial slime, almost, for yourself. Here was far more power than any man in the galaxy had ever been offered. Was it his, Glaudot's?

It wouldn't be if he brought the beautiful girl to the spaceship and Purcell. For Captain Purcell, a devoted servant of the galactic civilization which he was attempting to spread to the outworlds, would think in terms of what good the discovery of this girl could bring to all humanity. But if Glaudot kept her to himself ...

And then another thought almost stunned him. Why merely the girl? She'd mentioned a friend, hadn't she? Perhaps it was something in the atmosphere of this strange world, in the very air you breathed. Perhaps anyone could do it, could create out of nothing—Glaudot included.

"You want to go to the spaceship?" he asked.

"Yes. Oh, yes."

"Then teach me the secret of creation."

"Of making things, you mean? Why, there isn't any secret. Should there be any secret? You merely—create."

"Show me," said Glaudot.

A table appeared, and savory dishes of food.

"Magician!" cried Chandler.

A great roan stallion, bridled but without a saddle, materialized. Robin swung up on its broad back and used her bare knees for balance and control. The stallion cantered off.

"Wait!" cried Glaudot. "Please wait."

The stallion cantered back and Robin alighted. The stallion began to graze on a patch of grass which suddenly appeared on the naked rock. The stallion seemed quite content.

"You mean," the new Chandler asked in an awed voice, "she just made these things? The food. The table. The horse ..."

"Yes," said Glaudot. He concentrated his will on creating a single flower in the new field of grass. He concentrated his whole being.

But nothing happened.

He glared almost angrily at Robin, as if it were her fault. "I don't have the power you have," he said.

She nodded. "Only Charlie and me." She looked at the roan stallion. "Beauty, isn't he? I'll present him to Charlie." She turned to Glaudot. "Now take me to the ship."

"We ought to get started back there, Mr. Glaudot," Chandler said.

"Yes? Why?"

"But—but I don't have to tell you why! This girl is one of the most important discoveries that has ever been made. The ability to create material things ... out of nothing...."

"Show me your planet," Glaudot told Robin, ignoring the younger man. "We can talk about the spaceship later. You see, I'm an explorer and it's my job to explore new worlds." He spoke slowly, simply, as he would speak to a child. Somehow, although the girl was not a child and was quite the most astonishingly beautiful girl he had ever seen, he thought that was the right approach.

"Now wait a minute, Mr. Glaudot," Chandler protested. "We both know it's our duty to bring her to Captain Purcell."

"Maybe you think it's your duty," Glaudot told the younger man. "I don't think it's mine. And before you run off to the ship to tell that precious captain of yours, you ought to know that you'd be dead right now if it hadn't been for me."

"You?"

"Hell, yes. Those Indians or whatever they were killed you. I asked the girl to bring you back to life."

"To bring—" echoed Chandler his mouth falling open.

"Actually, she produced a perfect copy of you. A living copy. Do you see what she offers us, Chandler? Infinite wealth from creativity out of nothing—and eternal life by copying our bodies each time we die! What do you say about your precious captain now?"

Chandler seemed confused. He shook his head, staring first at Glaudot and then at Robin. "The ship," he said. "Our duty ... the captain ..."

Glaudot snorted and told Robin: "Kill him."

"Kill him?"

"Yes. You brought him into being. Now send him out of being."

"But I can't do that. I have no further control once I make something. And besides I—I wouldn't kill a human being, even if I could."

Fear was in Chandler's eyes. "Mr. Glaudot, listen ..." he began.

"Listen, hell," Glaudot said. "I brought you back to life. I offered you a share in the greatest power the worlds have ever known. You turned it down. I'm sorry, Chandler. I'm really sorry for you. But I can't let you return to the ship, you see. Not until I learn some more about this world, not until I understand exactly what the girl's power is, and consolidate my position."

Without waiting to hear more, Chandler began to run. In three great bounds he reached the grazing roan stallion and leaped on its back, digging his heels into its flanks. The stallion moved off at a quick trot as Glaudot drew his blaster and took dead aim at Chandler's retreating back.

When he had Chandler squarely in his sights, Glaudot began to squeeze the trigger. But suddenly the trigger-housing-unit of the blaster became encumbered with tiny vines. There were hundreds of them writhing and crawling all over the weapon and getting in the sights too so Glaudot could no longer aim. By the time he tore the vines clear, cursing savagely, the roan stallion had taken Chandler out of sight on his retreat toward the spaceship.

