Hothouse, aka The Long Afternoon of Earth Read online

  The fallen trunk was nothing more than an abdomen into which they had thoughtlessly climbed.

  After eons of time, the bellyelm had entirely abandoned its earlier attempts to draw nourishment from the inhospitable shores of Nomansland. Retracting all form of root structure, it had adopted its present horizontal mode of living. It camouflaged itself as a dead log. Its branch and leaf system had become separate, evolving into the symbiotic leafy creature the group had beaten off – a symbiotic creature that acted as a useful decoy to lure other beings into the open stomach of its partner.

  Though the bellyelm normally attracted only vegetal creatures into its maw, flesh also satisfied its nutritive requirements. Seven little humans were very welcome.

  The seven little humans fought savagely, slithering in the dirty dark as they attacked the strange plant with knives. Nothing they did had any effect. The syrupy rain came down faster, as the bellyelm worked up an appetite.

  'It's no good,' Toy gasped. 'Rest for a little while and try to think what we can do.'

  Close together, they squatted on their haunches. Baffled, frightened, numbed by the dark, they could only squat.

  Gren tried to make a useful picture come into his head. He concentrated, ignoring the muck trickling down his back.

  He tried to remember what the trunk had looked like outside. They were seeking somewhere to sleep when they came to it. They had climbed up a slope, skirting a suspicious patch of bare sand, and found the bellyelm lying at the top of the incline in short grass. Externally, it had been smooth...

  'Ha!' he exclaimed in the dark.

  'What is it?' Veggy asked. 'What are you ha-ing about?' He was angry with them all; was he not a man, who should have been protected from this danger and indignity?

  'We will all throw ourselves against this wall together,' Gren said. "That way we may be able to make the tree roll.'

  Veggy snorted in the dark.

  'How will that help us?' she asked.

  'Do what he says, you little worm!' Toy's voice was savage. They all jumped at its lash. She, as much as Veggy, could not guess what Gren had in mind, but she had to keep authority... 'All push at this wall, quickly.'

  In the gummy mess they scrambled together, touching each other to discover whether they were all facing the same way.

  'All ready?'Toy asked.'Push! And again! Push! Push!'

  Their toes slithered in the tacky sap, but they pushed. Toy called encouragement.

  The bellyelm rolled.

  Now they were all caught in excitement. They heaved gladly, shouting in unison. And the bellyelm rolled again. And again. And then continuously.

  Suddenly there was no further need to push. As Gren had hoped, the trunk began to roll down the slope of its own accord. Seven humans found themselves somersaulting at increasing speed.

  'Get ready to run as soon as you get the chance,' Gren called. ' If you get the chance. The tree may split at the bottom of the slope.'

  When it hit sand, the bellyelm slowed its pace and, as the incline flattened out, it stopped. Its partner, the leafy creature, which had been pursuing it meanwhile, now caught up. It jumped on top of the trunk and plugged its lower appendages firmly into the runnels of the trunk; but it had no time to preen.

  Something moved beneath the sand.

  A white root-like tentacle appeared, then another. They waved blindly and grasped the belly-elm round the middle. As the leafy thing scuttled for its life, a killerwillow heaved itself up into view. Still trapped inside the trunk, the humans heard the bellyelm groan.

  'Get ready to jump clear," Gren whispered.

  Few things could resist the clutches of a killerwillow. Its present victim was utterly defenceless. Beneath the grip of those hawser-like tentacles, it cracked with a sound of snapping ribs. Hopelessly, tugged from more than one direction, it broke apart like a cracker.

  As daylight splintered into being about them, the group jumped for safety.

  Only Driff could not jump. She was trapped at one end of the trunk as it caved in. Frantically she cried and straggled, but could not get loose. The others – bounding for long grass – halted and looked back.

  Toy and Poyly glanced at each other, then ran to the rescue.

  'Come back, you fools!' Gren cried. 'It will get you too!'

  Unheeding, they ran back to Driff, plunging into the patch of sand. In a panic, Gren rushed after them.

  'Come away!' he shouted.

