A Billion Days of Earth

by Piserchia, Doris

  Rik paused on the sidewalk and stared up the hill. Aril gave a sudden jerk, as if something had startled her.

  “Look at the other grave,” thought Rik. “Just give it one glance, and I’ll love you for the rest of my life. I’ll forgive you for all of it if you’ll only look at that other grave.”

  Aril raised her head, looked at the sky, turned and started down the hill.

  He went into the house and hid Tontondely’s toy in the back of his closet. As silently and as quickly as he had entered, he went back out to the street and walked to the bus stop.

  His intentions were matter-of-fact when he went into the police station.

  “Why would anyone want to go into that valley?” said the officer behind the desk. “I never been there myself but I hear it’s real ripe.”

  Rik was patient. “Yes, but getting back to the animals—”

  “You didn’t answer me.”

  “What?”

  “Why would anyone want to go out there?”

  “Sergeant, I—”

  “You a stranger? I don’t recall seeing you before.”

  “I was born here. About the animals—”

  “I’ll tell you one thing; you evade questions if anybody ever did. On this form you filled out, you left a lot of blank spaces. The first one, the addresses of family members, why didn’t you fill in the space after your son’s name?”

  Rik backed from the desk. The room was hot and he wished he had gone fishing. “There are no animals out there.”

  “Never mind that right now. First things first. This form comes first. If I don’t get it all filled out I get chewed by the Chief.”

  “I came in here to make a report, not fill out a form.”

  The sergeant sat back in his chair and worried a fat cigar. He had big black eyes that looked empty. “No form, no report.”

  Rik started to walk away.

  “Get back here,” said the man.

  Pausing, Rik said, “Why?”

  “You want to make a report?”

  “Not if I have to spend thirty minutes discussing my vital statistics with you.”

  “You in a hurry?”

  “My time is my own.”

  The cigar aimed at him like a gun and the growl was practiced. “It’s hot, I got six hours before I go off duty, there are such things as rules and regulations, your skin is thin, I got sandpaper for a throat. You’re worried about the Valley of the Dead where nobody but nuts go. What kind of fellow are you?”

  “A harassed citizen, but I asked for it.” Rik hiked up his pants and walked out.

  He decided to forget it, and then found himself flagging a bus that went the University route.

  “Maybe you want the Archeology Department.” She was the first woman at the first desk in the first building he came to.

  “Why?” said Rik.

  The woman’s nose wrinkled. “They’re the only ones with an interest in the Valley.”

  “This is an institution of brains. Something out there is killing every living thing that moves, and I should think even the janitors would be interested.”

  The woman left her chair and disappeared through a door. A few moments later she came out again. “The Valley of the Dead is strictly the archeologists’ domain. Professor Kine Will give you all the information you need. He’s in Building Seventeen.”

  Professor Kine was out to lunch.

  “He won’t be back today,” said a man named Trop. “He’s busy.”

  “So am I,” said Rik. “Are you an archeologist?”

  Trop’s nose wrinkled. “Yes, but I don’t work in the Valley of the Dead.”

  “I know the place stinks, but that has nothing to do with it.”

  “Nobody but Professor Blok would be caught dead out there, but you can’t see him because he’s disappeared. As a matter of fact, he went out to the Valley last week and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “Did anyone look for him?”

  Trop seemed amused. “He knows that place like he knows his own face. He’ll show up.”

  “About those animals—”

  “Not my domain. Nor Kine’s. If I were you I’d see the local authorities.”

  Rik started to walk away and then turned back. “Do me a favor.”

  Trop’s eyes were bright. “If I can.”

  “Why doesn’t anybody hear me when I say something?”

  “You’re too intense. You have to learn to relax. If you want to be a carrier of bad news, you’d better overhaul your image. Make like the message was the least important thing in the world.”

  “What if it was really important?”

  “Irrelevant.”

  “Pretend for a second that I have all the necessary qualities for striking up a conversation. Pretend that I’m relaxed. We’ve gotten the preliminaries out of the way. Then suppose I tell you something is killing all the wild life in the Valley of the Dead? What is your automatic reaction?”

  Trop spread his paws. “There isn’t a thing I can do about it.”

  “But you’re curious about it. You’re going to think about it and maybe go out there and have a look for yourself.”

  “Whatever for? It isn’t my area of responsibility.”

  “There’s such a thing as public domain.”

  “Then let the public handle it.”

  “Who is the public?” said Rik, and as Trop only stood there smiling at him, he did something he had been doing all his life. He resigned from the human race.

  chapter iii

  On a handsome piece of property at the north edge of Osfar sat the estate of the Fillys. There were four others like it in different parts of the world. A man could stand beside the electrified fence and admire the estate’s green miles. On a clear day he might see the tops of the five manors, and if the thought came to him that it would require a pile of money ten feet high and ten feet across merely to run all those buildings, he immediately realized that every one of the Fillys inside those buildings had a million dollars. And when he figured that all those people represented maybe fifty million, all told, he knew this was enough to run the place and have some left over for groceries.

