A Billion Days of Earth

by Piserchia, Doris

  The clock in the corner tower tolled the hour of six. “Help! Someone help!”

  Some came to help. From beneath a building. Someone came on all fours.

  Mrs. Ploke heard sound. Her head turned toward it. Out went an imploring paw. “Take me to the place where he hangs on the cross! He mustn’t die alone. I want to stand where he can see me.”

  Her savior approached with stealth and took her to Heaven with one savage slashing of his teeth.

  chapter xiii

  Whatever made him think he could con Sheen? He had thought it. He had planned even his own behavior down to the last nod or shake of his head. A red herring had been his central character, a little red herring named Jak, and to hell with whatever else happened except that he had to keep Sheen away from Aril.

  Had it worked at all, even in the beginning? He had wanted Sheen to concentrate on Jak, get the silver creature stirred up to where he wanted nothing but to find that evasive little Leng. That had been the plan.

  Maybe Sheen knew he had Jak tied up. He didn’t know where, otherwise he would have had the Leng long ago. Sheen was canny. Even while he hunted for one victim, he was feeling out the other, strolling through the city with her while her husband sat back and snickered because he thought he had fooled a fox.

  Why hadn’t he taken her at their first meeting? Her defenses were made of wool. Why was Sheen waiting?

  Rik felt as if he were trying to walk on water. It wasn’t possible to stand aside and watch her go out of the house when he knew she was headed for a rendezvous, but he stood aside and watched. How could he scream when he had no voice? It was getting so he could almost predict when it would happen. Aril would suddenly drop whatever she was doing and leave without a word. It had to do with tension. Rik could sense it building up in her, and when it reached a certain point, when the lines around her mouth grew prominent, when she had trouble picking things up, that was when she went out to search for a creature everyone else was desperately trying to avoid.

  Shaving was irritating. He wanted to give it up, but he didn’t. He made himself bathe, but he always did it quickly. Sometimes he forgot to eat. There weren’t enough hours in the days. She might walk out while he was doing something unimportant. He might not see her go. He had to be there at the window when she left, because this might be the time when she wasn’t coming back and he had to have that one last look at her. He wouldn’t be deprived of that. Each time, after he looked, he sat down in the chair by the window and waited, not looking at anything, not thinking anything, with every bit of his being residing in his ears. He had to hear that first step of her returning so he could bring himself back to life. She mustn’t be allowed to walk in on his corpse.

  The thing to do was to give her up. But he already had. Long ago he had seen her step into hell. He found himself hurrying through the house to find her. His eyes couldn’t perform their function if she was out of sight. He was blind when she wasn’t there. When she came back, she brought his sight with her.

  She didn’t even realize he was alive. Everything she did was done mechanically. Did she know, for instance, that the last week had gone by without their saying one word to each other? Was she aware that she had spent the last two hours staring at a blank wall? He had read part of the newspaper aloud to assure himself they were alive and not two ghosts sitting there.

  Once she got out of bed and left the house in her nightgown. From the window, he watched her walk down the street and he promptly plunged back into his old state of terror.

  For a change he deliberately heightened his fear by leaving the house and going to the cache. He didn’t want to see Jak. He didn’t care if the cache still existed. If the streets and alleys of Osfar had been lined with corpses, he wouldn’t have cared. It was nothing to him that Geo was there in the hideout and that his instructions were being carried out.

  “Hi.”

  Rik didn’t answer. He stood with his hands in his pockets and looked around, knew from the way Geo looked at him that he was behaving normally.

  Geo hurriedly stuffed a gag in Jak’s mouth. “He isn’t fit to listen to.” The Leng leaned forward and struggled against the ropes that bound him to the chair. His eyes were round with rage.

  “How do you get him to behave for you?” said Rik.

  “By threatening to take the food away with me.”

  “Would you?”

  Geo shrugged. “If he can only be saved like this, he isn’t worth the bother.”

  Rik looked at Jak. The Leng was slumped in the chair, seemed smaller, and the sadness in his eyes was deep.

  “You’re too hard,” said Rik.

  Geo gave him an amused glance. “Compared to you, I’m a marshmallow.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “Never mind. You have problems I don’t have. Sometimes problems make people think weird things.”

  Again Rik looked at Jak. “You still don’t see what he has, do you?”

  “I see it,” said Geo. “I also see that his gentleness is weakness. He wants to love so badly that he’s willing to direct it toward anything. It will kill him in the end. If you let him loose, he’ll go straight to Sheen. My advice is to untie him right now. Let him go. Let him do what he wants. You’re not his keeper.”

  “You don’t believe in helping someone?”

  “Not until he asks.”

  “Can’t you hear him crying at the top of his lungs?”

  “I can’t tune in to those signals,” said Geo. “You keep telling me they’re there but I can’t hear them. All I know is what he tells me, and it turns my stomach.”

