Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [74]
‘You speak nonsense, morel. Our boat is lost. We must always remain on this island. Chilly it may be, yet we have seen worse places. Let us stay here in content.’
He and the girl were splashing naked through a series of pools which had formed among the big square blocks of stone on the crown of the islet. Life was sweet and idle, Yattmur kicked her pretty legs and sang one of her herder’s songs: he was loath to listen to that dreary voice in his head. More and more it came to represent something he disliked.
Their silent conversation was interrupted by a squeal from Yattmur.
Something like a hand with six bloated fingers had seized her ankle. Gren dived for it and pulled it away without difficulty. It struggled in his grasp as he examined it.
‘I’m silly to make a noise,’ Yattmur said. ‘It is just another of those creatures that the tummy-bellies have named crawlpaws. They swim out of the sea on to land. If the tummy-bellies catch them, they split them open and eat them. They are tough but sweet to taste.’
The fingers were grey and bulbous, wrinkled in texture and extremely cold. They flexed slowly as Gren held them. Finally he dropped it on to the bank, where it scuttled off into the grass.
‘Crawlpaws swim out of the sea and burrow into the ground. I’ve watched them,’ Yattmur said. Gren made no answer.
‘Does anything trouble you?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said flatly, not wishing to tell her that the morel desired them to move again. He sank stiffly to the ground, almost like an old man. Though she was uneasy, she stifled her apprehensions and returned to the bathing place. Yet from that time on she was aware of Gren drawing away from her and becoming more closed in on himself, and she knew the morel was to blame for it.
Gren woke from their next communal sleep to find the morel already restless in his mind.
‘You wallow in sloth. We must do something.’
‘We are content here,’ replied Gren sulkily. ‘Besides, as I have said, we have no boats to get us to the big land.’
‘Boats are not the only way of crossing seas,’ said the fungus.
‘Oh morel, cease being clever before you kill us with it. Leave us in peace. We’re happy here.’
‘Happy, yes! You would grow roots and leaves if you could. Gren, you do not know what life is for! I tell you that great pleasures and powers await you if you only let me help you stretch out for them.’
‘Go away! I don’t know what you mean.’
He jumped up as if to run away from the morel. It gripped him tightly, rooting him to the spot. Gathering strength, he concentrated on sending waves of hatred at the morel – uselessly, for its voice continued in his head.
‘Since it is impossible for you to be my partner, you must suffer being my slave. The spirit of enquiry is all but dead in you; you will respond to orders but not to observation.’
‘I don’t know what you are saying!’ He cried the words aloud, waking Yattmur, who sat up and gazed mutely at him.
‘You neglect so much!’ said the morel. ‘I can only see things through your senses, yet I take the trouble to analyse and find what is behind them. You can make nothing from your data, whereas I can make a lot. Mine is the way to power. Look about you again! Look at the stones over which you climb so regardlessly.’
‘Go away!’ Gren cried again. Instantly he doubled up in anguish. Yattmur came running over to him, holding his head and soothing him. She peered into his eyes. The tummy-bellies came up silently to stand behind her.
‘It’s the magic fungus, isn’t it?’ she said.
Dumbly he nodded. Phantoms of fire chased themselves over his nerve centres, burning a tune of pain through his body. While the tune continued he could scarcely move. At length it passed. Limply he said, ‘We must help the morel. He wishes us to explore these rocks more carefully.’
Trembling in every limb, he rose to do what was commanded of him. Yattmur stood with him, sympathetically, touching his arm.
‘When we’ve explored, we will catch fish in the pool and eat them with fruit,’ she said, with a woman’s talent for producing comfort when it was