"Well, you wait right here, Tashtu, and tell Charlie where I've gone.
What could be simpler? I'll be all right, don't worry about me."
"Lord Charlie, he say watch you."
"And I say I'm going with the spaceman to his spaceship."
Tashtu bowed. "The Lady has spoken," he said, and watched Robin descend
the rocky rampart and walk back with Glaudot toward the far distant
glint of metal which was this spaceship they were talking about.
* * * * *
"So you can create just anything," Glaudot said.
"I guess so."
A goddess, he thought. A beautiful goddess who ...
Suddenly he stared at her. Who could make him the most powerful man in
the galaxy.
"This spaceship of yours--" she began.
"Wait. Wait a minute. If you can create anything, how's about
re-creating Chandler?"
"Chand-ler? What is Chand-ler?"
"The boy back there. The one your braves killed."
Robin said: "If you wish," and Glaudot held his breath. The power over
life and death, he thought....
He looked down and saw Chandler's spacesuited body there, the two arrows
protruding from his chest. He shook his head. "Not dead," he said. "What
good is he to anybody dead?"
Robin nodded. "I'm sorry," she said. "I just hadn't thought before of
bringing people back to life. It ... why it seems ..."
"What's the matter?"
"I wouldn't really be bringing him back, you know. It would be a copy,
just a copy."
"But a perfect copy?"
"I think so."
"Then if it's just a copy it shouldn't bother you at all, should it?"
"Well ..." Robin said doubtfully.
"Go ahead. Show me you can do it."
Glaudot gaped. Another figure sat alongside Chandler's corpse,
Chandler's second corpse. The other figure got up. It was Chandler.
* * * * *
"Look out!" the new Chandler cried. "Look out--Indians!"
"Just take it easy," Glaudot told him. Glaudot's face was very white,
his eyes big and round and staring.
Chandler looked down at the body on the rocks. His knees buckled and
Glaudot caught him, stopping him from falling. Chandler tried to say
something, but the words wouldn't come. He stared with horrified
fascination at the body, which was an exact copy of himself--or a copy
of the dead man from whom the new living man was copied.
"May we go to your spaceship now?" Robin asked Glaudot politely. "I have
always wished to see a spaceship."
Here was power, Glaudot thought. Incredible power. All the power to
control worlds, to carve worlds from primordial slime, almost, for
yourself. Here was far more power than any man in the galaxy had ever
been offered. Was it his, Glaudot's?
It wouldn't be if he brought the beautiful girl to the spaceship and
Purcell. For Captain Purcell, a devoted servant of the galactic
civilization which he was attempting to spread to the outworlds, would
think in terms of what good the discovery of this girl could bring to
all humanity. But if Glaudot kept her to himself ...
And then another thought almost stunned him. Why merely the girl? She'd
mentioned a friend, hadn't she? Perhaps it was something in the
atmosphere of this strange world, in the very air you breathed. Perhaps
anyone could do it, could create out of nothing--Glaudot included.
"You want to go to the spaceship?" he asked.
"Yes. Oh, yes."
"Then teach me the secret of creation."
"Of making things, you mean? Why, there isn't any secret. Should there
be any secret? You merely--create."
"Show me," said Glaudot.
* * * * *
A table appeared, and savory dishes of food.
"Magician!" cried Chandler.
A great roan stallion, bridled but without a saddle, materialized. Robin
swung up on its broad back and used her bare knees for balance and
control. The stallion cantered off.
"Wait!" cried Glaudot. "Please wait."
The stallion cantered back and Robin alighted. The stallion began to
graze on a patch of grass which suddenly appeared on the naked rock. The
stallion seemed quite content.
"You mean," the new Chandler asked in an awed voice, "she just _made_
these things? The food. The table. The horse ..."
"Yes," said Glaudot. He concentrated his will on creating a single
flower in the new field of grass. He concentrated his whole being.
But nothing happened.
He glared almost angrily at Robin, as if it were her fault. "I don't
have the power you have," he said.
She nodded. "Only Charlie and me." She looked at the roan stallion.
"Beauty, isn't he? I'll present him to Charlie." She turned to Glaudot.
"Now take me to the ship."
"We ought to get started back there, Mr. Glaudot," Chandler said.
"Yes? Why?"
"But--but I don't have to tell you why! This girl is one of the most
important discoveries that has ever been made. The ability to create
material things ... out of nothing...."
"Show me your planet," Glaudot told Robin, ignoring the younger man. "We
can talk about the spaceship later. You see, I'm an explorer and it's
my job to explore new worlds." He spoke slowly, simply, as he would
speak to a child. Somehow, although the girl was not a child and was
quite the most astonishingly beautiful girl he had ever seen, he thought
that was the right approach.
"Now wait a minute, Mr. Glaudot," Chandler protested. "We both know it's
our duty to bring her to Captain Purcell."
"Maybe you think it's your duty," Glaudot told the younger man. "I don't
think it's mine. And before you run off to the ship to tell that
precious captain of yours, you ought to know that you'd be dead right
now if it hadn't been for me."
"You?"
"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 ..."