A Billion Days of Earth

by Piserchia, Doris

  “As an open window serving a suicide has to be evil?”

  “You’re mixing me up. Shut up. I have to figure this out.” Jak spent several minutes pacing. Finally he turned back to Sheen. “Your dream means nothing. None of what you said is true. Life goes on whether we like it or not. Evil, like the poor, is always with us. It’s a fact of nature, a state of affairs, a statistical absolute. Nothing will cancel it, and certainly not you.”

  Sheen climbed onto a nearby mound of dirt. His human shape seemed to flow, and all at once he became a silver Leng with a dunce cap on its head. “You’re missing something pretty obvious, it seems to me.”

  Jak said coolly, “You mean that by destroying all other evil you’ll become evil incarnate? No, Sheen. By your own words, you weren’t commissioned to destroy everything. Only the weak.”

  Sheen laughed and clapped his paws. “But what if that word describes everything mortal?”

  “You’re wrong. There’s strength in the world. People haven’t endured by chance.”

  “Achilles was a God brought down because of one vulnerable spot on his foot. The heel is such a small part of the anatomy. Do a good job of protecting it and your chances of survival are good. But beware the enemy who dedicates himself to locking his sights onto this spot and aiming his arrows at it. You can’t keep dodging forever.”

  The last sentence had been spoken so strangely, so emphatically, that Jak took a backward step. “You’re speaking of me.”

  “It is my intent to seduce you.”

  “You crave my I-will?”

  “You will be my second greatest conquest.”

  Jak smiled frigidly. “Only the second greatest? Who comes before me?”

  “A fool of a creature whom I’ll have if it takes me till doomsday.”

  “But I’m not a fool. You can’t have me without my permission. You said so.”

  “I ask you, in your case, so what?”

  “You must have a very low opinion of my character if you think possessing me will be such an easy task.”

  “On the contrary,” said Sheen. “It won’t be easy. You’re obsessed with morality and justice. But it is my suspicion that these qualities can be used as your Achilles’ heel.”

  Jak spoke gravely. “I have the feeling you’re giving me a warning. Are you always so forthright with your victims?”

  “Always. No one comes to Sheen reluctantly. The feet may lag a bit but the ego flies on wings to my bosom.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Good. If there’s one thing I can’t stomach, it’s a sniveler.”

  “I think you’re suffering from an oversized ego.”

  With a laugh, the silver Leng said, “It grows daily. To this date I’ve conquered three thousand, one hundred and fifty-one life-forms.”

  “That many!”

  “Sometimes I tell the truth. I just did.”

  “You said life-forms. Not all human?”

  “I’ve only just discovered the species.”

  Grimly, Jak said, “You won’t be allowed to continue killing things.”

  “I’m not a killer. Who or what is to stop me?”

  “The brain of man.”

  “I’ll do you a favor by telling you something important: I’m indestructible.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The Queen told me.”

  Jak sneered. “Earth? A brainless hunk of sod?”

  “That brainless hunk of sod created you, my friend.”

  “A minute ago you said you didn’t believe your dream.”

  Capricious Sheen. Foolish Sheen. Silly Sheen. He gave up his Leng-form, flowed, became a pretty girl who did a graceful little dance around Jak. “I may or I may not,” he said lightly. “What I say may be truth or lies. But one thing you can depend on is my prediction: In a hundred years you’ll all be gone.”

  “You like solitude,” Jak said quickly.

  “I’ll mourn to high heaven. I’m gregarious, and the sound of a voice is pleasant to my mind.”

  “Which resides in what part of you?”

  “Now the scientist speaks. You wish to find my Achilles’ heel. I have none.”

  Jak made marks in the dirt with his shoe and without looking up, he said, “Tempt me, Satan.”

  A picture flashed into his mind so abruptly that it seemed to strike his brain. He stiffened and recoiled. “Don’t tell me you lure your victims with that!”

  “Or its equivalent. It is this planet in a state of perfection; your notion of perfection. Notice how everyone is kind. No one is suffering. All are happy.”

