“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t they tell us we were doing the same things they used to do?”
“Because they didn’t care,” said Rik.
“They may simply think a species has the right to make mistakes if they want to.”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“You said they don’t care. That isn’t what I said. They aren’t morally obligated to tell us when we’re bitching things up.”
“If they had lifted a finger fifty thousand years ago, we’d be a lot better off.”
“They’re not our keepers.”
“No, they aren’t.”
Jak flushed. “They have their own problems. They’re Gods. Why should they care what happens to us?”
“They shouldn’t.”
“That’s the truth. They shouldn’t and they don’t—” The Leng broke off. “That’s what you said.” His eyes slitted in annoyance. “Did you do that on purpose?”
“If you saw someone racing blindfolded down a road you knew was washed out, would you be morally obligated to warn him?”
Instead of replying, Jak jumped to his feet and angrily stalked from the cache.
Aril had difficulty accepting the Leng.
“Why don’t you two get married?” she said sweetly one day when Rik was trying to read the paper and Jak was taking a walk. “I’ve never seen two men as thick as you are.”
“He won’t be here much longer. Just until he can find himself a place to live.”
“I suppose that won’t be the end of it,” she said.
“He’s my friend.”
“He’s weird. Why doesn’t he get a girl?”
Rik rattled the paper. “He’s shy and they haven’t gotten used to him yet.”
“They’ll never get used to him. He isn’t like us.”
“He’s not so bad. He’s young, he’s intelligent and he has more manners than most of the hooligans in this city. Soon enough some girl will come along.”
Aril stood with her hands on her hips. “What kind of children would come of a match with him? He’s like the bugs in the cupboards. A good stiff wind comes along and he goes into hibernation like a jare. Do you know how many blankets he uses at night?”
“I haven’t heard you complain about those damned living hills that block the roads everywhere.”
“They’re the Lord’s creatures.”
“What’s Jak? Do you think he popped out from under a cabbage?”
Had she intended to answer? Whatever Aril was going to do, she didn’t. Instead, she forgot. As quickly as steel fingers could snap, the memories of the moment fled. Rik could see comprehension fade in her eyes. She looked at him as if she didn’t know who he was. Her head tilted to one side. She seemed to hear a call from somewhere.
“I’m going to Brog,” she said, and left the house.
So did Rik. He sat on the front curb, whittled on a stick and thought about the shepherd of the flock.
His parents had dedicated him to Luvon when he was born. At age five, he was taken to Brog who led him into the oasis where the corpse of Luvon stood.
“This is the Lord,” Brog had said.
“How?” said Rik.
“This is the Lord,” said Brog, and gave him a pinch.
“Hello, Lord.”
“Bow down. Ask the Lord to hurry up and return to life and take us all to paradise. Every night before you go to bed get down on your knees and ask the same thing. If you miss three times in a row, you’ll get a disease that eats out your eyes.”
Brog was old and smelled ripe. He might have made a temporary convert if he had been more impressive in looks or style. He wasn’t and he didn’t. Rik became an atheist that day. He made his annual pilgrimage to the corpse of Luvon until he grew bigger than his father.
Eventually, old Brog died and his son took his place as shepherd. The new Brog was an epileptic and schizophrenic, and because his behavior was often interesting he had a large following. His people were all hardy and strong. It was Brog’s contention that Luvon demanded human suffering, and the unconverted in Osfar often saw Brog and his friends walking naked through snowdrifts that piled up by the roads in winter. The nudists were forbidden to accept rides or gifts of food during their sacrificial periods, so they were naturally healthy types. Strangely or not, they were the first to notice when the periods between sacrifices grew shorter. Some decided that Brog’s behavior wasn’t interesting, after all. Others discovered that while they could go without food for two or three days, freezing as they were doing it, they couldn’t take a full week of the same treatment. They dropped out and returned to their homes and jobs.
