A Billion Days of Earth

by Piserchia, Doris

The God looked at his hands with their ten fingers. “You wear gloves because humanity doesn’t want you to have those fingers. Men are advancing at an extremely rapid rate. But your cultures are oppressive and your claim of strength may be premature. I think I’ll test you.” The large eyes narrowed. “From what species do you think you come?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  “No curiosity?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I will have the toy. By cruelty, if necessary. Know this: Of all the things of Earth, you spring from the most despicable.”

  “In whose opinion?” Rik said.

  This time the God looked faintly startled. “No denial, no belligerence, no spontaneous emotion. Why is that?”

  “I told you I don’t care.”

  “You have no feeling for your ancestors?”

  “Why should I?”

  “No sense of cringing at the thought that the creatures who bore you were the scourge of the Earth?”

  “In whose opinion?” said Rik.

  “Why do you repeat that?”

  “I’d mind if I descended from some disease that plagued creatures who possessed good minds. I’d mind that, but not very much. But I know I didn’t descend from such a thing. I came from some animal that scratched and scrambled to survive, while your ancestors shrank in disgust at the sight of him. He was a scourge because your people looked on him as a scourge. I can’t help what they thought of him. He had the seeds of survival in him and he was capable of producing me. I’m grateful to him.”

  “I know you now, or I’m beginning to know you,” said Vennavora. “Those ten fingers mean more than I thought.”

  “To hell with my fingers. All they mean is that I’m on the road to Godhood.”

  “And that doesn’t please you?”

  “I won’t run,” said Rik and watched her intently.

  “You cannot stand against the creature. You will die.”

  “Only by external forces.”

  “You’re not that good,” she said with finality. Before he could speak again, she and her baby began to rise slowly into the air. More swiftly they went, and in moments they were specks in the sky.

  “What I want to know is what you were talking about?” said Jak. “And why didn’t you tell me you had hands?”

  “If you don’t know, I won’t say it.”

  “I thought we were friends.”

  “Until you wish we weren’t.”

  Confusion, doubt and envy vied in Jak’s expression. His eyes grew round and glistened with tears. “What’s happening to us?” he whispered. “Why do you talk like that? You know you’re my friend.”

  “I know it. Do you?”

  The Leng moved away. In a frail and weary voice, he said, “We really can’t know anything. The world is worse than I thought.”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s much better.” Rik looked at the sky and frowned. Vennavora had given him a warning. He had Tontondely’s toy and he intended to keep it, but why was it so important that a God would demand to have it back? What creature had she been talking about? What could be powerful enough to frighten the Gods?

  Mr. Kulp existed to feed fowl, stray tares, zizzys, zombas and jares. Doing it made his heart swell so that he could scarcely catch his breath. He never helped anyone or anything that wasn’t on its last leg. It was the only way he could get the choking feeling which he interpreted as a sign of his soul touching nirvana.

  He was too practical to want to attain the final state of nirvana. His dead wife had left him half a million dollars. He was content to graze holiness through good deeds. The real joy was that fate had granted him permission to define good, bad, ugly, pretty … anything else? … well, nothing that made any sense. Sometimes Mr. Kulp got the four words mixed up. For instance, he only ate pretty food. And dull-colored things were bad … or was “ugly” the right word? The gentleman didn’t give a damn. He could afford to buy whatever struck his fancy.

  Today, a doll in the store on Ujan Street struck his fancy. It would make a nice toy for some deserving child. It was dressed in bridal gown and veil made of delicate white lace. Little red shoes stuck out from under the dress. The hair was long and sleek, yellow and of pure quality. The face was pink and pretty, the eyes clear blue. The doll cost 40 dollars.

  Around the corner of Ujan Street toward a group of children, went Mr. Kulp with the doll under his arm. He passed the terrible man who lived at the end of his block, sniffed his disapproval with a soft sound. Whittling on a piece of wood, the man named Rik sat on the curb as if he owned the whole street. For an instant, Mr. Kulp had the urge to stop and talk about his half-million dollars. Rik couldn’t know about it, otherwise he would have stood up and nodded.