Glaudot whirled on Robin. "You did this!" he accused her. "You did it. Why—why?"

"You were going to kill him. You shouldn't have."

"But now you've ruined everything. Not just for me. For us, don't you see? I could have laid the world at your feet. I could have—listen! Tell me this—is there any place we can hide? Some place they won't find us if they come looking, while we work on this power of yours and see exactly what it can do and what it can't do?"

"I want to see the spaceship, please," said Robin.

"Afterwards, I promise you," Glaudot said. "Why, we can make all the spaceships we want—out of nothing. Can't we?"

"Yes," said Robin. "I guess so. But even if we hide from your friends, my friend Charlie will find us. He'll be worried about me and he'll find us. Charlie can do everything I can do, you see."

Glaudot stared at her with anger in his eyes. Then something else replaced the anger. No, he thought, Charlie couldn't do everything she could do. She was beautiful. Her half-nude body summoned desire in him. Tentatively, ready to withdraw his hand at the first indication of protest, he touched her bare shoulder. She made no response. She merely stood there, waiting for some kind of an answer from him.

"Then we'll have to hide from Charlie too. Please believe me," Glaudot said. "I'm a spaceman and you know very little about spacemen. Do you want to learn?"

"Yes. Yes, I do."

"Then take me some place even Charlie will have difficulty finding us."

"But he'll know."

"What do you mean he'll know? Don't tell me you can read one another's minds?"

"Oh, goodness, no. Nothing like that. But when we were very little I once told Charlie if ever I got mad at him I would go to hide in the country of the Cyclopes and he would never be able to find me because the Cyclopes would eat him. That was after we read about the Cyclopes in the Ulysses story in our encyclopedia. You see?"

"Cyclopes, huh? You really mean one-eyed giants?"

"Yes. We made them but they don't obey us."

"Can the two of us hide in their land? Is it far?"

"No. Very close. But I don't know if I want—"

"I'm a spaceman, aren't I? And you want to learn all about spacemen and the worlds beyond this place, don't you? Then come with me!"

"But—"

"If you say no and I go back to the spaceship we'll blast off and you'll never see spacemen again the rest of your life," threatened Glaudot.

Robin did not answer. "Well?" Glaudot snapped, as if he was quite indifferent. "Would you want that to happen?"

"No," Robin admitted after a while.

"Then let's go." They had to hurry, Glaudot knew. Riding that stallion, that incredible conjured-out-of-nothing stallion, Chandler had probably reached the spaceship by now. A few words, a few hurried explanations, and Purcell would lead an armed party out after Glaudot.

Again Robin was silent. Glaudot stood stiffly in front of her, so close he could reach out and wrap his arms about her. But this wasn't the time, he told himself. Later ... later ...

"All right," Robin said at last, her eyes looking troubled. "I'll take you to the land of Cyclopes."

They began to walk, in silence. Half an hour later, the barren terrain of rocks gave way to a verdant jungle in which the trees were quite the biggest Glaudot had ever seen and in which even the grass and the fragrant wild flowers grew over their heads. Glaudot had never felt so small.

"Wait a minute, Chandler," Captain Purcell said. "I listened in silence to what you said. All of it, as incredible as it sounded. But you don't expect me to believe—"

"Look at the horse. Where did I get the horse, sir?"

"So there are horses on this world. So what?"

"But I saw the girl create it out of thin air!"

"Really, Chandler."

"And I saw the corpse. My corpse, Captain. Mine!"

"But hell, man. Glaudot would have come back here with the girl. He knows his obligation to civilization. He—"

"Glaudot, sir? Does he?"

Purcell scowled and said finally: "Chandler, either you and Glaudot have made the most astonishing discovery since man first domesticated his environment and so became more than a reasonably clever animal, or you're the biggest liar that ever crossed deep space."

Chandler offered his captain a pale smile. "Why don't you find out which, sir?"

"By God," said Purcell, "I will. McCreedy!" he bawled over the intercom. "Smith! Wong! I want an armed expedition of twenty-five men ready to leave the ship in half an hour."

And, exactly half an hour later, the expedition set out with Captain Purcell and Chandler leading it. Chandler went astride the roan stallion.

