Into the thinking kingdoms - Alan Dean Foster [43]
Like any blossoming growth, the visitors’ stems strengthened and their leaves unfolded as the first light appeared over the horizon. Extending their leaf pedicels to their fullest extent, the travelers straightened from their resting positions and became fully vertical to greet the sun. One even held its ground for long moments, its bloom fully opened to take in the life-giving light. This action only reaffirmed the visitors’ kinship to the brilliant fields of color that surrounded them. Of one thing the flowers were now certain: Whatever they might be, the travelers were no fungi.
But they were too mobile, too free-ranging to be flowers. Some strange combination of batlike creature and plant, perhaps. As the flowers warmed and strengthened under the effects of the rising sun, they considered how best to proceed.
It was the phlox that moved first. Coiled tendrils extended, hesitantly at first, then with increasing determination, to curl around the lower limbs of two of the visitors. At first the newcomers simply shrugged them off, but as the several became dozens and the dozens became hundreds, they reacted more vigorously, emitting loud sounds on frequencies very different from those of bats.
When they backed away, tearing at the clutching tendrils, the orchids saw their chance. In their multitudinous variety, orchids had acquired a great command of chemistry. Operating on the theory that the desirable visitors had more in common with bats than flowers, they generated in one concerted push a single vast exhalation of nectar. The sticky, sweet liquid coated the startled visitors, rendering them flush with stimulation, but they did not react gratefully. Instead of throwing themselves into alliance with the orchids and their collaborators, they began wiping at themselves with their leaves. It was much the sort of reaction a plant might have, since one growth had no need of another’s nectar. Perhaps they were not so batlike after all.
The azaleas and honeysuckle continued to hold to that theory. To their way of thinking, the orchids’ analysis was correct but not their execution. Considering the mobility of the travelers, more aggressive action was in order. So they gathered themselves and put forth not nectar, but scent. Always strong smelling, they modified their bouquet based on what they knew of the senses of bats and batlike creatures.
The unified emission had the desired effect. Engulfed by the cloud of fragrance, all three of the travelers began to move more slowly. Two of them started to sway unsteadily, and one collapsed. The flowers on which it fell struggled to support it. Working together, they began to move the motionless form up and away from the contested area of the dried bog, hundreds of stems and thousands of petals toiling to shift the considerable weight.
Alarmed, competing verbena and marigolds tried to hold the remaining travelers back, to drag them to their side. Sharpened leaves were thrust forth, threatening to cut at the visitors’ stems if they attempted to follow their captured companion. Other leaves covered with tiny, siliceous needles loaded with concentrated alkaloid poisons attempted to set up a barrier between the two larger visitors and the one being slowly but steadily carried uphill by triumphant morning glory and primrose. In the center of the disputed terrain, poisonous poinsettia battled numbing opium poppies for primacy.
That was when the tallest, but by no means the largest, of the three travelers proved once and for all that it and its companions were not flowers. After first steadying its larger companion, it removed a separate stem from its back and attached it to one of its pedicels. As the traveler rotated, this extended pedicel began to swing in great arcs, even though there was no wind. Its augmented, elongated leaf edge was sharper than any