Trillions

by Nicholas Fisk

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; YA Science Fiction

Synopsis

Trillions were hard, bright, tiny things which suddenly arrived - millions and millions and millions of them - one windy day in a village called Harbourtown. No one could explain them, much less why they had suddenly arrived. Were they a blessing, as their beauty suggested, or a deadly, inexplicable threat? A boy with a microscope was just as likely to come up with the answer as all the acknowledged experts in any known kind of science, so somehow it seemed natural for two 'ordinary' boys, Scott and Bem, to join forces with an ex-spaceman against the frightening efforts of the ruthless General Harman to destroy the Trillions, no matter what the cost.

Release date: October 31, 2019

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 320

Sample

NO ONE can tell you exactly who it was now, but it was quite certainly one of the youngest children that invented the name “Trillions.” You can imagine a group of children squatting on the ground, scraping together heaps of brightly colored, mysterious grit that had fallen from the sky…

“I’ve got millions!”

“I’ve got billions!”

“I’ve got trillions!”

Trillions it was from then on. The name fitted perfectly. It had the right hard, bright sound to it—and Trillions were hard and bright. It suggests millions upon millions—and the Trillions were everywhere, sprinkling roads and gardens and roofs and even the firesides of people’s homes with a glittery dusting of tiny jewels (but Trillions were not jewels).

And the name Trillions had a foreign sound to it—a suggestion of other worlds, star-studded skies, the cold emptiness of space. That was right, too. For wherever Trillions came from, it was not this world.

So everyone—the children, then the adults, then the local newspapers, then the national newspapers and TV stations and at last the world authorities—came to call the strange, jewel-like dust by the name the children invented: Trillions.

It is strange about names. Ten years before the Trillions came, Mr. and Mrs. Harding had christened their well-behaved, sandy-haired baby “James.” When he was five, it was found that he would have to wear spectacles, so James Harding became Specs. When he was six or seven, his schoolfriends began to call him Prof, because his appearance reminded them of an absent-minded professor.

But this name was wrong too—James turned out to be anything but absent-minded. In fact, he was the very opposite. He was the sort of boy who wanted a place for everything and everything in its place. He wanted hard facts, not soft opinions. When he had got the facts right, he would act.

It was James who solemnly, earnestly and thoroughly cleared the name of the oil-delivery man who was accused—wrongly—of stealing central-heating oil from the tanker he drove, then selling it. (The local newspaper called James The Boy Detective, which made him furious. “I am not a boy detective,” he said, “I am someone who can do arithmetic.”)

By then, James’ name had already become Bem. Bem suited him perfectly. It had the solid, sober sound of “Ben.” In addition, it meant B.E.M. or Bug-Eyed Monster. For James, with his round face, round spectacles and passion for science, “Bem” was the name that made sense.

Or—still talking about names—take Panda. Bem’s eight-year old sister was christened Penelope, rather a grand name. But even as a baby, she had been tiny, burning-eyed, round-faced yet spiky. Very soon her “real” name suggested itself. Her eyes were black, and slightly shadowed, her skin was white, her face was round. What other name was there for her but Panda?

Mina, the Olivellis’ girl who lived next door, needed no nickname. Mina—you say it “Meena”—suited her perfectly. She was nine and a half, olive-skinned, black-haired, very slightly plump—Italian-looking. You could call her a female girl. If you dressed Mina in a top hat, lumberjack coat, riding breeches and coalminer’s boots and finished off with a burnt-cork moustache, everyone would still say “What a pretty girl!”

You can imagine for yourself how Mina responded to the Trillions. When they arrived, her large, dark-brown eyes widened and glistened. Her neat, long-nailed, tapered fingers began to prod and pick. By the end of that day, she had found out how to use Trillions. She used them to decorate herself.

Which leaves Scott Houghton.

Scott is the most important person in this story after the Trillions themselves, yet it is hard to find the right things to say about him. He was of average height for his age—thirteen. His hair was average brown. So were his eyes. His school record was average or above average. He was averagely popular. He never had a nickname—you can hardly count “Scotty”—because he was too average to need one.

