A World Called Crimson Part 3

Now Charlie asked: "Do you really believe the book? This is Crimson.

This is real."

"I don't know. Sometimes I think this isn't as real as everything in the book. And sometimes I just don't know."

They walked in silence to their elevator and took it to the top of the highest cliff. They had wished for a house there, like one Robin had seen in the book. They had wished for many things to make their lives interesting, or pleasant. They had peopled Crimson with the fruit of their wishes, using the ONE VOLUME ENCYCLOPEDIC HISTORY as a guide.

They lived a mile from the Indian Camp. They traded with the Indians who, strangely, did not know how to wish for things. Neither did the pirates, or anyone. Just Robin and Charlie. The pirates lived across the sea on an island. To the south along the sh.o.r.e were Phoenicians, Greeks, Mayas, Royal Navymen, Submariners, mermaids and Cyclopes. To the north along the sh.o.r.e were Polynesians, Maoris, Panamanians and Dutchmen.

Inland were Cannibals, Lotus Eaters, a few settlements of cowboys to make life interesting for the Indians, farmers, Russians, Congressmen and Ministers. All had been created by Robin and Charlie, who visited them sometimes. They never believed for a minute that Robin and Charlie had really created them, although all were amazed by Robin and Charlie's ability to make things appear out of thin air.

Just as they reached their house, an Indian brave came running down the trail toward them.

"Skys.h.i.+p come!" he cried, gesturing wildly and excitedly.

"Skys.h.i.+p?" repeated Charlie, looking at Robin. "Have you created any s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps?"

"No. You know it's a bargain between us. We don't create anything we don't think we understand."

The Indian was sweating. His name was Tashtu, which meant Wild Eagle, and he was their go-between with the tribe. "Skys.h.i.+p sweep across heavens," he said. "Not land. Go up in Wild Country."

Charlie's interest quickened. Wild Country. They had created it on impulse, about twenty miles from the Indian Camp, midway between the settlements of Congressmen inland and Cyclopes on the sh.o.r.e. It was a place of tortuous gorges and rocks and mountains, utterly lifeless. No one ever went there. Someday, he had always told Robin, they would explore Wild Country. If there really was a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, and if it had gone there ...

"No," Robin said. "I know what you're thinking. But I'm perfectly happy here."

"You just now said you sometimes thought Crimson wasn't real and there were other, real worlds which--"

"That's different. I can dream, can't I?"

"But don't you see, if a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p's really come, maybe they can tell us."

She gripped his arm. "Charlie. Oh, Charlie, I don't know. I'm afraid.

We've been happy here, haven't we? We really wouldn't want it to change ..."

"I'm going to Wild Country," Charlie said stubbornly.

Tashtu nodded his head. "It is good that you do. For the braves--"

"Don't tell me they went after the skys.h.i.+p?" Charlie asked.

"Yes, Lord. Skys.h.i.+p come low, ruin crops mile around. War dance follow.

War party leave last sunrise."

"Six hours ago!" Charlie cried. "Can we overtake them?"

Tashtu shrugged. "Hurry, Lord."

"Don't you see," Charlie told Robin. "They're savages. They wouldn't understand anything like s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps. They wouldn't want to. If they get the chance, they'll kill first and ask questions afterwards. We've got to go to the Wild Country now."

Big and brawny Tashtu was nodding his head earnestly, but Robin seemed unconvinced. "Why," she said, "there isn't even anything about Wild Country in the book."

"That's because we made it."

"And besides, the Congressmen are dangerous."

"Congressmen? Don't you mean the Cyclopes?"

"Yes, I'm sorry. The Cyclopes are dangerous."

She couldn't possibly have meant the Congressmen. It was never clear to either of them precisely what a Congressman did. But there were hundreds of them on one side of Wild Country and they were forever making speeches and promises, little round bald men with great, rich voices and wonderful vocabularies. Charlie loved to hear them speak.

"We go, Lord?" Tashtu asked.

Charlie nodded and went inside swiftly for his rifle. It was modeled after the most powerful rifle in the encyclopedia and was called a Mannlicher Elephant Gun. Robin came with her own smaller Springfield repeater.

"Ready?" Charlie asked.

"Yes. We can think up food along the trail."

"Hurry, Lord," Tashtu urged.

Charlie could hardly contain his excitement. The Wild Country, at last.

And a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p.

By the time they were ready to make planetfall on the unexplored world, Purcell knew his dislike of Glaudot bordered on actual hatred. Purcell, who was forty-five years old and a bachelor, liked his s.p.a.cemen tough, yes: you had to be tough to land on, explore, and subdue a couple of dozen worlds, as Purcell himself had done. But he also liked his s.p.a.cemen with humility: facing the unknown and sometimes the unknowable at every step of the way, you needed humility.

Glaudot, younger than Purcell by fifteen years, confident, arrogant, a lean hard man and handsome in a gaunt-cheeked, saturnine way, lacked humility. For one thing, he treated the crew like dirt and had treated them that way since blastoff from Earth almost five months before. For another, he seemed impatient with Purcell's orders, although Purcell was not a cautious man, and certainly not a timid one. What had been growing between them flared out into the open moments before planetfall.

"I can't get over it," Purcell said. "I've never seen a world anything like it." They had made telescopic observations from within the atmosphere. "Giants living in caves," Purcell went on. "Sailing s.h.i.+ps flying the Jolly Roger. A town consisting of miniature replicas of the White House on Earth. Mermaids."

"Don't tell me you really thought you saw mermaids?" Glaudot asked a little condescendingly.

"All right, I'll admit I only caught a glimpse of them. I thought they were mermaids. But what about the Indians?"

"Yes," Glaudot admitted. "I saw the Indians."

Using their atmospheric rockets, they had flown over the Indian village at an alt.i.tude of only a few hundred feet, to see bronze-skinned men rush out of tents and stare up at them in awe. After that, Purcell had decided to find some desolate spot in which to land, in order not to risk a too-sudden encounter with any of the fantastically diversified natives.

Now Glaudot said: "You're taking what we saw too literally, Captain.

Why, I remember on Harfonte we had all sorts of hallucinations until Captain Jamison discovered they were exactly that--we'd been hypnotized into seeing the things we most feared by powerless natives who really feared us."

"This isn't Harfonte," Purcell said, a little irritably.

"Yeah, but you weren't there."