When Charlie and his small Indian band learned that the action had taken place to the south, where Robin had gone, they set out quickly in that direction. The further they went, the more worried Charlie became. If Robin had met with any kind of success, if she had called off the war party and established some kind of peaceful relations with the spacemen, a runner would have been sent to tell them. But the desolate rock-strewn terrain stretched out before them as devoid of life as the Paleozoic Earth.

Charlie urged his men on relentlessly. He was a tireless hiker and since the braves lived by hunting they could match almost any pace he set. Finally Charlie saw the second Indian band ahead of them. Slinging the Mannlicher Elephant Gun, he began to run.

"Tashtu!" he called. "Tashtu!"

The Indian sprinted to him. "Lord," he said breathlessly, "one sky critter, him die. Turn out man."

"What are you talking about?" Charlie asked.

Tashtu led him to the group of braves which still clustered about Ensign Chandler's body. "Why?" Charlie demanded, horror-struck. "Why?"

Tashtu told him all that had happened. How the braves had mistaken the spacesuited man for a monster. How arrows had been fired before they had learned otherwise. How Robin had come, and gone off with the spaceman.

"To their spaceship?" Charlie asked.

"Yes, Lord. That is what they spoke of." Tashtu pointed to the top of the rampart of rock. "From there, Lord, you can see it."

Charlie scrambled up the rock. From his giddy perch on top he could see the tiny silver gleam of the spaceship—and a band of men, led by a man on horseback, approaching them. Charlie hurried down the rock, half climbing, half sliding. "They are coming," he said. "Maybe Robin's with them." He remembered what had happened last time and said: "The rest of you return to your homes. Tashtu and I will go on ahead."

"But Lord—" Tashtu began.

"Well?"

"I did not like the man. I did not trust him."

"Then why did you let Robin go?"

"Let her, Lord? But surely Robin, the Lady Robin, does not obey a mere—"

"All right, all right," Charlie said. "But all the more reason for the rest of the braves to return to their homes. We can handle this, Tashtu, you and I. I don't want any more killing."

"Yes, Lord," said Tashtu.

The Indians formed a marching column and moved off. Charlie told Tashtu what he had seen from the top of the rampart. Then he added: "Let's go and meet them."

And Charlie and Tashtu set out across the tortuous Wild Country.

"Two men coming!" Chandler cried, reining up the roan stallion.

Captain Purcell signaled his twenty-five men to halt, and their orderly double file came up short behind him. Pretty soon the two figures could be seen by all, advancing toward them across the rocks. When they were close enough, Captain Purcell hailed: "We come in peace!"

"And in peace we come!" Charlie called. A moment later he was shaking hands gravely with Captain Purcell.

"Tell the captain about—about my corpse," Chandler told Tashtu.

Charlie looked at Chandler. He had seen the dead man. "Did Robin make you?" he asked in surprise. "We never brought the dead to life before."

"Can you really do it?" Purcell demanded.

"No, not really. But we can copy perfectly—and the copies live."

"You see?" Chandler demanded triumphantly.

Captain Purcell said: "Show me."

Charlie created a brother to the roan stallion. Captain Purcell gawked. The one example sufficed and he did not ask for more as Glaudot had done.

"Where's Robin?" Charlie asked. "At the ship?"

Chandler shook his head. "Glaudot went off with her."

"But I thought he was on the ship!"

"He deserted," Chandler said. "With the girl. He wants her. He wants her power for himself."

Charlie moved very quickly. He swung in front of Chandler and grabbed his tunic-front, bunching it, ripping it and all but dragging Chandler clear off his feet before a hand could be raised to stop him. "Where did they go?" he asked in a terrible voice. "Where are they? Take me to them."

"But I don't—don't know!" Chandler protested, trying without success to break free.

It was Captain Purcell who came forward and firmly took Charlie's arm, pulling him clear of Chandler. "Remember," he said. "In peace. In peace."

Charlie stood with his hands at his sides. His face was white and strained. "The girl," he said.

"We all want to find out where Glaudot took her," Captain Purcell said. "We're going to help you. Tell me: could the girl have gone willingly with Glaudot? To share his mad dream of power, perhaps?"

"Robin?" Charlie cried. "Never!"

"Please, lad," Captain Purcell said. "I want you to think. I want you to consider everything. You and this girl of