Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [25]
He sliced with his knife again and again. A gash appeared in the living white hose. Earth and mud, sucked from the Ground and intended for the vegbird’s nourishment, spurted out of it, plastering Gren with filth. The vegbird heaved convulsively and the wound widened.
For all his fear, Gren saw what was about to happen. He flung himself up, his long arms outstretched, grasped one of the bird’s bud protuberances, and clung to it shaking. Anything was better than to be left alone in the mazes of the forest – where he might wander for half a lifetime without coming on another group of humans.
The suckerbird fought to release itself. In its struggles, it enlarged the gash Gren had made, tugging until it pulled its tongue off. Free at last, it sailed into the air.
In mortal terror, hugging fibres and leafage, Gren crawled on its great back, where seven other frightened humans crouched. He joined them without a word.
The suckerbird swung upwards into the blinding sky. There blazed the sun, slowly building up towards the day when it would turn nova and burn itself and its planets out. And beneath the suckerbird, which was twirling like the sycamore seed it resembled, swung endless vegetation that rose, rose as remorselessly as boiling milk to greet its life source.
Toy was shouting to the group.
‘Slay the bird!’ she called at them, rising on her knees, waving her sword. ‘Slay it fast! Chop it to bits. Kill it, or we shall never get back to the jungle.’
With the sun bronze on her green skin, she looked wonderful. Gren slashed for her sake. Veggy and May worked together, carving a great hole through the tough rind of the bird, kicking away chunks of it. As the chunks fell they were snapped up by predators before hitting the forest.
For a long while the suckerbird flew on unperturbed. The humans tired before it did. Yet even semi-sentience has its limits of endurance; when the suckerbird was leaking sap from many gashes, its wings faltered in their broad sweeping movement. It began to sink down.
‘Toy! Toy! Living shades, look what we are coming to!’ Driff cried. She pointed ahead at the shining entanglements towards which they were falling.
None of the young humans had seen the sea; intuition, and a marrow-deep knowledge of the hazards of their planet, told them that they were being carried towards grave dangers.
A stretch of coast rose up to meet them – and here was waged the most savage of all battles for survival, where the things of the land met the things of the ocean.
Clinging to the suckerbird’s leafage, Gren worked his way over to where Toy and Poyly lay. He realized that he was much to blame for their present predicament, and longed to be helpful.
‘We can call dumblers and fly to safety with them,’ he said. ‘They will carry us safely home.’
‘That’s a good idea, Gren,’ Poyly said encouragingly, but Toy looked blankly at him.
‘You try and call a dumbler, Gren,’ she said.
He did as he was bidden, distorting his face to whistle. The air rushing past them carried the sound away. They were in any case travelling too high for the whistlethistle seeds. Sulkily, Gren lapsed into silence, turning away from the others to see where they were getting to.
‘I’d have thought of that idea if it had been any good,’ Toy told Poyly. She was a fool, thought Gren, and he ignored her.
The suckerbird was now losing height more slowly; it had reached a warm updraught of air and drifted along in it. Its lame and late efforts to turn inlands again only carried it parallel with the coast, so that the humans had the doubtful privilege of seeing what awaited them there.
Highly organized destruction was in progress, a battle without generals waged for uncounted thousands of years. Or perhaps one side had a general, for the land was covered with that one inexhaustible tree which had grown and spread and sprawled and swallowed everything from shore to shore. Its neighbours had been starved, its enemies overgrown. It had conquered