  “I want him saved,” said Rik. “If this is the only way to do it, that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  Again Geo shrugged. “We both know this is a fight that can only end one way. This is the end of the world we know. Sheen is everywhere, in every city on earth, and the children he rejects are being picked off by starvation and wild animals. After he has done his work, there’ll be a handful left. A handful of people never do anything but live out their lives and die. It’s mathematically impossible for man to survive if the population drops below—”

  “To hell with your mathematics.”

  His expression unchanging, the boy said, “Don’t worry about him. I’ll keep him here, I’ll feed him and listen to him, and all the time I’ll be wanting to beat him, but he’ll stay in one place until the day you come in here and say he’s free to go.”

  “What happens if I go to Sheen?”

  “You don’t have to play games with me. That will never happen. But don’t think the thought of having someone else around is giving me any comfort. I’m not made that way. I don’t need anyone. I never did and I never will. I could live all by myself in the world and not worry a damn about being lonely.”

  “Yes. You’re the reason I want to keep Jak alive.”

  “You’re an optimist,” said Geo, with a little smile.

  “Tell me something better.”

  “You think the species is going to survive. You’re afraid humanity is headed too much in my direction and not enough in yours or his. You have a little leavening in mind. But what’s wrong with me?”

  “When I look at you I think of earth filled with fields of wheat. Those fields are perfect if you look at them one way, but people don’t like the same perspective all the time. The first thing you know, they’re wandering around hunting for a violet or a dandelion. What if they can’t find any?”

  “What if they don’t want to look for them?”

  “I can’t think of anything that frightens me more.”

  Geo said, “I’m the wheat and he’s the violet. Is that it?”

  “Something like that. I like combinations of good things. An extremist is a valuable asset to have around only when he’s right.”

  “Who gave you the right to decide what’s good for humanity? Not that he’ll be around a hundred years from now, but I’d like an answer.”

  “Do you think I can say
, ‘To hell with them,’ when in a short while I’ll be one of the few humans left? I’m lucky to have any decisions to make, but I have one and I’m making it. That little Leng has something the world is going to need, and if you don’t like him that’s too bad. There probably aren’t any more of his kind alive now. That makes him important. I’m not forcing him onto the world. I’m simply preserving him. His future influence will be what it has always been—up to chance. I want the world to have him around.”

  “There won’t be any future,” said Geo.

  “The hell there won’t.”

  “Sheen intends to destroy everybody.”

  “I know it.”

  “He wants to kill us all.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  Geo had been about to turn away, but now his head came around. “What do you mean?”

  “I want you to survive. You won’t unless you understand him. If you fail in that, you’ll die.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I can’t tell you. If you don’t see it for yourself, you won’t believe me. Watch him. Don’t ever stop wondering about his motives. The most dangerous thing you can do is to be an extremist in your opinion about him, because of that one chance that you might be wrong, and if you’re wrong he’s got you backed into a corner. But your salvation lies in your being so extreme in your opinion about him that nothing can change your mind.”

  The boy stared at him in wonder. “What is extremism?”

  “Being so damned certain you’re right that you won’t change your mind no matter how high the corpses pile up around you.”

  “You mean weighing your principles against the corpses?”

  “I’m talking about your life. That’s worth more than any number of dead bodies.”

  “You’re advising me to do something you won’t do. I’m to suspect my opinion while you stand by yours.”

  Rik smiled, but there was no humor in it. “You’re twelve years old. Sheen never goes after anyone under sixteen, yet he’s been after you from the first. Have you ever asked yourself why?”

  “Certainly. He hunts me because I’m intelligent enough to …” The young voice faltered, trailed off to silence.

  “To what?” said Rik.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s your idea of a fair fight?”

  “Where the combatants are equal.”

  “What would you call someone who challenged only people who knew how to defeat him?”

  Geo took a step backward. “No.”

  “You’re getting scared,” said Rik. “Good. It’s about time.”

  “He’s after me because I know how to defeat him?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I—I didn’t know I was in a fight. Do I know how to defeat him?”

  “Not yet, or you wouldn’t be asking me.”

  Geo sat down in a chair and gripped his knees with his steel hands. “If what you say is true, he isn’t the monster we’ve all been saying he is. But, then, what is he? Satan? God?”

  “Yes.”

  With tears in his eyes, the boy said, “I’m mixed up. Suddenly I feel twelve years old. I want to climb all over you and beg you to protect me.”

  “Don’t let him make you remember you’re twelve. He’ll try to do that, but your age has nothing to do with it.”

  “Why haven’t you hidden me away as you have Jak?”

  “Because I can’t. Sheen wouldn’t stand for it. I don’t know how I know, but I do. He’d tear down half the world if he couldn’t find you. He’ll let me have Jak for the time being, but he won’t let me have you at all.”

  So full of agony and despair was the sound that Rik felt the skin on the back of his neck stir. He climbed the low hill and stood looking around. The sun would soon peep over the horizon but at the moment everything was in deep shadow. Wind brushed at him but brought no cooling relief. He was suddenly perspiring. The pulse in his throat became a drum that sent messages up and down his body.

  Come again, he thought, and wished he hadn’t, because the sound did repeat itself, a low and anguished groan that sent him creeping back into the underbrush. He was suddenly on his knees, crouching and listening. Somewhere ahead of him, someone breathed in whimpers.

