Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [24]
‘That’s well done!’ Poyly said admiringly. She was Toy’s closest friend, emulating her in everything.
‘Quick, to the Tips!’ Toy called. ‘We can kill the bird now it cannot get away.’
They all began climbing the nearest trunk, to get to the suckerbird – all except Gren. Though not disobedient by nature, he knew there were easier ways than climbing to get to the Tips. As he had learnt to do from some of his elders in the old group, from Lily-yo and Haris the man, he whistled from the corner of his lips.
‘Come on, Gren!’ Poas called back to him. When Gren shook his head, Poas shrugged and climbed on up the tree after the others.
A dumbler came floating to Gren’s command, twirling laconically down through the foliage. Its vanes spun, and on the end of each spoke of its flight umbrella grew the curiously shaped seeds.
Gren climbed on to his dumbler, clinging tightly to its shaft, and whistled his instructions. Obeying him sluggishly, it carried him upwards, so that he arrived in the Tips just after the rest of the group, unruffled when they were panting.
‘You should not have done that,’ Toy told him angrily. ‘You were in danger.’
‘Nothing ate me,’ Gren replied. Yet suddenly he felt a chill, for he knew Toy was right. Climbing a tree was laborious but safe. Floating among the leaves, where hideous creatures might momentarily appear and drag one down into the green depths, was both easy and wildly dangerous. Still, he was safe now. They would see his cleverness soon enough.
The cylindrical white tongue of the suckerbird still pulsed nearby. The bird itself squatted just above them, keeping its immense crude eyes swivelled for enemies. It was headless. Slung between the stiffly extended wings was a heavy bag of body, peppered with the corneal protuberances of its eyes and its bud corms; among these latter hung the pouch from which the tongue now extended. By deploying her forces, Toy had her party attacking this monstrous creature from several sides at once.
‘Kill it!’ Toy cried. ‘Now, jump! Quick, my children!’
They leapt on it where it lay gracelessly among the upper branches, yelping in excitement in a way that would have earnt Lily-yo’s fury.
The suckerbird’s body heaved, its wings fluttered in a vegetal parody of fright. Eight humans – all but Gren – hurled themselves among the feathery leafage on its back, stabbing deep into the epicarp to wound its rudimentary nervous system. Among that leafage lay other dangers. Disturbed from its slumbers, a tigerfly crawled from under the low-lying growth and came almost face to face with Poas.
Confronted with a yellow and black enemy as big as himself, the man child fell back squealing. On this later-day Earth, drowsing through the late afternoon of its existence, only a few families of the old orders of hymenoptera and diptera survived in mutated form: most dreadful of these were the tigerflies.
Veggy dashed to his friend’s aid. Too late! Poas sprawled over on his back: the tigerfly was on to him. As the circular plates of its body arched, a ginger-tipped sabre of sting flashed out, burying itself into Poas’ defenceless stomach. Its legs and arms gripped the boy, and with a hurried whirr of wings the tigerfly was bearing its paralysed burden away. Veggy hurled his sword uselessly after it.
No time could be spared for bemoaning this accident. As the equivalents of pain filtered through to it, the suckerbird strove to fly away. Only Toy’s frail noose held it down, and that might soon pull free.
Still crouching under the creature’s belly, Gren heard Poas’ cry and knew something was amiss. He saw the shaggy body heave, heard the wings creak in their frames as they beat the air. Twigs showered down on him, small branches snapped, leaves flew. The limb to which he clung vibrated.
Panic filled Gren’s mind. All he knew was that the suckerbird might escape, that it must die as soon as possible. Inexperienced,