Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [63]
‘Has it seen us, Gren?’ Yattmur asked, peering from under the leaves. It was cold in the shadow of the towering cliff.
For answer Gren merely clutched her arm tightly, staring up with slitted eyes. Because he was both frightened and angry, he did not trust himself to speak. The morel offered him no comfort, withdrawing itself to await events.
It now became obvious that the clumsy bird could not straighten out in time to avoid hitting the land. Down it came, its shadow swept black over the bush, the leaves stirred as it shot past behind a nearby tree – and silence fell. No sound of impact reached the humans, though the bird must have hit the ground not more than fifty yards from them.
‘Living shades!’ Gren exclaimed. ‘Did something swallow it?’
His mind backed hurriedly away from trying to visualize something big enough to swallow a speedseed bird.
chapter seventeen
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They stood waiting, but nothing interrupted the silence.
‘It vanished like a ghost!’ Gren said. ‘Let’s go and see what happened to it.’
She clung to him to hold him back.
‘This is an unknown place, full of unknown perils,’ she said. ‘Let us not seek trouble when trouble is ready enough to seek us. We know nothing of where we are. First we must find what kind of place this is, and if we can live here.’
‘I would rather find trouble than let it find me,’ Gren said. ‘But perhaps you are right, Yattmur. My bones tell me that this is not a good place. What has happened to those stupid tummy-belly men?’
They emerged on to the beach and started to walk slowly along it, the whole time looking watchfully about them, keeping an eye open for signs of their pitiful companions, moving between the flatness of the sea and the steepness of the great cliff.
The signs they looked for were not far to seek.
‘They’ve been here,’ said Gren, running along the strand.
Scuffed footprints and droppings marked the place where the tummy-belly men had paddled ashore. Many of the prints were imprecise and pointed this way and that; handprints also were not uncommon, marking where the creatures had stumbled into one another and fallen. The marks clearly betrayed the lumpish and uncertain way in which the tummy-bellies had progressed. After a short distance they led into a narrow belt of trees with leathery and sad leaves that stood between beach and cliff. As Gren and Yattmur followed the prints into the gloom, a low sound made them stop. Moans came from near at hand.
Drawing out his knife, Gren spoke. Looking into the grove that drew nourishment what it could from the sandy soil, he called, ‘Whoever you are, come out before I haul you out squealing!’
The moans redoubled, a low threnody in which babbled words were distinguishable.
‘It’s a tummy-belly!’ Yattmur exclaimed. ‘Don’t be angry with him if he’s hurt.’ Her eyes had adjusted to the shade, and now she ran forward as she spoke and knelt on the sandy ground among the sharp grasses.
One of the fat Fishers lay there with three of his companions huddled against him. He shuddered violently away, half-rolling over, as Yattmur appeared.
‘I shan’t hurt you,’ Yattmur said. ‘We were searching to find where you had gone.’
‘It is too late, for our hearts are broken by your not coming before,’ the man cried, tears rolling down his cheeks. Dried blood from a long scratch across one shoulder had matted his hair at that point, but Yattmur could see the wound was only superficial.
‘It’s a good thing we found you,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing much wrong with you. You must all get up now and return to the boat.’
At this the tummy-belly burst into fresh complaint; his fellows joined in the chorus, speaking in their peculiarly jumbled dialect.
‘O great herders, the sight of you adds to our miseries. How very much we rejoice to see you again, though we know you will kill us, poor helpless loveable tummy-fellows that we are.’
‘We are, we are, we are, and though our love is loving you, you cannot love us, for we are only miserable dirt and you are cruel murderers who are