Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [81]
Yattmur burst into tears.
Dismayed, the tummy-belly crawled forward, putting a hairy arm over her shoulder.
‘Do not make too many wet tears to fish when fish will not hurt you,’ he said.
‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘It’s just that we have brought so much trouble to you poor fellows – ’
‘O we poor tummy men all lost!’ he began, and his two companions joined in a dirge of sorrow. ‘It is true you cruelly bring us so much trouble.’
Gren had been watching as the six cases joined into one lumpy unit. He looked anxiously down to catch the first signs of the stalker detaching its legs from its root system. The chorus of lament made him switch his attention.
His stick landed loudly across plump shoulders. The tummy-belly who had been comforting Yattmur drew back crying. His companions also shrank away.
‘Leave her alone!’ Gren cried savagely, rising to his knees. ‘You filthy hairy tummy-tails, if you touch her again I’ll throw you down to the rocks!’
Yattmur peered at him with her lips drawn back so that her teeth showed. She said nothing.
Nobody spoke again until at last the stalker began to stir with a purposeful movement.
Gren felt the morel’s combination of excitement and triumph as the tall-legged creature took its first step. One by one its six legs moved. It paused, gaining its balance. It moved again. It halted. Then again it moved, this time with less hesitation. Slowly it began to stalk away from the cliff, across the islet, down to the gently shelving beach where its kin had gone, where the ocean current was less strong. Beauty followed, flying overhead.
Without hesitation, it waded into the sea. Soon its legs were almost entirely immersed, and the sea slid by on all sides.
‘Wonderful!’ Gren exclaimed. ‘Free of that hateful island at last.’
‘It did us no harm. We had no enemies there,’ Yattmur replied. ‘You said you wanted to stay there.’
‘We couldn’t stay there forever.’ Contemptuously, he offered her only what he had said to the tummy-bellies.
‘Your magic morel is too glib. He thinks only of how he can make use of things – of the tummies, of you and me, of the stalkers. But the stalkers did not grow for him. They were not on the island for him. They were on the island before we came. They grow for themselves, Gren. Now they do not go ashore for us but for themselves. We ride on one, thinking ourselves clever. How clever are we? These poor fisher-bellies call themselves clever, but we see they are foolish. What if we are also foolish?’
He had not heard her speak like this. He stared at her, not knowing how to answer her until irritation helped him.
‘You hate me, Yattmur, or you would not speak like that. Have I hurt you? Don’t I protect you and love you? We know the tummy-bellies are stupid, and we are different from them, so we cannot be stupid. You say these things to hurt me.’
Yattmur ignored all these irrelevancies. She said sombrely, as if he had not spoken. ‘We ride on this stalker but we do not know where it is going. We muddle its wishes with our own.’
‘It is going to the mainland of course,’ Gren said angrily.
‘Is it? Why don’t you look about you?’
She gestured with a hand and he did look.
The mainland was visible. They had started towards it. Then the stalker had entered a current of water and was now moving directly up it, travelling parallel with the coast. For a long while, Gren stared angrily, until it was impossible to doubt what was happening.
‘You are pleased!’ he hissed.
Yattmur made no reply. She leant over and dabbled her hand in the water, quickly withdrawing it. A warm current had carried them to the island. This was a cold current the stalker waded in, and they moved towards its source. Something of that chill found its way up to her heart.
PART THREE
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chapter twenty
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The icy water flowed by, bearing icebergs. The