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_There was a boy and a girl and a strange new planet;
the planet was alive with hideous dangers. But the boy
and girl were very young and all Robin wanted to know
was: "Who stole my doll?"_
A
WORLD
CALLED
CRIMSON
By
DARIUS JOHN GRANGER
_When the starship _Star of Fire_ collided with a meteor swarm six
parsecs stellar north of the galactic hub in the year A.D. 2278, it lost
its atmosphere within forty-five minutes. At first it was thought that
every man, woman and child of the four thousand, one hundred and
sixty-six aboard were lost, in this the greatest of all interstellar
disasters. But as was discovered twenty years later in the Purcell
exploration, this was not quite the case. (See PURCELL)_
_--from The ANNALS OF SPACE, Vol. 12_
* * * * *
[Illustration: The Cyclops--not hungry at the moment--regarded Robin as
a new toy.]
It was the nasty little boy from B Deck who had stolen her doll. She
hated him. He was horrid. She slipped out of their stateroom while her
Mom and Dad were dressing for dinner. She'd find that horrid little boy
on B Deck. She'd scratch his eyes out.
Her name was Robin Sinclair and she was five years old and mad enough to
throw the boy from B Deck out into space, only she didn't know how to go
about that.
She went down the companionway to B Deck, where the people dressed
differently. The colors weren't as bright, somehow, the cloth not so
fine. It was a major distinction in the eyes of a five-year-old girl,
especially one who loved to run her fingers over fine synthetics and who
even had a favorite color. Her favorite color was crimson.
"'Scuse me, mister. Didja see a little boy with a doll with a crimson
dress on?"
A smile. But she was deadly serious. "Not me, young lady."
She walked for a while aimlessly on B Deck. She saw two little boys, but
they weren't the right ones. Pouting now, almost in tears, she was on
the verge of giving up. Mom and Dad could buy her a new doll. Mom and
Dad were richer than anybody, weren't they?
Then, all of a sudden, she saw him. He was just ducking out of sight up
ahead. Under his arm was tucked the doll with the crimson dress, her
favorite doll.
"Hey!" she cried. "Hey, wait for me!"
Her little feet pounding, she raced down the companionway. As she
reached the irising door in the bulkhead, an electric eye opened it for
her. She had never come this way before. It was not as bright and clean
as the rest of the ship. She had not even seen the sign which said
PASSENGERS NOT PERMITTED BEYOND THIS POINT. But then, she could barely
read, anyway.
She caught a quick second glimpse of the boy, and started running as he
rounded a turn in the corridor. Shouting for him to stop, she reached
the turn and saw him up ahead. He looked back at her and stuck out his
tongue and kept running.
* * * * *
It was then that the whole world shuddered, like it was trying to shake
itself to pieces.
Alarm bells clanged everywhere. Whistles shrilled. Pretty soon
uniformed men were running in all directions. Robin Sinclair was
suddenly very frightened. She wanted to go back to A Deck, to her Mom
and Dad, but she had followed the boy through so many twisting, turning
corridors that she knew she would be lost if she tried. She looked
ahead. The boy seemed confident as he made his way. She followed him.
But she was really mad at him now. It was his fault she was so far from
Mom and Dad when a thing like this happened.
* * * * *
Uniformed members of the crew continued rushing by. She heard snatches
of conversation she didn't understand.
"Trying to patch it ..."
"The whole stern section of the ship. Losing air fast ..."
"The lifeboats. I was just down there. Every last one of 'em. Gone. The
meteor took 'em right off into space."
"If the damage can't be repaired ..."
And one man, finally, with a face awful to behold: "Patches won't hold.
We're losing air faster'n it can be replaced. Better tell the Captain."
A man in a lot of gold braid rushed into view. He was
distinguished-looking, but old. Boy, he was old, Robin thought. He
looked as old as her grandfather.
"Captain! We're losing too much air. It can't be replaced."
"Then prepare to abandon ship."
"But, sir, every lifeboat is gone!"
"No lifeboats? No lifeboats!"
The boy stuck his tongue out again. She ran after him, shaking her
little fist. They were completely absorbed in their private enmity while
the word went out that the situation was hopeless and almost five
thousand people prepared to die.
"I've got you now!"
He had run up against a blank wall. She came toward him, holding her
hands out for the doll with the crimson dress. He held it behind his
back. She reached around to get it but he pushed her and she fell down.
