Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [42]
And they were moving straight for the valley that had long ago become a silent zone of horticultural conflict.
There they paused again. The sun was setting and, like all other growing things, they clearly needed to reduce their activity to coincide with the absence of sunlight. Prior to closing their petals and curling up their leaf-extensions for the night, they utilized wonderfully flexible stem-parts to remove objects from their dorsal sides. From within these they withdrew small bits of dead plant and animal matter, which they proceeded to ingest. The flowers were neither surprised nor appalled. There had long been pitcher plants and flytraps within their midst. In their method of taking nourishment the visitors were being nothing less than plantlike.
Strenuous competition had given a number of the flowers in the valley the ability to function after dark. They did this by storing extra fuel during the day for use after sunset. As soon as the visitors had gone quiescent, just like any normal plant during nighttime, these growths began to stir.
Tendrils of modified columbine and amaryllis twitched, arose, and slowly crept forward. They made contact with the motionless visitor shapes and delicately began to explore their trunks, feeling of roots and blossom-caps with the feathery extensions at their tips. One slumbering form raised a leaf-stem and with astonishing speed slapped at the tendril tip that was traveling gently across its bloom. The runner recoiled, bruised but otherwise undamaged.
The mass of the visitors was astonishing. They seemed to be almost as dense as trees, which the flowers knew from legend, before they had come to dominate the surrounding hills completely. Like plants, the now recumbent stems were composed mostly of water. Colorwise, they were for the most part undistinguished, a sure sign of primitiveness.
Then the probing tendrils made a shocking discovery. There was no indication anywhere within the stout bodies of the presence of chlorophyll! Among those flowers not entirely enveloped in the torpor of night a hasty reassessment was deemed in order. If not plants, what could the visitors be? Superficially, they were nothing like fungi. But fungi could assume many peculiar forms. And if not flower, fungi, or tree, then what? They were much too cumbersome to be insects, or birds.
It was proposed that they might be some monstrous exotic variety of wingless bat. While they seemed to have more in common with plants than bats, there were undeniable similarities. Bats had dense bodies, and were warm to the touch. That was fine for two of the creatures, but the third was completely different, not only from the average flower, but from its companions. It was a great puzzlement.
Identification and classification could wait. As the columbine and amaryllis withdrew their probing tentacles in opposite directions, all sides knew what had to be done. With the coming of the dawn, each would attempt to persuade the visitors to ally themselves with one faction or another. There could be no neutrality in the battle for control of the valley. If they were plants, or even distant relations, they would understand. Understanding, they would be able to make decisions.
And while each of the several blocs desired to make allies of the travelers, none were overwhelmed with concern. Except for their exceptional mobility and unusual mass, none of the three appeared to have any especially useful ability to contribute to the conflict. They boasted no thorns, exhibited no cutting leaves, gave no indication of containing potentially useful toxins. Their large but narrow stems could not steal the shade from a significant number of blossoms, and their drab coloration was hardly a threat to draw pollinators away from even the most unprepossessing common daisy.
Still, in the fight for the