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

"I told you I smelled smoke!" Charlie cried, pointing triumphantly at the thin tendril of smoke that rose through the cooling air against the weak sunlight.

"Is it a campfire?" Chandler asked.

"Chimney hole, probably. Come on."

They left the two stallions grazing at the base of the rocky escarpment. They began to climb. Once Chandler stumbled and went sliding down the rocky slope, but Charlie caught his arm, all but wrenching it from the socket. Charlie thought: we have to hurry. Their lives may depend on it. Already we may be too late....

The smoke from the chimney hole was acrid. It was very strong now. Suddenly Charlie could feel the slightly increased slope of the rocks. The slope was precipitous now, almost perpendicular.

"I can't—can't go much further!" Chandler groaned.

"We've got to, man. We've got to."

"He's waking," said Robin.

Glaudot had broken completely. The confident would-be conqueror was reduced to trembling and whining now. "M-maybe he's hungry. Oh, God, maybe he's hungry ..."

But the Cyclops only turned over in its sleep and began to snore again. The fire had burned low. The sheep were resting. Robin thought of Charlie, probably many miles away. There would be a late moonrise tonight, she thought. They often spoke of the feeblest of Crimson's three suns as the moon, although it really wasn't. Then dawn would come. If the Cyclops were hungry and wanted a change in diet ...

"But you'll choke to death going down there," Chandler protested.

"It's only a chimney hole. Nobody's going to choke to death."

"Can you see down it?"

"No. Too much smoke."

"Then how do you know how far we'll have to fall?"

"I don't. I'll have to take the chance. You don't have to, though."

"I'll go where you go. That's what I volunteered for."

"Good. It's almost morning, so the fire's probably almost burned down from now. If you land in the embers, jump aside quickly. You understand?"

"Yes," Chandler said.

Without another word, Charlie suddenly lowered himself into the smoke and let go.

Dim fiery light lit the cave. He alighted in embers and quickly jumped clear. Embers flew. A ram bleated. Charlie saw the enormous sleeping bulk of the Cyclops against one wall of the cave. He heard something behind him, and whirled. It was Chandler. More sparks flew. The sheep bleated again, louder this time.

Robin and a spaceman who was probably Glaudot came toward them. There was amazement on Robin's face. Glaudot looked like a child in the grip of terror he couldn't quite understand.

Charlie held Robin close for a moment. "Quiet," he whispered. "Listen."

The slight disturbance had bothered the Cyclops. He was half awake. He made noises with his lips. One great arm lifted and fell. It could have crushed the four of them.

"There's a stake," Robin said. "Just like in the book."

They got it and took it to the embers of the fire between them. Glaudot, who brought up the rear, dragged his end, the wood scraping on the rocky floor.

"Lift it up," Charlie said.

Glaudot giggled and then began to cry. He was hysterical. "The three of us?" Charlie asked.

"I don't know," Robin said.

Glaudot laughed hysterically. The Cyclops stirred. That made up Charlie's mind. He placed his end of the stake carefully on the floor and went back to Glaudot. He struck Glaudot neatly and precisely on the point of the jaw and Glaudot collapsed in his arms.

Then they returned with the stake to the fire. Charlie scraped and pushed the embers together with a charcoal log. They began to toast the point of the stake.

"We've got to hurry," Robin said.

"The skin of his eyelid is like armor plate," Charlie told her. "We've got to make sure it doesn't turn the point aside."

The flock stirred and began to grow more lively. It was now dawn outside. The Cyclops yawned in his sleep and stretched out an arm the size of an oak tree.

"Hurry!" Robin said urgently.

The Cyclops rolled over, its face to the wall.

"The eye!" Charlie groaned. "We'll never be able to reach the eye now."

They kept at their work, though. There was nothing else they could do. The surface wood of the big stake was taking on a dull cherry-red color. Finally Charlie said: "That's enough, I guess."

The Cyclops rolled over again. They were in luck, Charlie thought, but changed his mind immediately. The Cyclops sat up, its eye blinking sleepily. It yawned and stretched mightily, then stared stupidly for a few moments at the flock of sheep. Charlie and the others stood frozen, not daring to move. The Cyclops brushed at the sheep with its hand, and two of them crashed with bone-crushing thuds and death-rattle bleats against the wall. The Cyclops glared stupidly about, its one great eye squinting. Clearly, it was looking for something else to eat. Not sheep. People ...

It got down on hands and knees and groped on the floor. The arm swept out. The hand flashed ponderously by, missing Robin by only a few feet. The Cyclops advanced on its knees, searching, its mouth slavering now. It was hungry and soon it would eat ...

The hand swept by again, caught a sheep. The hand lifted, the sheep bleated, the jaws crunched once and the sheep disappeared. The Cyclops wiped a trace of blood from its lips. The hand came down again, closer ...

"The stake!" Charlie whispered fiercely.

They brought it up horizontally. Charlie stood just behind the point, Robin behind him, Chandler in the rear. They jabbed with the stake as the Cyclops's hand swept along the floor again. The Cyclops roared with pain and rage and beat both mighty hands on the rocky floor, attempting to crush its tormentors.

Just then Glaudot regained consciousness and stood up groggily. "Don't move!" Charlie warned, taking the chance of revealing their own position in an attempt to save Glaudot's life.

But Glaudot, seeing the huge creature so close, began to run. It was like running on a treadmill. He ran and he ran and after a while the Cyclops reached down and plucked him off the floor. He screamed thinly. There was the same crunching as before—and no Glaudot ...

Now the Cyclops, its appetite whetted, searched the floor in a frenzy of earnest on hands and knees. The great head swung low, close to the floor, the single eye stared myopically. Once the huge hand clubbed the rock so close to them that Charlie could feel the floor shaking. They retreated slowly toward the far wall of the cave, the monster following relentlessly. They still held the heavy stake between them but had not yet gathered either the strength or the courage for their one try. If they failed—

They had backed up as far as they could. The wall was behind them. The monster came on, its head low, its nose practically scraping the ground. It swept the floor with a giant hand, a fingertip barely touching Charlie and almost knocking him senseless. He shook his head and took deep breaths until his strength returned.

"Now," he said, as the hand began its swinging arc again.

They ran forward toward the creature's single eye with the stake.

Charlie barely remembered the contact, or the bath of eye-fluid and blood which followed, or the wild roaring of the brute creature, or its frantic charging back and forth, blinded, across the cave, while the flock bleated and stampeded. After a while the crazed Cyclops ran to the cave entrance and shouldered the great door-rock aside, rushing out into the day.

It went tearing down the slope and did not stop until, battered and bleeding, it reached the sea. It stood on the narrow strand of beach for a moment, scooping great handfuls of water for its stricken eye. Then it plunged into the surf.

They went outside and watched it. They made their way down the slope while it advanced into the sea. Finally only the great head remained above the waves.

They reached the shore.

The Cyclops was gone.

Moments later, Captain Purcell and the others joined them.

"Then you mean you won't come back to Earth with us?" Purcell asked later, in the spaceship.

"Not if all you say about this world is true," Charlie said. "We're needed here."

"Yes," Purcell agreed. "With your help, the galaxy could be made into a universe of plenty for everyone."

"Besides," said Robin. "We'll have to think of training children to take over after we're gone." She looked at Charlie. She blushed. "Such as our own," she said, very quickly, and added: "You can marry us, can't you, Captain?"

Purcell beamed, and nodded, and did so.

Later, Charlie said: "It isn't only that we're needed here, is it, darling?"

Robin shook her head. "We like it here," she said.

THE END