He was also extraordinary. The things that made him so unusual were unknown to his friends and barely noticed by his parents, who took him for granted (which suited Scott very well). His extraordinary qualities are hard to explain. Is it extraordinary for a schoolboy to keep bees? Scott did and had done so for four years. To Mr. Bygrave, the strange old man who had first interested him in bees, Scott was extraordinary because he came to know more than his teacher. At first, the man had said, “Ah, you’ve got an instinct for them! That’s what it is, an instinct!” Later, he changed his mind. It wasn’t instinct that Scott had—it was ability to observe, study, think, compare, invent.

Most modern beekeepers nowadays use a gadget called the Bygrave Controlled Demand Winter Feeder. Only one beekeeper, Mr. Bygrave, knows that it should have been called the “Houghton” Feeder. For the invention was Scott’s, made when he was eleven.

His other interests were just as extraordinary. Scott was given a toy star telescope—made a real one from a kit of parts—rapidly became an expert observer—quickly tired of observing—and spent hours, from then on, in comparing astronomy and astrology; he was trying to make sense of the battle between science and mysticism.

When there was a craze for guitars and folk singing at his school, Scott tried to find a form of guitar amplification that did not spoil the sound of the guitar. He failed, but found instead a method for making very small loudspeaker enclosures that could still deliver a good bass tone. The little transistor radio Scott had in his bedroom sounded like a big set with a twelve-inch speaker. His mother complained about the booming of the bass, so he turned a switch and cut it down. Now the set sounded like any other portable radio. It never occurred to Scott’s mother to ask him how such a small radio could produce such big tone—mothers are not curious about such things. Nor did it ever occur to Scott to do anything about his loudspeaker invention—he had lost interest in the thing when he had got it working properly and had become interested instead in four-wheel drive for motor cars. His room became a maze of Meccano and the little radio’s batteries ran flat.

Scott never spoke about his ideas and inventions, not even to his father. He was, after all, a schoolboy. Why should his father, a grown man, be interested in schoolboy ideas? In fact, his interests were shared by only one other person—Bem. But Bem was younger than Scott and also perhaps a smaller-minded person. Bem had an “old” mind, Scott had an ageless mind. So Scott was really alone with his extraordinariness.

Meanwhile, the ordinary world went on. Scott suffered cut knees, punches in the nose, sarcasm from the English teacher and falls off bicycles, just like everyone else; he enjoyed chocolate ice-cream, certain funny programs on TV, air rifles and all the things that thousands and millions of other boys liked. He did not think himself extraordinary. He knew only that certain things that interested him might bore other people. So he kept his mouth shut. It seemed the simplest thing to do.

But when the Trillions came, everything about him and around him became complicated. For the Trillions were very extraordinary indeed and it was to take more than ordinary ways of thinking and acting to deal with them.

Much more.

JUST WHAT were the Trillions?

Start at the beginning. Scott, Mina, Panda and Bem all lived in the same road in Harbortown West. Once, this town had been a fishing village. Now, it was just a pleasant place to live, with pleasure boats of all shapes, sizes and colors filling the harbor. Scott’s father ran the yachting marina and made a comfortable living from it.

The important thing about Harbortown West, as far as the Trillions were concerned, was that the place was situated on a narrow spur of land sticking out into the ocean. Harbortown could be a windy, stormy place to live. It could get weather that no one else got.

On a sunny but windy day in May, Harbortown and Harbortown alone received a heavy shower of Trillions.

There was no rain and no cloud. In the windy, open sky there was a slight darkening—a cloudy patch that glittered in the sunlight. Then there was the sandstormy, rattling hiss as the Trillions came. Their showering lasted p+erhaps fifteen minutes. When it was over, there were drifts of Trillions everywhere. Trillions packed inches deep against a garden fence; Trillions glittering in drifts over roads and gardens; Trillions caught between the windows and window frames of houses and cars; Trillions edging the gutters, sparkling in the clefts of branches, lying thinly on the roofs of cars.

A few people were frightened by the Trillions. Most were puzzled and curious. The children were excited. “I’ve got millions … billions … Trillions!” they cried.

While the other children squeaked and jumped or sifted and sorted the Trillions, Bem collected a single jar full of them and walked down the road to Scott’s house—and nearly collided with Scott, who was just leaving his house to visit Bem.

“Come inside, Bem” said Scott. “What do you make of it?”

Bem did not answer for some time, then he said, “Can we have a sheet of your father’s layout paper from the big pad?”. . .