Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [72]
‘Now this big ice drop sucks us,’ Gren said, as cold water soused down on his face from the vault overhead. ‘What do we do, morel?’
‘There is no safety here, so we must look for some,’ twanged the morel. ‘If the boat slips back off the ice shelf, all will drown but you: for the boat will sink and you alone can swim. You must get off the boat at once, and take the tummy-fishers with you.’
‘Right! Yattmur, sweet, climb out on to the ice while I drive these four fools after you.’
The four fools were loath to leave the boat, though half of its deck was now shallowly under water. When Gren shouted at them, they leapt away, scattering as he approached, dashing away as he rushed to seize them, dodging and squealing as they went.
‘Save us! Spare us, O herder! What have we four poor filthy lumps of compost done that you should wish to throw us to the ice beast? Help, help! Alas, that we should be so nasty you love to treat us in this way!’
Gren dived at the nearest and hairiest, who skipped away screaming, his bosoms flopping up and down as he went.
‘Not me, great beastly spirit! Kill the other three that don’t love you, but not me who loves you – ’
Gren tripped him as he fled. The tummy-belly man sprawled, his sentence turning into a squeal before he pitched at full length head first into the water. Quickly Gren was on him; they splashed in the icy water until Gren got a firm hold and dragged the spluttering creature up by the flesh and hair of his neck, to pull him by sheer force to the side of the boat. With a heave, he sent him sprawling over, collapsing crying in the shallows at Yattmur’s feet.
Thoroughly cowed by this display of force, the other three tummy-bellies climbed meekly out of their refuge and into the maw of the ice beast, teeth chattering with fear and cold. Gren followed them. For a moment the six stood together, looking into a grotto which to four of them at least was a gigantic throat. A ringing noise from behind made them turn back.
One of the ice fangs hanging overhead had cracked and fallen. It stuck upright in the wood of the deck like a dagger before slipping sideways and shattering into bits. Almost as if this were a signal, a much louder noise came from under the boat. The whole shelf on which the vessel rested gave way. Momentarily, the edge of a thin tongue of ice slid into view. Before it slumped back into the water, their boat was borne away on the dark flood. They watched it filling rapidly as it disappeared.
They were able to follow its progress for some while; the mist had lifted slightly and the sun once again painted a streak of cold fire down the back of the ocean.
For all that, it was with profound gloom that Gren and Yattmur turned away. With their boat gone, they were stranded on the iceberg. In silence the four tummy-bellies followed them as they took the only course possible and climbed along the cylindrical tunnel in the ice.
Splashing through chill puddles, they were hemmed in by ribs of ice, against which every sound threw itself in a frenzy of echoes. With each step they took, the noise grew louder and the tunnel smaller.
‘O spirits, I hate this place! Better if we had perished with the boat. How much farther can we go?’ Yattmur asked, as Gren paused.
‘No farther,’ he said grimly. ‘We’ve come to a dead end. We’re trapped here.’
Hanging nearly to the floor, several magnificent icicles barred their way almost as effectively as a portcullis. Beyond the portcullis, a flat pane of ice faced them.
‘Always trouble, always difficulty, always some fresh trouble to living!’ Gren said. ‘Man was an accident on this world or it would have been made better for him!’
‘I have already told you that your kind was an accident,’ twanged the morel.
‘We were happy till you started interfering,’ Gren said sharply.
‘You were a vegetable till then!’
Infuriated by this thrust, Gren grasped one of the great icicles and pulled. It snapped off some way above his head. Holding it like a spear, he hurled it at the wall of ice before