  A world I made. The thought leaked through the Leng’s brain. But—wasn’t that what kept people from jumping off cliffs—the idea that, though the world was rotten, it wasn’t that way because of them? They hadn’t made it. But what if they had?

  The place in his head was Utopia. It was also Hell. Everyone was happy. Because of him. His inspiration was theirs, his joy theirs—his wants, his desires; all his. The millions of people in this glowing world had nothing he hadn’t instilled in them. Which meant, of course, that they didn’t exist. No one lived here but himself.

  “How will I bear the loneliness?”

  His cry brought him back to reality. He stood with his arms up to ward off the creature who threatened him. But the silver menace was gone. Sheen was no longer there. He hadn’t taken his picture away but had left it in the Leng’s charge, to be kept or discarded, whichever Jak desired.

  Vennavora was about to bear a child. It would live and so would the mother. They were Gods and this fact explained all why’s and wherefore’s.

  The living hill wasn’t in agreement or disagreement with those self-evident truths. Having no real brain, it survived by responding to any stimulus that brought direct pressure upon it. Its guts took care of the rest, accepting practically anything. It had no way of knowing that the pregnant Vennavora was in a high bracket of desirability. The hill neither knew nor cared. It lived only to eat and roam about.

  Vennavora groaned. Her mind fought pain and simultaneously attempted to energize her protective shield that would save her from this creeping horror. She had known she couldn’t have a baby on a cloud because if her concentration was broken by that curious thing called pain, the braces supporting the cloud would disappear. However, she could remain airborne until the first warnings sent her to the ground.

  That first warning had been too much for Vennavora. She had expected to be surprised by pain, but she hadn’t anticipated blinding agony. It had been so severe that she crashed to earth, and the only reason she hadn’t been killed was because she had been quite low and had landed on the spongy surface of the living hill. Now the thing was preparing to eat her. She screamed for help.

  Living hills meant nothing to Gods. Though Vennavora had seen this one earlier, she hadn’t been frightened. Nothing that moved on the face of the world could frighten her. As a God she was an entity that existed beyond or above her environment.

  She was suddenly and terribly one with her environment. She screamed again. The pain was unbelievable, and she regretted having hidden from her friends. They could have annihilated her discomfort by sending her mind into a place of pleasant dreams. But she had blanked out her thoughts, had flown far from familiar territory, and now she couldn’t call anyone because of the fire inside her.

  To endure this experience alone had been her wish. To know pain had been her intent. A great mind could comprehend agony, but only a body could know it. The Elders had experienced it, but they had tried it in small doses. Vennavora had wanted to beat them all. Curiosity was another name for the thing that had been in her mind. She hadn’t been thinking about cats. They had been extinct for millennia.

  “My unconquerable will!” she gasped.

  The living hill behaved in its usual manner. It deduced in its weird way that the mass upon it might be tasty. The hill formed a depression beneath Vennavora and flattened one side so that she rolled a few inches toward it
s hungry mouth. Then it formed a new depression, flattened an edge, and again the large mass moved in the proper direction.

  “Energy shield!” commanded the monarch, but the order was burned to death in fiery agony.

  This was no ordinary contest of mind against matter. Once upon a time, when Gods were men, they had some things better. A courageous woman could squat over a hole in the ground, give a gusty yelp and hold her baby in her hands a minute later. But men were always in the grip of evolution. Their bodies grew larger and the head which contained the big brain swelled out of proportion. It wasn’t easy for a God to pass her offspring’s head. The use of machinery by the monarchs had ended when they discovered the mind could do almost anything. Babies were born from their mothers because it wasn’t inconvenient. Only a thought was needed to support the bulge, and the birthing meant a trip to dreamland, which was a familiar place. Gods found most of their entertainment there.

  The head of Vennavora’s baby pressed at her pelvis as it attempted to escape its cramping environment. Its father was Tontondely, who had a swelled head, and the baby was like the father.

  The mother screamed. Her fine mind had taken a vacation. Her behavior had much in common with that of her ancestors of three million years past.