Those who remained with Brog were Luvonites to the core. No snowdrift was too deep to wade through, no hunger pain was too intense to bear. It actually wasn’t all bad. Summer always came and life could be pleasant. There were long evenings with plenty of trysting places where one met with a friendly fanatic of the opposite gender, and cornfields were spaced abundantly throughout the oases. It didn’t matter if eating and loving sometimes kept them from the Lord. With all due respect, He wasn’t going anywhere. He could and He would come the second time, but go He wouldn’t, for his feet were already up to the ankles in the hardest dirt this side of the Horny Mountains.
Thoughts of his dead father, of Aril, of Brog, of life, were in Rik’s mind as he sat on the curb and whittled on his stick.
“I love you,” said Sheen, lurking behind a shrub. He was a small silver tare with a turned-up nose and a bow-mouth.
There was no response to the remark.
Sheen’s sweet mouth pouted. “The truth is actually the opposite. What I really feel for you is hatred.”
No response.
“Indifference?” The shiny creature frowned. Suddenly he smiled in triumph. “Tolerance!” he bellowed.
“Beat it,” said Rik.
“Heaven goes wanting for lack of your peaceful spirit.”
Rik examined his wood carving with a critical eye. Maybe if he practiced for a decade he might whittle a decent figure. It wasn’t coming along as he wanted.
“I’m ignoring you,” said Sheen. “I hope you’re taking note of it.”
Wood shavings began to adorn his beautiful head. “I suppose the boot comes soon,” he predicted somberly. “I must have conditioned your leg since it flashes out every time we meet. Can’t you control yourself better than that? You aren’t fooling anyone. Violence is always precipitated by fear.”
Rik accidentally dropped the stick. He shoved the silver tare out of the way in order to retrieve it. Sheen went rolling down the sloped street. Once again Rik examined his work of art. It was no good. He had no talent. With no regrets he tossed the piece aside and stuck his knife in his pocket.
A child picked up the figure and wandered away with it. It was an odd and interesting thing. Of course it was supposed to be a God, but it was very strange to look at. Hair grew from the head while the body was too slender. Also, the little nails on the tips of the toes and fingers were not Godly.
The child ran to his little cubbyhole in a wall behind the iceman’s wagon, where he removed a board. Into the small space there he crammed the wooden figure. There were other things in the hole, odd bits and pieces he had found or stolen. Later he would take them all out and look at them. He would speculate and dream, pretend his toys were time machines capable of taking him into the past. His hand lingered on the pile of objects and a smile grew on his face.
He gasped as a shadow suddenly fell upon him. His steel fingers automatically tightened on the things in his cache. With a quick movement he slammed the board across his treasures and sealed it with his back.
It wasn’t a neighborhood bully standing there ready to taunt him. It wasn’t a wino, nor was it the iceman who usually threw rocks at him. It was only an ordinary man.
A closer look told the boy he was wrong. This was a particular man, the one who had thrown away the wooden God. For some reason he had followe
d him here, and now he stood staring down with a strange expression on his face.
Prepared to lie as soon as the first question was put to him, the child’s face assumed its normal coldness. A moment later, it registered puzzlement. The man had said nothing. After the one curious look, he turned and walked away.
The child watched the dwindling figure and his thoughts spoke to him. “He knows.” There was no quick answer to the next idea: “What?” The child was only conscious of the fact that the man who had made the carving knew. “Everything?” he asked himself in a whisper.
Immediately he was on his feet and running down the street. Driven by intense excitement, he rounded the corner and stood searching the sidewalks. The man was gone. But there was nothing to worry about. The man’s image was burned onto the young retinas, and no matter how far or how fast he traveled with his secrets, he wouldn’t be able to hide forever. They would meet again.
chapter v
The sweet voice of Sheen was music in the morning air. “Jak, Jak, long have I yearned to meet thee face to face. The sun has risen and shone many times upon the mass of me, caused the ground to yield blossoms and all kinds of growing things, yet wherever I looked I beheld an ugly desert because Jak was not there.”