  Another man stood on the opposite side of the street, but Mr. Kulp didn’t look at him. Loafers must be ignored, though that seldom got rid of them, as they were insensitive creatures. Voyeurs, that’s what they were, always hanging around watching what people did.

  Mr. Kulp stepped off the curb and hurried over to the children. A fat little noisy group. His mouth thinned in censure. Fat children weren’t hungry, noisy children weren’t sad. But they were children and one instinctively loved them.

  Most of them played marbles. Younger ones sat or stood watching. As Mr. Kulp approached, two or three pairs of eyes riveted on the doll under his arm. He walked around the group with the toy held high, so that all could get a good look at it. One little girl, about four, sat with her arms in her lap. She suddenly reached. The swift hunger in her eyes captured all of her as she looked at the doll. She was a leaning, groping spirit filled with desire. Her tiny mouth smiled, her snapping brown eyes acknowledged the fact that here was the thing for which she had searched all her life.

  Mr. Kulp’s gaze met the brown one, and he was repulsed. No child this age possessed enough intelligence to know exactly what she wanted. And it was indecent to want something so badly. In fact, it was dangerous.

  A little smile on his lips, he circled the group faster and faster. His eyes flashed from face to face, and how satisfying it was to know the snapping brown eyes followed his every motion with so much hope. Nothing that he did went unobserved by those eyes. They were all-seeing, and the need in them fed Mr. Kulp’s soul until he finally arrived at the brink of holiness.

  He was in the act of handing over the doll when, lo and behold, it happened. He saw the face, that single significant countenance, and he froze so abruptly that he nearly stumbled. It was the perfect face; the face of nirvana.

  The face belonged to a girl of seven, and it contained everything for which Mr. Kulp longed. It held nothing. The eyes were blank, the mouth was lax, the body shapeless. The head was cocked as if its owner pondered upon some profound mystery, but this mind would never ponder over much of anything. The girl was an idiot.

  She didn’t notice the doll until Mr. Kulp thrust it into her lap, didn’t notice that the child beside her burst into tears. When her eyes finally focused on the doll, she awkwardly reached out and laid a paw on the pink cheek. She dug in with the paw. The child beside her screamed. She looked up at the man who smiled, and smiled. Her paw caught in the cheek. Fear made her hastily pull away. The screams coming from the child next to her began to frighten her. She gripped the fragile face of the doll. A nail caught in the veil, others became ensnared in the filmy dress. The yellow hair made a prisoner of one paw and freedom became paramount. Freedom wrought destruction. The hair, the veil and the dress came away with savage yanks that turned to strokes of rage. Anger was vented on the pretty face. A sharp elbow punched it beyond recognition, beyond beauty and confusion. Two infuriated feet flattened the soft body. Within moments the doll was garbage.

  The idiot looked at what she had done, stared up at Mr. Kulp’s smiling face, turned her head and saw the tear-streaked face of her companion. Something happened inside her brain; some spark of light filtered through cobwebs, stirred inert cells to wakefulness. This strange thing filled her with
anger so acute that she launched her heavy body at the man in front of her. Her sharp claws impaled themselves in the flabby face, raked across the wrinkled neck, once again searched for the face.

  Mr. Kulp staggered backward. His eyes were stark with horror and, as he saw his blood leak onto his shirt, he gave a high shriek, not of pain but of rage because an unfeeling world had turned on him like a ravening beast. Numb with stupefaction, he stood without flinching as the idiot hurled the ruined doll in his face and ran away.

  There was such a loud roaring in his ears that he shouldn’t have been able to hear anything, yet he clearly heard two sounds. They came simultaneously and he thought for a moment that they were one sound. His gaze flashed to the children. They were doing nothing but staring at him. Still the terrible sounds went on, wounding him, stripping him bare. Someone was laughing. Someone had seen and understood.