  She expected no help. So well had she isolated herself, and so frantic were her thoughts, that her cries could never raise anyone. Nobody but her own kind could help her. None could assist a God but another God. Still, she screamed.

  By and by, two inferior figures appeared on the scene. They came from a far distance, slowly at first and then more rapidly as the sounds of the God increased in intensity and volume.

  The living hill was a mature one, a thousand feet square. Not much grass grew on it so that most of its dirty gray surface lay in plain view. Its pores were large and clogged and its skin was wrinkled and pitted with scars. Here and there clods of earth grew, but their edges were loosening and they would soon be rolled aside and dropped to the ground. In the center was the mouth, a series of small gullies that ran to a common source and sank from sight. It was engaged in violent sucking, as if in anticipation of the coming meal. Vennavora lay to the left, a big and writhing brown body.

  “Pain has killed her power,” said Rik. “She’s helpless. Let’s haul her off that thing.”

  Together they crawled upon the heaving surface. Each took an ankle and pulled. Getting her down onto the ground was the most difficult part, as she weighed nearly three hundred pounds.

  Rik looked down at her. “There is a God at my feet.”

  “Something’s wrong with me,” said Jak through chattering teeth. “I don’t believe this.”

  “I’m actually stronger than she is,” said Rik.

  Jak shivered. “What’s the matter with me? I always thought they were so great. I don’t feel that way at all. I hate them.” He poked Vennavora in the ribs with the toe of his shoe. “I can’t stand to look at her!” He wet his lips with a nervous tongue and glanced at Rik. “Let’s kill her.”

  Rik didn’t hear. The God woman was young, no more than fifteen, and her tawny skin glowed like the coat of a zomba. Not a bone jutted from her flesh. She was warm gold lifted from a mold, with neither scratch nor blemish.

  “She’s beautiful,” he said.

  Heedlessly, Jak continued. “Since the minute I saw her, I knew. They don’t have the right to treat us like animals. I’ll kill them all.”

  The chest of Vennavora rose and fell. Rik’s eyes lingered on the rose tips of her breasts.

  “I can hook her in the throat with my claw,” said Jak. “They bleed like we do. They’ll die like we do.”

  Rik stared at the brown body. “There are no Gods. I’ve been saying that for years. Why didn’t I believe it?” He came out of his mental fog in time to see Jak lean down with the hook on his steel hand aimed at the soft throat. “What are you doing?” he yelled. “Get away from her, you son of a bitch!” He leaped across the brown legs and slammed his arm down on Jak’s wrist.

  The Leng’s eyes rolled back in his head. “What, what?” he gasped. At that moment the head of Tontondely’s young burst forth with crimson cap. “Two of them!” Jak screamed and fell to the ground, and touched his claw to the infant’s throat.

  Rik stood over him like an avenging angel. “Don’t move! Pinch that hook and I’ll kill you. I’ll scatter your bones in the Valley of the Dead for the birds to pick clean.” He wasn’t looking at Jak as he spoke. He looked into the pain-filled eyes of Vennavora.

  “I don’t care!”

  “Don’t move!”

  “Rik, Rik, let me kill it!”

  “Get out of the way. I’ll bring it forth.” Rik shoved the Leng aside.

  Vennavora gasped as he reached for her. “Touch me not,” she said and shrank from him. All at once her belly contracted. “Help me!” she cried and flinched as he knelt between her legs.

  Jak lay on the ground and stared at the sky. “Why can’t I kill it?”

  “Because it’s better than you are.”

  His face twisted with terror and hate, the Leng shrieked, “No!”

  “This baby has more talent than both of us put together.”

  “We’re as good as they are!”

  Rik held up the baby and smacked its rump. The son of Tontondely opened his mouth to cry. Upside down, he could still cock his head, and his eyes darted to his mother. The cry never sounded.

  Rik laid it at Vennavora’s shoulder, saw it grope for the breast, saw it pause to stare at its mother’s face. All at once it nodded its head and calmly began to eat.

