Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [40]
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…’
‘Then would I be great too?’
‘It would probably have to be that way…’
All at once a wave of sleep came over Gren. The sleep was fathomless, but full of strange fish – dreams he could not afterwards grasp by their flickering tails.
He woke suddenly. Something had moved nearby.
On the top of the bank, where the bright sun would always shine, stood Poyly.
‘Gren, my sweet!’ she said, when his slight movement revealed him. ‘I have left the others to be with you and be your mate.’
His brain was clear now, clear and sharp as spring water. Many things were plain to him that had been hidden before. He jumped up.
Poyly looked down at him in the shade. With horror she saw the dark fungus growing from him as it had from the snaptrap trees and the killerwillows. It protruded from his hair, it formed a ridge down the nape of his neck, it stood like a ruff half way round his collarbone. It glistened darkly in its intricate patterns.
‘Gren! The fungus!’ she cried in horror, backing away. ‘It’s all over you!’
He climbed out rapidly and caught her by the hand.
‘It’s all right, Poyly, there’s no cause for alarm. The fungus is called morel. It will not hurt us. It can help us.’
At first Poyly did not answer. She knew the way in the forest, and in Nomansland. Things looked after themselves, not after others. Dimly she guessed that the real purpose of the morel was to feed on others and to propagate itself as widely as possible; and that to this end it might be clever enough to kill its hosts as slowly as possible.
‘The fungus is bad, Gren,’ she said. ‘How can it be anything but bad?’
Gren fell on his knee and pulled her down with him, murmuringly reassuring as he did so.
He stroked her russet hair.
‘Morel can teach us many things,’ he said. ‘We can be so much better than we are. We are poor creatures; surely there’s no harm in being better creatures?’
‘How can the fungus make us better?’
In Gren’s head, morel spoke.
‘She surely shall not die. Two heads are better than one. Your eyes shall be opened. Why – you’ll be like gods!’
Almost word for word, Gren repeated to Poyly what morel had said.
‘Perhaps you know best, Gren,’ she said falteringly. ‘You were always very clever.’
‘You can be clever, too,’ he whispered.
Reluctantly she lay back in his arms, nestling against him.
A slab of fungus fell from Gren’s neck on to her forehead. She stirred and struggled, made as if to protest, then closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were very clear.
Like another Eve, she drew Gren to her. They made love in the warm sunlight, letting their wooden souls fall as they undid their belts.
At last they stood up, smiling at each other.
Gren glanced down at their feet. ‘We’ve dropped our souls,’ he said.
She made a careless gesture. ‘Leave them, Gren. They’re only a nuisance. We don’t need them any more.’
They kissed and stretched and began to think of other things, already completely accustomed to the crown of