  Three yards from them rose the great body of the killer-willow. In its poll fungus glistened, the dark crinkled fungus they had seen before. It was terrible to behold – Gren could not understand how the others dared to stay. He pulled at Toy, hitting her and screaming at her to come away and save her soul.

  Toy took no notice. Within inches of those strangulating white roots, she and Poyly struggled to set Driff free. The latter's leg was caught between two sandwiching slabs of wood. At last one of these shifted, so that she could be dragged away. Seizing her between them, Poyly and Toy ran for the long grass where the others crouched, and Gren ran with them.

  For minutes they all lay panting. They were covered in stickiness and filth and nearly unrecognizable.

  Toy was the first to sit up. She turned to Gren and said in a voice cold with rage, 'Gren, I dismiss you from the group. You are an outcast from now on.'

  Gren jumped up, tears in his eyes, conscious of their stares. Banishment was the most terrible punishment that could be used against anyone. It was rarely invoked against females; to invoke it against a male was almost unheard of.

  'You can't do this!' he cried. 'Why should you do this? You have no reason.'

  'You hit me,' Toy said. 'I am your leader but you hit me. You tried to stop Driff from being rescued, you would have let her die. And always you want your own way. I cannot lead you, so you must go.'

  The others, all but Driff, were standing now, open-mouthed and anxious.

  'It's lies, lies!'

  'No, it is true.' Then she weakened and turned to the five faces anxiously regarding her. 'Isn't it true?'

  Driff, clutching her hurt leg, agreed heartily that it was. Shree, being Drift's friend, also agreed. Veggy and May merely nodded their heads without speaking; they were feeling guilty because they had not also gone to the rescue of Driff, and compensated for it by breaking up Toy now. The only note of dissent came unexpectedly from Toy's dearest friend, Poyly.

  'Never mind if what you say is true or not,' Poyly declared. 'But for Gren we would now be dead inside that bellyelm. He saved us there, and we should be grateful.'

  'No, the killerwillow saved us,' Toy said.

  'If it had not been for Gren -'

  'Keep out of this Poyly. You saw him hit me. He must go from the group. I say he must be outcast.'

  The two women faced each other angrily, hands on knives, their cheeks red.

  'He is our man. We cannot let him go!' Poyly said. 'You talk rubbish, Toy.'

  'We have Veggy still, or have you forgotten?'

  "Veggy is only a man child, and you know it!'

  Angrily Veggy jumped up.

  'I'm old enough to do it to you, Poyly, you fat thing,' he cried, hopping about and exposing himself. 'Look how I'm made – just as good as Gren!'

  But they cuffed him down and went on quarrelling. Benefiting by this example, the others also began to quarrel. Only when Gren burst into angry tears did they fall silent.

  'You are all fools,' he cried between his sobs. 'I know how to get out of Nomansland but you don't. How can you do it without me?'

  'We can do anything without you,' Toy said, but she added, 'What is your plan?'

  Gren laughed bitterly.

  'You are a fine leader, Toy! You don't even know where we are. You don't even realize that we are on the edge of Nomansland. Look, you can see our forest from here.'

  He pointed dramatically with outstretched finger.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IN their hurried escape from the bellyelm, they had hardly take
n in their new surroundings. There was little room for doubt that Gren was right. As he said, they stood on the fringe of Nomansland.

  Beyond them, the gnarled and stunted trees of the region grew more closely, as if tightening their ranks. Among them were spiky soldier trees, thorn and bamboo, as well as tall grasses with edges sharp enough to lop off a human arm. All were woven together by an absolute barricade of brambles. It was a thicket impossible to penetrate, suicide to enter. Every plant stood at guard like troops facing a common enemy.

  Nor was the common enemy a reassuring sight.

  The great banyan, pushing outwards as far as its nutritional requirements would allow, loomed high and black over the outcasts of Nomansland. Its outermost branches bore an abnormally dense thatch of leaves; they reached out as far as possible over the enemy like a wave ever about to break, cutting off as much sunlight as possible.