"I'll fix you!" she threatened, getting up and rushing toward him again.
Big arms came down, and big hands grabbed her.
"There now, little miss," a voice said. "Why aren't you with your folks?
Time like this, you ought to be with your folks. What is it, B Deck?"
"A Deck," Robin said haughtily. "_He's_ from B. Why is everybody running
around so?"
He was a tall, slat-thin man with a kind-looking face. "Say, wait a
minute!" he suddenly said, looking perplexed. "They all the time said I
was nuts, building that damn thing. Well, I can't fit into it, but maybe
these here kids can."
He scooped Robin up with one hand, got the boy with the other. "I want
my doll!" Robin cried, but the boy held it away from her.
"Take it easy now," the man said. "Take it easy. We'll take care of
you."
* * * * *
He ran with them to one of the repair bays of the great, doom-bound
starship. In one corner, beyond the now useless patching equipment, was
a table. On the table stood a model of the _Star of Fire_. It was six
feet long and perfect in every external detail. He hadn't got around to
the inside yet. The inside was completely empty. It had rockets and
everything. There was no reason why it wouldn't be perfectly
space-worthy. Why, it would even hold an atmosphere ...
"In you go!" he said.
The little boy was suddenly scared. "I want my Mother," he said. "I
want my Dad."
"In you go."
Robin felt herself lifted, and thrust inside something. It was dark in
there. She moved around and bumped into something. She moved around some
more and bumped against the little boy from B Deck.
"How do you get out of here?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said.
"I want my doll back," she said.
"Oh yeah?"
"You better give it to me."
He said nothing. There was a hissing sound, and a faint roar. Far away,
something slid ponderously.
"Pleasant voyage, little ones!" a voice boomed.
Something sat on her chest all at once, squeezing all the air from her.
It was a great weight holding her motionless, squeezing. She wanted to
cry, but couldn't get the sound out. She wanted her Mom. Mom would know
what to do.
She was crushed and flattened into a tunnel of blackness.
Thirty minutes later, the starship _Star of Fire_, outworld-bound from
Sol to the starswarms beyond Ophiuchus, lost all its remaining air. It
became an enormous coffin spinning end over end in space amid the blaze
of starlight near the center of the galaxy.
One tiny spaceship, a small model of the huge liner, sped away. If it
went two days finding no planet, its two occupants would perish when the
small oxygen supply gave out. If it found a planet it would circle and
land automatically. The possibility of this was small, but not remote.
For here at the center of the galaxy, stellar distances are more nearly
planetary and most of the stars have attendant planets. But even then,
it would have to be a world capable of supporting their lives ...
They sped on, in all innocence. She was five. He was six. His name was
Charlie Fullerton. He had her doll. She hated him.
* * * * *
Two hours after the tiny model spaceship landed on a planet with three
suns in the sky, Robin Sinclair awoke. She felt cramped and
uncomfortable. It took her a while to orient herself. She had some kind
of a dream. A dream was a funny thing. Mom said it wasn't real. But it
sure was real to her.
She got up and pushed with her hands. A section of the tiny spaceship
sprang away at her touch, admitting blinding light. She lay there with
her eyes tightly shut, but after a while she could see. The boy was
sleeping. She still hated him. He was sleeping with her doll in his
arms. She took the doll and he moved his arms and woke up. She jumped
out of the open spaceship with the doll and started running.
She ran along a beach. But the sand was green. The ocean hissed and
roared and there was nobody else. "N'ya! N'ya! Y'can't catch me!" she
bawled at the top of her voice. And fell down in the sand.
He caught up with her and fell on top of her and they wrestled for the
doll. The surf thundered nearby. The tide, capricious in the grip of the
three suns, rose suddenly, flooding them with chill water. Coughing and
spluttering and choking, they retreated further up the beach.
Soon they quieted down.
"I'm soaking wet," she said.
"My name is Charlie," he said sullenly. "Let's go back now."
"How do we go back?" she wanted to know.
"That's a nice doll," Charlie said.
"You took it from me!" Accusingly.
"Aw, I only wanted to look at it."
"She has a crimson dress and everything."
"This is some world," Charlie said after a while.
"What's a world?"
"Oh, a world is--you know--everything."
"Oh."
"You think it has Indians?"