  Once again he left the sheltering thicket, lifted his face to the wind, turned toward the spot where he had heard the sounds. Not until the sun made red and gray designs on the insides of his eyelids did he open his eyes. The hill swept away to a carpet of foliage dotted with flowers whose shade resembled the fluid streaming down the rotten post imbedded in the ground.

  “Why are you kneeling?”

  “I can’t stand,” said Rik.

  “No one came to cry for me. Only you.”

  “Do you forgive them?”

  “I do not. They’re a pack of sons of bitches. They stuck me up here because I didn’t know how to kill Sheen.”

  The sun burst over the top of the cross to scatter its brilliance. Rik stared at the shadow in front of him. The air was no longer warm. The sky showered him with the cold of outer space.

  “Why did they have to use nails?” said Brog. “I never tried to save their souls, only their stinking carcasses. They could have tied me up here and left me for the sun to finish.”

  The head lay on one shoulder; long hair streaked the face. One gleaming eye showed through the damp tendrils. “They say there’s no good way to die but I’d have loved it if they stabbed me or brained me with a rock.”

  Brog’s legs had shrunk; the skin was taut. The rest of his body seemed to be half its normal size, all but the feet which were huge and swollen.

  “Have we met?”

  “A few times,” said Rik.

  “Were they amicable meetings?”

  “Yes, they were.”

  A bird sang, then another. The wind sneaked through the foliage and brought the smell of ripe fruit. The stillness in the air was impending thunder.

  “That’s your heart beating,” said the man on the cross. “You ought to go away. It might burst.”

  “Do you want me to go away?”

  “What I want is for you to take my place up here. I want to be down there grieving for you.” A shudder racked the bloated stomach. “Excuse me, I feel a groan coming on.”

  What began as a groan grew to a shriek. Gobs of moisture dripped from the flowing hair and fell on the red ground. The body didn’t contract; there was scarcely a movement in the chest; the scream poured from the lips like water from a pipe, and when the pipe had emptied, the lips remained open.

  “If there was something I could do,” said Rik.

  “You’re doing it. I hung up here all night sniveling because I didn’t want to go with just my own company.”

  “I can get you water.”

  “I’m not thirsty.” The head moved a fraction. “Something over us. Look and see.”

  “It’s a God on a cloud.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “It’s a she.”

  “What’s—”

  “Nothing now. She’s gone.”

  The tiny body shuddered. “Came to have a look, that’s all. The mangy hedonists.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Screwing and dreaming. I wouldn’t have had that kind of life on a platter, not unless I was an animal. Travesty. I never could bear waste.”

  Rik got off his knees, stared up at the cross in bewilderment.

  The eye watched him. “You mean you didn’t see it?”

  “It didn’t occur—I didn’t think—how could you see something—”

  “Something you couldn’t? I saw plenty. I saw men with brains who pretended they hadn’t any, and there was no difference between them and the Gods. I gave those men hell and they said to me, ‘What’s there to do in life, for crissake? I own my house, I own two cars, I got money in the bank, so why should I struggle anymore? Haven’t I reached the limit any man can?’ That’s the way the Gods think. They know how to be comfortable and they
think that’s perfection. Shame on them.”

  “You can’t die,” said Rik. “Not when you can reason like that. I’ll do something—”

  “Boy, calm down. Nobody can do anything for me. If you don’t believe me, ask that fellow behind you. He’s been standing there watching, and now he’s figuring to step up and offer me Heaven.”

  Sheen walked to the cross, stopped and looked up at Brog. “You’re right.”

  “Damn you, can’t you let a man alone even when he’s dying?” cried Rik.

  Sheen didn’t turn his head. He went on gazing at the eye that pierced him. “I came a long way to give you peace.”

  The eye glittered, the gray lips moved. “I hope you didn’t pass up any poor needy soul while you were getting here.”

  “Change your style just this once!” cried Rik. “Help him!”

  “I’m going to,” said Sheen.

  “Not with any of your damned pictures!”

  A keening wail came from the cross. “Rik wants to condemn this old sinner to an eternity of the ecstasy he’s experiencing this moment.”

  “Don’t you want to live?” said Rik.

  “I don’t want to die unless it’s an alternative. In this case, it is.”

  “Heal him,” Rik said to Sheen.

  “I can’t.”

  “Liar!”

  “Do you think I’m God? Go away and don’t interfere.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “He’s going to give me Heaven,” said Brog. “I’ve been waiting all night for him. Don’t stick your nose in.”

  Rik glared at the bright eye. “You want him?”

  “With every ounce of humanity that’s left in me. No one ever sank faster than I, but this might go on a couple more days. I come from tough stock.”

  “Get away from him,” Rik said to Sheen.

  “Be quiet.”

  “Hurry up,” said Brog.

  Sheen leaped upward toward the crossbeam, clasped it with two hands and dangled in space for a moment before he swung his legs and enfolded the body of Brog and the post behind him. He held himself in that position and looked closely at the ravaged face.