Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [62]
A lobster head bigger than his own loomed up before him. An eyestalk went flying – and another, as he smote again.
Soundlessly, the marine monster released its hold and fell back into the depths, leaving a frightened band of Fishers moaning in the scuppers. Almost as frightened himself – for he sensed the morel’s fear in his mind – Gren rounded on them, kicking and shouting.
‘Get up, you flabby tummy-bellies! Would you lie there and die? Well I won’t let you. Get up and haul the net in again before we get any more monsters in on us. Come on, move! Get this net in! Jump to it, you blubbering brutes!’
‘O great herder, you may throw us to the wonders of the wet world and we will not complain. We may not complain! You see we praise you even when you fetch up the beasts of the wet world upon us and we are too lowly to complain, so be merciful – ’
‘Merciful! I’ll flay you alive if you don’t get that net in at once. Move!’ he yelled, and they moved, the hair on their flanks fluttering in the breeze.
The line came over the side laden with creatures that splashed and flapped about their ankles.
‘Wonderful!’ Yattmur cried, squeezing Gren. ‘I am so hungry, my love. Now we shall live! Soon there will be an end to this Long Water, I know.’
But the boat drifted as it would. They went to sleep once more and then a second time, and the weather grew no warmer and then they woke to find the deck motionless beneath them.
Gren opened his eyes. A stretch of sand and bushes met his gaze. He and Yattmur were alone in the boat.
‘Morel!’ he cried, leaping to his feet. ‘You never sleep – why did you not wake me and tell us that the water had stopped? And the flabby-bellies have escaped!’
He looked round at the ocean that had brought them here. Yattmur stood up silently, hugging her breasts and regarding with wonder a great peak that rose sheer from the nearby bushes.
The morel made something like a ghostly chuckle in Gren’s mind. ‘The Fishers will not get far – let them find out the dangers for us first. I let you and Yattmur sleep on so that you would feel fresh. You need all your energies. This may be the place where we build our new kingdom, my friend!’
Gren made a doubtful move. No traversers were visible overhead, and he took it as a bad omen. All there was to be seen, apart from the forbidding island and the wastes of ocean, was a speedseed bird, sailing along under the ceiling of high cloud.
‘I suppose we’d better get ashore,’ Gren said.
‘I’d rather stay in the boat,’ Yattmur said, eyeing the great cliff of rock with apprehension. But when he put out a hand to her, she took it and climbed over the side without fuss.
He could hear her teeth chattering.
They stood on the unwelcoming beach, testing it for menace.
The speedseed still flew along in the sky. It changed direction by a degree or so without interrupting the pulse of its flight. High over the ocean it soared, its wooden wings creaking like a fully rigged sailing ship.
The two humans heard its noise and looked up. The speedseed had sighted land. Slowing, it circled and began to lose height.
‘Is it after us?’ Yattmur asked.
A choice of cover presented itself. They could hide under their boat, or they could dive into the fringe of jungle that curled over the low forehead of the beach. The boat was flimsy shelter from a large bird, should it choose to attack; together, man and woman slid into the foliage.
Now the speedseed was plunging steeply. Its wings did not retract. Stiffly outspread, they jarred and vibrated through the air under increased momentum.
Formidable though it was, the speedseed remained but a crude imitation of the true birds which had once filled the skies of Earth. The last of the true birds had perished many eons ago, when the sun had begun to pour out increased energy as it moved into the last phase of its existence. Speedseeds imitated the form of an extinct avian class with a lordly inefficiency in keeping with the supremacy of the vegetable world. The vibratory racket of its wings filled the