"And pirates too?" he asked in a voice full of awe.
She nodded her head very seriously. "I like pirates," she said. "They're
so scarey."
Just then a ship came into view far away across the water. It had
enormous sails and a black hull. On the fore-sail was painted a huge
black skull.
"Let's get out of here!" Charlie cried in alarm. But beetling cliffs
reared behind the beach and although they ran frantically along at the
edge of the green sand, they could find no way to scale the cliffs. The
pirate ship came closer and closer.
They got down whimpering at the base of the cliffs and remained very
still. After a long time the pirate ship came close to shore. A longboat
was dispatched and its oars flashed in the triple sunlight like giant
legs on which the longboat walked across the waves toward the beach.
Then the pirates were ashore. The man who led them had only one leg, and
a peg. He looked very mean.
* * * * *
"It's Blackbeard the Pirate!" said Charlie in a frightened whisper. His
Dad had once read him a story about Blackbeard.
The pirate with the wooden leg suddenly had a black beard.
"The doll!" cried Robin.
"What's the matter?"
"We left her down there. Crimson." She called her doll Crimson because
she had a crimson dress.
Now Blackbeard approached the model spaceship with his crew. They
gathered around it, frowning. Robin watched, her face pale, her eyes
wide. Crimson was there on the sand. They were going to see Crimson.
Even as she was thinking these horrible thoughts, one of the pirates saw
Crimson and picked her up. Blackbeard came over and took the doll and
looked at her. At that moment there was a shout from above the cliffs
and an arrow suddenly transfixed one of the pirates. He fell down
writhing and Blackbeard and the rest of his men raced back to the
longboat.
"Indians," Charlie whispered knowingly.
The Indians shouted and yelled.
"Are there any cowboys here?" Robin asked hopefully.
"No, sir. No cowboys," Charlie said very definitely.
"I'm hungry," Robin said. "I wish we had something."
With a little squeal of delight, she looked down at her feet. Two
platters of fried chicken, with all the trimmings. Her favorite. They
ate ravenously, not hearing the Indians any more. They watched the
longboat return to the pirate ship. All this way, they could see little
Crimson's dress as Blackbeard took her aboard. Robin finished her fried
chicken and started to cry.
"Girls," said Charlie in disgust.
"I can't help it. Poor Crimson."
"Is she dead?"
"Blackbeard the pirate took her."
"Charles was my grandfather's name. My grandfather died and they named
me Charles."
"I want Crimson!"
"Get down! The Indians will see you."
"The Indians went away. I want Crimson!"
"We could name this beach after Crimson."
"Aw, what do you know? It's only a beach."
"We could name the whole wide world." Charlie gestured expansively.
The green sand of the beach became crimson. The sky had a crimson glow.
"It sure is a funny world," Charlie said. Laughter loud as thunder
echoed in the sky. "A world called Crimson," he added.
* * * * *
The tide came in. Spray and surf bounded off the rocks, wetting them.
"We better go up the hill," Robin said. By hill she meant the
perpendicular cliffs behind them.
The tide thundered in. They were sodden. They clung to the rocks.
"We need an elevator or something," Charlie said.
Golden cables flashed in the sunlight. The gilt elevator cage came down.
They climbed in as a big wave came and battered the rocks. The elevator
went up, up to the top of the cliff. They could see a long way across
the water. They could watch the pirate ship sailing away, the skull
black as night on its sail.
They got out of the elevator at the top of the cliff. They didn't see
any Indians, but they saw the ashes of a campfire.
"Are there lions and tigers and everything?" Robin asked in wonder,
gazing out over the beach and the sea and then turning around to see the
green forest which began fifty yards beyond the edge of the cliff.
"Sure there are lions and tigers," Charlie said matter-of-factly.
* * * * *
Off somewhere in the woods, a big cat roared. Robin whimpered.
"I w-was only fooling," Charlie said, vaguely understanding that you
could somehow make things happen on this world called Crimson.
But he learned a lesson that night. You could make things happen on
Crimson, but you couldn't unmake them.
The tiger roared again. But they were downwind from it and it went
elsewhere in search of prey. Huddled together near the embers of the
Indian campfire, the two children slept fitfully through the cold night.
Then the three suns finally came up on three different sides of the
horizon. Crimson was deadly, but beautiful....
* * * * *
_Although credit for the discovery of _Aladdin's Planet_ goes to the
explorer Richard Purcell of Earth, two Earth children actually were
shipwrecked there twenty years before Purcell's expedition. But instead
of paving the way for Purcell, they actually made the exploration more
difficult for him. In fact, it was positively fraught with peril. But
since _Aladdin's Planet_ had become the galaxy's arsenal of plenty, it
was well worth Purcell's effort. As any schoolboy knows in this utopia
of 24th century plenty, _Aladdin's Planet_, almost exactly at the heart
of the galaxy, where matter is spontaneously created to sweep out in
long cosmic trails across the galaxy, is the home not merely of
spontaneous creation of matter, but spontaneous _formed_ creation, with
any human psyche capable of doing the handwork of God. A planet of great
import ..._
_--from The ANNALS OF SPACE, Vol. 2_
* * * * *
She stood poised for a glorious moment on the very edge of the rock, the
bronze and pink of her glistening in the sun, the spray still clinging
to her from her last dive. Then, grace in every line of her lithe body,
she sprang from the rock in a perfectly executed swan dive.
Charlie helped her out, smiling. "That was pretty," he said.
"Well, you taught me how." Her figure was not yet that of a woman, but
far more than that of a girl. She was very beautiful and Charlie knew
this although he had no standards to judge by, except for the Indian
women they occasionally saw or Blackbeard's slave girls when the pirate
ship came in to trade.
Unselfconsciously, Robin climbed into her gold-mesh shorts. Charlie
helped her fasten the gold-mesh halter. Long, long ago--it seemed an
unreal dream, almost--he had been a very small boy and his mother had
taken him to a show in which everyone danced and sang and wore gold-mesh
clothing. He had never forgotten it, and now all their clothing was
gold-mesh.
* * * * *
Robin spun around and looked at him. Her tawny blonde hair fell almost
to her waist, and he helped her comb it with a jewel-encrusted comb he
had wished into being a few days before.
"I so like Crimson!" she cried impulsively.
Charlie smiled. "Why, that's a funny thing to say. Is there any other
kind of a place?"
"You mean, but Crimson?"
"Yes."
"I don't know. It is funny. Sometimes I think--"
Charlie smiled at her, a little condescendingly. "Oh, it's the book
again, is it?" he asked.
"All right. It's the book. Stop making fun of me."
Many years ago, when they'd been small children, they had returned to
the ruined spaceship which had brought them to Crimson. It had been
empty except for the book, as if the book had been placed there for them
by whatever power had put them in the spaceship. Naturally, they had not
been able to read, but they kept the book anyway. Then one day, years
later, Robin had wished to be able to read and the next time she lifted
the book and opened it, the magic of the words was miraculously revealed
to her. The book was called A ONE VOLUME ENCYCLOPEDIC HISTORY and it
told about just everything--except Crimson. There was no mention of
Crimson at all. Robin read the book over and over again until she almost
knew it by heart. Even Charlie had listened to it twice all the way
through when she read it, but he had never wished for the ability to
read himself.
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 shore were Phoenicians, Greeks,
Mayas, Royal Navymen, Submariners, mermaids and Cyclopes. To the north
along the shore 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.
"Skyship come!" he cried, gesturing wildly and excitedly.
"Skyship?" repeated Charlie, looking at Robin. "Have you created any
spaceships?"
"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. "Skyship 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 shore. 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 spaceship, 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 spaceship'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.