“My God,” said the Leng, his melancholia fleeing. Open-mouthed, he stared into the culvert at a large mound of silvery material. As he watched, the mound became a slender stalk that swayed with grace for a few moments before rolling to the ground again and forming itself into a star. Almost at once it changed to a long trickle of flowing fluid that broke into a dozen smooth spheres. They converged to build a pyramid of glittering loveliness.
“I believe you’re trying to entertain me!” said Jak.
“As a craven lapdog!” yelped Sheen. “A drooling slave, a mindless lackey, a nincompoop who subsists on the nectar of obeisance, I kneel at your feet.” The pyramid changed to the form of a man. Kneeling, the man assumed a humble pose.
Jak clapped his steel hands. “I’ve never seen anything like you! Excitement, bewilderment, incredulity—my emotions are impossible to contain. But before we go any further, I have to know one thing. What in hell are you?”
The silver head bent. “I am Sheen.”
“That’s only a name. It tells me nothing. What are you?”
“What does it matter?”
The longer the Leng stared, the greater grew his astonishment. He knew this was no ordinary creature. Everything about it cried of alienness. A serpentine length of fluid one moment, it could become a perfectly-formed man in the next. Unlike mercury, it didn’t sag beneath its own weight, which meant that somewhere within that smooth body was a musculature. But whoever heard of muscle tissue that could stretch until it was thread-thin? This thing called Sheen was intelligent, it could communicate, it could reason. Obviously it was a protoplasm-mineral organism, but it wasn’t like the calse which Gods wore on their heads nor was it similar to living hills. They were primarily protoplasm. Sheen seemed to be mostly mineral. The whole idea was impossible. The things of Earth begat their own kind. There was nothing on this planet that could have begotten Sheen, yet here he rested, a weird spawn that confounded reason.
“You came from space!”
“I did no such thing,” said Sheen. “This is as much my world as it is yours. In fact, it’s more mine. That you got here first constitutes nothing.”
“What is your origin?”
“I was born in the bowels of a volcano in the Valley of the Dead.”
The Leng shivered. “That inspires me with sinister thoughts. I see toadstools and hear wails of anguish. I think of shade, cold wind and stealthy creeping.”
“Cataclysm exists in the eye of the beholder. Evil coexists with threat, but aren’t they within one entity?”
“By God, I’ll say one thing for you; you speak in riddles.”
Making a purring sound, Sheen said, “Do I?”
“So help me, I don’t know what to think.”
“No matter. But for your information, I think I had another origin and that I was placed in the pit.”
“How? By whom?”
Sheen sat down and began hunting for four-leaf clovers in the grass of the oasis. “To be frank, and I’m not often, what I just said is probably only my imagination. It tries to get out of hand now and then. What do you think of dreams?”
“Dreams?”
“There are times when I dream.” Sheen gave a delicate shrug. “Always it is the same dream. Would you care to hear it?”
“I would,” said Jak.
“There is an amphitheatre of vast dimensions, so vast I tell myself it must be the core of space. In this great cavern rests a throne of unbelievable size, and on the throne sits the green and barnacled Earth. I see your eyes widening in incredulity. Nevertheless, the dream figure in that chair is the old Queen of us all, ensconced in majesty and beetle-browed in Her ferocity. From Her throne, Earth calls me forth to life.”
Jak stared at the human figure at his feet, gazed into the eyes fixed so calmly on him. All at once his throat tightened and he shuddered. He was afraid, and he didn’t know why. “Let’s pretend for a moment that your dream is reality and not symbolism,” he said. “For what purpose did Earth call you to life? If she called you to her, she surely had words to give you.”
Sheen snickered. The sound held a nervous quality. The sober expression on his face became something else. He lowered his head. “To be a garbage collector,” he said in a low voice. “For this cause was I born.” Suddenly his head jerked up and his look was arrogant. He gave a human snort of derision. “It’s only a dream. I am so beautiful, so intelligent, so fine in my every facet. An infinity of spiritual distance lies between myself and the offal littering this world.”