  A few centuries before, the rich of the world were philanthropic. Their descendants monopolized wealth, eliminated all but the very elite, took the family name of Filly, stopped giving money away and knew no fear of anyone but the Gods. They needn’t have worried. The Gods didn’t care what ratmen did, rich or poor.

  If looking over that electrified fence at the estate made an observer sick because he suddenly began to think about a hundred piles of money as high as a hundred hills, and that those Fillys in their manors were sitting on more dollars than he could count in his lifetime—if this was what the observer thought—he looked over his shoulder to make sure he was alone, after which he let it all out in one loud, crazy scream and then he went home and tried to forget he had those thoughts.

  It would be unendurable to live in a world where ninety-nine percent of it were serfs, while the remaining one percent silently manipulated them. The philosophy of the sacrifice of the one for the many wasn’t perfect, but it had served man for all of his existence. Hadn’t it? Philosophies were suspect and humanity must be cautious in his choices. For instance, consider the philosophy of the sacrifice of the many for the one: that was just too goddamn …

  Filly One strolled in the garden while his fourth child was being born. He knew he should return to the house at once. Arda hadn’t screamed for an hour, which meant the physician had anesthetized her. The child must be large and difficult to bring.

  One shivered, and a ghostly pallor crept across his aristocratic features. A thin paw hovered over a flower, descended to stroke it, quickly removed itself lest the fragile blossom be damaged. He loved the gardens at this time of day. The sun was to the west and the arbors were in shadow. Coolness reached out to him like balm. His anguished spirit sought once again to rise from the despair into which it had plunged. If only she would cry out! With repr
oach, he stared at the sun. The source of life winked at him in good humor but he knew it lied. This was a day of mourning.

  His step became more brisk. Pessimism was unlike him. Statistically speaking, he had almost every chance of terminating this day with delighted laughter. The sun struck him on the cheek and he frowned. It was unpleasant to be reminded that he was subject to something. Through narrowed eyes, he viewed the orb in the sky, laughed at himself. There was a limit to control, after all. (But he didn’t believe it.)

  It was then that he saw the physician standing on the porch. His heart gave a single violent flutter before he was calmed. So controlled was he that he could pause on the path to examine a blue bud. These marvels would be the most beautiful in his gardens. They needed only the rain, the sun and the gardener. Wasn’t it true that those three things were all any living being required, even his child which Arda had borne, else why would Flur be standing there? The child had known an abundance of sun and rain in his wife’s body. The unknown quantity was the skill of the gardener: himself. He had planted four seeds, and, judging from the fruit of the first three, his thumb wasn’t any too green.

  As he always did when his thoughts were common, Filly One winced.

  Flur leaned against the porch pillar and struggled to contain his contempt. Mingled with the contempt was a tinge of satisfaction. He was thinking of his own son, born a month before. Had Flur known how starkly his hatred shone on his face, he would have bleated a terrified denial, but he didn’t know, because the features of the man who stepped onto the porch betrayed no emotion.

  “I’m sorry, sir.” For an instant, the physician expected some reaction to his remark, but then he remembered. It was a block of ice standing there, not a human. Three times Flur had stabbed this man with a sword of doom and it would be no different this time. The face would be a cold tomb. In about three seconds, the mouth would open and the stalk of ice would speak. It would say, “How is my wife?”

  Filly One said it.

  “Very well, sir, no problem at all,” said Flur. “I’ve left her asleep.”

  “I will see the child.”

  In spite of his hatred, Flur was jolted. The fourth time! A part of his mind burned with pity. “Must you, sir? It isn’t a good thing.”

  “I will see the child,” said Filly One.

  Flur followed the master into the house. He shivered as the smell of richness struck him. God, it was worth all those years of study just to get a look at this place. To know that such a house existed made the torment of living bearable. His eyes evaded the gleaming walls of the foyer, misted as they dropped to the rug. It was like walking in the warm fur of a living animal.

  They entered a room that soared high and still higher to a silver ceiling. Voluptuousness and fastidiousness were here, combined with such an overwhelming aura of sublimity that Flur was momentarily blinded and stumbled on the first step of the stairs. His cold paw clutched the bannister, greedily gripped. If he could carry away one of the statues on the landing, one of the vases or portraits, he would never have to do another day’s work for the rest of his life. Hell, one of the drapes was worth a fortune! Or the marble tiles on the floor, or the band of gold on the bannister he clutched; or the rug on the steps he climbed, so soft he wanted to bury his face in it and weep.

  They reached the upper landing and went down a wide hall. Flur thought of the woman they would see. Pity squeezed at his vitals for a moment before rage took its place. It was justice, by God. He hadn’t a thing he could call his own, but at least he had his son. What were all the objects in this unbelievable house compared to his little babe? The cold fish who walked beside him like a zombie thought he was so damned precious because he was rich, but he couldn’t even shell out a normal kid, something the lowest wretch in the worst slum could do. No man would trade places with him.

  The last thought beat at the shambles that was Flur’s brain. He felt like crying. He knew. He would gladly give up everything he had to trade places for a year with the zombie beside him.