  Aiding the banyan were the creatures that lived in its forest aisles, the trappersnappers, the jack-in-the-box wiltmilts, the berrywishes, the deadly dripperlips and others. They patrolled the perimeters of the mighty tree like eternal watchdogs.

  The forest, so welcoming to the humans in theory, presented only its claws to them from where they now stood.

  Gren watched their faces as the others regarded that double wall of hostile vegetation. Nothing moved; the lightest breeze slinking in from the sea hardly shifted one armoured leaf; only their bowels stirred in dread.

  'You see,' Gren said. 'Leave me here! Let me watch you walk through the barrier! I want to see you do it.'

  He had the initiative now and gloried in it.

  They looked at him, at the barrier, back at him.

  'You don't know how to get through,' Veggy said uneasily.

  Gren sneered.

  'I know a way,' he said flatly.

  'Do you think the termights will help you?' Poyly asked him.

  'No.'

  'What then?'

  He stared at them defiantly. Then he faced Toy.

  'I will show you the way if you follow me. Toy has no brains. I have brains. I will not be outcast. I will lead you instead of Toy. Make me your leader and I will get you to safety.'

  'Pah, you man child,' Toy said. 'You talk too much. You boast all the time.' But round her the others were muttering.

  'Women are leaders, not men,' Shree said, with doubt in her voice.

  'Toy is a bad leader,' Gren shouted.

  'No, she's not,' said Drift, 'she's braver than you,' and the others murmured agreement with this, even Poyly. Though their faith in Toy was not unbounded, their trust in Gren was small. Poyly went to him and said quietly, 'You know the law and the way of humans. They will outcast you if you do not tell them a good way to safety.'

  'And if I do tell them?' His truculence faded, because Poyly was fair to look upon.

  'Then you can stay with us as is right. But you must not expect to lead in Toy's place. That is not right.'

  'I will say what is right or not.'

  'That is not right either.'

  He pulled a face at her.

  'You are a right person, Poyly. Make no argument with me.'

  'I do not want to see you outcast. I am on your side."

  'Look, then!' And Gren turned towards the rest of them. From his belt he produced the curiously-shaped piece of glass he had handled earlier. He held it out in his open palm.

  'This I picked up when I was trapped by the snaptrap tree,' he told them. 'It is called mica or glass. Perhaps it came from the sea. Perhaps it is what the termights use for their windows on to the sea.'

  Toy made to examine it, but he pulled his hand back.

  'Hold it in the sun and it makes a little sun beneath it. When I was trapped, I burned my hand with it. I could have burnt my way out of the trap if you had not come along. So we can burn our way out of Nomansland. Light some sticks and grass here and the flame will grow. The little breeze will tickle it towards the forest. Nothing likes fire – and where the fire has been we can follow, safely back into the forest.'

  They all stared at each other.

  'Gren is very clever,' 'Poyly said. 'His idea can save us.'

  'It won't work,' Toy said stubbornly.

  In a sudden rage, Gren hurled the crude lens at her.

  'You stupid girl! Your head is full of toads. You're the one who should be outcast! You should be driven off!'

  She caught the lens and backed away.

  'Gren, you are mad! You don't know what you say. Go away,' she shouted, 'before we have to kill you.'

  Gren turned savagely to Veggy.

  'You see how she treats me, Veggy! We cannot have her for leader. We two must go or she must.'

  'Toy never hurt me,' Veggy said sullenly, anxious to avoid quarrelling. I'm not going to be outcast.'

  Toy caught their mood and used it quickly.

  'There can be no arguing in the group or the group will die. It is the way. Gren or I must go, and you all must decide which it is to be. Cast your vote now. Speak, anyone who would turn me away rather than Gren.'

  'Unfair!' Poyly cried. Then an uneasy silence fell. Nobody spoke.

  'Gren must go,' Driff whispered.

  Gren pulled out a knife. Veggy at once jumped up and drew his. May behind him did the same. Soon they all stood armed against Gren. Only Poyly did not move.

  Gren's face was thin with bitterness.

  'Give me back my glass," he said, holding out his hand to Toy.

