Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [78]
chapter nineteen
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Bearing in mind what the morel had said, Gren took more notice than before of the stalker plants. Despite their strong and interlinked root structure, the actual flowers were of a lowly order, though, canted towards the sun, they attracted the cordate butterflies. Beneath five bright and simple petals grew a disproportionately large seed pod, a sexfid drum, from each face of which protruded gummy and fringed bosses resembling sea anemones.
All this Gren observed without interest. What happened to the flowers on fertilization was more sensational. Yattmur was passing one of them when a treebee bumbled past her and landed on the blossom, crawling over its pistil. The plant responded to pollination with violence. With an odd shrilling noise, flower and seed drum rocked up skywards on a spring that unravelled itself from the drum.
Yattmur dived into the nearest bush in startlement, Gren close behind. Cautiously they watched; they watched the spring unwind more slowly now. Warmed by the sun, it straightened and dried into a tall stalk. The six-sided drum nodded in sunlight, far above their heads.
For the humans, the vegetable kingdom offered no wonders. Anything that held no menace held little interest. They had already seen these stalkers, waving high in the air.
‘Statistics prove that you are better off than your bosses,’ Beauty said, flying round the new pole and returning. ‘Be warned by what happened to the Bombay Interplanetary Freight Handlers’ Union! Stand up for your rights while you still have them.’
Only a few bushes away, another stalker rattled up into the air, its stalk straightening and gaining rigidity.
‘Let’s get back,’ Gren said. ‘Let’s go and have a swim.’
As he spoke, the morel clamped down on him. He staggered and fought, then fell over into a bush, sprawling in pain.
‘Gren! Gren! What is it?’ Yattmur gasped, running to him, grasping his shoulders.
‘I – I – I – ’ He could not get the words out of his mouth. A blue tinge spread from his lips outwards. His limbs went rigid. Within his head, the morel was punishing him, paralysing his nervous system.
‘I’ve been too gentle with you, Gren. You’re a vegetable! I gave you a warning. In future I will do more commanding and you will do more obeying. Though I do not expect you to think, you can at least observe and let me do the thinking. Here we are on the fringe of finding something valuable about these plants, and you turn stupidly away. Do you want to rot forever on this rock? Now lie still and watch, or I’ll visit you with cramps, like this!’
Painfully, Gren rolled over, burrowing his face in grass and dirt. She lifted him up, crying his name in sorrow at his hurt.
‘It’s this magic fungus!’ she said, looking with distaste at the hard glistening crust that ringed his neck. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Gren, my love, come along. Another mist is blowing up. We must get back to the others.’
He shook his head. Again his body was his own – for the present at least – and the cramps died from it, leaving his limbs as weak as jelly.
‘The morel wants me to remain here,’ he said faintly. Tears of weakness stood in his eyes. ‘You go back to the others.’
Distressed, she stood up. She twisted her hands in anger at their helplessness.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said. The tummy-bellies had to be looked after. They were almost too stupid to eat by themselves unless directed. As she picked her way back down the slope, she whispered aloud, ‘O spirits of the sun, banish that magic fungus of cruelty and guile before he kills my dear lover.’
Unfortunately the spirits of the sun looked particularly weak. A chill wind blew from the waters, carrying with it a fog that obscured the light. Close by the island sailed an iceberg; its creaking and cracking could be heard even when it had disappeared phantom-like into the fog.
Half hidden by bushes, Gren lay where he was, watching. Beauty hovered overhead, faint in the gathering mist, calling