Chapter 3

"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 yours may have almost godlike powers, but you've spent your lives on an uncivilized world and well--frankly--couldn't a sophisticated man like Glaudot turn the girl's head? Couldn't he confuse her into going off with him, at least temporarily? And, assuming, he did, he doesn't know this world. He's aware of that. He'd know we'd be coming after him. Perhaps the girl would tell him about you. Tell me, man--where would the girl go if she didn't want you to find her? Is there such a place? Before you answer, I want you to know that what we do here may be far graver than you think. It is not merely the safety of one girl we have to consider--but no, you wouldn't understand ..."

"You mean," Charlie asked, "if this man Glaudot somehow convinces Robin to use her power as he tells her, he might want to take over all of Crimson?"

"Do you mean this world? Is it called Crimson? Yes--and more than that. There's no telling how far a man like Glaudot could go with such power. And with the ability to create all the armament and all the deadly weapons he needed, and all the missiles to carry those weapons, he might challenge the entire galaxy--and win!"

The words were strange to Charlie. He only understood them vaguely. Now Robin, she would understand, he thought. Robin was always more interested in things like that, Robin who almost knew their encyclopedia by heart, Robin ...

"Listen," he said. "Listen. We created all the life on this world. We made Greeks and Royal Navymen and Ministers and Russians and Congressmen and everything we knew or somehow had heard about or had read in our book. We get along fine with all of them, except ..."

"Yes," Captain Purcell prompted. "Go on, go on!"

"No, she'd never go there. She was always afraid of them."

"Where, man? Where?"

"No. Robin wouldn't. She just wouldn't."

It was not hot in Wild Country, but sweat trickled down Purcell's face while he waited for Charlie's answer.

* * * * *

"Show me!" cried Glaudot in rapture. "Show me! Show me! Show me!"

He stood with Robin in a little glade in the Land of the Cyclopes. About them were heaped all the treasures Glaudot had suddenly demanded. He did not quite know why. He felt his iron control slipping and permitted it to slip now, for once he got this wild desire from his system, he knew only his untroubled iron will would be left, and with it--and the girl--he might conquer the galaxy.

Heaped about them were jewels and precious metals and deadly weapons, all of which Robin had summoned into being at Glaudot's orders, while Glaudot smiled at her. It was almost a frightening smile. She was even a little sorry she had come away with him, but she could always go back, couldn't she? She wasn't shackled to this strange man from space, was she? And the way he looked at her, the desire she saw in his eyes, that was frightening too. She did not know how to cope with it. Oh, she could create a duplicate Charlie, for example. Charlie would know what to do. Charlie would help her. Charlie hadn't read the book as she had read it, but Charlie was more practical. Still, what would they do with the duplicate Charlie afterwards? You couldn't uncreate something ...

"A spaceship," Glaudot said suddenly. "Can you create a spaceship out of nothing?"

* * * * *

Robin nodded slowly. "I can. Yes, I can. It tells all about spaceships in the book. But I don't know if I want to."

Glaudot let it pass. There was no hurry. He was thinking about the future, though. If Purcell opposed him, as Purcell would, and managed to escape in the exploration ship, Glaudot would need a ship to leave this world ...

"Why not?" he asked, his voice quite calm now, the mania which had seized him under control now, and only his iron purpose motivating him.

"I--I don't know. You have one spaceship. I guess that's why. What do you need another one for?"

"It was just a thought," said Glaudot. "It doesn't matter." He kneeled near the heaps of sun-dazzled jewels. He let them trickle through his fingers. No, the desire wasn't gone yet. It was still fighting with his will. And, since he knew his will could win at any time, it pleased him to give his desire free rein.

He scooped up a handful of jewels. He found a necklace and came close to Robin and dropped it over her head. The pearls were very white against her sun-tanned skin. The pearl pendant hung almost to the start of the dusky valley which cleaved her breasts delightfully and disappeared with the tanned swell of flesh on either side into the gold-mesh halter. Glaudot fingered the pendant. His fingers touched flesh. Abruptly he drew the surprised Robin to him and kissed her lips hungrily.

For a moment she remained passive. She neither returned his ardor nor fought it. But when his hands began to stroke her back she pulled away from him and stood there looking at him. She took the necklace off and threw it at his feet.

"I don't want that any more," she said. "Why did you do--what you did?"

* * * * *

He felt the fire in his veins. He willed it to subside. He needed his control now. All of it. But this girl, in the full flower of her youth ... No, she was not a girl, not to Glaudot. He must not think of her as a girl. She was power. Power. The power was his--if he didn't alienate the girl.

"We do such as that on my world," he said. "It is a kind of homage to loveliness. I hope you didn't mind."

"I--it was strange. With Charlie sometimes I hope--but with Charlie it is ... different. Please don't touch me again. Please promise me that."

Glaudot shrugged. "If you wish, my dear child, if you wish...."

The dual desire was gone now, truly gone. He knew that. For his will had been threatened, more by his own foolish desire than by this innocent girl. He had to think. Clearly. More clearly than he had ever thought before. He needed the girl as an ally. Not as a slave. She had to be willing. She had to co-operate. Give her a warped picture of the rest of the galaxy? Convince her its governments were evil, totalitarian, when in reality they were democratic? Convince her that he alone, given unlimited power, could right the wrongs of a thousand worlds? She was naive enough for that sort of approach, he thought. Besides, it would strike her as something like creation--moral creation, perhaps. And creation she would understand. Then, with her as his partner, he could quickly build a war machine which the combined might of the galaxy couldn't stand against. And that, he suddenly realized, would even include an unlimited number of soldiers for occupation and policing duties. This power would be unparalleled.

