Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [39]
‘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 watercourse 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 thoughts?
‘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