  'It is ours,' Toy said. 'We can make a small sun without your help. Go away before we kill you."

  He scanned their faces for the last time. Then he turned on his heel and walked silently away.

  He was blind with defeat. No possible future lay open to him. To be on one's own in the forest was dangerous; here it was doubly dangerous. If he could get back to the middle layers of the forest, he might be able to find other human groups; but those groups were scarce and shy; even supposing they accepted him, the idea of fitting in with strangers did not appeal to Gren.

  Nomansland was not the best place in which to walk about blind with defeat. Within five minutes of being outcast, he had fallen victim to a hostile plant.

  The ground beneath his feet shelved down raggedly to a small water course along which water no longer flowed. Boulders taller than Gren lay thickly about, with shingle and the littered small change of pebbles underfoot. Few plants grew here except razor-sharp grasses.

  As Gren wandered regardlessly on, something fell on to his head – something light and painless.

  Several times, Gren had seen and been worried by the dark brain-like fungus that attached itself to other creatures. This discomycete plant form was a mutated morel. Over the ages it had learnt new ways of nourishing and propagating itself.

  For some while Gren stood quite still, trembling a little beneath the touch of the thing. Once he raised his hand only to drop it again. His head felt cool, almost numb.

  At last he sat down by the nearest boulder, his backbone firm against it, staring in the direction he had come. He was in deep shade, in a clammy place; at the top of the watercourse bank lay a brilliant bar of sunlight, behind which a backdrop of foliage seemed painted in indifferent greens and whites. Gren stared at it listlessly, trying to bring meaning out of the pattern.

  Dimly he knew that it would all be there when he was dead – that it would even be a little richer for his death, as the phosphates of his body were reabsorbed by other things: for it seemed unlikely that he would Go Up in the manner approved and practised by his ancestors; he had no one to look after his soul. Life was short, and after all, what was he? Nothing!

  'You are human,' said a voice. It was a ghost of a voice, an unspoken voice, a voice that had no business with vocal chords. Like a dusty harp, it seemed to twang in some lost attic of his head.

  In his present state, Gren felt no surprise. His back was against stone; the shade about him covered not only him; his body was of common material; why should there not be silent voices to match his th
oughts?

  'Who is that speaking?' he asked idly.

  'You call me morel. I shall not leave you. I can help you.'

  He had a detached suspicion that morel had never used words before, so slowly did they come.

  'I need help,' he said. 'I'm an outcast.'

  'So I see. I have attached myself to you to help you. I shall always be with you.'

  Gren felt very dull, but he managed to ask, 'How will you help me?'

  'As I have helped other beings,' said morel. 'Once I am with them I never leave them. Many beings have no brain; I am brain. I collect thoughts. I and those of my kind act as brains, so that the creatures we attach ourselves to are more cunning and able than the others.'

  'Will I be more cunning than other humans?' Gren asked. The sunlight at the top of the watercourse never changed. Everything was mixed in his mind. It was as though he spoke with the gods.

  'We have never caught a human before,' said the voice, choosing its words more rapidly now. 'We morels live only in the margins of Nomansland. You live only in the forests. You are a good find. I will make you powerful. You shall go everywhere, taking me with you.'

  Giving no answer, Gren rested against the cool stone. He was drained of energy and content to let time pass. At length the voice twanged in his head again.

  'I know much about humans. Time has been terribly long on this world, and on the worlds in space. Once in a very distant time, before the sun was hot, your two-legged kind ruled this world. You were large beings then, five times as tall as you are now. You shrank to meet new conditions, to survive in whatever way you could. In those days, my ancestors were small, but change is always taking place, though so slowly as to go unnoticed. Now you are little creatures in the undergrowth, while I am capable of consuming you.'

  After listening and thinking, Gren asked. 'How can you know all this, morel, if you have not met a human till now?'

  'By exploring the structure of your mind. Many of your memories and thoughts are inherited from the far past and buried so that you cannot reach them. But I can reach them. Through them I read the history of your kind's past. My kind could be as great as your kind was... '