Eeek. That's nasty.
On Raspberry Pi OS the number does go up, but at worst very slowly, and seems to go back down as well.
On an x64 Ubuntu 20.04.1 machine of my acquaintance :-
uname -a Linux thing 5.13.0-44-generic #49~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Wed May 18 18:44:28 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Ah, but an older VM, so providing a backstop version :-
Virtual Machine --------------- /usr/bin/sageteacloudsq/lib/squeak Open Smalltalk Cog[Spur] VM [CoInterpreterPrimitives VMMaker.oscog-eem.2936] Unix built on Mar 31 2021 18:28:22 Compiler: 4.2.1 Compatible Clang 6.0.0 (tags/RELEASE_600/final) platform sources revision VM: 202101191919 tim@gravious:DizietFS/Documents/Squeak/opensmalltalk-vm Date: Tue Jan 19 11:19:12 2021 CommitHash: 253cbfc14 Plugins: 202101191919 tim@gravious:DizietFS/Documents/Squeak/opensmalltalk-vm CoInterpreter VMMaker.oscog-eem.2936 uuid: 69233536-ece4-4ea1-b523-c28c4aa7d4c2 Mar 31 2021 StackToRegisterMappingCogit VMMaker.oscog-eem.2936 uuid: 69233536-ece4-4ea1-b523-c28c4aa7d4c2 Mar 31 2021
tim -- tim Rowledge; tim@rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim Fractured Idiom:- MERCI RIEN - Thanks for nothin'.