"I have something I want to tell you about," he said. "It will take a long time and we must be undisturbed, which is why I asked you to bring me here."

"What is it you want to tell me?"

Before Glaudot could answer, they heard a crashing, rending sound not too far off in the woods. It sounded to Glaudot exactly as if trees were being uprooted, boulders strewn carelessly.

"Cyclopes!" Robin screamed in terror, and began to run.

Glaudot ran after her, stumbling, picking himself up, hurtling in pursuit. He couldn't let her get away. He had to follow her ...

Nothing living, he told himself as he ran, could uproot those huge trees. Of course, there were the saplings, but even the saplings were the size of full-grown oaks and maples on far Earth.

Something roared behind him. The sound was pitched almost too low for human ears. He whirled. The earth shook, great clods of it flying. Bare tree roots suddenly appeared, and a young tree the size of a towering oak was lifted skyward.

Behind it, brandishing it and then hurling it away, was a naked man whose head towered impossibly a hundred and fifty feet into the air. Trembling, awestruck, Glaudot looked up at the great savage face. Wild hair streaming, filthy beard matted with dirt and tree-branches, it was the most ferocious face Glaudot had ever seen.

And it had only one eye, one enormous eye in the middle of its head. But an eye three feet across!

"A Cyclops!" Robin screamed again.

A moment later the creature stooped and with a scooping motion of its great right hand picked up the two tiny creatures on the forest floor beneath it. Then it ran, uprooting oak-sized saplings, back toward the rocky hillside where it dwelled, after the Cyclopes of old on which Robin and Charlie had naively patterned it, in a cave overlooking the sea.

* * * * *

"Where, man? Where?" Captain Purcell demanded.

"I don't know," Charlie said. "I really don't think she would. You see, she always threatened she'd go there if we ever had a fight, but she was usually half-joking. She knows it's dangerous--"

"But where? Don't you know a drowning man has to grasp at straws? Haven't I gotten it across to you--the whole galaxy may be in danger!"

Charlie sighed. "I don't understand much of your galaxy. Robin knows the encyclopedia--she would understand. And I--I only want to know Robin is safe." He took a deep breath and said: "She always threatened to go to the Land of the Cyclopes."

"Then take us there at once," Captain Purcell said....

* * * * *

If he shouted and cried now, he would go insane. He knew that. He tried to hold his fear in check. He was being swung pendulum-like in an enormous hand as the one-eyed giant loped along. Robin shared the clenched-fist prison with him. Her hair streamed in the wind as the huge arm swung the huge hand in time with the giant's enormous strides.

"Does it eat people?" he managed to ask Robin. He had to shout because the wind created by the creature's movement was considerable. The ground spun giddily far, far below them, whirling patches of green, of yellow, of brown.

"We made them to eat people. Like in the book. We were just children. It seemed--it seemed so thrilling."

The Cyclops loped along, uprooting saplings. After a while it began to climb a rocky slope and from the heights Glaudot could see the shores of an unknown sea. Then the Cyclops reached a cave entrance and rolled aside a huge boulder and took his prisoners within.

Glaudot heard the bleating of sheep.

* * * * *

"Why, it's a fortune in jewels!" Captain Purcell exclaimed. They had found the glade in the forest, where Robin had created a king's ransom for Glaudot. The men gathered around, many of them struck dumb by the sight of all this wealth.

Charlie said: "Captain, look."

Purcell went over to him and saw the wide swathe cut through the forest and curving out of sight. "What went through there?" he gasped.

"A Cyclops," Charlie said grimly. "A Cyclops has them. Captain, we've got to hurry. Listen, there are two horses now. I could create horses for all of us, but all these men coming up would probably be seen by the Cyclops. You come on foot with your men. Let one of them come with me on the stallions." As he spoke Charlie unslung the Mannlicher and put it down.

"Oh, you want our more modern weapons?" Purcell asked.

Charlie shook his head. "For fun, Robin and I made the Cyclopes invulnerable to any kind of attack except the kind mentioned in the encyclopedia--putting out their single eye with a stake. To protect all the other people we created, we made the Cyclopes so they'd never want to leave their homeland. So if we can get Robin and your man Glaudot free, they'll be safe. Now, who's the volunteer?"

"I'm already on horseback," Chandler said. Charlie nodded and mounted the second roan stallion.

"My men will be coming as fast as they can march," Captain Purcell said.

Charlie nodded. He did not bother to tell the captain that a Cyclops could cover in a few minutes ground a marching party could not hope to cover in as many hours. He set off at a swift gallop with Chandler.

* * * * *

"Will he eat us now?" said Glaudot. Strangely, he was not afraid. The unexpected nature of their impending demise he almost found amusing.

Robin shook her head. "I don't think so. He'll probably drink himself to sleep. We made the Cyclopes great drunkards."

The Cyclops, his tree-trunk sized walking stick leaning against the wall, was reclining and drinking from a huge bowl of wine. The cave was torchlit. Seventy or eighty sheep milled about, settling for the night after three of their number had supplied a meal for the giant, who had eaten them raw.