Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [43]
They had seen no more than a flash of shoulder and a glimpse of face alert under flying hair, yet it had an electrifying effect on Poyly.
‘She’ll escape if we don’t catch her,’ she told Gren. ‘Let me go and try to get her! Keep watch in case her companions are near.’
‘Let me go.’
‘No, I’ll get her. Make a noise to distract her attention when you think I’m ready to pounce.’
Shucking off her fruit case and sliding forward on her belly, she edged over the curve of the branch until she hung upside down under it. As she began to work her way along, the morel, anxious for its own safety in an exposed position, invaded her mind. Her perceptions became extraordinarily sharp, her vision clearer, her skin more sensitive.
‘Go in from behind. Capture it, don’t kill it, and it will lead us to the rest of its tribe,’ twanged the voice in her head.
‘Hush, or she’ll hear,’ Poyly breathed.
‘Only you and Gren can hear me, Poyly; you are my kingdom.’
Poyly crawled beyond the fuzzypuzzle patch before climbing on to the upper side of the branch again, never rustling the leaves about her as she did so. Slowly she slid forward.
Above the soft lollipop buds of the fuzzypuzzle she spied her quarry’s head. A fine young female was looking guardedly about, eyes dark and liquid under a sheltering hand and a crown of hair.
‘She did not recognize you under your fruit cases as human, so she hides from you,’ said the morel.
That was silly, Poyly thought to herself. Whether this female recognized us or not, she would always hide from strangers. The morel sucked the thought from her brain and understood why his reasoning had been false; for all he had already learnt, the whole notion of a human being was still alien to him.
Tactfully he removed himself from Poyly’s mind, leaving her free to tackle the stranger in her own way.
Poyly moved a step nearer, and another step, bent almost double. Head down, she waited for Gren to signal as instructed.
On the other side of the fuzzypuzzle patch, Gren shook a twig. The strange female peered in the direction of the noise, her tongue running over her open lips. Before she could pull the knife from her belt, Poyly jumped on her from behind.
They struggled in among the soft fibres, the stranger grappling for Poyly’s throat. Poyly in return bit her in the shoulder. Bursting in, Gren gripped the stranger round her neck and tugged her backwards until her saffron hair fell about his face. The girl put up a savage struggle, but they had her. Soon she was bound and lay on the branch looking up at them.
‘You have done well! Now she will lead us – ’ began the morel.
‘Quiet!’ Gren rasped, so that the fungus instantly obeyed.
Something was moving fast in the layers of the tree above them.
Gren knew the forest. He knew how predators were attracted by the sounds of struggle. Hardly had he spoken when a thinpin came spiralling down the nearest trunk like a spring and launched itself at them. Gren was ready for it.
Swords are useless against thinpins. He caught it a blow with a stick, sending it spinning. It anchored itself by a springy tail before rearing to strike again – and a rayplane curved down from the foliage above, snapped up the thinpin, and swooped on.
Poyly and Gren flung themselves flat beside their captive and waited. The terrible silences of the forest came in again like a tide all round them, and it was safe once more.
chapter twelve
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Their captive was almost speechless. She pouted and tossed her head in answer to Poyly’s questions. They elicited from her only the fact that she went by the name of Yattmur. Obviously she was alarmed by the sinister ruff about their necks and the glistening lumps on their heads.
‘Morel, she is too fearful to speak,’ Gren said, moved by the beauty of the girl who sat bound at their feet. ‘She does not care for the look of you. Shall we