  Long, echoing laughter split the noon air and Mr. Kulp knew that as long as he lived he would never feel clothed again. He was doomed to walk naked before humanity. He knew exactly how a condemned criminal felt when he was pronounced guilty. He marched down the middle of the street and looked neither at the man sitting on the curb nor the one who stood across the street. He was alone in the world while they had a common bond: their united condemnation; their laughter.

  Sheen stared across the street at Rik, made an elaborate bow. He was a man, tall and slender and silver. His suit was made of the best flannel, his shoes were fine and shiny. He even wore a flower in his lapel. The hair on his head was short, curly and glittering.

  “If I had known a simple laugh was all it would take to get you to notice me, I’d have laughed up a storm,” he said.

  Rik looked without smiling at the silver man. “You couldn’t have planned something like that.”

  “You disapprove, don’t you? You don’t like to think there may be something between us.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “Then why did we both respond the same way at the same time?”

  “It isn’t important.”

  “It might be everything. And here’s another by-the-way for you: I’m going to come to mean a great deal to you.”

  Sheen walked away. Rik didn’t watch him go, just sat and stared at the street and remembered the words of God.

  chapter vi

  Redo sat in the back of the limousine with one paw clamped around a fat cigar and the other resting on the gold knob of a cane. The cane was the only ostentatious thing about him. It hinted at things forbidden, such as pots at the end of the rainbow, or pirate’s treasure.

  Redo cared nothing that he was handsome. He had seen too many Apollos snoring in drunk tanks. Good looks were useful to youths bent on seduction. Redo seduced no one. He knew he was intelligent but considered the fact of little importance. He was acquainted with men of brilliance who kept their feet dry by stuffing layers of newspaper over the holes in their shoes. What Redo possessed which was worth coveting was his mental attitude, his outlook on life, his visceral state. His conscience was his own.

  The long car left the fetid air of the city and plunged into the clean atmosphere of an oasis. A side road beckoned and the car turned into it, entered a forest, stopped at a gate. A sweet-faced old man came out of a booth to give the driver a look, transported the stare to the back seat, checked his mental roster and went back into the booth. He returned with a key, unlocked the gate, waved the car through with a sweet smile and stood watching it disappear between the trees. It was possible the car wouldn’t be admitted through all of the next four gates in which case the occupants wouldn’t live long enough to retreat to this point. But there was always a slim chance. After relocking the gate, the old man took his automatic weapon from the booth and stood waiting in the road; hopefully.

  A servant opened the car door and Redo followed him up a marble walk to the entrance of Wing I. Inside and abandoned by the servant, the visitor sank to his ankles in the carpet. Soft, rich murmurings came to him from the ether as he followed another servant to the conference room. Air passing across an expensive portrait had a special sound to Redo’s ears. He could spot a good original in a collection of junk simply by listening to it. The house smelled wealthy. He basked in its glow. For comfort was a man born and that was really all there was to it.

  Filly One sat at a desk in the conference room. He didn’t look up as Redo came in and seated himself.

  “You are well?”

  “Yes,” said Redo.

  “We meet rarely.”

  “There is always the thought.”

  “Quite so, and now to business.”

  Redo spoke rapidly. A door opened quietly as he talked, and a baby crawled into the room. It was old enough to walk but it wanted to investigate secrets in the carpet. With delight Redo let his gaze rest on it.

  Said he, “My second son is reaching his maturity, and I’ve a mind to put him in Factor Seventeen. He shows promise and will make sure the pushers stay away from the very young.”

  He watched the child pull at tufts of the carpet. It scowled when the fibers proved to be strong. No doubt she belonged to one of the servants. Babies like this one mustn’t be able to buy the pills when they were stuffed into the school system. The son of Redo would see to it. Factor Seventeen wasn’t going to destroy infants like this.

  The thoughts went through the mind of Redo in an instant. He continued with his report:

  Factor Two—a sound success. The family of Elu were wise and understood that they weren’t to encroach upon the suburbs or slums. The city of Osfar was Elu’s territory and he knew it.