  He opened the door of the bedroom with a quiet paw and a sympathetic expression, but he was conscious of nothing but his terror at himself.

  A gray-haired nurse stood beside the bed in which the wife of Filly One lay sleeping. For ten years she had been the body servant of the mistress of this wing of the house. A younger nurse stood beside a basket at the foot of the bed. Her artificial hand lay protectingly on the edge of the basket, but there was a kind of revulsion in the manner in which she rocked it. Steadfastly, she avoided looking at the infant she guarded.

  Arda lay like a candle of wax. If her dreams distressed her, there was no outward evidence of it. Exhaustion drew the flesh of her cheeks into hollows. Her lashes were bird tracks on splashes of gray snow.

  Filly One moved to the basket and looked at his son.

  I’m better than he is! thought Flur. At least I have the good sense to know that thing ought to be destroyed. The physician gave a start when he realized Filly One was staring at him.

  “You’ll see to it that he is taken where he belongs,” said the master of this grand house, this city, this country, this …

  “Yes, sir, there will be no delay. The nurse will go with me.” Flur cast a grim eye at the girl who was regarding them with an expression of horror and disbelief. No doubt she had been expecting him to prepare a needle and put an end to the blasphemy.

  “Do it now,” said Filly One.

  Flur and the girl took up the basket and bore away the product of their master’s passion. The girl would return, forced back to the estate by the man who drove them to their destination. Flur would be allowed to stay abroad. Of all the servants of the Fillys, he was the only one who retained his freedom.

  Filly One sat beside his wife for a time, and then he went to the room where his brother waited. His first thought: Damn him, why did he bring the child?

  “Hello, Two,” he said, and patted the curls of his niece who rushed at him and grappled with his legs. He picked her up and sat down.

  “I heard,” said Filly Two. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There will be more. Arda is young.”

  Thought One: My God, he has two sons and he also has this precious creature in my lap while I have none.

  Thought Two: The hell she’ll have more, and even if she does they’ll be no good, like the rest. My brother’s seed is rotten; as is mine.

  There was a marked resemblance between the two men, or perhaps it wasn’t so remarkable, considering that their ancestors, for several generations back, had been close relatives. They had the same fine heads and sharp ears, identical jawlines, long noses, small gray eyes. Both seemed to have been pried from the same mold, until a closer examination was made. Then subtle differences were discernible. The equanimity of Filly One remained static while Two’s occasionally wavered and threatened to shatter. About Two was an air of pent-up loudness, repressed, but there beneath the surface.

  Said Filly One: “We will survive this as we always survive calamity.”

  Thought Two privately: I’ll survive, but you won’t.

  It may have been that Two fully comprehended the meaning of his words as soon as he thought them. His body jerked and victory gleamed on his face. “You don’t have to rely on Arda, you know,” he blurted, and then he sat mute and frightened.

  Filly One held the wriggling child still. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that … I hate to see you childless!”

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve said such a thing.”

  “I’m concerned for you! I don’t like to think that Arda will give you no heirs.” Two’s fright quickly ebbed and changed to sullenness. “What a tragedy, and only me to help you. Three, Four and Five won’t be back for three weeks. But brothers are useless at a time like this.”

  “Yes. How is business?”

  Two seemed relieved to get to another subject. ‘Terrible.”

&n
bsp; “Explain.”

  “You know I occasionally dress in commoner’s clothes and go into town. I do it to keep in contact with public feeling. Dissatisfaction is everywhere. The members of the Luvonite sect are all over the place, preaching on soapboxes, holding large gatherings. Too, I’ve received many reports of people disappearing. I know nothing about it. Probably it isn’t significant. But the combination is getting on my nerves.”

  “The ticker tapes show no change in buying trends.”

  “I think it should be investigated. If nothing is happening, all well and good.”

  Filly One looked at his niece, touched a bright curl with his paw. “I’ll call Redo,” he said, with a smile for the baby. He didn’t see his brother suddenly give a shudder.

  After casual talk, One left and went to his office. Soon he had a visitor, a little brown man of indefinite features who slid quietly into the room.

  “You have news?”

  “I have.” The man sat beside the desk. His voice came like the rustling of dry leaves. “The single atavism that has gone unaccounted for has at last been traced.”

  “It lives?”

  “Probably forever, since he possesses the constitution of a mountain.”

  “Why? What makes them so strong?”

  The man shrugged. “It is not to be borne and yet it remains a fact.”

  “Get on with it.”

  “He has been there twelve years. The caretaker has a safe where his mouth should be, and no bribe will crack the seal of that safe. He believes his charges to be the seed of Satan who are destined to overwhelm the world. The man is mad. He won’t talk. He cares only for his work. He has no wife, no family, nothing but the … personages he oversees.”

  Filly One’s eyes were marbles of snow. “You are in love with your own verbosity.”

  The brown man coughed. “This one went unnoticed for too long. Tracing him was difficult. I finally decided to become a regular visitor there. I’m gratified to say the idea paid off. A man came, a gentleman from the suburbs. He returned two weeks later, and two weeks after that. Twice a month, without fail, he comes and gives the caretaker money.”