Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [106]
Through Gren ran a sort of awe to feel how different must be the understandings of these women from his own; what could their lives be like, how would their thoughts flow, when their period-of-being was not a consecutive but a concurrent vista?
He asked Sodal Ye, ‘Are these Arablers happy?’
The catchy-carry-kind laughed throatily.
‘I’ve never thought to ask them such a question.’
‘Ask them now.’
With an impatient flip of his tail the sodal said, ‘All you human and similar kinds are cursed with inquisitiveness. It’s a horrible trait that will get you nowhere. Why should I speak to them just to gratify your curiosity?
‘Besides, it needs absolute nullity of intelligence to be able to span; to fail to distinguish between past and present and future needs a great concentration of ignorance. The Arablers have no language at all; once introduce them to the idea of verbalization and their wings are clipped. If they talk, they can’t span. If they span, they can’t talk.
‘That’s why it is always necessary for me to have two women with me – women preferably, because they are even more ignorant than the men. One woman has been taught a few words so that I can give her commands; she communicates them by gesture to her friend, who can thus be made to span when danger threatens. It is all rather roughly devised, but it has saved me much trouble on my journeys.’
‘What about the poor fellow who carries you?’ Yattmur asked.
From Sodal Ye came a vibrating growl of contempt.
‘A lazy brute, nothing but a lazy brute! I’ve ridden him since he was a lad and he’s very near worn out already. Hup, you idle monster! Get along there, or we’ll never be home.’
Much more the sodal told them. To some of it Gren and Yattmur responded with concealed anger. To some of it they paid no heed. The sodal orated unceasingly, until his voice became merely another factor in the lightning-cluttered gloom.
They kept moving even when rain fell so heavily that it turned the plain about them to mud. The clouds swam in a green light; in their discomfort they felt that it was growing warmer. Still the rain fell. Because nowhere in the open country afforded shelter, they kept doggedly trudging forward. It was as though they walked in the middle of a bowl of swirling soup.
By the time the rainstorm died, they had begun to climb again. Yattmur insisted on stopping for the baby’s sake. The sodal, who had enjoyed the rain, reluctantly agreed. Under a bank they managed with difficulty to start a poor smouldering grass fire. The baby was fed. They all ate sparingly.
‘We are nearly at Bountiful Basin,’ declared Sodal Ye. ‘From the tops of this next range of mountains you will see it, its sweet salt waters dark, but with one long bar of sunlight falling across it. Ah, it’ll be good to be back in the sea. It’s lucky for you landgoers that we are a dedicated race, or we’d never leave the water in exchange for your benighted medium. Well, prophecy is our burden and we must shoulder it cheerfully…’
He began shouting at the women to hurry and fetch more grass and roots for the fire. They had placed him on top of the bank. The unfortunate carrying man was down in the hollow, standing with his arms above his head almost on top of the fire, letting smoke swirl round him as he attempted to induce heat into his body.
Seeing that Sodal Ye’s attention was distracted, Gren hurried over to the man. He grasped his shoulder.
‘Can you understand what I am saying?’ he asked. ‘Do you speak in my tongue, friend?’
The fellow never raised his head. It hung down on to his chest as if his neck was broken, rolling slightly as the man muttered something unintelligible. When next lightning spread its palsy over the world, Gren glimpsed scars about the top of the man’s spinal chord. In a flash of understanding as swift as the lightning, Gren knew the man had been mutilated so that his head would not lift.
Dropping on to one knee, Gren peered upwards at that bowed countenance. He had a view of a twisted mouth