  Redo watched the child on the floor. She was chewing a table leg. Pray God this sweet one wouldn’t find her way into Factor Two and its whoredom when she grew up.

  “We’ve run into a snag with Factor Twelve, nothing we can’t handle, but some politicians can be tenacious when it comes to enforcing laws that threaten us. Our vetoes aren’t on vacation but we have to approach the scene with a delicate step. The mayor of Boro Three is a little nit picker who has no sense. He tried to carry out a raid on a Factor Seven unit after one of our people spent a week explaining the situation to him. We may have to veto him, in which case the Boro will be without law for a while. But of course this won’t be a bad thing. The Boro will riot, they’ll break into homes and tear up a lot of furniture, and after conditions quiet down they’ll behave like good consumers and purchase merchandise to replace what was destroyed. Incidentally, there are several TV stores in that area, and I understand one of your factories is developing a new model. Business on your end will pick up. Yes, I definitely think the mayor of Boro Three is due for vetoing.”

  Redo paused, frowned. “That’s it. Everything is running smoothly; rough edges minor as usual.”

  Said Filly One, “My brother Two believes otherwise.”

  “Oh? Was he specific?”

  “No.”

  “It will take a day or two to investigate. I’ve heard nothing, noticed nothing, but then …”

  “Quite right,” said Filly One.

  The baby on the floor was trying to climb Redo’s leg, and he ignored it no longer, picked it up and tucked it in his lap. “You’ll forgive me,” he said over the curly head.

  Filly One regarded the child with fondness. “She is my niece, the youngest of Two.”

  Redo had been about to tickle the baby’s ear. Slowly his gaze lifted to meet the chill stare of his employer. Was it possible that One was a fool, after all? As if this rosy-cheeked morsel could have come from Two and his ghostly woman.

  Like a bloodhound, Redo examined One’s expression. Finally he relaxed and looked elsewhere. One had undone himself this time. He had demanded genuine pearls but his brother had sneaked a cultured specimen into the pack.

  “She has siblings?”

  “Twin brothers,” said One.

  “They are as handsome as she?”

  “The image of my mother.”

  Three cultured pearls. Redo again searched with his
perceptive sense. He was aware of gloom and quiet determination, sluggish happiness and satisfaction, all emanating from the dry stick seated behind the desk.

  Filly Six lay dying. He had been dying since his conception 40 years before, but only of late had he put any real effort into it. Now his breath rang through the sumptuous apartment and it was with extreme force of will that he managed to reach the tassel hanging over his head. His voice was feeble and querulous as he questioned the male nurse who came in.

  “My brother has been summoned?”

  “He has.” The nurse was old and weary of waiting for his employer to die. He had no love for anyone or anything in this mansion. Though he had been in the service of Filly Six for 25 years, there was no affection between the two men, just as there had been none between the nurse and Six’s father, whom he had served for 30 years. Somewhere in the old man’s mind was a small ball of memory. In it were a warm hearth, fat loaves of bread baking in an oven, and the cheerful face of a woman who cuddled him in her arms. The old man didn’t care that the memory was probably false. The mind was a bulwark between the human soul and reality. Life was precarious enough without demanding logic. The old man knew he had been sold to the Fillys when he was little more than an infant, and people didn’t sell children they loved. But there remained the memory, and circumstance was capricious. Possibly he had been stolen from the cheerful-faced woman.

  The nurse had been well-treated by the Fillys. He received a good education in the science of nursing, he had his own cottage and a warm wife. There had never been children in the cottage. The old man blamed his wife, but he remembered when they had taken him to a white building and sterilized him. Some of the servants on the Estate had children. Evidently the quota hadn’t left room for him.

  He would live here until he died, cut off from hearths and baking bread and the loving woman in his dreams. The Filly Estate was his prison. He would die as he had lived, grayly and wounded by the desire to be born again in another world where there were no Fillys.

  Filly Six stared up into the face of the nurse who had been his companion most of his life. Tears rushed to his eyes. “Don’t hate me!” he cried.