Hothouse - Brian Aldiss [98]
‘Grave trouble. I have a mate who – ’
Sodal Ye flipped one of his fins.
‘Cease. Don’t bother me with your tales now. Sodal Ye has more important things to do – such as watching the mighty sky, the sea in which this tiny seed Earth floats. Also, this Sodal is hungry. Feed me and I’ll help you if I can. My brain is the mightiest of all things on the planet.’
Ignoring this boast, Yattmur said, indicating his motley retinue, ‘What of these companions of yours – aren’t they hungry too?’
‘They’ll be no trouble to you, woman; they eat the bits that Sodal Ye leaves.’
‘I’ll feed you all if you will truly try to help me.’
She bustled off, ignoring the new speech on which he had launched himself. Already Yattmur felt that this was a creature – unlike the sharp-furs – with which she could deal; a conceited and intelligent being that was nevertheless vulnerable; for she saw clearly that she had only to kill his porter to render the sodal helpless – should that be necessary. Meeting someone with whom she could negotiate from a position of strength was like a tonic; she felt nothing but goodwill towards the sodal.
The tummy-belly men had always been as gentle as mothers with Laren. She handed him to them, seeing that they settled contentedly to amuse him before gathering food for her strange guests. Her hair dripped as she went, her clothes began to dry on her, but she took no notice.
Into a big gourd she crammed the remains of the leatherfeather feast and other edibles the tummy-bellies had collected: sprouts from the stalker grove, nuts, smoked mushrooms, berries and the fleshy fruits of the gourd. Another gourd stood full of water that had dripped through the fissured roof of the cave. She carried that out too.
Sodal Ye still lay on his boulder. He was bathed in an eerie cream light and did not move his eyes from the direction of the sun. Setting the food down, Yattmur looked where he did.
The clouds had parted. Over the dark and rugged sea of landscape, low hung the sun. It had changed its shape. Distorted by atmosphere, it was oblate: but no distortion of atmosphere could account for the great red-white wing which it had sprouted, a wing grown almost as large as its parent body.
‘Oh! The blessed light takes wing to fly away and leave us!’ Yattmur cried.
‘You are safe yet, woman,’ Sodal Ye declared. ‘This I foresaw. Do not worry. To bring me my food would be more useful. When I tell you about the flames that are about to consume our world, you will understand, but I must feed before I preach.’
But she fixed her eyes on the strange sight in the heavens. The storm centre had passed from the twilight zone into the regions of the mighty banyan. Above the forest, the clouds piled cream on purple; lightning flashed almost without cease. And in the centre of it hung that deformed sun.
Uneasily, when the Sodal called again, Yattmur brought the food forward.
At this moment, one of the two wretched women began to vanish from where she stood. Yattmur almost dropped the gourds, staring in fascination. In very little time, the woman existed only as a smudge. Her tattoo lines alone remained, a meaningless scribble in the air. Then they too faded and were gone.
The tableau held. Slowly the tattoos returned. The woman followed, dull-eyed and meagre as before. She made a movement with her hands to the other woman. The other woman turned to the sodal and mouthed two or three slurred syllables.
‘Good!’ exclaimed the sodal, slapping his fish tail on the boulder. ‘You wisely did not poison the food, mother, so I will eat it.’
The woman who had made the mockery of speech now came forward and took the gourd of food over to the sodal. Dipping her hand in, she commenced to feed him, thrusting handfuls into his fleshy mouth. He ate noisily and with relish, pausing only once to drink some water.
‘Who are you all? What are you? Where do you come from? How do you vanish?’ Yattmur asked.