Jak had begun to pace about. His arms were locked behind his back and he was frowning. All at once he stopped pacing, turned. “What definition did Earth give you for garbage? The word must have been explained.”
“Only obscurely. And yet … strange how one knows. Weakness is my destiny, Leng.” Sheen laughed uneasily. “I am to consume all that which is weak on the earth.”
The two creatures stared across the short distance into each other’s eyes. The wind plunged through the trees overhead and gave gleeful chortles that sounded eerily lifelike. Far below them, in some cavern, a low rumbling began.
In a faint and horrified whisper, Sheen said, “I think the Queen has decided to bathe herself. I’m the water.”
Jak was staring in mounting fear at a vision his mind opened before him. He saw the wellsprings of life shoot upward from Earth in a splattering fountain. With a roar, the water showered out of a gigantic hole and in the midst of it he saw a towering figure take form. Master, God, Earth, Kismet—what mattered which name a mind gave it? The figure was the Maker, the Life-giver, and on her face was a frown.
Insignificant thing, a frown; except on that face. There it assumed monumental importance. Man might be displeased, yes, but this one never. Please, no, I’ll be good, I won’t do it again. Smile, please smile. Show me you don’t mean it. You can’t mean it. You can’t have had enough of it. Your patience is eternal. Who said that? I can’t remember. All I know is you can’t do what that frown implies. Who are you to judge what you’ve made? If we’re your best product, you have to be satisfied with us. Why? I don’t know why, I only know you’re responsible for our existence. That’s why you’re going to destroy us? Stop putting words in my mouth; don’t you know I’m not perfect? No, no, I don’t mean to offend. Yes, I know, you gave us the seeds of perfection, but it’s too difficult, can’t you see that? Have you no mercy? Do you want to see your best work destroyed? Please don’t say that! It can’t be your answer. It’s terrible to have the ability to make something wonderful and then destroy it because it has a few faults. Goddamn you, who do you think you are?
The Leng opened his eyes and saw that he was on his knees. He hadn’t been aware of kneeling. His mouth was dry and his heart had
slowed to a dangerously weak throb. He felt his body surrounding him and he didn’t want to get too close to the thing that was himself. It was threatening, that thing residing in his brain. Careful!
He looked at the sky. Some kind of spell had captured him. The clay was the final answer and it would deliver him from truth. His knees hurt, his stomach complained of hunger. The wind turned chill on his back. He looked at Sheen and experienced rage. The rage altered, became derision. His scorn was heavy and relieving, almost blanked out the murky fear.
“You’ve taken that fantasy to heart!” he said, too loudly.
Sheen had been watching him. The silver, human mask was now serene. All traces of his earlier distress were gone. “Not so, and neither must you. I am I, alone and unafraid. I’m no servant commissioned by a hunk of brainless sod. I am without beginning or end. Admittedly, my subconscious bothers me now and then, but my power grows daily and will continue to grow until I am omnipotent. A silly dream won’t confine me.”
Jak climbed shakily to his feet. “A thing without beginning doesn’t come to life, but you were born in a dead volcano. You swear you aren’t a commissioned servant but I think you believe you are. Omnipotence? Granted, such a state could exist for you if you consumed all weakness. It depends. What stimulates your appetite?”
Sheen grinned. “The I-will.”
“And there you have it. Kill ego and what’s left to oppose you?”
“I was, before I consumed anything. And I’m no killer. Nothing will ever die because of me.”
“What a ridiculous argument! You’re mortal, after all. I’ve never heard of a truly evil mortal who didn’t wear a mask of benevolence.”
“Ah, well, if you’re going to fantasize. By the way, did I mention that I give my victims their choice?”
The Leng shivered. “Don’t say that!”
“Why?”
“If you gave them their choice, it would imply that the evil connected with your acts was in the minds of your victims. That’s a contradiction. It makes no sense. I can’t stand it. Your very existence means you have to be evil.”
A Billion Days of Earth Page 7