  “Did you see that?” said Rik. “Already she’s his teacher. He’s no sooner born than he’s in the first grade. Tell me some more about how great we are.”

  The God lay quietly. Her chest no longer heaved with the pain of drawing breath. Calmness rested upon her now. She didn’t move as she regarded the small man standing over her.

  Jak was on his feet. “Why should you decide we aren’t going to kill them?” he said belligerently to Rik. “Who gave you the decision?”

  “I did. Watch what you say. She isn’t vulnerable now.” Conscious of the burning sun overhead and the perspiration on his back, Rik kept his gaze on the God. “Maybe you’ll tell me, maybe you’ll fry me, but do Gods appreciate it when men do them favors?”

  “Go,” said Vennavora.

  Jak hastily backed away but Rik stayed where he was. The brown eyes were microscopes staring at everything he owned. Did he imagine it or was there a glint of curiosity in them?

  “I thought I was mature but I wasn’t,” he said. “I don’t feel like getting down on my knees to you and I suppose that’s a step forward. But I feel like giving your rear a kick for shattering my last illusions.”

  Vennavora didn’t smile. He only had the impression that she did. “You will survive the longest,” she said. Her glance strayed to Jak. “Your curiosity is not always a virtue. Too often it is self-flagellation.” More intently, her eyes fastened on the Leng. “You wanted to cause me pain. Listen to me, man, and know your own pain. Once you sat at my feet, licked my hand, lay before my hearth, worshipped me and lived for no other pleasure. Your devotion, your loyalty and your life were nothing without me.”

  Again she looked at Rik and again he caught the impression of a fleeting smile. “My bright-eyed savior, go in peace but approach me never again. The archetypes of my ancestry forbid it. The intellect can never completely interpret and direct emotion, never sort out that which lies at the bottom of the subconscious. You think we are friends? In the world of emotion we can never meet except as mortal enemies. I bow to my own heritage and know bemusement because of it. You have taught me something I didn’t suspect. I, Vennavora, am not yet a God.”

  Jak knelt at her feet. “I’m sorry, I’m very sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Yes, you would have torn out my throat and been terribly sorry you did it. That is your way.”

  The little Leng cringed, and tears coursed down his chee
ks. “What you say doesn’t bring me pain. I don’t understand. What do you mean when you say I worshipped you and lived for no other pleasure?”

  “She’s talking about your ancestors,” said Rik.

  Jak shivered in his fear. “What does it mean?”

  Ignoring him, Rik faced Vennavora. “Why won’t I survive in the long run?”

  “Too much is being sent upon you. You cannot stand.”

  “Can you?”

  Her eyes bored into his. “What do you know, man?”

  “What are you talking about?” Jak demanded, but they paid him no attention.

  “I know only what I suspect,” said Rik.

  Vennavora’s reply was wintry. “Take care. Bring not the wrath of the Gods down upon you.”

  “I’ve lived under somebody’s wrath all my life. I couldn’t avoid it if I tried.”

  “Tontondely is a special kind of God. His mind is greater than all.”

  “I’m left out!” cried Jak.

  “Your boyfriend made a mistake,” Rik said to Vennavora. “He let me steal the toy. But, then, it really isn’t a toy, is it?”

  “And now you think you have bargaining power?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t know the Gods.”

  “I know them. They can kill me. Tontondely can hunt me down and burn me to a cinder. But I won’t give it back; not for nothing.”

  Vennavora’s gaze was relentless. “Nothing is what you want for it. If you can’t have it, then it is nothing. You cannot resist what is beyond your power to resist.”

  Rik felt the trembling in his legs. “I hold the work of Tontondely in a safe place.”

  “You know too much.”

  “Then kill me.”

  “I never destroy anything valuable. But I can be cruel. Perhaps now is the time for cruelty, though it can be effective only when the response is proper. I wonder, are you capable of the proper response?”

  “You mean, can you hurt my feelings? The answer is no.”

  “You’re not that good.”

  “I want to show you something.” Rik stripped off his gloves, held up his arms. “You know what this means. We won’t be behind you forever.”